April 11, 2008
Meet Pine Knot, Chill, and Sitesee!
Just as the early spring wildflowers appear to be near their peak of bloom, the parade of northbound spring thru-hikers traversing the Great Smoky Mountains is simultaneously reaching a crescendo.
Coming into work early this morning, I encountered a half dozen thru-hikers clustered at the boundary of Gatlinburg and Great Smoky Mountains National park, all eagerly hoping for a lift up to the Appalachian Trail at Newfound Gap. They had stopped in at the park gateway community yesterday afternoon to refresh their supplies, shower, eat some huge meals, and sleep in a bed with sheets. I had room for three in my small hatchback, Pine Knot, Sitesee, and Chill.
Pine Knot, aka Monica, got her trail name from Chill, who had commented after a particularly hard day of hiking, “why you’re as tough as a pine knot, aren’t you.” Hailing from Idaho, Pine Knot is one of the rare Westerners hiking the famous eastern trail this year. Asked what had convinced her to ‘Head East Young Woman,’ she replied “It sounded a bit more structured and easier logistically than the Western long trails.”
Easier, but easy? Not at all. Pine Knot vividly recalls the 17 miles of uphill trail from the Nantahala Outdoor Center as well as the 17 miles starting from Fontana Dam (1,800’ above sea level to 5,050’). She is a bit concerned because she is losing weight, and that wasn’t really in the game plan. Her trail diet: instant rice, peanut butter, crackers, and pop tarts. Her big splurge in Gatlinburg: Chef Salad. She says that after hiking with a 28 pound pack all day she doesn’t really have a huge appetite.
So far Pine Knot’s favorite experiences have been watching wild turkeys from her sleeping bag and in general the feeling of affirmation that she made the right decision about spending three seasons of her life walking 2,100 miles on steep, rocky trails. She had never camped alone and had her doubts. Most of all she looks forward to seeing the East’s varied landscapes and all the places she has never seen before.
Her advice to prospective thru-hikers: GO LIGHT! Pine Knot started out “light” and shed ten pounds of gear her first week.
For Chill, aka Gary Childress, this is his second time hiking the Appalachian Trail. He thru-hiked in 2006, worked for a year, then thought, what the heck, let’s do it again.
Just like riding a bicycle? “I thought my legs would come back quicker, muscle memory and all that, but I guess they forgot. My hamstrings are still a little weak.” But for a 50-year-old, Chill seems to be holding up extremely well.
What’s different the second time around? “I plan to stop and rest more this time. And I’m carrying less food. I think I was more social the first time, but I’m starting to warm up to people again now. I’m going to meet some trail friends from the first hike in a couple of weeks and we’re going to do some miles together.”
Thus far on Thru Hike II, his favorite part has been “the views from Rocky Top.”
Chill’s advice for the novice backpacker: GO LIGHT! Have an experienced thru-hiker check your gear and make suggestions. No phone. No radio. No journal. No camera. No accessories. In fact, once the weather warms a bit more, Spartan Chill even plans to abandon his stove and “eat cold” for the rest of the journey.
Sitesee, age 56 of Green Bay Wisconsin, aka Roy Seidle, has a somewhat ironic trail name. He is so focused on his goal of reaching Mt. Katahdin, Maine, he rarely deviates from the AT, even for scenic overlooks. His favorite part of every day is reaching the night’s trail shelter; mission accomplished.
Like many other thru-hikers, part of his inspiration was Bill Bryson’s book, A Walk in the Woods. The other part was bragging to all his friends and family over the last ten years that this is what he’s going to do when he retires. Yes folks, take it from me, he is now really walking the walk.
Sitesee has lost 12 pounds since Springer Mountain, Georgia. His biggest surprise thus far has been just how difficult this whole Appalachian Trail thing really is.
“I’m Rabbit’s Foot,” he says. “That’s my trail name.”
He’s an AT thru-hiker, tall, with straight, sun-bleached blond hair and a tan that highlights his light blue eyes. He’d spent the night in town and was standing alongside the road, hoping to hitch a ride back to the AT when my boss picked him up and offered to take him to Newfound Gap — if he’d let us interview him first.
Meet Rabbit’s Foot:
Rabbit’s Foot started hiking on March 9 at Springer Mountain, GA. He says he’s going to hike the whole way (2,160 miles) and I believe him. He radiates good health, energy, and a can-do attitude.
“In August I was in Mexico and read A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson,” he says. “That’s what made me think I might want to do it. I was a Boy Scout, an Eagle Scout.”
“I got back from Mexico about Thanksgiving and looked at www.WhiteBlaze.net. I was amazed at the number of online tips from former hikers. And that they would make an effort to help other people out like that. Nothing I read stuck though, until I got on the trail.”
But then it didn’t take long for “trail magic” to appear, he tells me.
“Trail magic?” I ask.
“I was two days out of Neal’s Gap, with a loose group I’d started out with. I came up on a couple, White Bear and Cujo. They’d set up a grill and made stew, hotdogs, and hamburgers for thru-hikers.”
“After I ate, I pulled out my wallet to pay them, and they said, ‘No, no, no, we did the trail last year and we just want to give back.’”
“It almost brought tears to my eyes.”
“They took everyone’s picture. And they’d set out armchairs for people to sit in. It was great to be able to sit in a chair and have food in my belly.”
I ask how old he is and am shocked when he says, forty-eight. He doesn’t look it.
“I met a man on the trail from Perth, Australia. He had to be seventy!” Then he adds, “It’s amazing how nice the people are you meet on the trail. They mix and match and seem to leave all their worries at home.”
“I have two heroes now. One day, I’d walked thirteen or fourteen miles when I came to a big domed tent with about a thirty foot circumference. There was a sign that said, ‘Trail Angel.’”
“When I got closer I saw there were actually two tents. One for the thru-hikers and another one for this guy, Apple, to stay in. He had coolers, a grill, a stove. It was nice. Inside the hikers’ tent all around the edge were chairs and in the center was a pot belly stove. It was cold that day. When I got there, nearly all of the chairs were occupied. People were sitting in there with plates on laps, getting warm, eating hotdogs.”
“Apple had been doing this for years. He was from Texas, and was the nicest man, a retired business man. He was so relaxed. He wouldn’t take any donations either.”
I ask how he keeps in touch with the outside world.
“When I go into a town I might have to email four or five people who are important. Another way is if you go to www.TrailJournal.com and put in a name, they’ll give you trail notes from that person so you can see where they are.
I’m from Boston and New Hampshire, the White Mountains are mostly what I think of as home. But I’ve spent the last two years in Jacksonville, Florida.”
“For three weeks I’ve had no iPod, no radio. I like that. I like to be disconnected. It’s so nice to be disconnected from the election. Last night in the hotel room I turned on the television and it’s the same as when I left.”
Are you having any worries, I ask.
“I worry about getting enough food in my body. Everyday you burn close to 6,000 calories. I worry about losing too much weight.”
I laugh about Bryson’s assertion that he could eat Snickers Bars all day while hiking and not get fat.
“You can eat whatever you want, whenever you want. But you have to consider meal and weight management for the food you’re carrying.”
“When I started out, my pack was too heavy. It weighed forty-eight pounds. So I stopped at an outfitter and he did a shakedown of my pack, a guy named Adam. He checked out everything I was carrying. He found fourteen pounds worth of gear I could forgo. For example, he took my tube of toothpaste and squeezed out eight-tenths of it. He took my tube of Neosporin and took out three-fourths of it.”
“He took out my scissors, all but two Band-Aids, instead of carrying a whole box. I had three fleece jackets. He convinced me to get a down jacket instead, because it is lighter and takes up less room. I’d brought a cotton thermal shirt, but now I use a thermal max instead,” he gestures at the shirt he’s wearing. “He took out my plastic razor and blades,” he says, rubbing his unshaven face ruefully.
“And I’ve learned how to lightened my load with better food management. Now my pack is down to twenty-eight pounds, and that includes the food and water.”
I ask if he has seen food and fancy gear strewn along the trail, cast off by hikers trying to light their load, as described in A Walk in the Woods.
“I haven’t seen any gear discarded beside the trail, but there are different places you stop where you can look in ‘hiker boxes’ at the stuff left by hikers that maybe another hiker can use.
He smiles and says with awe, “It’s amazing. There’s this sharing amongst other hikers on the trail. People you don’t know will share with you.”
He mentions meeting other hikers. He refers to them as Avalanche, Halftime, and Handyman.
I ask about the origin of the names.
“Trail names are given to you by other hikers. You don’t bring it to the trail. People who passed me saw I had a rabbit’s foot hanging from my pack. That’s how I got my name.”
I ask why he’s carrying a rabbit’s foot.
“It belonged to my grandfather. He had a great life. He brought up my mother really well. So far it has brought me luck, too. It’s nice to have a piece of my grandfather with me along the trail.”
Are you enjoying yourself, I ask.
“I like sleeping outside. All those things I learned as a scout are coming back to be used now. I see others without the skills and confidence I have. I’ve been smiling since the first day.”
“I keep remembering what I heard in Neal’s Gap from the outfitter: ‘It’s not the miles, it’s the smiles.’ I don’t have a set mileage I try to make each day. I’m going to go until my body and my feet tell me to stop.”
“But in the Smokies you need to stay in a shelter, so you have to be aware of your mileage. It’s a little different than the rest of the trail. No other part of the trail is like that.”
I mention that Bryson and Katz abandoned the hike in Gatlinburg.
He smiles, shrugs, and says, “Some people are bothered by the cold, but I appreciate the fact that it’s cool now, because later it won’t be. And some people notice there are no leaves, but I enjoy the fact that there’s no foliage now, because soon you want be able to see the view. But I couldn’t believe the numbers of people here, and I couldn’t believe how beautiful it was.”
Then he remembers another moment of kindness. “Some guy and his wife drove all the way down from Ohio with a minivan. They sat with the back open, giving out fried chicken, Gatorade, cookies, hotdogs, and hamburgers, because they knew this was when the hikers come thru. They said they do it for four or five days every year.”
“It reminds me of what a great country America is, of the things we forget about. America has so much to offer.”
What about women hiking the trail, I ask.
“At first I was nervous about meeting females,” he says, “I didn’t want to worry them by talking to them. I believe they feel very safe on the trail. I hike with Driftwood. She’s twenty-four years old from Long Island. She keeps up with all the guys. She’s been traveling with two guys from Maine.”
“There are Iraqi Vets on the trail, too, and an ex-marine.”
“Hiking is restoring my faith in America,” he says. “I’m so lucky to have the time to do this, to have this experience. I’m very fortunate that I can do it.”
What’s the funniest or wackiest thing you’ve seen, I ask.
“I heard rumors before I left about mice in the shelters. You feel them running on your sleeping bag and turn on a light and see fifteen or twenty mice running over people’s sleeping bags. You’re sleeping with fifteen to eighteen people in a shelter with everyone’s sleeping bags hanging above you up in the air, sleeping with people you don’t know.”
“That’s strange, very strange, but nice too.”
“At first I didn’t sleep too well, but after walking fifteen miles, hiking up a 6,000’ hill, you sleep. The last shelter I slept in, I was so glad when I got there that Steak & Shake wasn’t there because he was the snorer. He was keeping people up because he was snoring so loud.”
“People on the trail are so considerate of others – there are no conflicts, not even angry words at snorers or people who have to get up during the night and go to the bathroom.”
I ask what sorts of things he notices about trail hygiene deficits.
“I don’t notice other people’s smells or hygiene,” he says, “but I notice if their hands are dirty. At night when you meet up at a shelter, you spend time near people who’ve not showered in two weeks. You see their hands when they are cooking. I notice really dirty hands.” He smiles at this.
I ask what he thinks he will find at the end of the trail.
“Right now,” he says, “I think when I finish I’ll want to turn around and go back.”
Walk the whole trail in the other direction? I ask.
He smiles and nods.
I ask him to contact me again later, if he feels like it, and give us all an update. He says he will.
I ask what he’d like me to say for him on the blog.
He says, “You can tell my family and friends: ‘I miss you and I love you and I will talk to you soon.’”
I can tell he’s anxious to get back to the trail and is mentally readying himself to stand up and leave, but then notices all the books strewn around my office. He takes one in his hands and looks at it. “I don’t have a book,” he says, longingly, “that’s hard for me. Reading is a passion.”
He reluctantly sets the book back down on my desk, committed to traveling light, and leaves my office. As he walks away I wrestle with the impulse to ask his real name, but, then, I don’t. I don’t want to intrude into the alternate universe he’s found on the trail and is inhabiting through his determination and courage.
He’s stumbled onto an enclave populated by thoughtful, helpful people. He’s experiencing the kindness of strangers who are actually kind. We’re all starved for such a place. We all pray it exists somewhere. He’s discovered it and is obviously reveling in it.
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this…
—William Shakespeare. Richard II. Act II, Scene 2.
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Foam Flowers
