Date: 2003-04-04
To: Springer Mt.
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: broken clouds

(Morning ¢ Wed. 26)The last two days were wonderful, with clear weather combined with great views of the next 30 miles of the trail. This last section of the trail - since the Smokies - is surprisingly and unexpectedly turning out to be my favorite section since Maine and it is similar in that respect that it consists of long (but nicely graded) 2000-3000 foot climbs to the top of mountains where one can enjoy a rewarding view from bald clearings or observation towers. There are very few of those small viewless ups and downs that drove me crazy along so many miles of the trail. I guess that the beauty of the trail is strongly affected by the fact that I¢m now less than 110 miles from Springer. All I can hope is that the trail continues to be this nice all the way there.Yesterday I saw something I¢ve never seen before - a forest fire, or more accurately - a prescribed controlled forest fire. The forest service uses these fires to control the underbrush, and thus prevent uncontrolled forest fires. The fires also serve to preserve the bald clearings in the forest. Unlike Maine, where the bald clearings on top of almost every mountain are due to the severe winter conditions there, the bald clearings in the south are artificially maintained by the forest service, in order to prevent the forest from creeping on top of them. From one of these bald clearings, Siler Bald, I was able to see the actual flames of the fire, and as I camped on top of this 5200 foot bald clearing, I was able to see the impressive view of these fires at night.(Afternoon ¢Wed. 26)I am now in Winding Stairs Gap, waiting for a ride into the town of Franklin, about ten miles from here. I just saw 3 hikers with overloaded packs squeezing into one small car. It wasn¢t a pretty sight and I have a feeling that when the driver opens the back door these hikers will just pop out from the internal pressure inside the car. Watching all these northbounders is quite interesting. I¢m now passing many dozens of them every day and it is interesting to observe how they change. There are obvious changes - the further south I go the shorter their beards, and the fatter they are. But there are also more subtle changes, the farther south I go the fewer knee braces I see and the more easily the hikers seem to climb to the shelters (they have brand new knees that weren¢t prematurely aged by thousands of miles of hiking like mine). And almost every one of these hikers thinks I am an unsociable, unfriendly southbounder. What they don¢t realize is that although I am probably the only southbounder they will see for months, I now see sometimes more than 50 northbounders a day. And every one of them asks exactly the same questions (when did you start your hike, how much do you hike every day, etc') so after answering "I started June 21" for the 200th time in a week I finally developed a dangerous, frightening look that clearly shows that I am the kind of person you would rather not talk to.Indeed, in the last week or so I¢m finding myself becoming more and more unsociable. I just find less and less common language with the ever-growing crowds of hikers. 3 out of every 4 of these hikers, so the statistics say, will quit before Maine, usually within a few weeks. And for some reason this cruel process of selection, in which only the most stubborn and persistent hikers go all the way to Maine, somehow seems to leave only the more intelligent hikers on the trail, those who I most enjoy talking to.(April 2nd)It¢s 7 in the morning now, and I¢m lying in my hammock, staring straight up at the cloudless blue sky, watching the squirrels jumping from one leafless branch to another, 30 yards above me. It¢s an impressive sight, for the squirrels move in a unique way. They run yards at unbelievable speed, then they come to a complete halt and look around for a few more seconds before starting to run a few more yards. Running and stopping, running and stopping, on the ground, up a tree, and from branch to branch. And when they approach the edge of the treetop, they pause just for a bit longer, look in deep concentration at the next tree, and then leap into the air, flapping their silvery legs and tail for an amazingly long time, before finally landing on branches that seem to be way too thin, but somehow, almost miraculously, hold their weight. And they do feats of skill and courage again and again, jumping from one tree to another, avoiding the ground with its potential predators.This beautiful sight will be invisible in a month, when spring gets into full blast and the leaves pop up on the trees. Spring has already shown its face, with days being warmer and longer, and with wildlife awakening after the long winter. But only two days ago old man winter showed its cold white face again, in what¢s probably its last appearance for the year, and hit with all its might in a rare snow storm that hit northern Georgia with near record low temperatures for this time.No problem, you probably say, this snow storm must have hit the unprepared northbounders really hard (it did), but you are a rough, tough winter hiker who is by now surely immune to the cold (at least I hope that¢s what you're saying). True, I answer with unjustified vanity, I am indeed rough and tough but unfortunately I am not completely immune to the cold, especially as only two days before this snowstorm I switched from my winter gear to my summer gear. This meant that instead of my insulated jacket, I am now carrying a wind shirt, and even worse, instead of my winter sleeping bag I now switched to a 10 oz quilt. Now a quilt is pretty good, when the weather is pretty warm, but when its cold and windy as it was two nights ago, and when you¢re lying on the ground in an exposed shelter, a quilt is almost useless. So although I had gone through colder temperatures in winter, I never had a colder night. For the first time on the trail I was unable to sleep most of the night, with my teeth rattling every time another frozen gust of wind entered the shelter.And on this chilly night, I reconfirmed something I learned many months ago--my body is smarter than my brain. Even when I do something as stupid as carrying summer gear at the beginning of spring, my body was able to save me from this blunder, the only harm being an unpleasant night. (Morning - April 4th)The last few days, with their clear warm weather, brought a nasty surprise I all but forgot about - bugs, and in this case black flies. To those of you who are fortunate enough not to be intimately acquainted with these creatures, I¢ll just say that black flies are the winged equivalent of a group of sharks. They circle around you in a cloud of black insects, then suddenly decide to attack you, biting your skin, drinking your blood and then leaving you with an itching hole in your skin. These blood-sucking animals gave me an unpleasant deja vu of my first terrible days on the trail, when I was hiking northern New York in summer. I was then the focus of the attack of what seemed like all the mosquitoes in New England. Within days my legs looked like Normandy beach on D-Day. I would hike all day surrounded by a cloud of these insects, and I could never stop, for when I did I was immediately attacked. Eventually my bug problem was mostly solved by the combination of using 100% deet (bug repellent) and swallowing a couple of garlic tablets a day. Sure, deet is extremely unfriendly to plastic and synthetics, and sometimes even to your skin, and consuming garlic tablets is unfriendly to your fellow shelter dwellers (there is a reason why garlic is not a main ingredient in deodorants and perfumes...). But when you are suffering so badly from mosquitoes, you really don¢t care about all that.The bug problem was solved completely only in September, when the bugs completely and dramatically disappeared, leaving me with only a traumatic memory of them. Now, after nine and a half months of hiking I can look back and say those first days of hiking, under continuous mosquito attacks were my most miserable days on the trail, even worst then the coldest days I experienced in winter. And now, when I¢m only about days away from Springer, I¢m determined not to repeat them. So I¢m trying to learn from my experience, and I¢ve been trying to avoid hiking in the warmest hours of the day, when black flies are active. Instead I¢ve been hiking at night and in early morning, and when the bugs appear I disappear, into my hammock, where I have the pleasure of seeing them trying unsuccessfully trying to find a way to reach me through the bug net.The last few days also brought another unpleasant surprise - the state of Georgia. The 80 miles of trail in North Carolina from Fontana Dam to the Smokies were surprisingly nice, with long graded uphills and downhills, and nice lookouts. North Carolina is now rated as my second most favorite state on the trail (after beautiful Maine). But this wonderful trail suddenly came to an abrupt end in Bly Gap - 80 miles from Springer and where the Georgia¢North Carolina border passes. The people here in Georgia do not seem to have heard about switchbacks. Instead the trail takes you on some of the steepest climbs on the trail up and down viewless knobs and hills. There are more difficult and painful sections on the trail, like the White Mountains and Pennsylvania, but then the difficulty of hiking is due to the terrain. Pennsylvania sits in the middle between the northern area that was geologically dominated by glaciers, and the southern areas that were not, and therefore it is so rocky. But the difficulty of the trail here is man made, and could be easily overcome by making more switchbacks and by going around some of the hills instead of climbing up and down them. Personally I don¢t care about these things any more. Being only 40 miles from Springer right now, I have only a handful of these viewless hills to climb before I reach it so they don¢t bother me any more. But I feel bad for the northbounders I see. They have to carry their heavy packs, on their unaccustomed bodies, without ever realizing they are hiking what I now see as the worst plotted section on the trail. I try to encourage the nobos I talk to by telling them this. What I try not tell them is that they still have the worst ahead of them. They will soon face scorching heat, mosquitoes and the fact that as the vegetation grows again in spring, the partial views they have enjoyed through the leafless trees will soon disappear and they will start hiking through this long green dark tunnel in the forest.Seeing these poor northbound hikers, who still have more than 2100 miles ahead of them, I suddenly realize how fortunate I was to hike the unique way I did. I started hiking in summer, went on through fall and winter, and now I¢m ending the trail in spring. I enjoyed an ever-changing environment - the green leaves becoming golden foliage, covered by white snow, melted into the brown ground, from which green vegetation is now growing, in the endless cycle of nature.In retrospect, even with the hindsight of knowing that I would have to go through one of the most severe summers and winters in years, I am not sorry for my decision to hike 4 seasons on the trail. I know that whatever I do in the future, this unique experience will stay with me forever.Roni