Project Eveningland

3/1/2023 Wednesday

The landscape is becoming less familiar to me because I’ve reached the point where Trip and I started hiking together (back in 2021) and we were chatting away (and paying less attention to the scenery).

Back in the present (the year of our lord 2023), the weather held all day: shifting clouds and sun. Lots of ridgewalking. The forest is a thousand shades of brown, frequently interrupted by evergreen and rhododendron. I want to rip up a small rhododendron and mail it back to Colorado for Ben to grow in our basement. We’ll become those rare homeowners who pay money to make our basement MORE moist. It’s all for the rhododendron. It has to be humid enough for the rhododendron.

The trail descends from the Wayah ridge and then goes up and down all day. We ascended to Rocky Bald (I think there may be several mountains—well, “mountains”—with that name in the Appalachians). Then, after ascending and descending innumerable ridges and small hills, the trail climbs to Wesser bald, where there’s a fire tower with some very steep, precarious steps. I cooled off at the top after the long climb up to Wesser from Tellico Gap (which I’d just as soon call Jellico Gap). I sat at the base of the tower while Elena, who doesn’t much like heights, made her way carefully down the stairs. A trail runner was there with her very eager young golden (I think—it was some breed like that). The dog (Ruby) followed me up the ridge to the fire tower when I arrived, seeming to say to her owner, “I’m an AT dog now!” I took some photos from the top of the tower.

I began my descent while Bill and Elena made hotel reservations at the NOC (using the good reception at the top) so they could join Will and I there. I’d reserved a room in the bunkhouse in the morning while laying awake in my tent. On the way down, I stopped at an old “box spring”—water once flowed into a big concrete box, but the box has been dislodged (god knows how; it must weigh a ton). A narrow PVC pipe has been added to make filling up easier, bypassing the concrete monolith of a box that’ll probably sit there for several hundred years. I made a pit stop a quarter of a mile down at Wesser Shelter. Totally deserted—I don’t think many people want to stop there given that the NOC (and another shelter) are so close. Trip and I stayed there alone in 2021.

After that came a six mile up and down, but mostly down, several miles of it running along a narrow ridge which surmounts any number of scraggly, nameless, rocky hills. God knows why the trail has been routed to the top of so many lonely hills. There’s nothing there to see! Will would later tell me that the kind of steep rocky descent that I endured is catnip for his climbing-and-caving self. I gave him my you-are-nuts-and-your-cockamamie-preferences-offend-me glare. I use that one a lot on trail. And at home talking to Ben. And just in daily life. Really anywhere people express wants which I find irrational. Sorry, let me rephrase that: I use the glare any time people express wants which ARE irrational. That’s better. It’s been a long day.

Did I mention that it’s my birthday? My family sent lovely messages. I felt very loved. A welcome boost on a 16 mile day over challenging terrain.

In the last four miles, I took breaks and chatted with Ben on the phone for 90 minutes while walking. I arrived at the NOC a full 45 minutes after Will, the first to arrive. I joined Bill, Elena, and Will at the restaurant for a 19 dollar hamburger and some pretty dreamy fries. Will bought my dinner on account of it being my birthday. A real class act.

The intersecting paths which lead from the general store and restaurant up to the cheaper sleepin’ cabins go straight up and leave much to be desired in the way of signage. When I did find the appropriate bunkhouse, my key card didn’t work; Will’s did, so we were able to access our room.

There were several younger men milling about (but clearly not hikers) in the “base camp” area of the NOC where we are staying. They’re training to be wilderness medics and have been staying here since early February. I think there were also women enrolled.

I showered (with towel rented at additional cost). No soap in any shower stall. No table in our tiny room—you’d think they could build a plywood table for $50 a night and no pillows, sheets, or anything else provided. But I’m happy to be sleeping in the dry on my bday.

Oh, I almost forgot the life hack promised in the title. Here’s the secret, and you should be grateful I’m sharing it because this is something gut doctors don’t want you to know. The trick to completely emptying your bowels every morning is to eat half a pound of nuts and seeds each day and thru-hike the Appalachian Trail. It’s really that simple folks.

Oh, another thing I almost forgot—a birthday wish. I’ll put it out there even though people say it’s bad luck to speak them aloud (by what mechanism though?!). Here’s the wish: I want to be a thru hiker.