“Walk With Me In Hell”

AT Day 82

Miles Today: 20.09

AT Mile: 1480.8

(Stony Brook [tent])

Part 1: Mid Afternoon

I worry that this entry will sound too harsh and too scornful.

Sometimes the trail is like that. And I want for these journals to be as close a reflection of the trail as I can make them. I don’t want to sit here complaining about every bad thing that comes to mind, but I also don’t want to give you something that isn’t the truth of this walk.

The miles today have been hell.

It’s the first day on trail that I’ve broken down and started screaming into the forest. It’s been the first day that I’ve dropped to one knee and struggled to rise again, and it’s been the first day that I’ve completely fallen to the ground and just laid there for several minutes before even making an attempt to get back up.

I hated everything about the Appalachian Trail today. I hated the trail, the people who made it, the people who walk it, my own choice to be here, and my excitement to share the hike via these journals. Every breath I took today was filled with anger and hate, both for myself and for the world around me.

Today I felt like I was walking through hell…

—

The humidity and heat were bad last night. Expected rain, but it never came overnight. Just a few raindrops in the sunrise hours, but nothing to bring the temperatures down.

Plinko and Stranger were out of camp early, and Hemlock and I started out at 7. From the very beginning of the day it was so hot and humid that I couldn’t tolerate it. The heat out here does something to me that I’ve never experienced before the AT. It literally makes me want to die.

Ultimately, the heat of this trail has been everything that I worried that it would be and worse. It’s been amongst the worst things that I’ve ever experienced on a hiking trail. It’s made me wish that I never started hiking. It’s made me hate the prospect of ever hiking again. It’s made me resentful to the world. It’s made me want to ruin wonderful things. It’s made me want to be alone for the rest of my life… shit… I cannot find the words to explain how much I hate hiking in this humidity and heat.

I was soaked through at the very beginning. All morning I just walked, then rang out my towel, over and over and over and over. All day. Just shedding liters of water, then squeezing out a gray sweat-water from my microfiber towel. I sweat so much that I became dizzy. Humidity levels are reading at 87% today and temps have broken 92 on my Garmin. Heat index is around 105.

This morning I had another black bug fly directly into the back of my throat and snag on my uvula. I dry heaved for several minutes, trying to make the sensation of needing to vomit go away. This same thing happened while I was hiking with Boots a few days ago. As the temperatures get higher, there seems to be more bugs. It’s probably just an illusion though. It probably just seems like more bugs when it’s this hot because instead of briefly landing on you and then taking back off, with humidity and heat like this, the bugs land on your layer of wettness and they drown and writhe. They stick to you. And there are hundreds of them. Some miles I have to set my hiking poles aside and use both hands and my towel to swat at bugs and my face. It’s terrible.

I also had a bug fly into my eye and lodge under my eyelid this morning. I spent a long time trying to get it out. I don’t know if it ever dislodged. I never saw it come out.

—

The heat and the hills and the humidity are too much for me.

Being out in this makes me want to die. There is nothing of enjoyment in today. I hate myself, the world, the trail, and everyone in the world today. I cannot conceive any reason why someone would want to hike this god-forsaken trail.

Oh yeah… I almost forgot to mention poison ivy is everywhere, as is stinging needle. I’ve broken out in small rashes and broken sores on my forearms and legs. They add more itching than the mosquito bites already make on their own.

I worried that I might not like the AT. There was no part of me that realized that I would come to hate it as much as I hate this today.

If there is a god, he does not live here.

—

Part 2: Evening

It’s raining heavily now, but it’s still hot and the mosquitoes don’t seem to mind the rain. Temps have dropped some with the coming of this storm a few hours back, but it’s still hot enough that I’m actively sweating as I lay here in my tent, listening to heavy rain outside.

We spent much of the afternoon waiting out the heat in the town of Kent. Back into it around 4, but it was still above 90 degrees.

Plinko, Hemlock, and I are all set up in tents by this river. It’s been so wet. Everything is soaked. First from sweat this morning, then from the rain. But it’s so hot that I’m still sweating and will continue through the night. I have nothing to wear tomorrow that isn’t already wet.

We set camp earlier than normal this evening. We were all beat down today. But I feel like the heat affects me the worst. Or maybe I just show it on the outside more than the others. I wonder if I’m that way with all of my emotions.

Tomorrow we’ll continue walking.

Wormwood.