Date: 2007-05-08
From: Miss Janet's Hostel

To: Being For The Benefit of Mr. Hoss
Miles today: 0.0

*slackpacking: When you hike a portion of the trail with enough supplies for the day. You carry a daypack, not your full thru-hiking pack, to make it an easy hiking day. I was enjoying a meatloaf dinner on the back patio of Miss Janet's hostel after slackpacking* 14 miles over Roan Mountain Tuesday evening when one of the other hikers (Jett) staying there walks out and says Mr. Hoss, a local who had been hanging out at Miss Janet's, had gone hiking for the day and he wasn't back yet. Jett was looking for guys to go search for him over the section, 11 miles that starts here in Erwin and goes south to Spivey Gap. I finished my dinner and let him know that I was able to help out in any way I could, and there were 3 others hikers who volunteered. We grabbed our headlamps, enough water for all of us, a few other small supplies, and drove over to the trailhead where Miss Janet was waiting for Mr. Hoss to come down the trail. We got cell phone numbers exchanged, turned our headlamps on, and started trekking up the trail, 4 of us. After about 200 yards or so, one of the hikers stopped and began clutching his chest, saying "I forgot my inhaler! I forgot my inhaler!" He went back down, so it was down to 3 of us. One of the guys, Hangman, hadn't been hiking on a regular basis and decided he'd pick up another hiker to help out (wound up being Roast Beef, who was staying at a hostel right next to the trailhead) and drive to the other end of the section and they'd hike in from there. So now it was down to 2 of us: Bullwinkle, a hiker from Raleigh, NC, and yours truly. The section Bullwinkle and I were covering was 6.3 miles to the shelter in the middle of the section. It took us 2 and a half miles to get there, and about 75% of the trail was uphill -- very uphill. We were pretty pumped up on adrenaline, and hiking without packs definitely made us hike faster than usual. Along the way, we were shining our headlamps to the sides of the trail, looking and hoping that Mr. Hoss was somewhere we could get to him in case he was hurt or in any kind of danger. Several times we called out his name and didn't hear anything. The closer we got to the shelter, the more we assumed that he'd be there after deciding he'd had enough for the day and was going to finish off the section the next day. We got to the shelter at around 11:30, looked in and saw about 5 people sleeping, and flashed our headlamps in there saying, "Mr. Hoss?! Mr. Hoss, are you in here?!" One of the shelter tenants rolled over, opened one of his eyes, and said, "No." We explained that we were looking for an older man who was section hiking, and most of the people said they hadn't seen him. Then there was one hiker who was camped out about 50 yards from the shelter and said they saw him earlier, he had left the shelter between 5:00 and 5:30. Bullwinkle and I figured that he either took a wrong turn (there is a forest road that crosses over the trail that would be very easy for an elderly man to confuse as being the trail) or worse, he had fallen off the trail and we had passed him on our way in. Cell phone service was very weak at the shelter, I kept calling Miss Janet trying to let her know he had left but we hadn't found him. We got in touch with each other a few times letting each other know the latest news, and decided that Miss Janet would call the Mountain Rescue Service to send them up the mountain to meet us and look for Mr. Hoss. About 20 minutes later, Miss Janet called me and told me through a spotty connection, "Mr. Hoss was found by the police at his home here in town." Which was great, because we didn't need to look for him any more, but at that moment all the energy and effort we had spent getting up there drained out of us. We got in touch with Hangman and Roast Beef, the two hikers who had come in from the other direction, and told them to stay where they were and we'd meet up with them and hike back to the car. After about 30 minutes, we met up with them, took a short break, and hiked back to the car. We got there at around 2:30 in the morning, completely exhausted, dropped Roast Beef off at the hostel he was staying at, and stopped at a BP to get some snacks. All in all, a 25-mile day: 14 from slackpacking earlier, 11 from the search for Mr. Hoss. This was definitely a night I'll never forget, and while the whole thing could have been prevented by having better communication, it showed me how strong the thru-hiking community is. Four of us volunteered to hike in the dark, risking injury to look for someone we had only met and talked to less than 5 minutes. If anything happened to me (God forbid), I know there are people who will help me regardless of how long I've known them or how bad the situation is.