The Cold (March 28, 2011 - April 6, 2011)

"It feels like I caught up with winter." Trail Blazer, 4/16/11, Rausch Gap Shelter

Overmountain Shelter (March 29, 2011)

At night it's cold. In the morning it's cold. That's understood. But now it's cold all day. I
huddled under the roof of a Roan Mountain toilet and turned on my stove just to thaw my hands, hands that were numb and no longer giving feeling. White Wolf told me it was 25 degrees at noon on his thermometer.

We've been hiking with White Wolf lately, a retired Marine Colonel who served in Vietnam. Everyone enjoys his company. He's one of these people you intuitively want to hike with but know that he is moving at a different pace than you, so you won't see too much of each other. This situation occurs frequently with friends you meet along the way.

Breaks are not reasonable since we are only comfortable when feeling the warmth of hiking. If you layer too much, you'll just break out in sweats ten minutes into the hike. Some people pile on clothes to break and then take it all off to hike but I don't have enough equipment to make something like this possible.

We're now exclusively hiking in Tennessee and out of Carolina. A guy named Bob Peoples runs a hostel named Kincora that costs $4 and is fantastic. The hostels along the way range from church basements to houses of people sympathetic to hikers. Bob is the latter. He's something of a legend on the trail. He's funny and deaf as a fence post.

The days heading into Virginia are in the 20s and peppered with snow. It's too frigid to do anything but complain. And complain I do. I have to sleep in full clothes just to maintain equilibrium at night. It's not comfortable, just bearable. Also, Tennessee is kind enough to omit privies from the trail so we have to shit into cat holes again in freezing temperatures. I've shit 8 times now in a hole I've dug. I'm counting.

We cross into Virginia and I'm elated, feeling a real sense that I've penetrated deep into the northern sections of the AT. It's not based on fact or reality but it was one of the biggest rushes I remember feeling on the trail.

In Damascus we bum around with friends -- White Wolf, Storm Song, Treebeard, Jelly Pants and of course, Sensei. We also meet Spam for the first time on our way out of town from the hostel where we're staying. The hostel is called "The Place." It's really just more of a collection of signs: No Drinking, No Smoking, No Lying Down on the Couch, Don't Remove Couch Cushions, Clean Up Water Off Floor and Leave a Donation!! Whenever anyone leaves two exclamation points I immediately forget what I'm being told and just want to slap them with a clean white glove across the face. The Place sucks. It's run by a church. I've gotten into 1,000 discussions with sanctimonious hikers who say I should be grateful that The Place gave me a cheap place to stay. They also inform me that the signs are necessary since a few hikers took advantage in the past.

The signs enrage me. They are superfluous, lazy and insulting. If you don't like people, close your stupid hostel. Either that, or charge $20 and employ a human being to enforce bullshit rules that people already know. Plus a little bleach and elbow grease in the showers might help. I would rather pay $20 than allow you to visually rape me with your condescending signs. The Place, how about this for a sign? No Bestiality, Human Sacrifice or Genocide on Premises. And here is one from me to you: Use the Money You Steal from the Community in Religious Tax Exemptions to Clean Up and Police Your Shitty Hostel.

Just when things couldn't get any colder, Sensei and I head out of Damascus and get crushed by a snow storm in the Mt. Rogers area. The area is stunning, but we just run through it like a bunch of refugees across the border, fleeing some homicidal pursuer. In the Highlands there is an area with wild ponies foraging the landscape for grass. In all the pictures I've seen this is a spectacular looking place to waste hours in green pastures. The ponies are so cold they are indifferent to us (they usually approach visitors and lick the salt off their bodies) and we could care less about them.

That same day I get lost on Whitetop Mountain (-10 degrees with the wind chill) because the snow is filling in Sensei's footprints that I can usually use to track. I'm by myself wandering around and looking for white blazes (white blazes mark the AT) in a whiteout. The cold takes my breath away and I'm a little nervous for the first time. I do the smart thing and backtrack--this is always the smartest thing to do but sometimes panic and laziness make you do counterproductive things like pushing deeper into the bush in the hopes that you cross the trail and don't have to go backward. Whitetop is also a bald so there are no trees absorbing the wind.

That night at camp I'm exhausted but we awake to better weather. It hits the 60s by mid-afternoon and the worst of the cold is behind us. Scampering along with 1,652.9 miles left.