Project Eveningland

“Well, what do we got on this thing, a Cuisinart?!” -Dark Helmet (Spaceballs)

3/23/2023 Thursday

When you’re the youngest of four, it’s hard to keep up. Many of my childhood memories are colored with a general feeling of “c’mon you guys, wait for me!”

I ran on the cross country team for a year in high school. They all expected my brother Pat’s younger brother to be the same level of runner. Not quite. We would all go on a warm-up run on a set route from the high school almost to Rt. 20. I’d start with the group but then fall more and more behind until they were gone from view. Just me, on my own.

And I have often felt that way as a hiker. Slow. Unable to keep up with the interesting people I meet. Part of that has been the injury, or injuries, because I chased the pain around my left foot for almost two years.

Hide, L&F and I woke in our shared cabin around seven. Wedge had his own tiny cabin (that turned out to be full of ants—yikes!). I’d woken around four but got back to sleep with a minor chemical assist. My foot felt tight again: in the arch and also something right next to the Achilles. I did some research, consulted some anatomy diagrams. Seems like it’s the flexor hallucis longus. Then I hit YouTube and searched for stretches that can help. There was a funny one with my toe nearly vertical against a heavy object. The first time I did it against the small refrigerator in the cabin, I said, “ahhhhh” and felt some immediate relief. I texted Leslie (my mom-in-law who was a PT and now has her own massage therapy practice) to ask if she knew of any other good options. She looked up a KT Tape strategy and told me what to look for in my gait (too much toe push off, which I’m sure I’ve been doing. Sometimes when something hurts I keep testing it—bad habit). I also added a minimal wrap midday. Got good results. I am optimistic.

When I walked out front of the hostel to wait for the shuttler—Steve was already there—I saw Wedge and L&F weighing their packs. I weighed mine. 21 pounds loaded for two days w 1/2 liter water. And don’t forget my fanny pack with content. Still, wow! I was worried I’d forgotten some crucial piece of gear but I think it’s only having 1.5 days of food. What a boost.

We got in Steve’s RAV4, perhaps for the last time. We were sad! We gabbed and laughed up to Iron Mountain Gap (this time just before nine—very humane). There was trail magic (cookies and bars and stuff) at the trailhead. We leapfrogged with a couple of folks. Ran into Stickers on a ridge but we could only keep up with him for a few minutes. He says he “just walks” as an explanation for his prodigious speed and endurance. I finally got one of his stickers—his cousin made these goofy stickers of Stickers’ face which he’s been giving out (that’s how he got that trail name). We only caught him because he had to get off trail for a bit. I’d love to write more about him but he’s too damn fast!

I reveled in the dry weather and the patches of blue sky. Our four-person team stuck closer together than normal and we even persuaded L&F to stop for lunch at Clyde Mountain shelter. He normally eats health food while walking. Oy vey. Hide and I had cold pizza. Amazing.

The day flew. We hit the big climb to Roan High Knob early afternoon. I felt good. Very good. And then something happened that’s never happened to me before. I walked up a four-mile-long steep climb like I was walking down a hallway. I went uphill for miles hardly winded at all. It was still a tough climb, but my body has entered some new phase. I felt relaxed. I could sing along with an entire verse before getting winded.

Roan High Knob shelter area—the highest on the entire trail—is stunning. The tall, gentle pines (fir?) sway in the near ever- present winds. I cannot possibly convey the piney freshness of the air. It makes the laundry scent of my clothes seem to freshness what tepid orange Hi-C would be to a perfect blood orange, chilled. The sun shone and made it feel like the most luxurious summer afternoon. Only there had been patches of ice on the ascent! (These patches very briefly legitimated my choice to carry 8oz traction devices all the way up the first 390 miles).

The others (Hide, L&F, Wedge) decided to tent instead of staying in the shelter. Some very rude woman told me the shelter was full when I walked up—which, by the way, is a shitty way to greet a tired hiker arriving at a shelter even if it were true, which it fucking wasn’t! Not even close. There were five people in a two level, 15-person, enclosed shelter. It could have held 20 easy. Wedge immediately contradicted her—he was coming out of the shelter at that moment—and all of us later agreed that we thought it was a very, very bad look for her to have said that.

About that title. I fought off the urge to put a question mark. I’m tired of living with a question mark, as though that somehow mitigates the uncertainty that comes with any life. I’ll eat my words later if I have to. And I still have to deal with that miffed flexor hallucis longus. But they’re here, my trail legs I mean.

One last piece of a day to remember: L&F (whose name is Chris) has been open about not knowing very many LGBTQ (I like the umbrella term “queer”) people. And here he is hiking the AT with two of them, at least for a while. He says getting outside his context is part of his reason for hiking. He’s conservative, works in commercial real estate. Lives in Texas. Political identity and sexual orientation are quite different creatures, but I see a parallel there. Chris is not my usual kind of company either. However I have come to admire him. I admire his dedication, his strength, his decency, his diplomacy, his integrity, and the respect with which he treats other people. And I have feelings like this about many of the people I’m hiking with. For example, Wedge helped me cut a cat hole into the near permafrost-level hard soil up here. Good vibes just doesn’t cover it.