Thursday a week ago, Chuck picked up the phone in his Chicago home. It was his buddy, Stretch.
“What are you doing next week?” Stretch asked. “Wanna go on a road trip?”
Four days later, after loading Stretch’s Chevy Avalanche with an arsenal of groceries and driving 10 hours, the two were standing outside a yellow tent on the Appalachian Trail near Deep Gap, knocking to see if anyone was home. It was 7:30 in the morning.
Is that … my dad? Jaime, one of the occupants, groggily wondered from within. Jaime and her hiking partner/boyfriend Doug were stunned to unzip their tent flap and see their fathers’ grinning faces in the doorway. The two AT thru-hikers were even more stunned when they followed their paternal units the half mile back down to Deep Gap and discovered a truckload of what helps keep thru-hikers plugging along through cold and rain, through heat and ticks, through blisters and debilitating fatigue.
Trail magic.
On the AT: Hiking through the thru-hikers
The backpacker looked up from his reverie, saw me and jumped. “Whoa! Didn’t see you there,” he said.
Our paths converged a little after 9 Tuesday morning, on Section 9 of the Appalachian Trail midway between Rock Gap and Albert Mountain in western North Carolina. “Country,” as he soon identified himself, was why I was on this particular trail at this particular time headed this direction, south. The reason Country (pictured) didn’t notice me was he had other things on his mind. Like Maine.
Country was an AT thru-hiker, one of perhaps three dozen I ran into during two days on the trail. The AT thru-hiking season – for northbounders headed from Springer Mountain, Ga., 2,178 miles north to Katahdin, Maine – officially launched March 15 and the bulk of the class of 2010 was now hiking into southern North Carolina.
Country, for instance, had started March 19 and had so far covered about 110 miles. Not all of those miles had been fun.
“The 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th days, it was bad,” the Alabaman said as he leaned on an impromptu hiking staff. “Rain, cold and a little snow. Since then it’s been great.”
Country admitted he had come into this six-month journey ill prepared, a fact I’d gathered by the tennis shoes he was wearing. “Had a guy quit and give me his tent, a Wenzel. I’ve gotten a lot of compliments on the tent. I say, ‘Thanks!’” He shrugs, then adds, “I don’t have to tell ’em the whole story.”
I asked Country how he got his trail name. “There were two of us with ‘Country’ early on. The other guy wound up being ‘Country Gold.’”
Check the weather (and sunset, too)
It’s a no-brainer, yet one we sometimes forget: Check the weather before going on an outdoor adventure. And, again it probably needn’t be said but I’ll say it anyway, check the weather for where you’re going, not where you are. There can be a huge difference between the two, especially during the transitional season of spring.
Sidelined by — achoo! — spring?
Temperatures in the low 80s, low humidity, lots of sun. And more allergy-igniting pollen than I can remember since … well, since last spring.
When it comes to me vs. pollen, it’s no contest: Pollen wins by a knockout. And I’m not alone: an estimated 35 million people suffer from seasonal allergies. However, allergist types say there are ways that we can minimize the Green Cloud. Not laugh in its face and continue on our merry adventurous way sniffle free, mind you. But it least try and keep our heads from exploding by simply walking down the driveway to get the paper. Their suggestions:
The wild adventures of Roland Smith
In a society suffering from what Richard Louv has labeled a “nature deficit disorder,” author Roland Smith creates a dilemma. Louv’s “Last Child in the Woods” has created a movement since it came out in 2007 to get our electronically-anchored kids off the couch, out the door and into nature. Roland Smith’s adventure-based novels would do just that — if you could put them down. Smith’s novels have young explorers going on engaging adventures, be it climbing Mt. Everest (“Peak”), falling out of a jet at 18,000 feet and into the Congo (“Cryptid Hunters”) or trying to protect a parent who has become Big Foot obsessed (“Sasquatch”).