“Bicycle Day”

AT Day 9

Miles: 26.98

Total Miles: 216.56

(Mt Collins Shelter, TN)

Warning: These journals moving forward will discuss drug use. My hope in sharing these parts of the story are to educate and share what I hope to model as responsible use. If this isn’t your jam, please don’t read today’s entry.

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Today was the absolutely most magical day that I’ve had on the AT, or possibly any of the long trails that I’ve hiked. It was absolutely unbelievable in every sense of the word.

I had considered doing this thing that we did as I climbed up into the Smokeys yesterday afternoon. I was absolutely blown away by the beauty of the high mountain flowers up here, so much so that I decided that today I wanted to do something special. Something came prepared to do on trail, but didn’t know when it would happen.

And I didn’t even realize until later today, that April 19th is considered Bicycle Day, until after we were already into it.

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Last night I camped by the shelter with several other hikers, none of whom I’d met before. I didn’t really connect with any of them, except one lent me a lighter to start my Jet Boil because I had left mine back at camp.

That hiker ended up heading out of camp early this morning and getting right to trail. It kind of caught me off guard, as I was hoping to be one of the first to trail this morning. I wanted to have the time and space to myself, and I knew that none of the other AT hikers would be near, as we’re all required to camp at shelters in the National Park. So the next nearest hiker would be 5 miles up ahead at the next shelter, and if I got to trail first I’d mostly have the trail to myself this morning.

But that hiker bolted right back into camp about 30 seconds after he walked by me, breaking my own camp and packing my pack.

“Hey, do you guys want to see a bear?!” He asked. And immediately I darted up to follow him up trial.

Ultimately we never ended up seeing the bear again, but for some reason, in the moment, it seemed appropriate to ask if he wanted to join me for the day and take part in the adventure I was about to get into.

“Hey man,” I said to him. “I was just about to take acid and start hiking for the day. Do you want to join me?”

He said yes, and it ended up being the first time I’ve had a trip like that with an otherwise complete stranger.

He’s an ECT hiker, meaning that he’s been hiking from Florida and started at the end of December. He’s strong, but ultimately we realized after most of the day together that we aren’t as close to one another’s pace as we’d like to be. But I was able to slow down a bit today and he was able to speed up a bit today. And what resulted was one of the best L experiences of my life.

We were both experienced in it, and both experienced out here on trail, so we both knew that the other could handle things if we needed to go independent and seperate.

The flowers and the mountains were a kind of unbelievable that can’t be put into words. The forest danced and breathed and the colors flowed from the sky to the leaves to the trail and back into us. We both wondered about the journeys of the little beetles alongside the trail and whether their wanderings and wondering were any more or any less important than our own.

Time and space became very slippery.

We smiled with intensity for miles, although the meaning of a mile lost most of its meaning to us along that first hour or two out from camp.

We realized that 5 miles had passed like the blink of an eye, while we both reminisced about our past relationships with friends and lovers, reflected about our lives and our hikes of the AT so far. We talked about how we’ve both been affected by the trail up to here, and how we expect to be changed further from here.

He was a super solid dude. A bit younger than me, but then everyone seems to think that I’m younger than I am, so it kind of fits that I end up hiking with others who are a little bit younger.

Up to today he had only done up to about 15 miles per day, but we both toyed with the idea of doing big big miles and doing 33 today to get past newfound gap. Ultimately we decided not to.

The trip peaked and passed mostly in the first five hours today. Even into the evening I was glowing however. This place is absolutely magical!

The other hiker I was with liked taking breaks more than I do, so at one point we just pulled aside on trail and melted into the little purple flowers and grasses. It was a rare day for me to actually relax for a bit.

We hiked together until the early afternoon, maybe 6 or 7 hours before the heat of the day got to him and he peeled back. We may see one another tomorrow in Gatlenburg. Or at Trail Days, or up ahead on the AT. Hard to say.

But after so much time hiking alone last week, I’m finally starting to feel like I’m finding my people, and that feels really good.

Ultimately I ended up hiking about 27 miles today, about 4.5 miles short of Newfound Gap where I’ll hitch into Gatlenburg tomorrow for resupply.

So much more to say, but it’s becoming late and I’m camped here around at least a dozen other hikers who can undoubtedly hear my fingers on a keyboard, so I better call it.

With love.

Wormwood.

Happy bicycle day!