6/23/93 – Wed.

19.8 miles today and we’re staying at Jenkins Shelter with Gandalf, listening to war stories about his one year of teaching in an inner-city school in Birmingham, Alabama (taking a gun from a student, restraining a girl so she doesn’t beat up a guy, watching a fight break out following an assembly about Martin Luther King, Jr., having a girl ask, in front of the class, “Mr. Sturgeon, my throat’s a little dry. Do you have something I can suck on?” etc., etc.). He’s a pretty good guy who could talk the ear off a statue, but he does have a number of good stories.

This is Ron’s last night on the trail. We talked today about how his expectations of the trail differed from reality, and concluded nothing, but he is now talking about section hiking the whole trail over a period of time. We met a guy today who has been hiking different sections of the A.T. since 1957, and had about 15 miles to go before he would be done. Wow!

It took us just under four hours to walk the first 9 miles today, which included the one semi-major climb up Chestnut Know. When we stopped for lunch at 1:00, we had a bit under six miles to go to the Jenkins Shelter, yet we still did not get here until a little after 5:00. Reason? First, we took about 45 minutes for lunch. Second, we stopped to look at a view about 1 1/2 miles later, & met a guy who runs a B & B in Burke’s Garden, which is a small community (partly Amish), that we had been looking down at all day from varioius points along the trail. He gave us each a cold beer and told us all about the history of the town. When James Burke first found the valley in which the town is located, it is rumored that he though he had found the Garden of Eden (it is very fertile, apparently). Anyway, we talked to the innkeeper for a while, and it sounds like his B. & B. is really nice. He charges $75-90 a night, and I am kicking around the idea of taking Julie there tomorrow night if things work out (hopefully, I can just pay Mom & Dad the difference for what a normal hotel would cost). I have one of the brochures for the inn, and the whole thing looks like it would be both quaint and romantic. A lot depends on when Ron takes off & when Julie arrives, so we will see.

I am no longer all that worried about trying to catch up with Buck and Ramble-on-Rich. After 10 days with Ron, I am ready to be back on my own again for a bit. There is a tremendous difference between “hiking with” someone where you each carry of of your own equipment (e.g., Bearanoid & me), and hiking with someone where you share equipment (e.g., Dad & me, Ron & me). Although the latter is fine (and even enjoyable) in small quantities, I would not want to do it for the entire trail.

Tomorrow ought to be a fast day with few stops to smell the flowers or take pictures.

So…is that bed and breakfast still around? I was able to track down a mention of it: “In 1992, Pauletta and Joe Van Dyke opened the James Burke Inn Bed and Breakfast.”

Unfortunately, I also found a note from 1998:

“Not enough, however, to sustain the garden’s only bed and breakfast. Joe and Pauletta VanDyke had high hopes for the James Burke Inn back in 1993: a mini-resort-restaurant-health spa that would have live music and serve alcohol. Today, the inn stands empty along Route 625, with a ‘For Sale’ sign in its front yard.”

That’s a shame, as Joe was a nice fellow…and you’ll see in a bit that Julie and I did stay at the inn. I’m 100% sure I never paid my parents the difference between a night there and a night in a “normal” hotel. I realize two things that have not come up yet — and one sorta’ looks like it was not captured in the journal:

• I allude to the fact here and there that my parents funded the trip. As this entry shows, I was fairly frugally minded, but, even on the trail, I was aware of how lucky I was. Most of the people I met were self-funding their hikes, and they really had to watch their expenses when they hit a town. I generally stayed in hostels when they were available — many of them were “free but take donations,” while others were ridiculously cheap (but also generally took donations). If there wasn’t a hostel in the town that was convenient for a stop, I would get a hotel, and I always got a hotel when Julie met up with me. I have wondered over the years what my total outlay was (um…Mom? Do you have that?). I’ve always looked back on the experience as being a relatively inexpensive way to spend 5 months, but I have no idea what the total I spent was.
• I’ve never explained my “Gilligan” moniker. I picked that up within a week or two of my dad heading out. Most of the people I was hiking with already had trail names, and I did not. It was one of the evenings when I was in a shelter with a number of hikers who have been mentioned already — I particularly remember that Just-in-Time and Entropy were there. We fairly quickly settled on “Gilligan” due to the Tilley Hat (T3) I wore (I still have it to this day…and it is still in great shape — if you don’t know the story of Tilley Endurables, just do a Google search for “tilley endurables elephant”), combined with my propensity to whack my head on the ceilings of shelters.

I’m sure other such tidbits will occur to me as being “missed” in the journal as we go along.

6/22/93 – Tue.

18.8 miles today by 4:00 — we’re staying at Knot Maul Shelter with Don Jordan (older fellow from Florida northbound to Katahdin), “Gandalf” (history teacher from Birmingham, Alabama — northbound this year from Erwin, TN, to Harper’s Ferry, WV — hiked with Buck & Bearanoid & says Buck says Hi), and “Beans” (southbound — from Tulsa, OK, but living in and about to start grad school in Austin, TX). We’ve spent the evening trading trail stories, mostly — some necessary F.Y.I. and some just interesting tales. It’s been enjoyable over all.

By the way, a guy came into the Mt. Rogers NRA H.Q. yesterday trying to unload a bunch of bananas (several bunches, actually — a big box) that were left over from something or other, so Ron & I took about eight, ate a couple apiece, and carried the rest up to the shelter. We sliced two of them into our strawberry pudding dessert and ate two this morning as a pre-breakfast to get us the 4.6 miles to the D.G. and the phones. We left camp about 6:30 and got to the phones around 8:00 — 7:00 St. Louis time & plenty of time for him to call Andrea before she left for work.

Once again, I am within shot of seeing Julie, and my mind spends more time two days ahead of me than in the present. Ron seems to be doing the same. Is this bad? I don’t think so. I’m still enjoying the trail, the views, and my other surroundings, and the thoughts do not make me wish I were off the trail, so I will not let it bother me.

Walking Eagle, who I met briefly on Roan Mountain, is temporarily of the trail and in the hospital with cellulitis (?) in his ankle. I had thought I was about to caatch him, and it’s too bad that it happened. He’s still planning to continue the trip, so I will try to leave him encouragement in shelter registers.

Article

“What day is it?” I ask one morning as we break camp.

“Sunday,” replies another hiker.

“Out here, every day is Sunday,” adds Victor, a backpacker known as “Bushwack” to other hikers on the 2,144 mile Appalachian Trail.

As I set out down the trail, Bushwack’s comment keeps returning to my thoughts. Sunday? I agree that after walking north from Georgia for a couple of weeks, the days do begin to take on a certain similarity that makes such terms as “weekend” relatively meaningless, but why Sunday?

The longer I ponder the question, the more sense it makes. Sunday is one of the two days of the weekend, and thus one of the two days when most people are freed from the structure and stricture (?) of the working world. On a long distance hike, that freedom is maximized, so, at the least, every day out here is a weekend day.

A little more thought yields the answer to the question of why Sunday over Saturday. American society has long been based on a Christian calendar and a Christian way of life. Predominantly, this means that Sunday mornings are left open for church attendance. Meetings, trips, retreats, and other leisure group activities are traditionally scheduled for Saturdays so as to avoid church conflicts. Even as more and more people drift away from church attendance, this practice is upheld, leaving many people with Sundays to themselves.

Sunday becomes a day free of commitments, when the most important task is to make sure that there is a clean pair of underwear to be worn to work on Monday. Sleeping late, reading all of the newspaper, and writing letters or talking to friends and family are all popular Sunday activities, but the key is that they are activities that are not directed by outside forces. Even church attendance is an activity that is ultimately driven by the individual’s own inner being.

Which brings me back tot he here and now of this trek from Georgia to Maine. Every day I am out here because it is where I want to be, and every day I have the option to sleep late or dawdle around camp or take a two-hour lunch break. Every day is a day I have to myself, and every day is Sunday.

—

That article was motivated by a suggestion that Mom had made and is really just an elaboration on some stuff I had written earlier in my journal. I would like to get one or two more written as well as re-famp the letter I drafted last week, before I leave Bastian. That way, Julie can type it up and send it off to the Beaumont Enterprise for me. I need to get their outdoor editor’s name.

6/21/93 – Mon.

Yesterday was Father’s Day and I didn’t even realize it until today. Sorry, Dad.

We went just over 17 miles today and are staying at Chatfield Shelter. No one else is here, so my plans to have everyone sing Happy Birthday to Ron are shot (we were alone last night, too). For his birthday, I pumped all the water, made dinner, and cleaned up, rather than dividing the tasks.

We stopped for a break after covering 10 1/2 miles today at the Mt. Rogers NRA (National Recreation Area, as opposed to National Rifle Association) H.Q. / Visitors Center. I called Mom and told her of a few minor equipment problems I am having, and then we ordered Domino’s Pizza — more because we could than because we actually craved it, I think. I have noticed that the longer I am out here, the less I crave “normal” food. Hiking into Rainbow Springs, Wesser, and Hot Springs, there was little else on my mind (excepting Julie) than how good a hamburger and/or pizza would taste. I have not had cravings anywhere near as strong coming into Elk Park or Damascus. It’s almost as though I have acted like I thought I should act rather than acting as I really felt (i.e., jumping at the opportunity to get pizza). Tomorrow we are getting up 1/2 hour earlier than usual and racing out of here so as to cover the 5 miles to I-81 (?) before Andrea leaves for work. We’re planning on eating breakfast at a Dairy Queen that just opened up there (good biscuits & gravy if they serve breakfast). Again, I find that I am more excited about getting up and covering a quick 5 miles before breakfast than I am about the breakfast itself. I guess my body is just becoming more acclimated to the trail life, and does not crave “normal” food because that food is no longer the norm in my system. It’s the same as me not always craving, say, Chinese food when I am off the trail. In other ways my body is adjusting, too. I wake up in the middle of the night only two or three times now, as opposed to the 6 or 8 times that I would wake up a month ago. My clothes/body smell is not as noxious when I get up in the morning. My legs and muscles do not stiffen and get sore after long days — sometimes I feel i could walk 40 miles were it not for the pounding my feet would then have to endure. I am comfortable and relaxed out here. Each day, as I near the shelter, I feel like I am coming home, although the home is a place I’ve never seen. I  always know what to expect there — 3 walls, a roof, a floor, a nearby water source, and, sometimes a privy and/or a picnic table. And that is all I need.

If Ron were not here, this would be my second straight night alone. As yet, I have only spent one night alone, and that was way back on Siler’s Bald. Is the trail that populated, or do I subconsciously seek the company of others?

6/18/93 – Fri. (Evening)

We left Damascus right at 1:00 this afternoon with full bellies thanks to the Dairy King in town. We got to Saunders Shelter at about 5:00 and it started raining around 6:30. We’d already gotten water and scared up a couple of wild turkeys by then, so we just sat in the shelter, made dinner, and listened to the rain falling on the tin roof. The shower is over now, and no one else has arrived, so it looks like a spacious evening.

My pack is at last starting to show signs of wear; as I lifted it to put it on and fit it with [th]insulite hip pads stolen from Ron’s pad, one of the vertical bracer bars slid out and hit the floor. Upon closer examination, I discovered that thte bottom piece of the bar had sheared off and dropped out sometime previously — I have no idea when. I patched the thing back up with a little duct tape, and I don’t think it is critical, but I hope I can get it more adequately repaired.

Julie’s gymnastics picture slipped out of my journal as I started to write, and I propped it up against the wall in front of me while I write. I have invented my own personal backpacker’s desk. It fits conveniently on the floor of any shelter and has the essentials: a reading/writing light (candle lantern), a notepad (journal), bookshelves (tonight, the Tao Te Ching), and the personal bit of decoration (Julie’s picture). Life on the trail is so simplified!

A quick list of people I still need to write and thank for graduation money: Gran Fran, Steve & Mary Lou, & Grandma (???).

I made a list in the shelter register of friends I had made on the trail who got off in Damascus. First, of course, was Bearanoid, whose company I have already begun to miss. I think his is (so far) the friendship I have made that is most likely to continue after the trail. Our backgrounds and current lives are totally different, which makes me think we could both benefit from and enjoy occasional contact. Next, is Justin & Entropy. I have not seen them since Hot Springs and did not see any of their entries in shelter registers from Elk Park to Damascus, which leads me to believe that Entropy’s maildrop never arrived and/or they succumbed to a major gravity surge at “Elmer’s” in Hot Springs and spent the rest of their trail time eating vegetarian meals and mowing his yard. Entropy had composed a short little poem which I meant to get written down but never did. I also never got their addresses, although i could probably go through the MIT Alumni Association and find Entropy’s brother and find Entropy from there. Will I?… Finally, Andy and Bones left the trail. They turned out to be better guys than I originally thought, but I don’t think I would have wanted to spend many more nights in shelters with them. Bones does work for an outdoor equipment store, and he gave me a card and set [sic] to call him collect if there was anything he could help me with while I was on the trail, so that was pretty nice.

And now I’ve had a though and will make a feeble attept to once again wax poetic:

A Path

Up a hill, down a hill
I follow the trail of life.
‘Tis a path trodden by many,
Though none tread the same as I.

The pace, my own.
The stops, I pick.
The destination is mine alone

I walk alone,
Though sometimes with others.
But in the end,
I walk alone.

6/18/93 – Fri. (Morning)

This is sort of last night’s entry. I did my longest day yesterday in terms of trail miles, covering 26.2 and making it all the way to Damascus. Ron pointed out that that was just a hair over the length of a marathon, but he was as game as I was. We’ll see what kind of a toll the long distance takes on our bodies. It was fairly level walking, but the last several miles, as usually happens when coming into a town, were mostly downhill, which does a number on knees and feet at the end of the day.

We stayed at “The Place” — a hostel run by the Methodist church. Andy and Bones were here, as were the Children of the Trail — John’s hip belt blew out on him, so they hitched a ride from Watauga Lake to Damascus, where he could wait for a replacement.

We (Ron & I) went to a little pub right next to the laundromat and ate and had a few beers while we did laundry, and then we came back to the hostel and hung out on the front porch drinking beer and talking with other people. We didn’t drink all that much, as we are planning on heading out right after lunch today and covering about 9.4 miles.

I did not have any luck getting in touch with Julie in Florida, although I did talk to both her aunt and uncle briefly. She was apparently out with the gang from Sensor-matic and had not gotten back in by 11:30 PM, so I will try again this morning.

There were probably 20-30 people staying here last night — some of them thru-hikers I have seen no mention of in the registers, and many bicyclists.

Probably the worst thing about yesterday’s hike was the abundance of nettles along the trail — they sting and then itch, and in places they were so high that they were slapping at our upper things. I even caught a few on my hand! The trail from Elk Park to Damascus was the worst-maintained I’ve seen yet. I realize that the maintenance is carried out by volunteers and I should be grateful that so many do do a good job, but in sections like the past few, it’s difficult to not complain and whine a bit.

It is now 8:00 AM and time to call Julie.

6/16/93 – Wed.

We walked a fairly easy 13 miles today and are staying in Iron Mtn. Shelter with an older couple from Hawaii and a friend of theirs. The couple is hiking selected sections of the A.t. from Georgia to Maine, usually northbound but at the moment southbound.

Bearanoid left a farewell entry of sorts in the Vendeventer Shelter register; it was a page long and talked about how much he has enjoyed hiking the A.T. this time (he also mentioned that he saw a naked girl posing in front of Laurel Falls for her boyfriend). He signed off, “Peace & Love – Bearanoid,” which sounds almost like a liberal, so maybe Buck and I had an effect on him after all.

Buck left me a message in the register here — said she missed me and hopes to see me soon. The feeling is mutual, as I enjoyed her company on the trail more than anyone except Bearanoid. In spite of the amicability in the shelters that I have written about, there are surprisingly few people that I can actually look forward to seeing day after day. I was more acutely aware of this after spending two nights with Shortcut, Bones, and Andy. Everyone got along fine, we joked and laughed quite a bit, but I was glad that they would be staying a shelter ahead of us tonight. The novelty of their company had worn out, which it had not done with Bearanoid or Buck. The thought does cross my mind that perhaps I am attracted to Buck, which would be bad. I don’t think I am, though. I miss her company in the same way I am sad that Bearanoid is off the trail. I also feel that if I were attracted to her, there would be some weakening of my feelings for Julie, which has certainly not occurred. This whole male/female thing really does get in the way of things. Julie had joked about me meeting “someone else” on the trail, and now I have met someone with exactly that potential. I worry that Julie will worry about this, even though I know there is nothing to worry about. Julie is undeniably, unquestionably, and totally the love of my live, and I certainly hope that never changes.

Ron has been reading my copy of the Tao Te Ching and is really getting into it. He periodically has me read passages that he thinks are particularly good or relevant. There really is some good stuff in there!

I just re-read my “article” from last night. It seems pretty rough, and it seems like I lacked a real sense of purpose while writing it. I’ll try writing a couple more and see how it goes.

Hiking with Ron and holding back to shorter mileage days, I think I have found something else that I like about hiking, mainly because I haven’t been doing it. I like to push myself physically, meaning I would rather go for the shelter at 21 miles than the one at 13. There are people out here who make high mileage their primary goal, and I think they miss out on a lot. I, on the other hand, like Bearanoid, enjoy pushing myself physically — not to the point of misery, but more to the point of tiredness, the point that makes me feel like I have really gone somewhere. I think there is a difference. Otherwise, I am one of those hikers that is missing out on a lot.

Me?! I actually like to physically exert myself on a daily basis? Hmmm. I must’ve dropped that joy some time in my 20s, as getting to the gym is a serious act of willpower these days.

6/15/93 – Tue.

I made 18.4 miles today and Ron made about 14, and we are staying at Watauga Lake Shelter tonight with Shortcut, Andy, Shawn, and Ron. Everybody except me took a big shortcut around Pond Mountain. They missed the worst of the trail today easily, but it felt good to do a decent length day. I was still to the shelter by 4:30, and Ron seems to be feeling good, too. I had not thought Ron was slowing me down that much, but, hiking alone this afternoon, I realized that he is. It doesn’t really bother me as long as we average 12-17 miles a day. It is nice to have him along.

I’m not as glum today as I was yesterday, and I think it’s because I got a chance to walk alone, which somehow made me fell less lonely than I felt last night.

I thought I might get a lot of writing done tonight, but we’ve been talking so much that it’s not working out that way.

***

Dear Sir or Madam,

Please find enclosed a sample column of a series of articles that I would like to write for the Beaumont Enterprise. I am a native of southeast Texas who recently graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and am spending five months hiking the Appalachian Trail, which runs 2,144 miles from Georgia to Maine.

The Appalachian Trail has many different aspects that I feel would be of interest to your readers, from the history of the trail itself, to the basic concepts of long distance hiking, to the types of people found on the trail. I have been on the trail for just over a month now and would be able to submit weekly articles for the duration of the trip if you are interested.

Please respond to the address or phone number I have listed, as messages and mail will be forwarded to me from there. I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Tim Wilson

***

2,144 miles. In a car, traveling 60 MPH, that distance can be covered in under 36 hours. On a bike traveling 20 miles an hour, it would take just over 107 hours, or just under two weeks of riding 8 hours a day. Walking, 2,144 miles takes anywhere from 4-6 months, and close to 200 people cover just that distance each year as they backpack from Georgia to Maine on the Appalachian Trail.

The Appalachian Trail, or the A.T. as it is referred to by hikers, was the brainchild of Benton Mackaye who, in 1925, set forth a plan in the Journal of the American Institute of Architects for a trail that would follow the ridge of the Appalachian Mountains from Georgia to Maine. His intent was to provide an escape to nature for all of the workers who had begun to gravitate to the industrial cities along the east coast.

It was almost two decades later (?) before the trail was completed, and it was not until 1957 (?) that Earl Shaeffer (?) became the first person to hike its entire length, thus becoming the first “thru-hiker” of the Appalachian Trail. In the 3 1/2 decades since his historic hike, many things have changed: the trail has been rerouted in countless places, backpacking equipment has become lighter and more efficient, camping has become more popular nationwide, and more people have turned to thru-hiking as a means of meditation, introspection, or escape. It is effective for all of these…

Life on the trail is simple and difficult at the same time. It is difficult because it is tiring both physically and psychologically. Aching feet, sore muscles, wet gear, blisters, and dull cuisine are discomforts that every thru-hiker faces at one time or another, often for several days or weeks at a time. But, at the same time, life is simple. Each day has a simple goal: to get to a chosen destination. Reaching that goal may be physically tiring, but there are few distractions or obstacles, other than the terrain that must be covered. In camp, life is simple, too. Early on in the trip, a hiker learns what a difference a couple of pounds of weight can make on a long uphill climb, and he quickly shaves down the contents of his backpack to the bare essentials. Making camp becomes a fixed routine, fixed by a lack of options.

So each day follows a pattern: get up, eat breakfast, break camp, hike, eat lunch, hike, make camp, eat dinner, camp. But the trail is neither tedious nor dull. Each day holds the promise of a new experience: a spectacular view from a mountaintop, the discovery of a new flower, an encounter with a wild animal, or simply a profound thought about life or nature or mankind. The trail is a fixed routine that is not a daily grind, which is a hard thing to imagine in today’s fast-paced, business-dominated, 9-to-5 society.

As far as I know, I never really ran with the idea of getting parts of my journal published as a weekly column in Beaumont’s local newspaper.

6/14/93 – Mon.

A day of firsts: first day back on the trail, first day hiking with Ron, first day with new boots. And how do I feel? A bit sluggish, actually. It felt kind of odd to get back to the trail today, as though I had been gone for a year rather than five days. The trail is like a river — the hikers move steadily along, and a break from the trail by one person does not still the current. Buck is somewhere beyond Damascus now, and Bearanoid is on his way back to New Hampshire. Even though Ron is with me, I feel strangely alone; this is not the same trail I was hiking just a week ago. Troll is still behind me, but close, as are the Children of the Trail, Parrothead and Station Break, and “Bones” (Shawn). I think I could develop a relationship with Troll similar to the one I had with Bearanoid, but I have not seen him since Wesser (which seems long ago), and he must catch up with me first. I would almost rather try to catch Buck instead. I have a new bit of respect for her. After two weeks off, she could expect to know nobody when she came back, which would be an awfully lonely prospect.

We’re staying tonight at Moreland Gap Shelter after a 13.6 mile day. Bones and Kid Creole just showed up. Shortcut is also here. He is from Akron, OH, but a lot like Bushwack, I’m afraid. Actually, he was the guy who caught a ride with Bushwack from Stecoah Gap to Fontana.

I hate leaving Julie. She cried some last night, and I just about did, too. If I do manage to finish this thru-hike, so help me I will never do anything where I have to be without her for so long again. Ron said today that he had been pressuring Andrea to move down to Dallas ASAP. He said he can’t help but worry that the first time they get to spend more than 72 hours together they’ll discover that they can’t stand each other; it’s a minor concern, but a concern nevertheless. I, on the other hand, have been able to spend so much time with Julie in the past year that this separation is threatening to drive me out of my skull.

The family reunion in Georgia was a blast, as expected. I really enjoy that half of the family — they seem to have discovered the secret to relaxing and unwinding. I really felt at times that no one there had a single care in the world other than milking as much enjoyment out of the reunion as possible. There is something to be said for that.

My pack felt heavy today, which may be due to the food I am carrying, but may also be due to the fact that I was not as rigorous in repacking my pack. My feet seem to be holding up well, but it looks like I’ll need to molefoam the sore spot on my left hip (my right hip is still a bit swollen but does not hurt). It is probably good that I am hiking with Ron, as he will keep me from pushing myself too hard right after the long break.

I’m back on the trail.
How long was I gone?
Forever it seems.
Is something wrong?
Different, I think,
Different.

This seems like a good time to cover the “…then what happened…?” with some of the characters to this point, who are also mentioned in this post:

• Troll — he ultimately had to leave the trail; I did not see him again, although we exchanged a piece of mail or two
• Bearanoid — for as much as we “clicked” on the trail, our post-trail exchanges got a bit odd; within a year, he had been born again and become a conspiracy theorist; he sent me a book as well as an audio tape that covered all of the ways the freemasons were plotting a New World Order; I let that relationship die rather abruptly
• Ron — I almost didn’t include the paragraph above…but he’s coming up on his 14th wedding anniversary with Andrea, so I suspect she’ll forgive him his concerns! She did move to Dallas, where they lived when they got married. They moved to Austin when Ron finished dental school, and they now live just west of Austin with their two kids
• Buck — well…we’re far from done with her in this journal, so we’ll just let her ride for a while…