AT Day 44

Miles: 28.40

Total Miles: 810.70

(Marble Ridge; retired dirt road; tent)

I was talking to somebody at Huckleberry’s Hostel a few nights back. He was the owner of the hostel, and a former thru hiker. If I’m not mistaken, he hiked the AT last year.

Anyways, we got to talking, and he became really prescriptive about “how” someone should hike the AT. Now I’ve heard this kind of thing many times over; plenty of people have their opinion about how to hike a thru hike. But that’s where the saying “Hike your own hike” comes from. It means that you get to make your own rules.

But this time I didn’t get that feel as he talked to me. In fact, I really liked some of the things that he shared. He talked about taking a “Trail Zero” on his second to last day of the AT, immediately before summiting Katadan (which I still have many miles to figure out how to spell correctly). He said someday I should just sit beside the trail and watch the other thru hikers as they march by.

There was more to it as well, but the point is that I really liked what he shared.

—

I had been a bit worried yesterday that my brain was getting sort of worn out after the experiences around that day at Mackafee’s Nob. But then I got a mostly full night of sleep last night and feel much better today. I even woke up to my tent door wide open; not the first time that I’ve done that now. Glad that this time a mouse didn’t crawl in.

—

Today I had a friend from Arizona join me for some miles of the AT. We met at the gym when he commented on the trail tattoos that I have on the back of my ankle. He asked when I was going to do the AT, and I told him April 11th. It was the first time that I had an answer to the question, and I’d been asked it many times prior. He was just the first one to ask me since I’d set a date to actually get out here and do it.

His name is Leo.

He’s also a thru hike, but he has not done the AT. He has hiked the PCT and CDT and a few other trails though, so he absolutely knows how to plow miles. He was one of the few friends I have back in AZ who could push the miles to keep up in the Grand Canyon while I was there training for this trail. He lives closer to here now though, and so he wanted to jump on trail with me for a couple of days.

This will be by far the longest that I’ve had someone with me sharing miles since I’ve started the AT. Already, just after the 20 miles that we did together today, that’s already more than I’ve shared with any other AT hiker.

And it’s been really nice. I’ve really loved the company. And we have history, so conversation with him is good.

I had already had a half gram when I met him this morning at mile 6, but then we both had another gram.

He made it clear to me that I have in fact built up more of a tolerance than I have been believing. Because although I absolutely still swim in the waters, his experience was a lot heavier than my own. This is giving me further thought that I’ll maybe take a tolerance break in the near future. Likely around Day 50.

Leo stayed at a hostel north of here last night, and shuttled down to meet me this morning. He told me that when he mentioned that he was going to meet his friend “Wormwood,” more than one hiker remarked that they knew of me. Leo didn’t know why the first ones had heard of me, but he said the others were two “older gals” who “just said that they’d heard you’re cute.”

“Did you get their names?” I asked?

“I didn’t.”
“Leo! You had ONE job!”

I kid of course.

But I’m still a human being, and I’m not going to pretend that it doesn’t feel good to hear something like that. If nothing else, it sort of validates the goddam pushups… which I still need to get 40x before going to sleep in a bit.

The miles with Leo were fun today. He hikes at a similar pace, and it was nice to have someone to talk to for much of the day. I tried to not bore him with too much talk about “Boots,” but she’s also on my mind a lot, so it’s impossible not to bring it up more often than I’d like.

We texted a bit more today, and it’s just looking more solidified that she’ll be driving up to meet me at Harper’s Ferry in 2 weeks. We’ll have 2-3 days together. It’ll be a good rest from the trail, and if it’s anything even close to Trail Days, it’ll also do wonders at refilling my soul. I expect it will.

—

By the end of the day we definitely could have broken 30 miles if we’d tried, but since Trail Days I’m just taking this trail different than I did before. I really don’t give a damn about big mile days. I’m much more enjoying the experience itself.

Tomorrow we’ll hike around 25, then the following day it’ll just be 2 miles to Leo’s car. He’ll bring me to town for resupply, and we’ve talked about getting a good breakfast.

One more full day on trail together though.

Oh… final note that’s sort of a big deal… I have a pack strap that’s ripping. Big problem. I’m likely going to have to have Hyperlite send me a new one up trial. Might say more about that, but I’m literally so tired that I’m falling asleep. So peace out.

Wormwood.

AT Day 43

Miles: 24.12

Total Miles: 382.3

(Tent; near parkway drive crossing)

It’s funny that I’d find myself out here like this… curled up into a tiny little tent, typing on a wireless keyboard (already a pretty comical scene), and all worked up about a girl.

Something about these long-legged brunettes with cute faces and soft smiles… did ever mention that she was literally born 5 days before my ex–the one she looks so similar to? I’m pretty sure the same birth year too…

I feel self conscious starting the journal today with that, but it’s also where my heart and my mind are.

I was up late last night, trying to get all the story about what happened on trail and with Serendipidous onto the page. Didn’t sleep all that well, but got a few hours of tussling.

But when I woke up I had a text from a girl named Boots. It said that she’d found coverage for her work in 2 weeks and that she’ll likely be driving up from TN to meet me for the weekend of June 9th! I was thrilled, even in my tiredness.

We’ve known one another for a such a short period of time that both of us are aware that it can’t be more than it is. But at the same time, it’s been really fun to have a flirty, sexy type energy back in my life for a moment. It’s incredibly strange and surreal, given the context that she lives in a state that I just finished hiking through and that every day now I’m walking farther away from where she lives. But it’s also wonderful in that I’m closer to her here than I ever was in Arizona.

So we messaged back and forth a bit today, loosely making plans and seeming to feel one another out from a distance–trying to get to know one another as much as we can given the circumstances.

I needed to resupply at the grocery store in Daleville this morning, but didn’t need all that much. Mostly I wanted to get some fruit juices to slam down before going to trail.

As for the trail itself today, it was pleasant but somewhat uneventful, especially in light of yesterday. There were some moments where I was finding myself somewhat worried that maybe I’ve finally found that wall, or that I’ve pushed things too far after yesterday. My brain felt slow, my mood was sluggish, and the miles just seemed to drag on. Fortunately, the weather was good, which always helps mood. But it was still a somewhat gray day in terms of the hiking and the miles.

Then I realized that it wasn’t that things were pushed too far yesterday. The problem was that I just didn’t get enough sleep. There were other hikers up at 4am to catch the sunset at the nob today, and they woke me, in addition to my going to sleep late.

So I’m trying to get a good night sleep tonight, although it is already 9:40pm and I’m still up typing. But oh well.

Saw one couple today with their camp already set up at 1pm. When I asked why so early, they pointed to their little solar panels and said that they needed to wait there to charge their electronics. I cannot believe that people are trying to use solar out here when resupply stores with outlets are so common on the AT and sun access through the dense forest is so uncommon. I wonder how long they’ll be waiting there, just to get a single charge.

I’m falling asleep now.

Need to bring it to a close.

My buddy Leo will be joining me on trail tomorrow. He’ll hike with me for 2-3 days. Looking forward to the company.

Wormwood.

Out.

AT Day 42

Miles: 26.97

Total Miles: 758.18

(Huckleberry’s Hostel, VA)

Well… might just as well say it from the very beginning–today’s one of those days that I won’t be able to get it all on the page. There was just too much. Today was a lot. Like… a lot.

Today was one of, if not *the* most profound day that I’ve had on the Appalachian Trail so far… God that’s hard to say. There’s been so much literal magic on this trail that I don’t know how I can even compare all the things that have happened. It’s just been too much. It’s impossible for me to compare today to the other days. But here I am still trying to do it.

Let’s just say this–today was a monumentally big deal.

—

Woke up today in the bunk house at Four Pines Hostel. They treat hikers well in there. Had a breakfast prepared. Coffee. Nice little shared space. And it’s all done on a donation basis.

The owner gave me a ride back to trail, and I washed a gram of mushrooms down the hatch at the trailhead where I started hiking.

Today was already going to be a big deal. It’s the day I was going to get to Mackafee’s Nob (I’m sure that I’m spelling it wrong). It’s one of the more iconic locations on the whole Appalachian Trail. And although I’ve sort of given up hope on this being a trail where I get great photos because it’s either cloudy or in the forest all the time, it just so happened that today was a beautiful day. Blue sky and wind was about all we had in the forecast. So I was really looking forward to getting up there and hopefully getting a couple of good photos.

Then, as I started to trail, I started getting some texts from a girl named “Boots.” Normally I don’t have my phone on when I’m hiking, but I needed to get ahold of a fly fishing store about 200 miles north of here to ask if they could accept a resupply box for me. When I turned on my phone to call them, Boots had texted.

We flirted over text back and forth for a bit, which was funny because first I haven’t had someone who plays that role in my life in a minute, and second because I never do that kind of thing on trail. But she has a little piece of my heart and my mind right now, so I chased the energy as we batted it back and forth over text.

Turns out, she might actually be able to come back up trail and meet me. Potentially in a couple of weeks. It’s still a long shot, but we’re both really hopeful that it might come together. Any later than that and it’ll end up being a long drive for her to come up from Tennessee. But still, we’re going to see what we can do to make it come together.

But just as I’m texting with her, I end up meeting another hiker. We’d actually met yesterday on trail, but we didn’t really talk much.

Actually… no… back up. I actually camped about 100 yards away from him 2 nights ago, on that night where the bear was roaming around my tent. When I mentioned that to him, he was like “oh shit! We must have been camped beside one another!” We hadn’t met one another that night, but we saw one another, and we both heard that f*ucking bear roaming around camp.

So anyway, he and I meet and we get to talking. He’s about 10 years older than me. Wife. Kid. All that kind of thing. And long story short, he goes on to tell me that back in the 90s he actually went to prison for LSD distribution. He was young–just 19 or something.

We both shared a good bit about ourselves as we hiked together there. I was really blown away by his incarceration story. And at some point I asked if he’s ever had acid since then. He hesitated, then said yes, but that it was strange. He went on to describe something that most certainly was *not* LSD. I’m certain that what he got was some kind of RC and not LSD. There are a lot of things that it could have been.

But then I asked straight out–if I were to give him some if he would want it. He paused, thought about it, and then said yes. I stopped, to pull it out and give it to him. We were about a mile or two away from Mackafee’s Nob. And then he asks, “If I take it, how long do you think I’ll be up tonight.”

I hesitated, not realizing that he was thinking of taking it today. I just thought that he was going to wait for another day, when he can start earlier in the morning. But no sir. He was thinking right then and there.

So in the moment I thought about it, paused, and then told him he’d probably be on that train until 10 or 11:00 tonight.

Then he said something like “Alright, let’s go.”

And so I joined him, and we both jumped on the train.

In the back of my mind, I was thinking that maybe since I was already riding the mushroom train that this wouldn’t have as much of an effect, but I was completely and utterly wrong about that. I could not have been *more* wrong. The trip that unfolded over the next 8 hours was nothing short of earth-shifting.

We arrived to the knob, beautiful colors, amazing view, wind, and energy. It was already in me, chased on by the mushrooms, and I could see that by the time we’d left the knob, the other guy was in it too.

We walked together for an hour, got water, and we talked about that crow or raven from yesterday on trail. He told me that when he got there he was able to feed it some peanutbutter from off his hiking pole, and that the bird followed him for a little while. I was glad to hear that maybe the bird was going to be okay, or maybe that it wasn’t just hurt and dying. I still don’t know…

This other guy–by the end of the day we decided he should take the trail name Serendipitous. Everything today, we decided, happened exactly when and exactly how it was supposed to happen.

He told me about his marriages, his kid, raising his kid. He told me about work. Told me about his dogs. Told me about his life. Told me about his whole world.

And as we peaked in the day, I opened up to him about the time that I nearly died on the CDT. I don’t talk about it much. Most of the time I don’t even tell people that it happened. Not because I’m trying to hide anything, but because there’s just so much to the story. So many details that most people will just never understand. But together while Serendipitous and I tripped, I went through it all and he let me tell the whole story. He was right there with me in all of it. It was the first time I’ve told the story like that maybe since it happened. I relived it, and he was right there with me in all of it.

We cried together today.

We laughed.

I blew bubbles and watched them float away in the wind.

At one point Serendipitous turned to me, as he’d been looking out over the cliff and over the green valley on the other side. He said, “You’re an intense dude, man… you’re an intense dude.”

So much happened over the trip that I’ll never be able to get on the page. Though lord knows I’m going to do what I can to retell the story and remember it as well as I can.

Neither of us at almost anything today. We both had big breakfasts before getting to trail, thank God. But on trail we barely stopped to eat.

Oh shit! I forgot–right before we took the acid, there was a lady hiking who offered us girl scout cookies. I of course accepted, and that ended up being almost all we ate together all day during the 26+ miles! We did stop to drink water, but we barely ate otherwise.

But I bring it up because at one point it started to rain, and there was a double rainbow, and then we started talking about what we were going to do at the end of the day. We decided that we were going to go to this BBQ joint that’s just down from the trail, and he already had a shuttle set up to pick him up. So he had the shuttle take us to BBQ and Serendipitous paid for everyone’s meal. It was, and Im not exaggerating–THE BEST MEAL I’ve had on the whole Appalachian Trail! We ate so much that I thought we were going to put that place out of business!

Then I decided to join Serendipidous back at the hostel he had set up. I’m going to stay in the bunk house tonight, and tomorrow the shuttle driver will bring us back by where that BBQ joint is so I can pick up where we left off. I still need to resupply up there in Daleville, and I really didnt want to have to do that at the tail end of an acid trip, while I”m still a little bit in it. So thank God I’ll be able to do that tomorrow instead of tonight.

So tomorrow it’s breakfast, resupply, and then back to trail. Not expecting something as profound as today, but still planning on a good day.

It’ll just be me tomorrow, but then the following morning my buddy Gadsby is going to meet me on trail and we’ll do 2-3 days of hiking together.

Damn… wish I could say more. But for now that’ll have to do.

Today was magic. Just fucking magic!

Wormwood.