Shakedown Trip #5: Day 3

Day 3: Saturday, November 17th, 2014

Brown Mountain Creek Shelter to US60/A.T. Intersection (1.8 miles)

Laying down for last night’s sleep was a relaxing affair. Actually, it is relaxing until you start hearing things and your brain goes into alert status. “What’s that sound?” “What was that???” The human brain is an amazing machine – one of its greatest strengths is pattern recognition. During our daily lives, whether we’re in the woods or in the city, our brains are gathering data from our senses and then pattern matching those inputs against past experiences. That’s generally how we “get on with things.”

However, with chaotic phenomena, such as a gurgling stream, our brains struggle to bring order out of the chaos. Although the brain is an amazing machine, it is quite capable of deceiving us. In its struggle to make sense out of random sensory inputs, it can make matches which have no bearing on reality. Deception at it’s best – right inside our heads!

Case in point: Most of us know what it sounds like for an animal to lap water. Anyone who has a dog or cat knows exactly what it sounds like for their pet to drink water. So imagine that you are sleeping 20 feet away from a flowing creek, such as we were last night. The sound of the flowing creek is chaotic and never repeats. But our brains work themselves silly trying to identify some pattern in the chaos.

Last night, my brain was interpreting noises from the flowing creek to be that of an animal drinking water from the creek. Rationally, I knew there was no way an animal could be down there. Anything that was large enough to produce the sound my brain was interpreting would have easily been heard as it walked down there. Even knowing that, I was still on “alert status.”

Another case in point: The sound of rustling leaves is also a chaotic affair. But after hearing rustling leaves for a time, the brain might identify those sounds as being an animal walking in the forest – near camp. Cue another case of “alert status.” There is also a cultural bias which can influence this whole brain interpretation stuff. Most of us are accustomed to being in the suburbs or the city. When one heads out into the woods, it is expected that there are animals around. We listen for them, remaining in “alert status.” Any sound we hear that isn’t immediately identifiable is a potential, and likely, candidate to be interpreted as an animal.

I imagine you readers are saying, “Enough analyzing!!! Get on with the story!” *Sigh* Very well, as you wish…

During the early hours of the evening, while in our tents awake, we collectively thought we heard two animals last night. In reality, there were none. Our brains had successfully fooled us. (Wayne’s World reference: “Fished in!!! Fished in!!!”) The only animals around were the three humans in their tents, desperately trying to get some sleep! “Hearing” sounds like those described above will potentially interfere with the process of getting to sleep, no matter how tired one might be. For myself, it was annoying as hell. For Ryan, it was a minor hindrance. Ryan was asleep in no time flat – evidenced by the sound of snoring from his tent. As stated in a previous post, I now know why I carry ear plugs. But I was too lazy to dig them out this night. I was finally able to put the night sounds out of my mind. Slowly but surely, I managed to fall asleep.

At the time we retired to the tents, there was no rain. But at some point during the night, the rain returned. I do have vague memories of being temporarily awakened by the sound of rain. In each case however, I quickly fell back asleep and did not fully process the information.

I finally woke up at, let’s call it 7:00am. Upon waking, the first thing I noticed was the sound of rain. Rain in the forest, rain right outside the tent and rain on the tent. First order of business… Had my tent been compromised by rain water? This was not the first time I’ve been in the rain but it’s the first time I woke up in rain. I needed to know that my tent was still waterproof and its contents dry. A quick look and feel around showed no signs of water intrusion. Yay for the Lightheart Gear SoLong 6 tent, woohoo!!!

Next was the realization that I needed to pee. It was definitely necessary, but not 100% urgent. I’d say it was maybe 80% urgent if I had to put a number to it. My concern was that if I left the tent to pee, I would get wet from the rain and have to re-enter the tent soaking wet – which would drench my gear. There’s just no eloquent way of putting it – waking up in the rain sucks. It really sucks, and I will likely have to deal with this more times than not on my thru hike in 2015.

So, to keep my gear as dry as possible, I concocted a plan. I would quickly pack up everything while still inside my tent. I would then get in my rain gear, exit the tent and immediately hike up to the shelter as quickly as possible. My plan included leaving my tent as is, leaving my gear at the shelter, then returning to pack the tent. I would then head back to the shelter. Once back at the shelter, and out of the rain, we could take our sweet time having coffee, breakfast and preparing to hike out to the car.

As I started gathering my gear and stuffing my backpack, I heard noises from Ryan’s tent. I called out, “Hey man, you awake?” A very unenthusiastic, “Yeah” was the response. We’ve already mentioned Ryan is not a morning person. Did I mention that he’s not a big fan of rain? Well, he’s not. This fact came through loud and clear in his “yeah” response. I told Ryan of my plan to get to the shelter ASAP and then return to the tents to pack them up. He seemed good with that plan. Shortly after, I heard Ryan fumbling around with something from his tent.

Ryan had brought contact lenses on this trip. Bad move. As I continued to pack, I began to hear a lot of cursing from next door. Asking what was wrong, he told me of his troubles getting his contacts in. In reference to a past shared story involving Ryan and myself, I so wanted to make reference to Peter Gabriel’s song, “Don’t Give Up.” (For those not in the know, it’s an awesome inspirational song about not giving up in the face of adversity) However, I know Ryan very well. If I’d played that card, it may well have had the cost of life itself. So, I resisted that urge.

The minutes rolled on. At one point, Ryan actually dropped one of his contact lenses. That resulted in him producing one of the most primal screams I’ve ever heard from the man. Here’s my best attempt at a transcription:

“ROOOAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!”

I’m sure the sound was heard round the forest for miles and miles and miles. The whole “Don’t Give Up” thing was not even a remote option at this point. I know very well that when Ryan gets to this point, there’s simply nothing to be said. The guy’s gotta work it out on his own, so I left it there. I finished my last bit of packing, got my rain gear on, and exited the tent. I really wanted to have my trekking poles because the ground was so wet. Because my trekking poles are essential to my tent’s setup, that meant I had to take them out of my tent. That left my tent laying flat on the ground, collecting rain water.

I quickly hiked from the campsite on up to the shelter. Jason was not far behind, arriving just a couple minutes after me. I don’t remember communicating directly with him at all – he must’ve overheard mine and Ryan’s conversation about leaving ASAP and heading to the shelter. Jason was even one step ahead of me. He had his tent in hand with him – impressive!

Seeing as how Brown Mountain Creek Shelter was supposed to be our shelter from the rain and being wet, I told him not to bring his soaking wet tent into the shelter. I hold him that he should leave it outside the shelter on the picnic table, and pack it away there. He brought the damn thing in the shelter anyway, hung it up on the shelter’s rafters to let it drain, and totally drenched one half of the shelter’s floor! Grrrrrr!!!!

With nothing to say but, “great,” I finally took care of my morning pee break, behind the shelter. A quick hike back to camp to collect my tent showed that I’d made a huge mistake. I should never ever ever ever have taken those trekking poles out and let the tent lay flat. My tent was presently at the bottom of a puddle that was several inches deep. I had to lift the tent up, letting all of the water drain from the top. Because of the tent’s construction, much of the water collected in the interior of the tent and couldn’t be totally evacuated. After a lot of fuss and seriously chilled fingers, I finally succeeded in rolling the tent up and getting it in its stuff sack.

I’d also brought my backpack’s rain cover with me. For this trip, Ryan had borrowed a couple items of gear from me. They were originally strapped to his pack on the hike in to camp. I knew there was no way he’d be able to pack them inside his backpack this time. I took the pack cover over to Ryan’s tent, “Hey man, give me the sleeping bag and sleeping pad!” He handed them over and I wrapped them in the pack cover. I gave a friendly, “See ya in a few!” as I hiked back to the shelter. Ryan was looking in slightly higher spirits, but only slightly.

Now back at the shelter, Jason was nowhere to be seen. I didn’t pay his absence much mind; I figured he was either in the privy or trying to get cell phone service – or both. A few minutes later, Ryan comes hiking up to the shelter. He was in a considerably brighter mood than earlier in the morning.

Ryan approached with a genuinely enthusiastic demeanor – a complete 180 degrees from the campsite only 10 minutes ago. In a cheerful, hopeful tone, the first thing he said was, “Hey boys! Is this the way to Terminus??? Because I hear good things!!!”

Readers who watch the AMC show, “The Walking Dead” will immediately get this reference. For readers who don’t watch this show, here is the context. (Remember me? I’m all about context. Call me Mr. Context Man) “The Walking Dead” is a post-apocalyptic show which is really a character-based drama about survival. In the show, our survivors learned that “Terminus” was a place which promised “community for all, sanctuary for all.” Once our heroic survivors arrived, it was revealed that “Terminus” was nothing of the sort. It was a rouse, which lured people into a grisly fate.

So while I laughed at Ryan’s remark, and recognized the reference he made, I was more happy that he’d managed to climb out of the negative hole he was in earlier. But when Jason came back and heard about the Terminus reference, he remarked, “I guess that guy missed a few episodes!”

As the laughing commenced, we were back together – the three stooges. We sorted out our gear and prepared to make coffee and breakfast. Before that happened, though, we needed more water. Ryan and Jason braved the rains and headed down to the creek and collected a full 4 liters of water. With creek water in hand, I filtered it into many containers. Ryan’s water bottle, Jason’s water bottle and my water bottles.

We then began to cook. I boiled water for coffee, and then boiled water for mine and Jason’s Bacon Cheddar Potatoes breakfast. Ryan elected to skip the cooked breakfast this morning. He was happy with his snacks. Having used a bit of water for cooking, we needed to top off the water for the hike out. Once again, Ryan and Jason were up to the challenge. With that, this is the first (and probably only) trip where I did not have to make a single trip to collect water. This was a nice luxury that I won’t experience on the trail next year.

Now that we were all fat, happy, and full of caffeine, I finally decided to take some photos of us while in the shelter. I’m sad to say that this entire day has only a handful of pictures. Things were too hectic earlier with rain and packing, and at the end of the day – well we’ll get to that. Here’s some photos of us chilling in the shelter.

 

 

 

A nice unexpected bonus of being at the shelter for a while is that mother nature decided to take pity on us-  the rains ceased! As we packed our gear and prepared to head out, I found that I’d left one item out of my pack. Rather than opening my pack to put it away, I decided to hang it on the outside of my pack. This would create a photo opportunity that I couldn’t pass us. Here it is…

So yeah, what is up with the hockey mask??? Some of the more deranged readers might recognize that mask as a vintage recreation of Jason’s mask from the Friday the 13th films. Why did I even bring that on the hike? Well, I had plans to scare the hell out of my companions – but the plan never lent itself to being realized. Well before the trip, I had placed a few movies on my computer phone for potential viewing while on this trip. The reason for this was entertainment – if we were bored, we would have the ability to watch a movie. One of the movies was a Friday the 13th film. I thought it would be hilarious to watch the film, then head out into the woods (with mask in tow) for a pee break. I would then don the mask and return to camp – attempting to scare the hell out of my companions. The plan would’ve worked beautifully, except for the fact that we were never bored! We had too much fun socializing and tending our fires!

We were ready to depart. Although the rain had ceased, there was no guarantee that it would not return. Being prepared for such a possibility, we had our rain gear on – as well as our pack covers. Finally at 11am we left Brown Mountain Creek Shelter to hike back to the cars.

The first mile of the hike was relatively flat. The trail here followed along the side of the creek upstream. It was an ever-so-slight climb that was barely noticeable. What was noticeable though was the volume of water in the creek! I’m not quite sure how to quantify the increase, but there was considerably more water in the creek compared to when we hiked in on Day 1. The reason for this was obvious; there had been a lot of rain over night and into the morning.

The water was collecting in the stream and heading down to the Lynchburg Reservoir – an artificially created lake via a dam. The water in this stream would go to one of two places: 1. The City of Lynchburg for consumption, or  2. Into the Pedlar River beyond the dam, ultimately leading to the James River, ultimately leading the Chesapeake Bay and into the Atlantic Ocean. From this creek we were seeing water that would end up in the Atlantic Ocean – hundreds of miles away. Pretty cool stuff.

About a mile into the day’s hike, the trail was about to leave this creek and ascend away from it. Before that happened, I shot a short video showing the creek and us. The video contained a short recap of our hectic morning and our immediate desires once off trail – hot showers and pizza. Even a cold beer was talked about.

Climbing out of the creek valley consisted of an 800 foot climb over about 1 mile. Recall from my past trips that I’ve done a 3000 foot climb over 3 miles and a 2000 foot climb over 2 miles. Those were tough climbs, but I did them. For me, this 800 foot climb was a cake-walk. But for my companions, it was a different story altogether. It was tough for them – and I never “rubbed it in,” nor did I have any desire to do so. I remember my own experience on my first shakedown trip in May 2014. On that trip, I had balked about a 1000 foot climb over 5 miles – which is nothing compared to what we were presently doing.

The initial climb out involved a series of switchbacks. Reaching the top of the switchbacks, I saw a great overview down into the valley from which we’d just climbed. I decided to call a break. It wasn’t a break for a physical rest, it was a break to appreciate the context of where we were. I said to my companions, “Hey guys, let’s take a short break here. We have a great view that provides some context to where we’ve been.”

With Ryan and Jason gasping for breath, Ryan says, “That’s great Kel! Tell us! Tell us all about the context! What are we looking at?!?” From his tone, I could tell that he didn’t give two rat’s asses about the context. What he was excited about was the break itself. What he really wanted to say, but didn’t say, was, “We’ll listen to whatever bullsh*t you want to say, as long as it involves a break!”

I proceeded to show them the valley from which we’d climbed and how it’s creek was formed from the confluence of two lesser creeks. From our vantage point, the two individual creek valleys were clearly visible. We could also see where the two valleys merged to form the main valley we’d been hiking along. Also during this break, I shared a revelation with Ryan and Jason which I’d learned the hard way on my second shakedown trip with Danny (Hi Danny!) back in June 2014.

On that trip, I learned a valuable lesson about climbing on the trail. We all have a standard walking pace and walking stride. I am one that has both a fast pace and a long stride. However, when hiking uphill, I learned that you get to choose one at the expense of the other. You can either take long strides slowly (favors stride), or you can take short strides quickly (favors pace). For myself I found it more important to keep a constant pace – meaning quick steps with short strides.

It is the same concept as gears in a transmission – the engine can be running at a constant RPM. But the forward speed depends on the current gear. My companions seemed empowered with the idea, although they questioned me as to why I didn’t share this knowledge earlier. I told them that the lesson wouldn’t have been appreciated as much, had they known from the start. 🙂 It reminds me of the Steve Miller song with the lyric, “…you know you’ve got to go thru hell before you – get to heaven…”

So we left our contextual overview point and continued onward – I mean upwards. We covered the last bit of distance pretty quickly, over a gentle climb. Finally, we reached the highway – leading to the parking area where Ryan had left his car. When we reached the road and started up the road to the parking area, we were a little nervous at first. None of us could see Ryan’s car. We continued to hike up the road. Still, no sign of his car. Was it still there? Had it been stolen? Had it been towed? These were questions I’m sure we all had, but none of us ever voiced them. We also never discussed them. The concerns were not even mentioned until here in this blog post. We simply kept hiking to the parking area.

At any rate, the concern was totally unfounded. We finally crested the road, which brought the whole parking area into view. Ryan’s car was right where he’d left it. What a lovely sight it was – this thing was our ride back to civilization!

Ryan is meticulous with his car in a way that most of us are not. That fact is even more true now that he is the proud owner of a new car. All during the trip, we knew there was the possibility of rain as we were hiking out. This inspired the development of a complex procedure for entering his car – should we arrive being completely drenched. Even though we arrived in a totally dry state, that procedure was still closely followed.

All seats of the car had to be lined with plastic trash bags – even the back seat which carried a backpack. This was originally meant to provide a water barrier between us and the seats. Being we were all dry, however, it became an odor barrier from our hiker/camper stench. We also had to remove our hiking shoes and replace them with our camp shoes – at least in mine and Jason’s case. This wasn’t a strict requirement, but it was prudent to let our feet air out.

We were so excited to be back to the car that we’d kind of taken our time loading things into the car. Eventually, we felt a strong gust of wind come through. Very shortly after, it started sprinkling. It was now a race against time to get everything loaded up, our footwear changed, the trash bag seat liners set, and our bodies into the car – all before the light sprinkles turned into a torrential downpour.

We succeeded. We were in the car, the car was fired-up and Ryan began the 4 hour drive back home. We talked about our trip and how much we’d enjoyed it. Ryan shared a revelation. He said that he’d given thought to a possible thru hike in the future, but that after this experience, he knew that a thru hike would not be for him. During all the gatherings I’ve had with Ryan, during the course of my preparation, he had never expressed any interest in a thru hike. So, I found his revelation to be surprising – not because he had no desire to thru hike, but because he had even considered it as a possibility! Jason expressed a similar sentiment. Ryan and Jason both really enjoyed the trip, even saying they would do something similar in the future, but neither had any desire to thru hike the A.T.

During the drive home, we decided to make good on a plan we’d talked about all day. After eating trail food for 3 days, we were in great anticipation of a PIZZA. We’d toyed with the idea of finding some local Italian restaurant and stopping for a late lunch. But we knew that once we arrived home, Jason still had a 2 hour drive from my house to his house. So we wanted to get home as quickly as possible. We ended up ordering PIZZA from Domino’s Pizza while still en-route. I tried to time it perfectly – from my house delivery usually takes 15 minutes. So I ordered the pizzas from about 15 minutes away.

So we arrived at my house and unloaded our gear. Jason transferred his gear to his car, I removed my gear and Ryan left his gear in his car. We fully expected delivery of the pizza to occur during these activities, but it didn’t happen. Finally, some 15 minutes after being home and twiddling our thumbs, the pizzas arrived. I paid, we took pocession and we ate. It was pure nirvana! If ever you don’t think pizza tastes good, then go out in the woods for a few days. After that, come back home and order a pizza. I promise, it’ll taste like no other pizza you’ve had before – in a good way.

After the feast, Jason and Ryan went their separate ways, and I was left at home. The trip was over, but this blog post isn’t over. See, I’d asked Ryan and Jason to share some thoughts and memories of the trip so that I could include them in my blog posts. Both of them replied with some some good stuff which I’ll share.

Ryan’s Notes

Here’s just a few quick items off the top of my head, in no order… Hiking the A.T. is NOT the same as walking or even jogging on regular terrain – people need to know that. You can’t appreciate nature along the trail until you stop – because of worrying about foot placement. Jason is CSI and Jason is the water man. (Jason gathered the majority of our water) Log books can be funny. Beware of random Norman sightings. (In reference to our unscheduled visitor on Day 2) Any food while camping is wonderful. Always bring a pen for your own log book writings. Ryan likes to build fires – especially big ones! If you decide to hike the A.T. it is not a vacation, it is work – but rewarding in an odd way…

Jason’s Nicknames

Kelly – has become pretty much the leader of the group… Ringleader

Ryan – has developed special skills fast. Is an expert fire builder in all conditions…  Macgiver

Jason – has developed excellent tracking skills… CSI

Jason’s Rules

1st rule…hiking is NOT easy.

2nd rule…hiking is work…it’s not for folks that want an EASY vacation.

3rd rule…everything you do on a hiking trip is hard work…water is even hard to get.

4th rule…hiking makes you appreciate the things that you do have.  Don’t take it for granted.

5th rule…fire ROCKS!

6th rule…hiking is better with friends. Don’t think I would want to do it all alone. It would be scary and you would have to do all the work like gathering wood and water and starting fires.

7th rule…it gets VERY dark on the trail at night. Bring an excellent headlamp with backup power so you can see what’s in front of you.

8th rule…buy a longer spoon to reach your food in those freeze dried meal bags. (Kelly already did this)

9th rule…be aware of your surroundings…you never know who or what is around you. Keep your eyes and your senses focused. (If you don’t, Dave Norman might make a surprise appearance)

10th rule…i found it very hard to get the right amount of clothing on or off to keep from sweating or being cold. You’re always taking clothing off or putting it on.

11th rule…magic dust is the shit. (Magic Dust refers to the fire starter we were using. It actually wasn’t a great fire starter, but it was a good fire ENHANCER. Hence the term, “magic dust.”)

Closing

My companions provided excellent remarks and observations. I’m leaving it at that.

 

wandering on…

Kelly