"Approach the bears, do not be afraid. Offer them a treat." Anonymous, 9/19/10, Bearfence Hut
"The dominant primordial beast is strong in Mancub." Mancub, 5/13/11, Mt. Algo Shelter
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| Sensei at McAfee's Knob (April 18, 2011) |
When you see a big river, you know a big climb is coming, Sensei says. The trail
becomes a set of predefined things once you start maximizing your time. There is wake up, breakfast, bathroom and then hiking to start. There is hiking and breaks in the middle. At night there is dinner and sleep. The mountains are predictable as well. Up and down. Down and up. The miles are the same, 20-25 per day.
In Virginia we are pushing so hard that one night we hike until 10:30pm and see our first bear on the trail. He looks into my head lamp and runs away. My heart races and the moment is gone before I really have a chance to scare myself into fright. The bear looked at me, his eyes green with the reflection of the light like a view through night-vision goggles, and departed.
For just under a week we go as fast as we can to get to Bland, where we have maildrops waiting. It's just Sensei and I hiking now. I find out my package from home has been sent to Puerto Rico and is going to be re-routed at a later date. While I'm outside grumbling about the incident a woman invites Sensei and I to her house for showers and meals. I notice the back of her van has a lot of Jesus paraphernalia and I think we might be paying for showers by listening to a few sermons. Not everything on the trail that seems free is free.
She turns out to be a wonderful cook and we are given homemade breakfast sausages, eggs, butters and jams of all varieties. We shower. She insists on one more meal before we go--homemade pork bbq. It's amazing. Just when I think I'm going to escape without any talk of our souls, she goes into a 30 minute monologue about the sins of her past. She tells us her husband was a drug addict and alcoholic (he's listening not 10 feet away). As for her, she's had every addiction and problem imaginable. My ears really perk up when she tells us she had the evil spirit of lesbianism in her. Now things are getting interesting. Then she tells about how she came to Jesus in a church that seemed to talk in tongues. Just when I think I can't take anymore of the awkwardness, she says, but you don't want to hear me preaching. She comes to this stirring conclusion after one hell of an impromptu sermon. She was great, though. And I secretly wonder if I have the evil spirit of lesbianism in me. I've been interested in it for over a decade.
At a shelter just north of Pearisburg we meet Mancub, our patron saint of the trail. The sky that night was a blue and white creamsicle swirl. He came in late and left before the sun was up. He told us tales of 30 mile days and how he didn't carry a personal shelter. He hiked in sandals and socks. His feet were destroyed.
When you meet people that hike this fast and efficiently you feel bitterness, jealousy and wonderment. A common phrase repeated on the trail is, how can he be enjoying himself? As if the only way to enjoy the hike is to take long breaks, lots of pictures and look longingly at wildlife. The fact that the trail becomes a grind would become evident much later. At this point we still had some romantic notions about the trail.
A little bit later we ran into Face Jacket for the first time and I hike with him one night when he stopped dead and told me to get my head lamp out. When I turned it on there was a copperhead sitting exactly in the middle of the trail, invisible to us under the faint moonlight we'd been hiking under. He was coiled up and in the strike position. He'd struck at Face Jacket first and I would have most likely received the brunt of the snake's agitation since I was second. Face Jacket stabbed him with his trekking pole and threw him off in the woods.
The next day I met a diamondback on the trail and began to worry if all these snakes were a sign. All these Jesus conversations and snake sightings were making me nervous.
Still no satan sighting, however, with 1,332 miles looming. The mileage feels insurmountable. There is no way to make it go away.
eve isk
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