Project Eveningland

3/8/2023 Wednesday

We have now had four full days in the Smokies, with no rain, in March. Is this because I saved those orphans from that boxcar? All I did was call child protective services.

Mt. Collins shelter, where I stayed last night, is a magical little forest crowded with huge pine trees, the trunks of which slope gracefully into the ground, which is all soft needles and eruptions of vibrant green moss. Folks were mostly up and leaving by the time I got out of the tent in the morning. It was cold! As I ate breakfast in the shelter, I listened as two guys talked about their decision to go out onto the trail in just shorts and their base layer so as to save time because they’d be hot later. Then one of them said that the climb out of the shelter area (on the .5 mile side trail) was likely to be rough because it had been a bear coming down last night.

These men are insane. Why would you hike for, say, 90 minutes in layers that aren’t warm enough to save yourself the three minutes it would take to stop and layer down later when you’re warmed up and the sun is out? Second, the walk down the actual side path to Mt. Collins is a nice gradual descent with pretty easy tread (unlike the rugged trail that leads to it). They likely came in exhausted from having hiked all day without taking sufficient breaks. I’m presuming, but that’s what nearly everyone here is doing: hiking the Smokies like they’re taking a pill (or perhaps a suppository!). Their every decision says, “let’s get this over with.” I get it. It’s tough terrain and there’s little room for error with only one access point halfway through (at Newfound Gap, and the nearest town is 15 miles by hitch). Some people want to get out of the Smokies expeditiously, and I can’t fault them there. I’m just frustrated because I feel out of sync—I want to enjoy the hike more. I want to take my time and enjoy it in the way I’d do with a day hike. The end of the Smokies is nigh (today was day four of six), and then I’ll have much more freedom to control the conditions of my hike.

Today I hiked alone from the moment I left the shelter I slept in last night to the moment I arrived at the final shelter of the day, 16 miles later. Well, alone except for the many day hikers who thronged around Newfound Gap, mostly on the trail to the North. I lunched at the Gap so I could call Ben (service has been terrible but I’d had a feeling it might be good there). I also nursed a hope that someone might strike up a conversation that would offer me the chance to ask if they had any unwanted snacks I could haul away—free of charge! No dice. But the conversation with my love nourished me in a way free food wouldn’t have (though, getting both kinds of nourishment would have also been acceptable). I’m not on starvation rations or anything, but I’m hiking long days with many fewer calories than I’d eat just spending a day at home.

The day hikers led to interesting interactions. I saw two youngish men (being paid?) escorting a very elderly Asian man who was hiking in sneakers. One kept his hand on the man’s back. The man did not seem to notice me. They pulled off to let me pass but he didn’t. I had to go around him at a wide corner.

Come to think of it, the day hikers as a crowd are much more diverse than thru hikers in terms of age, race, gender, and size, though probably not region/nation of origin. Two young men and a young woman in a group walked by. One of the men was wearing amazing cologne. I enjoyed the scent for probably an eighth of a mile after he had passed going the other way.

A group of older folks wanted to ask me a bunch of questions while I was filtering water at Icewater Spring shelter (not nearly as refreshing an experience as the name suggests; privy closed because it is full *shudder*). One woman wanted to take a picture of my water filter setup. Her body language actually convinced me to pause to allow her to take the photo before going to switch the bottles (the first was nearly full and I didn’t want it to overfill). Then I realized, am I letting some stranger w a camera interfere with me accessing water? Jesus. So I gave in and just gave them a full tutorial, which they consumed eagerly. A group of young men from a church group arrived and stopped to sun themselves on the grassy area in front of the shelter. I enjoy talking to groups of young people in this setting because they look up to me in a different way from how they look up to me when I am “doing” being a professor.

I probably saw almost 100 people. The weather was nice. All were either moving in the opposite direction or else going so slow they might as well have been standing still. Many hiked in jeans or other impractical clothes. Most smell to me like laundry.

After four or so miles from the parking lot at Newfound Gap, I was alone again. The hike began to traverse knife’s edge (well, “knife’s edge”) ridges, some of which are about one Prius wide, a few areas being almost as narrow as a doorway. On each side the ground slopes away steeply (and I mean steeply—a grade too steep for anything other than a goat or a determined person, or perhaps a semi-determined goat person).

The winds got colder and the sun became more elusive. I listened to podcasts and layered up, adding tights and my knockoff Melanzana. I arrived at Peck’s Corner, an obscure shelter (because it requires a trip down a .4 mile side trail). The whole Smokies gang was there. Bill had set up in a marginal spot above the shelter (where’d I’d also eke out a pitch on a narrow strip of level ground). Wedge, Hide, Lost and Found, Marry Poppins, and Beaker were all there. How much more familiar and friendly they seem to me!