Mountain Hiking

Black Mountain

Meredith gave me some backpacking equipment for my birthday in 2003, and I planned a three-day hike to try it out.  I promoted it as a Hiking Club activity at school, but I really didn't think anyone would take me up on it in February.  But, Jesse wanted to go and two students did sign up.  Then we got storm warnings, some freezing rain, and a little snow.  The school closed down.  Jesse called to say he was sick.  Early Friday morning, I sat in the school parking lot in a cold rain, and no students showed up. As their teacher, I had to be proud of their sense and maturity. Who could awake on such a dismal morning and not snuggle more deeply into their warm, nest-like bed?

I got to the trailhead about 10:45 in spitting rain to find 2 - 3 inches of snow.  By then, it was above freezing and I think warming pretty fast, because it stopped raining but kept dripping off twigs and leaves most of the day.  I became pretty damp about the head and shoulders.

The snow was unbroken.  No one else was on the mountain.  It was a long, fairly steep ascent, maybe 3 miles, up Black Mt.  I had lunch on the way.  A student had given me an army MRE — meal ready to eat.  He'd gotten it from a friend who sells them by the case.  It was chicken stew that didn't have to be heated and was good.  It was in a plastic pouch and came with a spoon.  There were two really firm crackers and another pouch of peanut butter.  I kneaded it well and squeezed it out onto the crackers.  There were six caramels, a packet of waxy M&Ms, and two Chiclets, coffee, creamer, sugar, matches, cocoa, water purifier, a wet wipe, and toilet paper.  As I pulled all these bits out, I expected a tablecloth and a magazine.  It certainly was convenient.  “Cooking” your meal only required boiling water for the drinks (I saved those for breakfast).  But there was a lot of packaging.  It was fairly light plastic.  It might be worth it.

Meredith also gave me an easy chair.  Actually, it was a self-inflating air mattress.  I opened the valve and the foam expanded and pulled air in.  A few puffs then firmed it up.  Then there were straps that clipped together and folded the mattress into a chair shape.  I dropped it directly on the snow and sat.  It was a lifesaver.  There certainly was no where else that was dry enough to sit.  It was warm too, being foam insulated. A bit of luxury in the forest primeval.

The day was cloudy, foggy, and drippy.  Up I went.  It was eerily quiet. I stopped and listened.  There was not a whisper.  Not a breeze.  No rustle of leaves.  No birds.  An occasional drip.  I turned my head, cocking it, trying to catch any sound at all.  There was only the grinding of my neck bones.

Up on Black Mt., there were a few rock outcrops that put me directly over the valley and gave an unobstructed view of Lookinglass Rock, a huge monolith.  It floated by itself above a valley full of fog.  The sun was trying to come out. 

I passed a big overhang of rock that sheltered an area six or eight feet by maybe twenty.  Huge icicles hung from the edge.  I thought of camping there, because the ground under it was dry, but it was only 4:30, and I thought there might be mice in such a shelter.  I went on. I startled a deer.  There was a flash of tail and she bounded in great arcs, but there was no sound. About 5:30, I arrived at Buckhorn Gap, turned north, and camped by the trail.  The stars came out, and I hit the sack about 7:30. 

Saturday morning I awoke at 7:30.  It's not that I lazed in bed; I just didn't wake until then.  It was 28 degrees outside, 38 in the tent, 56 inside my jacket (which I’d worn to bed), and 74 inside my wool shirt (and probably 98.6 inside that though I didn't check it).  There were heavy clouds over the eastern mountains, so the sun wasn't out, but the sky was blue overhead.  I pulled my mattress out of the tent, clipped the straps, and set the resulting chair in the snow.  I got out the stove and pot and food, arranged them around the chair, and then sat.  I fired up the stove, had coffee, grits, cocoa, and a couple of pop tarts.  While I ate, the clouds parted and a bright shaft of light shot down.  A few seconds later the clouds closed in again.  I got away about 9:30. 

I headed north to the Mills River.  I wanted to hit the river above a particular falls, so I followed a trail that was on my 1965 topo map but that had been since abandoned.  The trail went downhill, petered out, and dumped me on the bank of the river.  There, it continued on the other side.  I looked down.  It was knee-deep, rocky, cold green water.  I figured I better keep my boots on, so I just waded across.  I found the first sunny spot, threw down my chair, and took off those soggy boots.  I wrung out my socks and put them back on.  I sopped out my boots with a rag and put them on.  A couple hundred feet down the trail, and it crossed back over to the first side again.  This time, I waded and just kept on going.  I must have waded a dozen different places that day.  My boots weren't dry the whole trip. 

I took the Squirrel Gap Trail north, crossed Glady Brook, Laurel Brook, Horse Cove Gap, and walked down Cantrell Creek Trail, and back to Mills River.  I stopped about 3:00 p.m. for a supper, took the Wagon Road Gap Trail up to a ridge, and headed west back toward Black Mt.  I took a Tang break about 5:30 and loosened the straps of my chair into the lounge chair setting.  The last rays of the setting sun filtered down.  Some songbirds twittered. 

I was still wet and not likely to dry.  Besides all the wading, the trail was one long, snowy mud hole.  It was getting crunchy now.  The temperature had dropped to 25 degrees.  I needed a fire.  I had on all my clothes: a flannel, wool, and corduroy shirts and a hooded coat on top of that.  I had slept in all of it and was none too warm the previous night.  So I needed to dry out.  I spent an hour or two rotating before a fire, trying to dry my pant legs.  I did change into dry socks and climbed into my bag about 8:30 p.m. 

On Sunday morning it was only 20 degrees, and my boots, even though I had brought them into the tent with me, were rock solid frozen.  I brought them into the sleeping bag and cuddled up with them close to my belly.  That got them so the sides would bend out a little.  I still couldn't get them on inside the tent, so I walked sock footed over to a log I could sit on and put some pressure on my feet, pushing them into the boots.  They were only slightly flexible blocks of ice.  I stumped around taking down the tent, but I couldn't stand it.  I need another fire.  But I hadn't gathered extra wood the night before.  So I scurried around and did that, got a fire built, and hung the boots on a branch nearby.  I propped my feet up before the fire, too.  I turned things and they steamed.  I didn't dry anything, but they did warm, and I laced up again, loaded up, and headed west. 

On any overnight trip, the early days are always spiced with just a little tension. Did I bring enough food, clothes? Will my equipment do the job? Am I on the trail? Just how lost am I? Will I be able to sleep…? I don’t do this real often. There is some uncertainty. But on the last day, I know that, what ever might go wrong, home and a warm bed await. What ever mess develops, it can be fixed. So, today, I ambled. I moseyed along the trails. I set aside the damp, the cold, and the little aches and twinges. The weather was clear. The air smelled sharp and clean. The views were bright and simple. I emerged quite healed.