13. Run for it (The Jump Up to Browns Fork Gap NC)

Food rant

First of all, if you ever eat packaged cheese out of the package, make sure to peel the packaging down sufficiently so you bite only cheese. Let none of that artificially textured plastic get between your teeth. Never bite the plastic to squeeze a clump of cheese into your mouth. Gross. The texture of the first bite prepares the palate for a delightful cheese consumption experience. Fresh cheddar in the backcountry is sacred.

Hauling heavy food up a hill – you can never quite take enough but dread the weight – changes your relationship with food. Food’s role as fuel for activity increases relative to its role as a source of pleasure. Yet if hunger is the best spice, my food is always well-seasoned. So the pleasure of food increases while the need for food as fuel increases even more… I guess what I am saying is that I became obsessed with food starting about day 11 of hiking.

During my day at Nantahala Outdoor Center (NOC) yesterday, with microwaveable burritos and ice cream sandwiches gloriously acccessible, I consumed over 5000 calories. I will spare the gluttonous description of what these calories consisted of because to someone in the real world, this would be some disgusting, deranged food binge. In the strange world of thru-hiking, deranged food binges in town keep you alive and hiking week after week. 

What confuses me is the junk food-to-real food ratio at hiker-specific resuppliers (so excepting grocery stores). At NOC for example, soda, beer, ice cream, candy, bars, chips, and cookies dominated the shelves. Interspersed were a few tins of dried fruit, small bags of trail mix or nuts, tuna packets, and a sad bag of organic kale chips (that I purchased, obviously). Apparently, the hiking populace powers themselves on calorie-dense junk food. 

Is junk food what hikers demand, or is it just what suppliers supply? I care about calories per ounce, and we all know junk food excells in this realm, but at the same time, I want at least something I eat each day to taste like it came from a farm, not a laboratory. How about the simple classic peanut butter and jelly on a tortilla, dear resuppliers? Dried potato packets? Am I the only one that goes into town and wants to eat a ton of apples, oranges, salads, and carrots dipped in ranch? Produce spoils of course, likely why it is not offered, but if there were supply, I would provide the demand for fresh food. I miss vegetables. End of rant.

Mount Possible

With the two exceptions of Three Forks at the beginning, and crossing the Nantahala River yesterday, the entire trail has followed a ridge, climbing a series of mountain tops, then descending to gaps. 

Where roads trundle up to a pass, we hikers descend to our lowest point from a peak. I’m amused hearing the grunt of trucks and the helicoptering of semi engine brakes from far above as I clamber down rocks to join them at a middle ground. The local minimum for me, the local maximum for them. They have their brief taste in the mountains before descending to back to the lowlands. I have my brief taste of the lowlands before ascending back toward the sky.

Each mountain and each gap is named – that’s hundreds of names at this point. Most are kind of weird, like Swinging Lick Gap or Simp Gap. Today, one of the names actually meant something to me. Mount Possible. The day had been wearying. The wind and rain takes it out of you. For the first time, I saw no one on the trail (probably because it was a nasty windy day). Sometimes an uplifting mountain peak makes the difference. The trees swayed, displaying their flexibility, branches twirling. 

Racing the fury of the heavens

I reached a gap, and the clouds parted like leads opening in an ice sheet, widening until icebergs go careening everywhere. How lovely, I thought. I checked the weather. Severe thunderstorms beginning in 45 minutes. I threw everything into my pack and literally started running. 2.4 miles to a shelter.

It was like the wind reversed and crammed the iceberg chucks back together, making the sheet thicker than it was before. The wind raged in the treetops. The branches no longer twirled but careened violently. How incredible that these root systems can withstand all of this torque, I thought. Then I stopped thinking and powered up the hill at full effort, yelling the cheesy encouragements of a high school coach over the wind. You got this! Let’s go!

In the shelter, I could dry my gear using the wicked wind while it lightly stormed outside. A wonderful contradiction. Two people jaunted down the path to the shelter, hurrying even harder than I had.

Kristy and Kelsie had no sooner stepped inside when the heavens unleashed their fury. Rain gushed, thick as fog. Thunder shook, wind raged, branches clunked on the shelter roof. No conversation in the shelter was possible, even at full yell. From the shelter, I enjoyed the show but made note of the danger and tumult of these eastern thunderstorms.

1 week, 3x storms, 3x in shelter for storm. Mom, you’re welcome. Stunningly accurate modern weather forecasting, from the bottom of my heart, thank you.