A couple of weeks ago I embarked on my first solo backpacking trip. The idea for this trip came from a trio of sources: my fascination with Survivorman; my recent reading of Into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer; and my conversations with a longtime backpacking buddy who took his own solo expedition a couple of years ago. The idea for my trip was simple: pack light (I limited myself to 25 lbs.), hike long (I covered about 30 miles in three days), and go somewhere I have never been before. With all that in mind I chose a surprisingly well-travelled destination, the Clingman's Dome area of the Smoky Mountains National Park.
For those of you who have never been to Clingman's Dome, I suggest you go. It sits high above the surrounding peaks and, if you're not inclined to hiking long distances, there is a road that leads to a 1/2 mile trail to an observation deck. I didn't make it to the observation deck, for reasons I'll provide later, but the area that I covered was awe-inspiring.
I timed my trip with the very beginning of Spring Break and was out from March 7 - March 9. My original plan was to spend three nights in the area, but, for reasons that will follow, I ended up only spending two. As I said earlier, I packed light which meant no tent, minimal food, and minimal creature comforts.
I embarked from the Newfound Gap parking area at about 2:30 pm on Friday, March 7. The original plan was to park at the Clingman's Dome parking lot, saving me about 10 total miles of hiking, but as my favorite Scottish poet once said, "The best-laid schemes o' mice an men, gang aft agley." In fact, as I would later find out, the road to Clingman's Dome was closed for good reason.
I set out from Newfound Gap into a hazy, rainy wood and hiked 5 miles down the Appalachian Trail to my first night's destination, a shelter just off the trail. Despite the dreary, London-esque weather, the hike was pleasant and I was filled with a sense of accomplishment at having embarked on what I was sure would be a great vision quest full of introspection and great self-realization. The five-mile hike was none too difficult, being mostly flat, and I made good time to the shelter.
Along the way I passed a trio of AT thru-hikers. The first hiker I met called himself "Traveller," which brought to me my first realization- I don't have a trail name. Throughout life I have been wary of self-applied nicknames, but, as I parted the company of "Traveller" I decided to give mine some thought. I got nothing. Everything I came up with sounded corny, so I decided to bunk the system and just go by my given name. Thus, I'm still wary of self-applied nicknames.
My second realization came when I arrived at the shelter for my first night- solitude would be a difficult thing to achieve, even in the wilderness. I spent the night in the shelter with four other people- two thru-hikers named "Grasshopper" and "Brakeman" and a father and son who were out for the weekend. Thus my plan for introspection was busted for the night.
My third realization came shortly thereafter- I don't know how to cook rice, especially at altitude. See, my food plan was extremely simple by design. I brought four power bars and five pounds of rice. Seemed simple enough. However, the only cookware I brought was a tin coffee mug that proved itself not conducive to cooking rice. After about 45 minutes of standing in the rain over my boiling rice, I was sure it was cooked. Wrong. Turns out rice needs a lot more water than I had originally thought. My spirits, though, were still high as I tossed out my half-cooked rice, and I resolved myself to learn the proper method the next day. I ate one of my power bars and then began settling in for the night.
At some point while I was sleeping the rain turned into a snow storm. I had not been totally unprepared for this event, though, as the weather forecast predicted "few snow showers" on Saturday. Of course I would love to find the person who deemed Saturday's weather "few snow showers" and give him or her a lesson on proper syntax. While "snow showers" certainly occurred, I can hardly justify calling a steady snow beginning in the middle of the night and continuing all day long "few." Of course, being from South Carolina, I was eager to encounter the snow, a phenomenon of nature that we sandlappers do not often get to experience.
What I did not count on was that water freezes at 32 degrees Fahrenheit. Seems like a simple concept, but again, being a South Carolinian, 32 degrees is not something we encounter regularly (at least not while the sun is out). I found that pumping water from a nearby stream becomes impossible when it turns to ice as soon as it leaves the stream into the water filter. But that was ok, I still had a liter of water for my hike and I was sure that eventually the day would warm up enough so that I could get some more- again, wrong.
I trudged 10 miles, mostly downhill, through the snow and ice on Saturday. So long as I was constantly in motion the hike was relatively pleasant. I saw bear tracks, which was a bit disconcerting, but no bear. I stopped along the trail to try and hone my outdoor photography skills, with a few good results, and had a power bar for lunch. All in all it was a good hike and my spirits were still relatively high, despite my continuing inability to get any water.
When I finally reached my campsite for the night I was finally all alone. Being no longer on the move I was finally free to be alone with my thoughts. My first thought- "it's cold out here, I need a fire." Of course the fact that all flammable material around me was frozen solid and covered with snow meant that a fire was a dire improbability. I struggled to start a fire for about an hour before I gave in to the realization that tonight was going to be cold and alone and increasingly miserable. This was the first point where the thought entered my mind that would dominate the rest of the trip- "I need to get home."
It started off as an option. Maybe I would hike out the next day, maybe not. But as I sat there and contemplated my options it began to gain traction. After a very short while of sitting in the increasingly cold air, I decided I had little choice but to put off my rice-cooking lesson for the night, and decided on the best way to get warm. I unpacked my sleeping bag and tarp, spread the tarp on the ground, climbed in my sleeping bag, put the rest of what might be considered insulation (a poncho and a jacket) on top of me, rolled the tarp over me and began to wait out the night. It was about 6:00 pm, and I assumed it would be dark soon. Of course I had forgotten that Saturday was the first full day of daylight savings time and the digital clock on my Ipod (one of the few creature comforts I brought) had automatically changed. Ok, so a couple hours of daylight and then night would set in.
At this point I need to flash back a bit to explain exactly why I was so cold. Saturday's hike came with about five stream crossings. Normally these streams are shallow, high mountain streams, but because of the rain all day Friday, they had risen quite a bit. The result was that crossing these streams became, in many places, nearly impossible, at least without getting a little wet. And indeed, at three distinct points the water rose above my waterproof boots and the icy water covered my legs to the knee. Now I have been backpacking for a long time, and I know that getting wet is the cardinal sin for cold weather camping. Another cardinal sin I committed was wearing cotton pants that I soon learned freeze just as solid as my water filter did. By the time I reached the camp site I had been rubbing the bottoms of my pants together as I walked to create noise to alert any nearby bears of my presence. This was not a good thing.
This explains why I was shivering uncontrollably in my sleeping bag as my base layer (also soaked) began to thaw. It took close to an hour before I warmed up enough to stop shivering and all the while I was haunted by thoughts of hypothermia. Luckily, though, I eventually warmed up enough to sleep, for the first time, alone in the wilderness.
Shortly thereafter, though, I was awoken by the sound of human voices. I would learn the next morning that it was a group of college students from Connecticut. That night, though, I was satisfied that the noises I heard were human and drifted back to sleep. After struggling through the night, waking up with some regularity, I finally convinced myself that it was warm enough to exit my cocoon and start the day. What I found when I came out of my sleeping bag, though, was that my pants were still frozen, and had now been joined by my boots and the little bit of water I had left- also frozen solid.
This was the point at which my decision was made. I was going home today. I attempted to put my frozen boots on, but could only get about half of each foot in them, so I hobbled around camp trying to get some sort of a fire going to thaw my clothing. Of course everything around me was frozen and covered with snow still and the fire effort cost me my remaining stove fuel and one of my favorite t-shirts (which burned surprisingly well, but not well enough to get the fire going). Eventually I gave up on the fire, but in the process had thawed my boots enough to get my whole foot into them, and I walked over to the group of people occupying the other part of my campsite, who were just beginning to exit their tents and cook breakfast.
After chatting with the Connecticut crew for a while and consulting their map, which was far superior to mine, I decided to make a small alteration in my hike that would make exiting the wilderness possible in one day. See, my original plan was to hike back up to the Appalachian Trail (about 2,000 ft. above me) and spend the night in another shelter before hiking out the next day. However, I found that if I reached the AT with enough daylight, I could make it to the Clingman's Dome parking lot (another 1,000 ft. climb) and take the seven-mile road down to where I had parked. This seemed to be the best route since I was fairly certain I would run out of daylight and at least I would be hiking down a road in the dark. My confidence was further bolstered by what would prove to be a fleeting hope that maybe the road had been opened to traffic and I just might be able to hitchhike down to the parking lot. I decided that the rice I was carrying was doing me no good, so I buried it in the woods to lighten my load. This was the point of no return.
So I packed up and began my trek upwards toward the AT. This trail proved to be quite difficult and time-consuming, but after hours of struggling uphill I finally reached the AT. It was about 3 pm, so I knew I had to quicken my pace if I was going to make it to my truck by dark. The five uphill miles had taken a toll on my legs though, so I decided to take a long break before setting out again. It was here that the Connecticut crew caught up with me and were kind enough to offer me some trail mix to fuel the rest of my hike, which I am sure they thought was an endeavor in insanity, though they were polite enough not to say it outright.
Sunday was much warmer, and the snow had begun to melt as I ascended toward the AT. By the time I reached the highest point of my hike, just below the peak of Clingman's Dome, I was rewarded with some of the most spectacular views available in the Appalachian Mountains. I tried to quickly capture some of the views with my camera, but I did not have much time to spare, nor much photographic talent, and, while I produced some pictures that will certainly go on my wall, I was not able to do the views proper justice. The awe of my surroundings really overtook me there, even though I did not have time to let it soak in.
I was overtaken by joy when I finally reached the Clingman's Dome parking lot. I had been able to thaw out my filter a bit earlier and filled, and subsequently drained, my water supply. I was greeted first by a water fountain and gladly sauntered over for a bit of fresh water. It had not yet been turned on for the tourist season. However, I would not let this setback ruin my cathartic experience, and sat down briefly to enjoy my accomplishment. It was all downhill from here.
On checking the time (it was 6:30 pm), I decided that I needed to get moving down the road. Of course the road was still closed, and rightly so. It was covered by ice and snow in many places and would have made for treacherous driving. I was still hopeful that perhaps a ranger would pass me by and be kind of enough to offer a ride, but that hope never materialized. The walk down the road was long and relatively boring save a few decent overlooks. There were few signs along the way, so it became impossible to tell how far I had to go. All I knew was that it was seven miles from the top and, despite my natural abhorrence of simple math, I spent some time in my thoughts figuring out just how fast I was walking and how long it would take to cover the seven miles. My calculation was actually reasonably accurate and, after two and a half hours I finally reached the end of the road, stumbled to my truck, and remembered the best idea of the trip- that I had left a beer, a hunk of cheese, and a change of clothes in my truck. However, I was so exhausted that the beer and cheese did not go down easily, but the change of clothes was divine.
I learned a lot about myself on that trip, but none of it was what I expected. I learned that it is difficult to maintain high spirits in the face of nature's adversity. This is a different phenomenon from man-made or self-imposed adversity. Nature throws adverse conditions at you without regard to your place in life. There is no control when you subject yourself to her elements and she is unforgiving and relentless. At the same time, though, if you are lucky enough to ride out the weather, nature will reward you. These rewards came to me in the form of majestic mountain top views that I enjoyed not so much because of their intrinsic beauty, but rather because of the trip, the hardship, that led me to them. That is a phenomenon that only who have experienced it can understand. This is why I chose to post a picture not of those majestic views, but of the trail that led me there.
1 comment:
an excellent piece, blue...
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