SNP Hike Day 7: Cheeseburger in Paradise

Friday, 12th of September, 2003.

Pass Mountain Shelter to Gravel Springs Gap Shelter, 14(?) miles

I did not cheer long enough for the mice: the a--hole’s backpack straps did not get chewed through in the night and he greets me in the morning with cheery and sarcastic “See, the bears didn’t get me.” Lovely. I get my breakfast and start packing up and I am greeted with a wonderful sight: another hiker coming already for the morning from the north. Why wonderful? It means I am not the first one on the trail today and it is not going to be another “Frodo goes to Mordor” walk through spider webs galore. Apparently the old fellow came in from Elkswallow, having stealth camped there for the night after realizing that the shelter marked on the trail profile map on the side of PATC map for the North District is not marked on the full topographic map and, in fact, does not exist. I later learn that it has not existed since the days of the Reagan Adminstration and the imploding of park services under James Watt, who believed the world was going to come to an end very soon, so why preserve it when you can extract maximum value from it now? National Parks have been on a long downhill slide ever since, and still are on that terrible glide path as witnessed by the absence of any working pay ‘phone for twenty miles in any direction from here (though plenty of non-working ones carefully documented by frustrated hikers who came on them and tried to make a call) and the closing of campgrounds and retraction of services, like the closing of the Panaroma Restaurant back at Thorton Gap. Anyway, there is no shelter there, though there is a picnic ground, store, grill, and gas station.



It is a beautiful misty morning, the first day I’ve had all the time I have been here where it is not sunny. It’s a nice cool slow feeling and perfect for hiking: not so wet that I’m going to get soaked, and cool enough to keep me from sweating as much. I get into my pack and boots and head up over the slight incline of Pass Mountain and then down across Skyline Drive and the long curl around and up to Elkswallow. I do not realize it at the time, but Pass Mountain is a designated wilderness area where no power tools are used and management of the land is deliberate very light handed. Even tasks like keeping the weeds down along the Appalachian Trail is done with hand tools, as I will learn nine months from today when I work for a volunteer trail crew with the Maryland Outdoor Club. Unaware of why, I realize it is very pretty and special place. The fog condenses the feeling of the forest: it is like I am in my own little private world and a hiker just a hundred feet from me would have no idea I was there. I love hiking in the fog, and in snow while it is falling, for just this reason.

However, I am in for a minor surprise when a good three hours later I get into Elkswallow and the fog has not lifted. I’m not unhappy, mind you, as it is making this the coolest day and I am quite happy for that. But it is a slightly odd feeling. I get into Elkswallow and behold the Holy Grail. There’s a grill there and staff ready to make the most greasy burger your heart could desire. And I am ready for a nice hot bacon cheeseburger, a big cold soda, and fries after this 95 miles of hiking and vegetarian fare for days. If I had come on this place any time other than lunch, maybe I would not have indulged, but this time... I get my burger and all and sit back out at a picnic table to enjoy it. I’m not usually a big burger fan, but this is by far and away the most wonderful burger I have had in years. I am pretty sure it is the hiking, not the burger, but please don’t interupt me as I am busy eating.

While I am sitting there in ecstatic culinary bliss, two SoBos come through, trail names Inga and Stew Ball. They are a slightly older couple, probably in their mid to late 40s, who have flip flopped: They started at Harper’s Ferry in the spring and went north, came back after reaching Katahdin, and now are working their way south in hopes of reaching home near Hot Springs, North Carolina in time for Thanksgiving. They dwelve into a burger meal of their own, and while I am washing mine down with the last of the soda, Inga finishs her meal and announces she is going back for dessert. Oh, what an good idea! The idea planted, I go back and get a nice big Snickers bar though I decide to pack it out and have it for dessert tonight. I’m doing okay today, but given the state of my feet and the blisters, I am tempted to call it quits on the trail at Gravel Springs tonight and ask Meredith if she would not mind doing the last two days with me another time. If she really wants to do this now, which is possible, I’ll relent: it is not as if I cannot hike. But it would be very nice to stop now.

I say goodbye to Inga and Stewball and warn them about the chipmunks at the bear pole at Pass Mountain Shelter if that turns out to be their destination for the day. They thank me and head on. And I get back on the trail and continue the climb up Hogback Mountain.

The climb is slow and not much fun, but coming down the other side, the switchbacking is awful. My toes are really not enjoying this and even with the boots laced up tightly, I can feel a blister forming on the front of one of my toes from touching the front of the boots. And then it happens: partway down the hillside, I do... something. I don’t know what, but my right leg suddenly develops a terrible twinge and it hurts all of a sudden to put weight on it. I can walk, and continue to do so, but it is a very awkward and slow lumbering pace. I am so ready to get to Gravel Springs now... I have to stop and rest and have some dried fruit every thirty minutes or so, but keeping myself onwards with the thought that the hut will be a good place for a long rest and I can call Meredith from there and now, without even a guilty conscious for cancelling her plans, say that I cannot do that last ten miles from Gravel Springs to Tom Floyd Shelter. My leg is just not going to be up to it.

I get to the concrete post for the turnoff to Range View Cabin. Oh good. I know this place from frequent hikes up one of my favorite side paths here, Little Devil’s Stair. I know I am getting close here. And sure enough, in time, I find the turnoff and start limping down that trail. The fog has not lifted and in fact at times has thickened enough to be a slight rain. By the time I am going down the side path to Gravel Springs, it has turned all the way to a steady light rain. A tree down in the middle of the path floors me: I can’t climb up the side to get around and it is a bit high to sit on and swing over, but that’s what I try. But once I am sitting down, it is all I can do to stand up on the other side, and I actually sit there with pants on a wet tree waiting to summon the energy to go on even though I am perhaps two hundred feet from my goal for the day. I don’t know how long I might have sat there if it was not starting to rain a little harder, but I eventually summon the energy to get up and move down to the hut.

Never has there been a finer sight for sore eyes. I limp in and sit down and I’m just too tired to do anything, but get those boots off and sandals on. I know I should change into the dry clothes soon, but right now I just want to sit and do absolutely nothing.

It is a nice feeling to be in the shelter out of the rain as it picks up tempo. I do pull the picnic table in under the eaves to get it out of the rain. I turn my attention to the shelter log book for some restful reading while my body recovers and I nibble on the last of the dried fruit. While I am reading of other people’s adventures (and there are some good ones: Earlier this year, a mother bear and her cub were frequently seen near the junction of this blue blaze trail down to the shelter and the Appalachian Trail. Some hikers saw her and let her move off, at least one tried to stand his ground when she mock charged him to scare him off, and he whacked her on the nose with his hiking stick and she lumbered off and he came down to the shelter and got a change of underpants... and many other such interesting tidbits). One a ways back in July gives an elaborate diagram of how to set up your bear line here. It seems that the bear pole here has been mastered by the raccoons and they don’t need a helping overhanging tree to get into the food bag: They have learned how to strong arm their way up the bear pole itself. The authors worked out a way to string bear line with one section on one of the bear poles, another on a tree, and thus hang the food bag at least ten feet up and more than three feet across from the pole and tree, and the line is too thin to hold a raccoon without swaying and tossing them off. Ingenious! I decide to find the bear pole in question and set up my food bag the same way when the time comes to do so.

In the meantime, I pull out my clean clothes, soap, and wash cloth. The rain is really pouring down now and I can put my pot at the drain spout on the eaves and fill it with rain water running off the roof in half a minute. I suck down a big helping of fresh water and, since it is darkening now and pouring heavy rain, I figure I will not get any visitors at the shelter tonight and that I have the place to myself. So I strip down and have myself a little skinny dipping shower. The rain is enough to make the soap work up a good lather, and I can toss a pan of water over myself periodically to get a more thorough rinse. I have never felt so good and refreshed, though I am putting most of my weight on the left leg even after a good hour of rest here. That right leg is really much better, but I am very dubious about being able to hike out on it.

After my shower, I get into that last change of clean clothes. Let me tell you, there is nothing quite so fine as sitting down clean and dry and warm and refreshed after being soggy and smelly and exhausted minutes before. Now it is time to call Meredith and break the bad news.

But the bad news is on me. I can get a very minimial signal, but my mobile ‘phone has a nasty surprise for me. The power bar on the side of the screen shows that it has a full charge... right up until the moment I actually try to do anything. As soon as the call goes through, the power bars drop to near zero, drowns out what I am trying to say with beeping warnings about low power, and then automatically shuts off before I can get in a message to the answering machine. Then it beeps at me to tell me that I have a message, which turns out to be Meredith, but the signal is too weak and I cannot work out what she is saying before I get cut off again. I let the battery rest for several moments and try to call again. It goes through and I get Meredith in person, but I cannot tell what she hears and what she says. Well, that was pointless. So I am expecting her tomorrow morning at 11 AM according to the plan we made for ourselves before trying to change it now with calls and I just hope something of what I have said got through and she knows the hike is not happening.

Drat! I am mad at the ‘phone for tricking me all week with the strong power bar indication when I have checked on it. And I have lugged this piece of deadweight all week long only to have it be useless when I actually wanted it. Wonderful. But then that is why we had an initial plan to meet at 11 AM already set. But I thought reception would be better than this. Not much to do about it now.

I eye the big Snickers Bar, but decide it is time to have something really different after a week of Indian food. I get out the package of Trader Joe’s Pasta e Fagioli, a pasta and bean soup with Italian seasoning. I read the label: twenty minutes of simmering and they make a number of recommendations about things to add. I had peeked at this at the start of the hike when packing and tossing a small can of tomato sauce, and so I get the water to a boil, add the mix and tomato sauce and simmer, with my hands cupped around the flames from the stove to keep it from getting blown out by the breeze and to keep the heat going to the pan. For all my worries about the stove running out of fuel on me, it is still going strong and heats up the soup.

This is the very best soup in the world. I have not had soup this good in... well, I do not remember every having soup this poigiant and wonderful. It’s a good thing I have the shelter to myself because who wants to hear a grown man climaxing over a pot of soup. Yes, this is a SOUP PORN hiking log entry! Okay, I was not quite that demonstrative. But there was no reason not to be as it certain was how I felt! It is supposed to serve four, but I polish off the whole pot by myself (no one else there, after all) slowly over the course of an hour. Like any such sensual experience, it is best slow and drawn out and fully appreciated. I know men are presumed to falter prematurely, but with soup... never.

But the pot comes to an end and I must admit that I am almost satiated. The Snickers bar is going to have to wait a while. I get a nice big cup of fresh water to rinse everything down and turn my attention back to reading the pages of the shelter log.

Lots of grand adventures and wonderful stories from the people whom have come through before. None of been here, and recorded anything, in a few days, but the log book is about three quarter full and reachs all the way back to some time in May. I have a good deal of fun reading it. I do discover that, far from being indulgent at the grill at Elkswallow, I have been pretty circumspect compared to others. There are entries from people who had a second burger, and a very consistent theme is going back for blackberry milkshakes. The passion of the descriptions of this beverage sound a bit like my experience with the soup just now. Do Harlequin romance novel writers get their linguistic ideas from AT log books, perhaps?

Finally I am recovered from the soup enough to think a little dessert would be nice and I go through my Snickers bar. It is one of those super sized Giant bars and just wonderful. They say chocolate releases the same endorphins as you find in an infauted person. Being already in raging hormonal bliss from dinner, it’s hard for me to say anything cognizant on this topic, but submit it is quite plausible.

Now is the moment of truth. The gargage is collected together, everything bagged up, and it is time to set up my bear line trick on the pole and tree as per instructions in the shelter log. I tie the carabiner I have been using to secure my sandals to the pack to one end of the line and toss it up into the tree and over the first branch. I comes down, narrowly missing pranging into me, and I secure the line with the clip. My food bag looks strange limp against the side of the tree where I tied it in midway, but it makes sense once the other end of the line is fed up onto the bear pole and secured there. I admire my handiwork which is just like the diagram. The raccoons won’t get this.

But the bears sure will: it occurs to me that the food bag is almost level with my eyes. I’ve just set up a pinata for the bears!

So down comes the line on the tree and I weight it with the carabiner again and this time try to loop it up and over the second branch much higher up. It is a very strange experience to have a blue flashlight send light upwards into the air and more or less straight up in the direction of the falling rain. I am very grateful for my japara which is keeping me quite dry, but trying to look straight up into falling rain in the dark is a hard thing to do as the rain drops that slap into my face and right into my eyes are the ones just out of the cone of light from the flashlight so I don’t even have a sense of them coming until splat! And then, thunk. I get the line over the branch, but not without also getting banded on the head by the descending caribinger. I play the ropes out and secure it again and admire my work. Now the food bag is a good ten feet up off the ground beyond the reach of the bears, squirrels, and all the other critters. Of course it is also dangling in the middle of moderately heavy rain, so everything is getting wet, but I did wrap the contents of the bag in a garbage bag first, so it should be okay. And if not... well, I am going home tomorrow and can dry it all at home.

Satiated and happy and with my food safe for the night, I turn in. I’m clean, I’m dry, and there is something just magical about being in the woods in the rain and hearing the sound of the drops hitting the shelter roof. Eventually I dose off. I am finally getting used to the feel of a hard wood floor under the padding, though I still have the same light sleep through the night.

Tomorrow, I am rescued by a gallant damsel in a dashing sports car, and one of my cats goes triplicate.

J aka “Red Sock”