Project Eveningland

4/20/2023 Thursday

This section of the is AT tougher than advertised. The conditions right now are also a challenge. We’ve got 80 degree highs and no shade. It’s much like walking through a burn scar, only there’s too much brush to use an umbrella effectively. It was a mostly miserable day.

Last night I discovered that my battery had fallen out of my electronics bag at the hostel. This sort of thing happens when you are packing and unpacking over and over and over. Things get left behind, even if you are careful. I called the hostel last night and they said they’d leave it at a trailhead we were set to reach late this morning.

We began our hike off the ridge in the morning cool. Temperatures were extremely comfortable at night and in the morning. I was glad to avoid the kind of dampness one gets in a creek valley. We were out of camp at 7:30. We made it to Pine Swamp Branch Shelter just after nine and took an extended break to use the privy and filter water after the long dry stretch we had endured. Ran into City Boy, who was slackpacking backward to Pearisburg. I did not envy him that walk in today’s heat!

The trail from Pine Swamp Branch Shelter to Bailey’s Gap Shelter is a mere 3.9 miles. But it is a garbage 3.9 miles! Full of steep ups and downs, built on roots and rocks, culminating in a steep, exposed (until the leaves are out), brutal climb. The last 1.1 miles took me 50 minutes! Wedge and I flopped into the shelter just after noon, drenched in sweat and exhausted.

I ate a huge lunch and drank copious amounts of water with electrolytes. An hour later I felt mostly revived. Others started arriving. We made conversation with Alabama Chowder, who was doing a short day before meeting up with his wife, who’s picking him up near the Keffer Oak.

We went back into the blistering sun, beneath green-crusted, skeletal trees which seem unlikely to leaf out anytime soon. Wedge and I got out our umbrellas and the instant shade was welcome, but it couldn’t last. The trees and tall brush grow too close to the trail and continually snag umbrellas. You can mitigate this somewhat by stowing a trekking pole and just holding the umbrella, thus making it easier to “dodge, dip, duck, dive, and dodge” around the trees. The path is exceptionally rocky. It’s not so much walking as hopping from pointy, slanted rock to pointy, slanted rock. Each jump takes a tiny, tiny toll on your connective tissue. Or it does on mine anyway.

We came upon a tiny, weak spring and my day reached its inflection point. Wedge and one other hiker (can’t remember which) kept walking. I stopped and filtered and drank an entire liter. Then I just kept drinking and drinking and drinking. And peeing and peeing and peeing. Any time my mouth felt dry, I drank. Every time I urinated, I drank. I reached another small crowd at a much better water source (only about 1.5 miles on) and stopped to filter yet again.

I felt better and better. I began to sing along with the music again, and laugh out loud at the ridiculousness of the rocky path. It isn’t a path at all—it’s just rocks! I momentarily despaired at the unflattering shape that my backpack straps force my chest into. Of all the things to fret about! That made me laugh too.

Caught up with Alabama Chowder cooling himself and smoking a cigarette behind a giant rock. I climbed into the shade of the boulder, perching on stone ledge which sucked all the warmth out of my lower body. Ahhhhh. Wedge joined but only for a minute. Then he was off and lost to me until the shelter.

I pressed on, still drinking and peeing clear. Trip, who taught me quite a lot about hydration while we hiked the Sheltowee Trace during a heat wave in 2022, would have been proud. “Going clear” on a hot sunny day is a real achievement, in my opinion.

Everybody seemed headed for Warspur Shelter, which abuts a large creek and has plenty of tent space. I stopped along the way to have a big dinner, so I was last into the shelter area. Wedge and I discussed options, but couldn’t decide how to proceed tomorrow. It’s going to be even hotter and we are headed for more big climbs and dry, rocky ridges. Our timing is terrible.

There’s a group of hikers here at the shelter area who’ve formed what I’ll call an Ultra Tramily. All tall, thin, fit, fast—ultra-runner types. The one with the silver ponytail and piercing blue eyes does most of the talking. He was a software developer. Is? Sometimes they retire young. Here’s a phrase he spoke without any braggadocio, but also somehow with the most possible braggadocio: “…if there’s a way we can get somewhere in 26 miles [marathon length], chances are we’re gonna do it. We’ve made a real habit of that.” Barf!

Wedge will probably try to get out early tomorrow to beat some of the heat. We have a huge climb up to Kelly Knob in the morning. I am so fucking tired after a 16-mile day in brutal conditions that telling my body I’m going to wake it early to hike more seems like cruelty. At some point, you have to accept the influence of the weather. When it’s hot with no shade you aren’t going to do as many miles, or I’m not anyway. We moderns are used to just working through the bad weather. Cold. Heat. Wet. Doesn’t matter when you live indoors. It matters out here, and I want to accept that, rather than trying to force my will upon the earth. Sounds too tiring.