“A Bear, a Mouse, & a Raven”

AT Day 41

Miles: 14.87

Total Miles: 731.21

(Four Pines Hostel, VA)

The last 24 hours have given me the most encounters with wildlife that I’ve had on the Appalachian Trail. Not that it was anything all that noteworthy, but for the most part I don’t really see much wildlife out here. So to have any encounters at all is sort of a big deal, within the context.

First, I’m pretty confident that there was a bear roaming around at camp last night. I can’t say for sure, but I’m fairly confident about it.

I started to hear it while I was still writing in my tent, but it was up on the hill from where I was camped. There are often sounds of animals tromping around in the fallen leaves at night, but you can tell the difference between a big animal and a smaller one. After you’ve been out here for a long time, you become familiar with what something *should* sound like. This wasn’t a mouse or a squirrel. It also wasn’t a deer. If anything, it sounded like a person (or something at least as large as a person) stepping around in the forest vegetation. Over the course of an hour it got closer and closer to my tent until eventually I became a bit uncomfortable, reached out from my tent, and zipped up the rain fly closure.

The though occurred to me that it was funny that I’ve invested so much money in this ultra lite tent, with space-age material so thin that it weighs almost nothing, and that I’m zipping it up to create a 1 or 2 millimeter barrier between myself and what it probably a bear outside of my tent. As if that’s going to provide any protection at all.

There is a lot of controversy about food storage on the AT. And I don’t usually talk about it a lot, because I have made the choice to keep my food with me at camp at night. If a bear eats me over the next 1500 miles, may this journal be a testament to my personal stupidity and proof that you do in fact need to hang your food at night. But this isn’t Grizzly Bear country. This is Black Bear Country. And from what I can tell, it seems like they aren’t the ones that are going to eat me in my tent.

I guess you could say that I’m willing to bet my life on it.

I had trouble getting to sleep after the bear came by camp last night. But eventually I must have. Because eventually I was sleeping heavily and deeply.

That is, until the mouse ran across my face. At first I wasn’t sure exactly what was happening. It’s disorienting waking up in that little tent, where the fabric is basically 6 inches above my face. But I thought it was a mouse right away. Then I reached over to my headlamp to light the space inside my tent. And sure enough, there was a little mouse there.

It took me the better part of 20 minutes to get myself out of my tent, and then take everything else out, so that I could shoo the mouse out of my tent, put everything back in, and get back to sleep.

Be assured, this will be the last time that I accidentally leave my tent opened 6 inches. I’d opened it to piss just an hour before, and the mouse managed to slip in after I came back in but left the zipper just barely open.

It sort of made me uncomfortable, but that’s also life out here. Be assured–I didn’t sign up for it so that I could shit in a hole and have mice run across my face at night, but that’s just part of the game if you want to thru hike this trail. I’m also not a big fan snakes on trail. But we still do it…

—

Then today I had an incredibly strange encounter with a raven.

He was preached on a log, right beside the trail, and squawking aggressively. I stood there for a minute, not sure exactly what to do. But eventually I figured that if I continued on he’d fly off, but I was wrong. When I went towards him, he lunged towards me, continued squawking, and even started to fly at me. He got so close that I had to swat him away with my hiking pole, because I’m pretty sure he was going to come in and either claw at me or peck me. I didn’t need to get off trail because of being mauled by a damn bird. Better that than a bear, maybe. But still, I didn’t want a bird-induced injury.

My best guess is that he was probably injured.

I’ve never seen a bird act that way before. He was in a literal “Fight or Flight” mode.

I was in the height of the mushrooms when I encountered the raven that attacked me. And it was hard for me not to read below the surface. Or at least feel like I was reading below the surface.

I felt like I understood the raven, in his hurt state. It reminded me that we’re animalistic too. That we as people also become aggressive when we are hurt. Even to the ones who mean us no harm. And in that aggression we may do ourselves further harm inadvertently.

—

It did eventually rain last night, but it wasn’t until late–in the early hours of the morning. Can’t remember if it was before or after the mouse thing. I think that the mouse was after the rain. But I could be mistaken. I was so so tired.

When it started to rain it feels to me like it all started out of nowhere. Like it went from nothing at all to the sky absolutely falling out of the sky.

It’s made me a bit nervous, the idea of big rains in my new tent. Yes it’s a “new” tent, but that also means that I haven’t tested it out like I had my other tent. My old 2-person tent I had camped in literally hundreds of nights. This new one is a completely new style to me, and it scares me how little it is in a big storm. I know that I’ll get used to it, but for now the thought of something going wrong or the pole blowing over at night just freaks me out still. I don’t think that’ll actually happen, and I’m sure that I’ll grow comfortable with this tent too, but it may take some time. Ultimately, I really love the tent though. It sets and breaks down so quickly! And I like the more minimalistic approach. I feel closer to the wilderness and less separated at night now. I guess having a f*cking mouse crawl across your face at night will do that for you.

—

At one point this morning I met a couple new hikers. The first of them asked my name and when I told him it was “Wormwood,” he asked if I was a demon in training. He was referring to “The Screwtape Letters.” I’ve had people ask the same before.

I told him that wasn’t where the name came from, and promised that I wasn’t a demon, but also conceded that a demon would probably lie about being a demon, so it would be hard to tell.

About a half hour later I met another hiker. He asked my name, and when I told him “Wormwood,” he told me that he’d heard about me. “Yeah, you’re the ‘pushup guy,’” he said.

I laughed a bit. I guess enough people have seen me doing pushups on trail or at the shelters now that some people have taken note. I haven’t seen anyone else doing it, so I suppose that “pushup guy” isn’t inappropriate. That said, I’m glad that it isn’t my trail name. I’m happy with Wormwood.

A half hour later I reached a trail junction where there was another hiker. She was sitting down and there were two other trails intersecting there. I said hello and asked if this was what it appeared to be–a “crossroads” on the trail.

She said it was.

“You know what that means then?” I asked. “Literarily, if we’re meeting at the crossroads, then one of us must be the devil.”

She laughed, and I reached up and touched my nose. “Not it,” I said.

Later on she mentioned that she liked the tattoo on my leg, as her boyfriend walked up from the other direction. “This is ‘Pushup guy’” he said. And I told him no, that my name is just “Wormwood.”

I giggled and went on my way down trail.

—

I noted at some point today that I feel something different in myself at this point of the Appalachian Trail. I don’t feel the same way that I felt at the beginning, or like anything that I’ve felt on other trails or other points in my life. I feel changed by the AT in a way that is good and palpable.

It’s a shift that I didn’t feel before the (L)ove trip yesterday in the afterglow of it today. Like something is shifted. It doesn’t feel anywhere near complete, but it is clearly shifted.

I feel more confident in myself, more comfortable in discomfort, and more at home on this trail. I’ve found myself thinking to future trails. That I want to do more thru hiking after the AT. I’ve given some thought to trying to hurry through the AT so that I can get on another, shorter trail, before the end of the year. But any time that comes to mind I try to dismiss it. There will be time for other trails another year. For now I really just want to enjoy the AT.

But after the AT, I see myself hiking the Pacific Northwest Trail and the Hayduke Trail. I’m not sure in which order. I’m not sure when. But I think both are very likely.

—

Tonight I’m staying at Four Pines Hostel. There are quite a few other hikers here tonight, and the weather is still a bit sour. It didn’t rain too much through the day today, but it certainly threatened to do so. It’s likely that it’ll rain tonight.

There was more rain in the forecast when I checked earlier this week, but as of more recently, it looks like we might have good weather for the rest of the week.

—

Tomorrow will bring me to Mckafee’s Knob–one of the more iconic photo opportunities of the trail. I’m not usually one to care too much about that on this hike, but since the weather could be nice, I might try to make it there when some other hikers are there to snap a pic for me.

Starting to grow tired and need to go check to see if my tent is dry.

Wormwood.

Out.