Tuesday, December 19, 2006

The Best Piece of Cheese and Beer I've Ever Had


I've been backpacking for a number of years now. My schedule usually allows me about two trips a year, one in the summer, one in the winter. I've been to the vast majority of SC's mountains and done a little wandering around in NC and GA, and, until this past weekend, I've never felt like I'd been beaten by a mountain. However, Sunday afternoon, as I stumbled out of the woods into a parking lot at some boy scout camp in the Pisgah National Forest, I truly felt beaten. I keep telling myself that its just because I haven't been exercising, or that my 8 year old boots failed me, or that I simply wasn't mentally prepared for the grueling itenerary we had plotted. But then, it was only 2 nights and 12 miles. People do that sort of thing all the time.

I guess I should have known this trip would be particularly brutal. Things didn't go according to plan from the start. Half of our 6 man party didn't even leave Columbia until 6:30 pm (I was included in this half) and, due to certain navigational miscues, we didn't hit the trail until about 10 pm. Thankfully, the other 3 guys were kind enough to leave glow sticks along the trail so the late-comers could find our way in the dark. Of course the batteries in my head lamp were dying, so the normally bright, concentrated beam of light was reduced to a faint shimmer on the rocks below my feet. But the first night's hike in wasn't bad, only about 10 minutes of walking, and there was a meager fire awaiting us when we arrived...and plenty of scotch. Ahhh, scotchy scotch scotch, I love scotch.

The plan was that the next morning, we'd wake up early, have some breakfast, and break camp. We'd hike up some ridge, change trails, and some 6 or 8 miles later, we'd find a suitable place to camp for the night and do it all over again the next day. Nothing new here, I've executed similar plans for years. I though 8 miles might have been a bit ambitious condsidering that I'm not in the greatest shape of my life, but I could do it, I was sure.

So the next moring we left about 10 am and hit the trail. Thankfully, I had packed light for the trip and my pack was probably only about 30 lbs. The same can't be said for some of the other members of our party. The thing about backpacking is that, when you're new to it, you see all these neat gadgets that purport to make life in the wilderness a bit easier. What the marketers don't tell you is that you have to carry all those gadgets on your back and, even though most of them don't weigh much, when you bring a bunch of them, the weight adds up. I've learned that, while things like a candle-lantern seem neat and cozy, they don't justify their weight in the pack, at least in a pure utilitarian sense.

Anyway, we hit the trail. Because we were hiking in a wilderness area, the trail was not exactly what you'd call "maintained". There were no blazes and often we had to stop just to figure out where the hell the trail was. A few previous hikers had been kind enough to leave rock markers along the way, but they were sparse and, at many times, the trail was nearly invisible. But we managed to stay mostly on trail the whole trip, for better or worse. You see, when I said earlier that we were going to hike up a ridge, I really meant UP. In fact, we ascended what our guidebook (obviously written by some sadist) called a "moderate ascent," words that, in retrospect we relied on a bit too heavily. In reality, that trail was brutal...brutally brutal. And the so-called "moderate ascended" turned out to be 6 miles of ascent that left our hiking party completely wasted and in pain. I don't remember much from the trail that first real day of hiking. Only the pain in my feet from stepping on the thousands of sharp rocks that made up the majority of what some might call a trail.

When we finally arrived at the top of the ridge, the trail, thankfully, leveled out. It made for a nice hike along the top of the ridge and, since all the leaves were off the trees, excellent views of the surrounding mountains. After a bit of heated debate among the party, we decided that 6 miles was enough for the day and that we'd camp on top of the ridge. I took the picture above from our campsite. Its a view of the famous Cold Mountain (which we had originally planned to summit as a sidebar to or route, but, given the condition of our party and time limitations, we could not). We set up camp, cooked dinner (summer sausage and rice never tasted so good) and then broke out our libations. I made it through about 2 sips of scotch when I realized that water was going to have to be my spirit of choice for the night.

I woke up last the next day, some time around 8:30 am, and we were gone by 9. Breakfast was a granola bar and a few sips of water, but I had to be conservative because I was running low and the next stream we'd cross would be about 4 miles down the trail. Our trusty guidebook told us that the remaining portion of our route would be a moderate, easy hike for about 2 miles (he actually got that one right), followed by a "strenuous descent" of 4 miles. I've been hiking in the mountains for a long time, and I've never heard of a "strenuous descent". After all, going up is the hard part, right? Wrong.

Maybe it was the fact that my feet were already hurting when we started out that morning (along with my legs and back) and that every step, even on level ground, was full of pains from all sorts of different places, but the strenuous descent, once we began it, was indeed strenuous. In fact I've run straight down the side of mountains before and had an easier time (that is until I tried to stop, but hey, that's the fun part). By about the 5th mile (1 more to go) my ankles and knees were shaking, I was relying on a stick I'd picked up along the trail for balance, and my walk resembled more of a stumble than an actual gait. But I kept going, slowly, but going nonetheless.

Finally I heard one of the guys ahead of me (and by this point, they were all ahead of me) say that he saw the car just around the corner. Just prior to that my trusty stick had failed me, broke in half, and sent me hip first into a big, sharp rock. All I could do was sit there and absorb the pain. God that hurt like hell. But, after a minute or two, I resumed my stumble and, sure enough, just a few switchbacks away was the car, and the rest of the hiking party. I've never felt such a catharsis. As soon as I reached the car, I dropped my pack and was handed, of all things, a hunk of cheese and a beer. And that, is the story of the best piece of cheese and beer I've ever had. Funny thing is, as I walk around the house a mere 2 days later, I can't wait until I do it all again.