“We’ve Been Expecting You”

AT Day 111

Miles Today: 19.90

AT Mile: 1799.4

(Hikers Welcome Hostel)

The heat and humidity on this trail are oppressive. I search to try and find better words for it, but I’ve come to terms with the fact that there are some things in life that are so beautiful or so awful that there are no words to describe them. The heat of the Appalachian Trail is one of those things.

It is absolutely terrible. Horrible. Deplorable. Awful. Oppressive. Enveloping…. I could go on.

The point is that it’s’ bad.

In my experience, the heat of this trail has been the worst thing. And that’s stated in the face of the rain, the tree-tunnel, the ticks, the crowds, and even f*cking norovirus! None of them have been as bad as the heat.

Shoot–if God came down today and gave me the choice of either taking these temperatures like I’ve had the last few days *or* going through norovirus again, I’d pick the latter! At least that way I can get some rest and not feel like I’m draining my soul out of every pore. Not saying that “Riding The Noro Dragon” was any fun… just that the heat is actually that bad.

God it’s terrible.

If I ever get the idea in my head at some point in the future that I want to bring my ass back out to hike in the east, it’s only going to be after sustaining a major head injury that prevents me from remembering just how much the heat of the Appalachian Trail has sucked!

I hiked the desert miles of the Pacific Crest Trail. Nowhere *near* this bad!

I’ve walked the deserts and Great Divide Basin of the CDT. Still not as bad as this. Not even in the same ballpark.

Shit… I’ve lived and hiked through all of Arizona for 20 years, and still I’ve never experienced hiking in the heat like I find out here.

It’s just miserable.

So, that’s the reason that I got a big shit-eating-smile on my face when I checked my maps a couple days back and saw that there is a hostel here for me to stay at tonight. Actually, that’s not true; two days ago I grimaced when I saw how far it was going to be before I could get to this hostel as I thought about the heat that I was going to have to swim through along the way.

Last night was nice of course, because I was camped up above 3,000ft elevation. But of course the trail dropped right down into three digits this morning and then proceeded up and down for the rest of the 20 miles today.

Twenty miles wasn’t anything to be impressed by earlier in the trail, but now with the humidity and heat, it’s hard for me to manage.

I meet other hikers who don’t seem as impacted by it as I am. But maybe they’re more adapted to the humidity than I am as well. I’m not pretending that the other hikers don’t struggle with the discomforts of the trail much in the same way that I do, but I do see a difference between us. Maybe it’s just in how I handle it compared to them, but from what I can observe, I seem to sweat my clothes all the way through before most hikes even seem to have a ring of sweat around their neck. It just pours off of me! In the heat of the day it’s consnantly dropping off my face, my elbows, my nuckles, and my shirt is soaked through and through. I had the thought today that I’m glad my backpack is so waterproof, because otherwise all the gear on the inside of my pack would get drenched from the sweat as well!

—

So there was the heat today, but fortunately it wasn’t *quite* as hot as the last two days. Maybe two or three degrees cooler. And I also had the thought that after 20 miles I was going to have a shower and a place to stay.

Between me and you… … … I’m thinking about maybe even doing a Zero day here at this hostel tomorrow.

Even though the temps are predicted to drop dramatically tomorrow, my soul and my will are beat down from the heat. This heat just f*cking hurts me in ways that are hard to describe. It literally hurts something inside of me the way that no other physical challenges of the trail do.

I could Zero here tomorrow then go into the big mountains of the Whites the following day. If I go out into it tomorrow I’m going to be in the clouds and maybe even some rain in my first peak of the day. I’ve been advised to wait until after it passes.

I might.

So many stories of the trail every day… so hard to get them onto the page.

—

After I checked into the hostel, one of the care takers mentioned that “Patience” was excited to hear that I’d arrived. The name struck me immediately, but then I had to think back. I hadn’t met a Patience on the AT. I was thinking of “Peace” at first. The last Patience I’d met was on the Colorado Trail in 2018, and… then sure as shit, the guy from 2018 saunters in! We hung out in Salida, CO for two days seven years ago while he was going SOBO on the CT and I was going NOBO. We have followed one another on social media since, but I didn’t know that he was going to be here!

When I asked why he hadn’t messaged me to tell me that he’s here, he shrugged and said, “I knew you’d stop in.”

So much more that I’d like to write, but as always, I put these journals off to too late, then I’m way too tired when I do sit down to write. So I need to call it a day. Need to write more on some things tomorrow. Much more to be said.

Wormwood.