Date: 2013-03-25
From: Max Patch Bald

To: Hot Springs
Miles today: 19.5

Use your imagination, and consider the following scenario: You are awake and reasonably comfortable in your sleeping bag. It's still dark outside, but the sky is just beginning to show signs of daybreak. The wind is howling outside, and your tent is heavy with the snow and ice that accumulated on it overnight. You'd like to just roll over, but with an all day winter storm predicted, you know it would be wise to do a 20 miler to make it Hot Springs where the A.T. goes down the main street, and there is a hiker's hostel. In this weather, 20 miles is an all day trek. Besides, you are "regular." Your body is telling you that now is the time to go out and squat in the snow...and you'll not forget to dig a 6-inch hole in the frozen ground to complete the task.The hardest part of your day will be the first hour. You can't pack up your gear with your thick gloves on, but your fingers go painfully numb when you work without them. You feel the cold in your gut, and can only handle a few minutes of the pain with hands uncovered before you pull your gloves back on and attempt to wrap yourself up; scrunching up and curling in upon yourself to try to generate some warmth for a brief moment. Then its back to "work" and the gloves must come off again. Today is harder, because, for the first time on your trip, you are taking down a snow and ice covered tent. The big chunks of ice clinging to your tent will not shake off, so you have no option but to get on your hands and knees to pull them off, frozen chunk by frozen chunk. If you don't, you'll have to carry a tent that weighs 8-10 lbs more than normal. When you can't get your frozen tent poles apart, you can feel the frustration and fear rising in your belly. You take a minute to warm your hands and collect yourself. Then together, you and your hiking partner wrestle your poles apart. As you begin hiking there is some confusion since the fresh snow covers the white blazes on the trees that mark the trail. You wander around a bit in the untrampled snow searching for the trail, being unsure you have to back track several times. It feels good to be moving down the trail. Together with your hiking partner, you sing:"The sun is up. It's a new day dawning. It's time to sing our sing again. Whatever may pass, And whatever lies before us, May we be singing when the evening comes"It's still snowing, and the snow is really quite beautiful. Before you begin the major climb of the day, you stop at a stream and drink as much as you can...and then drink some more. Your water bottles stayed ice free overnight because you had them with you in your sleeping bag, but now, even as you move down the trail, they are turning to ice. Having drank all that you can, you dump them out. There is no reason to carry ice up the mountain.You go over a bald where it is blowing and snowing hard. Hoar frost is on everything. You marvel at how quickly things change in the mountains. Yesterday at this time, you were on Snow Bird Bald, and it was raining hard with zero visibility. In the evening you were on Max Patch Bald and enjoyed it greatly. Now on this bald, it is snowing. The only constant is the fierce wind. It is brutally cold at 4686 feet, the summit of Bluff Mountain. Your fingers had warmed up as you were hiking, but the windchill has you again feeling the cold. Just for fun you yell over the wind, "Yahoo! What an adventure!" Sometime in the afternoon you go through a tunnel of green, leafy rhododendrons. Each looks like it has been frosted with cake icing. The snow and wind never stop, but at lower elevations the snow is not sticking as much.Every hiker you meet or pass is in a good mood, including the hiker who tells you he is from Florida and has never been in anything like this. All know they will be warm tonight in Hot Springs. You realize that all you have to do is keep moving and follow the white blazes; and not lose the joy. You remember you are here because you chose to be here, and you know that there is nowhere else you'd rather be on this day. You stop for a drink and a short break at a shelter that is 3.2 miles from Hot Springs. While there, a hiker you have had off and on contact with over the past 10 days approaches you. He says he is staying at this shelter because he doesn't have funds for the hostel. Immediately you know that the right thing to do is to tell him that you'll pay for his bunk for the night. That feels good and right, and he accepts. As soon as you come off the mountain and the trail enters Hot Springs there is a hostel. You get a hot shower which never felt so good and a bed with a mattress to stretch out on. You enjoy the hungry hiker special at the local diner; write your trail journal entry while at the laundry mat; and buy microwave popcorn to treat everyone at the hostel. It is dark when you walk back to the hostel, and it is still snowing. As you lay down tired, and satisfied, you realize you get to do it all over again tomorrow.