Project Eveningland

3/29/2023 Wednesday

Finally, I found some sleeping accommodations that didn’t leave me cold at night. Two heaters and a toasty Doug/Rhetoric. What a treat. Speaking of treats: I used the breakfast sandwich method this morning. Two sandwiches totaling somewhere around 840 calories. I was hungry again 45 minutes later.

Without my nuts and seeds (but retaining peanut butter because without it I’d starve), it’s a little tougher to get a snack that sticks, especially when resupply options are limited. I bought a whole big thing of peanut butter and two dozen small tortillas. Three tortillas plus 1.5 servings of peanut butter (approx 1 tablespoon per tortilla) is around 600 cals, which I supplement with jerky and various other snacks. I’ve also got a small amount of cheese and some jelly packets I’ve been rationing. I don’t have enough packets to put jelly in every tortilla, but what a morale boost to have a little variety now and again. I’m saving a Nutella packet to add to tomorrow’s dinner wraps—or as I like to think of them, “trail crepes.”

I decided not to stop at Boots Off Hostel because I wanted to get in more miles today.

Today’s walk had two phases. The first phase was a rocky hike along Laurel Fork, including the stately Laurel Falls and some narrow bits, followed by a miles-long ascent up Pond Mountain, and a miles-long descent. The second phase was a relatively flat walk around Watauga Lake, dipping in and out of little coves. The first few coves had trashed beaches, but as the incline down to the lake became steeper, the coves grew less fouled and I began to appreciate their jewel-like greenish-blue hues. Following that was some classic ridge hiking: tons of ascent, miles of walking with steep downslopes on either side. I don’t know why I grouped that into two phases. Seems like maybe there were more phases. Look, folks, I’m not out here to count phases.

The water sources were a bit scarce, especially during the afternoon up on the ridges. I walked to a spring I remember from 2021 (I would have been here in late May) and it looked dramatically different. At that time the area was bursting with green. It is still early up here—still late March—and only small amounts of underbrush is leafing out. I decided to camp at one of the tiny flat-ish spots next to the spring and the creek which flows from it. I can hear it tinkling from in my tent.

Perhaps I needed a quiet day. 16 miles, almost no human contact. I got lonely and called Mom and Ben from the top of Watauga Dam, where I’d had a feeling there’d be service.

The feeling of loneliness on trail is different from the loneliness I have experienced off trail. It’s more indirect for me out here. It mixes with the hunger sometimes and it gives me this sense of dread—like bad things are about to happen, or like life has suddenly turned dark, was dark all along, and now the hunger and isolation have peeled away the dream and left bare the haunting inevitability of tragedy and social rejection. But the thing is, it’s just hunger and loneliness. It can be cured with a bit of cheese and some conversation—there really are vanishingly few metaphysical insights to be gained from analyzing low mood. But, of course, it’s hard to see that in the moment. Perhaps it’ll get easier! I’ve not heard other hikers talk about this. I wonder if anyone else feels as I do.

The temps are dropping in my tent, fast. Before I turned in, I dug a cat hole on the other side of the ridge atop the little valley in which I am camped. It’ll be a real pain in the ass to climb up there in the morning, but it was the only private, responsible place I could find, and the view from my modest cat hole will be spectacular in the morning.