“The 4th of July”

AT Day 85

Miles Today: 14.66

AT Mile: 1541.5

(North Wilcox Mt. Shelter [tent])

Today has been my first really pleasant day on trail in a minute! It reminded me why I like hiking in the first place. Several times today, I said to the others that I can almost see how this kind of thing could actually be fun if the days were all like today.

It was a much needed change from the hell that we’ve been slogging through these last couple of weeks.

That heat man… I just cannot say enough about how oppressive the heat and humidity have been. And by contrast, how wonderful today was–still warm, but not humid and with a breeze most of the day. So far I’m developing a fondness for Massachusetts that I never found in Connecticut.

—

The feather… I need to share more about the feather. To anyone who’s new to these journals, you can skip ahead or read back on the feather journals from before; I’ve written about it at least twice.

A quick catch up though, for everyone else: I found that owl feather in Georgia on my second day of the trail, carried it with me for over a thousand miles, then lost it just after Harpers Ferry when it slipped out from my pack’s chest strap. Then a southbound hiker found it and was going to send it back to me, but that’s where we left things–presuming that the feather was back now.

Well, it didn’t turn out so well after all. Last week, while I was at Hemlock’s place for my day off trail, I reached out to the gal who found it, asking if she’d mailed it yet. To my surprise, she wrote back saying that she was just about to text me that day and ask if I’d received it yet. She’d sent it over a week prior, and said it should have arrived “many days ago.”

That was a week ago now, and it still hasn’t arrived. The gal even texted me a photo of the owl feather, wrapped up and the envelope addressed to Hemlock’s place in Connecticut. But it never showed up.

I’ve had three different people reach out and celebrate that I found it again after my last writing on the feather, but unfortunately it’s still MIA. Funny though, the people that I tell about it seem more upset than I am. I already made peace with its being gone. It’s something that I wrote about not long after it was lost–that I knew it would come back if it was meant to come back, and if not, then it wouldn’t. In my heart of hearts, I still feel like the story of the feather is no more “done” than my hike of the AT is today. Maybe there will be nothing more to come of it, but I’m still hopeful that if it’s meant to go on, then the story will go on. There will maybe be more with time.

—

Today’s the Fourth of July, and although I don’t have much feeling for the holiday, it meant that many people were off work today, and there seemed to be a festive feeling in the air.

We got a ride out of town quickly from an eccentric lady whose name we missed because we were so glued to the road, and the ping-pong-speed dialogue that bounced around the car between her and the rest of us. She may have been on some form of speed. Or maybe she was just like that. But she moved as fast as the car.

She told us that she saw us hitching but that she’d been headed the other direction to buy cannabis with her sister’s debit card, because yesterday was her birthday. (All true story) But when she saw us, she says she had to turn around and give us a ride.

“Get in–I don’t give a fuck where you’re going!” It was the first thing she said as she pulled off the road and I asked for a ride back to trail. She had on a brightly colored, paint-splash-print sun dress and Elton John sun glasses with a personality that I already explained was likely influenced by a stimulant of questionable legality. But she was a quick ride back to trail for the three of us, and hard to say no to.

When we got out, she was floored that “this” was the Appalachain Trail. Just this little line in the dirt that cuts out into the forest. She had always thought that it was something bigger, I guess. Or more well defined. I can’t blame her though. I maybe had that image of the trail before I got out here or at least into thru hiking. It’s easy to imagine it as something bigger than it is, merely because it’s so long and so well known. But for all intents and purposes, if you take a little piece of the AT and look at it in isolation like our ride back to trail did today, it appears notably unassuming.

As I pulled my pack from her car, I noticed that another coyote tooth had fallen out from the skull that I have affixed to the back of my gear. I picked it up and turned to our sundressed choffier. “I have something very strange to ask,” I began, thinking back to the Bitter Old Man and how he refused to so much as understand my offer when I presented it to him a couple weeks ago.

“Anything.” She replied.

“Do you want a coyote tooth?” And I reached out to hand her the tooth.

“Oh my god; totally! I even have a coyote skull at home and I got it from Arizona. I’m going to put this next to that one!”

I told her about the Bitter Old Man and how he hadn’t wanted one when I offered it to him, and how he’d inspired me to order a whole bag of coyote teeth that I’m going to start carrying with me up trail. But this one seemed so perfect for her, having fallen out of the skull in the back of her car. Maybe it’s morbid… or maybe it’s just part of this crazy life and this crazy hike and this crazy story. Any way I look at it though, it felt to me like a magikal human connection on the Appalachian Trail.

—

There was trail magic all over the place today. Well… I guess only twice “formally” but all day the trail was “magik.” This morning we got that ride so quickly, then at mile ten there was a sign that said “Trail Magic 600 steps” away. We all three debated whether it was just a trap to get us into a church or something, but it turned out to be legit. There was this couple that had a property just off trail that just so happened to have a little chapel on it, and they had an awesome trail magic setup for the weekend. Hot food, drinks, shade, fruit, and the works. It was so nice that we spent around an hour with them before continuing back to trail and finding yet another trail magic setup only 100 yards up trail from the last. Then an hour later we made it to a lake to go swimming. While we were there we got into a conversation with a couple in their 60s who said they were interested in long distance hiking and especially interested in the CDT. That we had all three hiked the PCT and CDT was especially impressive to them, and it was interesting to realize as we talked that the three of us are a unique bunch on the AT, having all three almost completed our triple crowns. Something else that came up, but I hadn’t realized before: I look at Hemlock and Plinko with the greatest respect and admiration as thru hikers. They’re literally amongst the most accomplished hikers I know personally, and I authentically think of myself as struggling to keep up with them or even live up to the reputation that they both have. That said however, as we talked with that couple, it dawned on me that I now have at least as many or more long distance trail miles than either of them–having hiked the CT, AZT and the TRT twice. Not that it does anything to invalidate their hikes, but rather, it is an amazing example of how we can sometimes look at ourselves compared to how we look up to others. Such an interesting moment to me today.

—

The swim in the lake this afternoon was magical. It’s been so insanely hot this last week, and I haven’t had a real shower since leaving Hemlock’s on Monday. It’s now Friday. I knew that I was filthy and sticky, but only after getting into the water and then back to trail did I realize how much I’d been needing that. I need to take note of how much of a difference it made, and not let myself get to that level of filth on trail again. It lowers my disposition so much!

—

The three of us are the only three camped at this shelter tonight, but we’re all set up in our tents because the mosquitos are so viscous. I got more bug spray in town, but when you’re hiking they still attack if you stop moving even for an instant. They aren’t as bad as they were in Connecticut, but they’re still a force to recon with.

—

We were wanting to get a few more miles in tonight, but the campsite that we had our sights on has comments about it being recently frequented by bears. There are some notes from just last week that bear activity at that site in particular has been very high, and so out of caution we decided to cut the day short and camp here. It’s allowed time to rest and settle down earlier than normal, and that’s been nice.

Shoot… it’s almost like there might be something to *not* hitting 30 mile days every day and spending some time in the water instead.

Here’s to the days ahead.

Wormwood.