AT Day 38

Miles: 0

Total Miles: 661.87

(Angel’s Rest Hostel [Again])

How many times in these journals will I say that I’m trying to do something impossible? Trying to put into words and onto the page things that are so big that they don’t fit into words or onto the page. Still, there’s some strange pleasure in attempting it. Or maybe it’s the feeling that if I didn’t at least try, then it’s all at a loss.

This weekend was the Damascus Trail Days event.

It turned out to be much, much more than I was expecting.

How do I tell the story? Let me count the ways…

Thursday:

I arrived at the event on Thursday. It was mostly quiet. Equipment vendors setting up, many of the attendees staring to arrive.

But for the most part, Thursday felt calm and quiet. It was much less than I was told to expect. The music was quiet, camps were calm, and the fires were small. There were a lot of people drinking, even on Thursday, but to call it one of the calmest festival days that I’ve ever attended would not be an exaggeration.

To be honest, I was feeling disappointed by the end of Thursday. I wrote to my friend, who was going to join me for Friday and Saturday, that the energy was low and that he wasn’t missing much by not attending that night.

I felt alone in it. As more people started to arrive, it felt more isolating, feeling like the others were connecting with one another while I stayed feeling separate. To be clear, there were those who I was able to make conversation with, but for the most part it didn’t feel deep or meaningful.

That day I spent about an hour in the library writing about that loneliness. Wondering if it’s something that I’d be lost within for the rest of the hike.

Friday:

Friday was “business day.” There were several of us who had plans to party that evening, but I had been planning to potentially invest in some new equipment from some of the vendors that I’ll carry with me for the rest of the trail. I didn’t want to be making big purchases while or after a long night of music, dancing, and mind alteration, so Friday was “business day.”

I spent a lot of the day wandering back and forth amongst the vendor tents, asking more and more detailed questions about down quilt fill counts, comparative material weight, and costs of every little thing you can think of having to do with backpacking.

The two big things that I had in mind were a new tent (a 1-man tent by Hyperlite that is super light weight and extremely fast setup. It’s something I’ve been wanting to get for a long time, but I wanted to wait to see all the tents in person and talk to the company representatives before buying. I also wanted to get a new 40′ quilt to replace my 15′ sleeping bag. It’s become warm on the Appalachian Trail, and my bag was too much. Also, it had so many miles on it that it was stating to fall apart. It needed to be replaced.

There were other odds and ends as well, but those were the big ones.

In the end I spent around $1K on new gear and sent some of my heavier gear home.

That… is the “boring part of Friday.”

We all three took Molly at 6pm on Friday. It was a hiker named “Three AM,” my friend from out of state, and myself.

What unfolded for the rest of the night was simply magic.

There’s more than I’ll ever be able to share. But we danced. We laughed. We wandered the camps. We sat in the glow of campfires.

But none of it actually filled me up. It all felt a bit like the night before. It felt tame. It felt lack-luster.

There came a point in the evening where I started to feel like it was time to wind down, but one of my two friends suggested one more trip to the biggest bonfire of the event. We’d been there several times before, but he was insistent that we go back to our camp, get camp chairs, and carry them back to the big fire.

I hesitantly obliged and followed him over.

And that’s when my weekend changed.

I’m still not fully convinced that the girl was anything but a hallucination. How her role in my weekend could have possibly been real is beyond me. Much more likely that it was all a dream.

In my mind’s eye, she never even arrived to the fire. She was already there. Maybe she’d been there all along. How someone as beautiful as her could have been there, in the glow of a fire, without my seeing her is beyond me. But somehow that’s what seems to have happened.

There were several of us there, all laughing and taking in the warmth from the fire. But after around 10 or 15 minutes, I turned and realized that there was someone just behind me and to my right–swinging in some sort of strange camp chair, that acted more like a hammock.

I saw her lost in the fire, like I’ve found myself many times over, and something drew me in to engage. It was probably the Molly. Or more likely still, it was that as well as something more.

I started off with something silly and without context. I think that I said, “Hey there lady in the swingy-chair. How’s your Trail Days weekend going so far?”

And from that moment forward, my world shifted.

We talked for hours, and I watched the reflection of the bonfire in her eyes.

She was quiet and soft spoken, with a whole world to share. She told me that she was on mushrooms and I told her that I was as well. I told her there was Molly too, and we continued to talk.

I told her that I found her beautiful and asked if I could hold her hand. By the time more wood was on the fire I was asking if I could kiss her.

She came into my weekend completely and absolutely unexpected.

When I asked her name, she looked down the length of her long legs and to the cowboy boots on her feet.

“Boots.”

We talked until the night became late and turned into the next day. We walked to her tent. I kissed her, and we said goodnight.

That night, after I got back to my new 1-man tent, the weather turned. It started to storm. First there was lightning, then wind, then torrential rain.

I loved it though. My heart was glowing and it was exciting to ride out weather in my new tent–to have proof that it would withstand anything that I’m going to see out here on trail.

It stormed through the night, and only cleared with the rising of Saturday’s sun.

Saturday:

If I were still as naive as I used to be, then I would have rushed back out in the morning to try and find “Boots,” but that’s not the way that things happened.

In fact, I thought I might have lost our connection with the sunrise. The night before I’d asked for her number, and decided to just call my own phone from hers so that I’d have her number. However, I forgot that my phone had been off and so the call never went through, and as such, I didn’t have her number to try and reconnect.

I would have been more flustered, but my friend from out of town and I both agreed to go to breakfast and do some more shopping at the gear booths that morning. So long story made short, one thing led to the next, and it was mid afternoon already without my ever having found her.

There was a hiker parade that I attended, and I just want to say that the city of Damascus does an AMAZING job of putting together the Trail Days event. Even though there is a wild party out in the forest at night, the day time activities were all quite good. I got to attend a presentation on Tick Bite Prevention, and even just talking with all the gear vendors was worth it.

Other than that storm on Friday night, the weather stayed mostly sunny and warm. It was wonderful!

When I went back to her tent, she was already gone. But I was able to track her down by leaving one of my cards at her tent, beside the swingy chair that she’d been rocking in the night before.

Soon afterwords, she texted and we reconnected.

This is where I’d like to point out that the Appalachain Trail continues to reaffirm my belief in a higher power. Not only that–a belief in a Higher Power that has a wicked sense of humor!

Now, you remember me telling about my new 1-man tent? Well I’ve been in a 2-man tent for literally 20 years! I have told people time and time again that I believe that 1 man tents are just too small and that one person should have a 2-man tent, just to have the little bit of extra room to move around. ESPECIALLY if you’re going to be living out of that tent for the whole summer, like we are out here on a thru trail.

I had sent my 2-man tent home with my buddy from out of town that morning. I had my new 1-man tent set up for LESS THAN 24 hours. And wouldn’t you know that this is the day that I end up bringing company into my tent with me!

We started by the fire when we first reconnected on Saturday, but eventually wandered around the forest, out to the open grass of Tent City, and laid in the grass. We both took a dose of mushrooms and watched the clouds drift by in a mostly blue sky.

I hadn’t had that experience of laying in the grass and watching passing clouds in years. The last time I remember it was maybe 2012. It had been a long time.

We held one another closer until it no longer felt appropriate to be any closer without being in the privacy of a tent.

And we moved from there into the snug privacy of my new 1-man Hyperlite tent.

For the record: Two people can fit into a 1-man tent. But condensation accumulates. And mitigations must be strong.

I told her that I wanted to ruin my whole life for her. End my hike and chase her back down to Tennessee (where she lives with her two kids). I never would have done it, but it was fun to get lost in the fantasy of “what if.” We both shared our lives together. we ate more mushrooms and she leaned against me while we went back to the same fire where we’d met the night before. I watched the reflection of fire in her eyes.

Her skin smelled of campfire smoke and there was fire in her eyes. I took it to mean that she could burn down my whole world if I let her.

At one point I asked about her necklace and she told me it was moldivite. It shocked me, and I reached to the pendent hanging from my own neck. Also moldivite.

She looked a spitting image of the girl who I almost married in 2023–the girl who almost led me to dismantling my entire life after she ended things.

Long legs. A delicate smile. And fire in her eyes.

I could write on and on about the fire in her eyes.

She was beautiful, but I could see that if I let her, she could have destroyed my world.

I fell in love with her for the weekend, and watched as she almost seemed like she wanted to do the same.

But lives are complicated and ways lead to ways.

We retired into her tent for the night–not for sex, but to hold one another one more time before the rising of the next sun and the parting of our ways.

Sunday:

It’s Sunday now, and everything feels like a blur.

I spent what time I could with the girl named “Boots” who turned my Trail Days into a whirlwind. We were both tired though. We were both in a daze.

I helped her pack her tent. I packed my own. I kissed her and told her that I hope that we see one another again.

Part of me feels like how love always makes the heart feel–like she’s what I’m supposed to do with my life moving forward. But at the same time, I know the context of our meeting. I’m going north. She lives south. At the end of this trail, I have had no plans to return to her state of Tennessee.

We both have desire to see one another again.

Maybe we will.

I want to try.

I told her that I’ll cry once she’s gone and I will tomorrow, once I’m back to trail.

For now I’m back at Angel’s Rest hostel. I had plans to return to trail, but after this weekend, I needed to rest and relax before going back into the miles. My heart and my mind and my soul all ache. But I don’t regret meeting her.

I know that if things are meant to be, then they’ll work out.

For now, I’m grateful for the time that we had together, the new gear that I got to pick up at the Trail Days event, and the knowledge that two people do in fact fit into a 1-man tent if the motivations are strong.

I return to trail in the morning.

With a warm heart,

Wormwood.

Out.

AT Day 35

Miles: 0 (Somewhere between 7-12 walking around town and the camping area today)

Total Miles: 661.87

(Damascus Library)

There’s always an abundance of time to think on trail. So why I should feel like I’ve been especially contemplative these last few days is beyond me… Maybe because there haven’t been so many miles. Because I’ve had time to think about something other than how much farther I still have to walk today. Because I’ve been well fed and fairly well slept. I’m rested, and so I have time for my mind to wander.

I have been thinking that I want to change the way that I’m hiking. Not in the way that I’m literally walking; not the step, step, step part. But the way that I’m going through the days.

I want to slow my daily miles. I want to spend more time at the shelters. But I also don’t feel like I quite know how to do that. Not pretending that should make sense. I’m just trying to get a feeling down on the page.

I’ve felt notably isolated and alone since the beginning of the Appalachain Trail. But I have mostly been okay with that feeling. It’s starting to get to me though. Likely because there are so many people on trail, and I meet so many of them. But I am not connecting with any of them. I am not feeling a bond with any of them. I am not feeling like any of them will be there for maybe a mile or two. I have not felt like I would be in their lives for any longer, and for the most part that’s come to fruition.

I’ve found myself pushing through miles to get through this group of people that I met today, hoping that the people I meet tomorrow will be the ones who I get to know. That doesn’t come to fruition, but it’s my thinking.

I see people making incredible connections with one another. That’s been the case since Day 1, but at this point there are clear “Trail Families” of hikers. They’re well established and clearly close. It leads me to feel greater discomfort in not having that in my own life. I don’t mean for that to be a statement that extends beyond the trail itself, but it certainly does.

The trail has been a magnification of the issues that I’ve had in my personal life these last five, or ten, or twenty, or forty years. I’ve felt extremely isolated and alone, but for a 4-year stint that ended in 2023. That was 18 months ago. I’ve been trying to find a feeling of tribe or belonging since then. I have not found that feeling.

I am not finding that feeling on the Applachain Trail.

The people that I meet here are nice. I like the time that I’ve spent with some of them.

But there is a problem that I’m starting to see in socializing with long distance hikers, like I meet out here. We all spend too much time by ourselves. We have too much time to think about the reasons that led us out here, what we’re trying to make of ourselves, or the story that we think we’re living out. Maybe that’s just a description of being a human being, but on trail it’s magnified. We have too much time to think about these things. So I’m observing that by the time I meet another hiker, they have a whole autobiography of stories that they want to tell me, in which they’re the lead character, and surly by the end they’ll have everything figured out.

I feel that way too, I confess.

But in light of observing how common a trait this is, I’ve been quieting down and listening. That started before the trail. I’ll notice when someone has A LOT to say, and I’ll just shut up. You can learn a lot about someone this way. Not in what they tell you necessarally, but in how they tell it. I’m meeting a lot of people who have these big long stories, and I’ll ask questions, and I’ll engage, but they’ll show no curiosity towards me whatsoever.

They want to talk.

But they just want to talk about themselves.

Any irony in my writing this in a trail journal that’s all about myself?

Probably… but I hope that I’m at least doing what I can to avoid the sin of hypocracy.

I took a shuttle into Damascus this morning from about 2 hours north of here, and the shuttle driver apologized several times about having drank too much coffee and being too “worked up.” She told me all about herself, her life, and her hikes. I asked questions about the other details. But at the end, after driving together for 2 hours, she still doesn’t know what I do for a living. I told her two or three times where I lived, and every time she misremembered. I understood that it was my job in the conversation to be the listener, and not the talker. And I’m getting that feeling a whole lot with hikers I’m meeting on trail.

This one guy today in Damascus came up to me and started talking. I told him that we’d met and he apologized for forgetting, told me that he smokes too much pot. I told him all the details about himself that I could remember from our first time meeting, so that he knew he didn’t need to tell me all about it again; he could save that for someone else.

Then I reminded him that I had been stoned and on mushrooms when we met. That I’d bounced around the stump he was sitting on, and that’s when he remembered. He told me, “Damn, you were going so fast that day when you hiked by.”

I told him, “Yeah–I probably broke 30 miles that day; you were trying to slow me down to 10, and you probably would have got me too if I hadn’t left.”

He chuckled, but mostly because he didn’t seem to comprehend that I was sort of poking fun at him.

I’m at Damascus Trail Days now, and I can tell that in the coming days this is going to build into quite a scene. It’s going to be a f*cking 3-day rave. For the record, I am sort of looking forward to at least some of the debauchery . But I want to get away from it after I’m through. I don’t want to linger in this mess too long. In a perfect world I’ll probably spend tomorrow (Friday) with the gear vendors and spend some serious time deciding whether I’m going to invest into a new tent and ultra lite trail quilt. Then tomorrow night and Saturday I can dip my toes into heathen-mode, join in the festivities, dance as much as I feel the need for, and then get the f*uck out before everyone starts to come down or find their hangovers.

Shouldn’t be too challenging an agenda.

I have a shuttle back to Pearisburg scheduled on Sunday morning. I have the option of staying longer (there are some presentations and what-not on Sunday that I may or may not want to attend), or heading directly back to trail after that. I expect that I’ll be back where I left off from the AT on Sunday around noon. I already have my food and resupply all taken care of.

Oh–that rip in my sleeping bag; I’ve got the gear repair people taking a look at that right now. This is such a weird event; it’s a rave on one hand, but then a massive long-distance hiking gear festival on the other. All the major gear distributors are here setting up. And I’ve already really enjoyed talking to the Hyperlite people.

So there’s good in all this mess. But man… it’s impossible to ignore how much more isolated I feel as a solo person in a group of 15,000 people than I do when I’m just solo, out in the woods by myself.

I feel like this one’s been a rant.

Don’t mean for it to be that.

I still count the blessings.

I’m still enjoying the little moments in the day.

I’m still liking the miles.

I’m still enjoying when I get to eat an entire bag of Lucky Charms while hiking down trail.

There are good parts in it.

But as a whole, this trail is hard on my heart, my spirit, and my soul.

Wormwood.

Longing for something more…

AT Day 34

Miles: 9.39

Total Miles: 661.87

(Angel’s Rest Hostel; Pearisburg, VA)

It felt weird booking myself a private room for tonight, but after how hard it rained the last three days (today included), I’m really happy to have a warm and dry place to myself for the night.

It also feels kind of surreal because this is the start of 4 days off from trail. Tomorrow I’ll catch a ride back south to Damascus Trail Days Event. I’m really excited for it, but it’s also nice to just have some time off from hiking. It’s been a little over a month now since I started in Georgia, and the only real time that I’ve had off in that month was when I had the bacterial cellulitis infection and I had to stay at Standing Bear for those 3-ish days. This time off trail feels a lit better because it’s planned and because it’s not for an injury.

The place that I have rented for tonight is literally just the master bedroom of an old trailer. But it also has a private bathroom and shower. The private bed alone feels worthwhile though.

Last night just after I’d finished writing my journal, there were two more hikers who rolled into the shelter that I was sharing with one other hiker and his dog. With the addition of two more very wet hikers, it was significantly more stuffy. Last night was wet and cold. It rained most of the night. At one point when I stepped out to piss I stepped off the deck of the shelter and into ankle-deep water. By the way–no most shelters do not have full out decks. But I guess that heavy flooding like today probably isn’t uncommon for this area. Thus, the deck.

I only had about 9 miles to hike today, but they were wet and claustrophobic miles. The forest is growing denser by the day, especially after the recent rains. The trail is shrinking into the density of the forest. The trail was mostly a river today, much like it was yesterday. There was absolutely no hope of keeping my feet anything close to dry. It was soaking wet. It was cold.

Days like today I think back to the kid I met who told me he was hiking the trail without any rain gear at all. I told him he should take the trail name Kamikaze. Maybe I already told that story. But I think about it on rainy days. There’s no way you could survive this whole trail without rain gear. I double up with a heavy rain jacket AND an umbrella (and rain pants). I’m not scared of getting a little bit wet, but I am willing to carry that little bit of extra weight if it means being more dry and comfortable on days like we’ve seen on trail this week.

Drank tea and got to trail quickly this morning. Or I should say that I got to trail after making tea, and just sipped it down trail for that first mile or two. I will say that without having to break a tent, it’s a lot easier to get on trail quickly. That’s one of two things that I want to look into upgrading at Trail Days–I may get a new ultra-lite tent, and I may get a new quilt. The sleeping bag that I’m carrying is significantly heavier than I need for this trail, and it has a lot a lot of miles on it. Last night I found a somewhat significant rip in the bag. I may be able to get it repaired at Trail Days, but I’m open to getting a 30 degree quilt to replace this. What I’m carrying right now is a 15 degree bag, and I just don’t think that that we’re going to get temps that cold for the remainder of the trail.

There was a shuttle from the AT to Angel’s Rest Hostel about 10 minutes after I reached the road crossing that completes this segment. Since then I’ve been in Pearisburg. I sent home my Size 12 shoes. I got my new Size 11.5 shoes. I ate too much food at the Chinese Buffet by the grocery store. It was my first time being in one of those in maybe a decade. My girlish figure just don’t let me chow down like that anymore. Not like I used to be able to get away with anyway.

Also resupplied food for the upcoming segment, even though I won’t be starting it until Sunday or Monday. I just wanted to get that chore over and done with. That does mean that I’ll be carrying all this food back down to Damascus, then back to where I left trail this morning. But whatever. It’s still worth it to have my resupply done.

At this point I’m well past the 500 mile mark. I have said many times that it takes about that long on a thru hike to get your routine nailed down and figured out. I mostly feel that way now. I have figured out the foods that make me feel best on trail. I’m finding ways to increase my protein intake to hopefully hold onto muscle for the remaining 1700 miles of trail, or whatever it is that I have left.

The trailer that I’m staying in is absolutely filled with hikers now. there has to be 10 people in here–about half of them in the kitchen with me where I’m typing while they put dinner together. The place is heavily smoked out from someone burning a chicken breast on the stove.

I like it here though. It feels nice to know that I’ve got a place to myself when I want to step to the back of the trailer, close the door, and go to sleep.

My shuttle to Damascus is tomorrow at 8am. It sounds like most everyone else here is going down to Trail Days too. Most of the AT hikers within 500 miles probably are. Not everyone, but most of them.

I hope that it’s not a disappointment. I also hope that it doesn’t end up being too expensive. Even after being off trail for a few hours in a town like I have been today, I already look forward to getting back to trail. I’m sure after 4 days I’ll feel that way all the more.

Wormwood.