CGCC Appalachian Trail Group

July 16-19, 2005

Saturday

Seven of us met in Franklin, NC. Most of us stayed at the Franklin Terrace B&B.

Sunday

We hired shuttles to our start at Rock Gap off old U.S. 64.
Standing, left to right: Noel, Carol, Cindy, Mayte, Guillermo; kneeling in front: me, Rafa.

Destination: the Siler Bald shelter, about eight miles total hike. My first real introduction to steady climbing with my 35-40 lb. load of old (1988) equipment, including a heavy sleeping bag and external-frame pack. Already at the Wallace Gap crossing, I had the first indications of a blister emerging on my stump at the pressure point below my kneecap. Fortunately, Guillermo had a blister prevention bandage. Over previous years I'd routinely applied these during marathons and 50Ks; I just didn't think to bring any.

We took maybe another 30 minutes to reach another break point. I'd begun half-seriously, half-jokingly reconsidering the wisdom of making this trip. Noel and Guillermo stayed back with me (to make sure I didn't die). When we crossed U.S. 64, I made a mental note: if due to blisters or any other reason I should decide to turn back, I can hike down here tomorrow morning and hitch a ride back to Franklin. I keep reminding myself: Tuesday, my final day and my exit at roughly the halfway point of the full segment plan, offers a little climb to 5300', but it offers some 4000' net downhill. In fact, almost the entire final five miles is descent.

Tuesday's downhill. Tuesday's downhill.

We found that the Siler Bald shelter lay maybe a half-mile off the trail proper, down a substantial downhill. The bad part about that: the next day's segment, already including a substantial and difficult climb, would now include an additional half-mile, all of it uphill. I find no blisters on my stump, but I'm sore.

Other hikers we met at the shelter told us they'd come to there from the other direction. So we wouldn't add any significant net mileage, but the outset would still require an arduous climb to the first clearing.

Monday

Climb. Climb. More climb. Additional climb. Climbs that provoked unusually coarse language, at least in my mind.

Tuesday's downhill. Tuesday's downhill.

Guillermo and Rafa hung back there with me. Eventually I moved ahead and Guillermo stayed back with Mayte. Halfway through the day I stop to change prosthetic socks and I do find blisters emerging.

Finally we began a descent. That made it easier to imagine reaching Cold Spring Shelter soon. Stopping at a clearing, I look at Noel's map and erroneously deduce that we've reached Burningtown Gap, so we have only another 1.2 miles or so to go, even though it entails climbing almost all the way. My misreading becomes evident soon enough as the trail continues to descend. Eventually I cross a creek that Noel pointed out that we should expect before the ascent. By the time I do reach Burningtown Gap, I've grown significantly more irritable. I keep telling myself: Tuesday's downhill. Tuesday's downhill.

Grinding up the final mile-plus ascent, I have to take a brief break every few minutes. I know that as long as I keep moving, I'm bound to get there, but the trail seems interminable. The mental tricks I've used so often and usually with greater effectiveness in marathons and 50Ks have no discernible effect here.

Tuesday's downhill. Tuesday's downhill.

Guillermo and Mayte still follow somewhere behind me.

Finally, in the process of breaking down my forward motion to short stages, I decide I'll go as far as the next flowering bush that I can see, maybe 75-100 feet away. As I approach it, I begin seeing something that I begin discerning as manmade. It takes a few moments to dawn on me: I see the shelter.

I feel more exhausted than I've ever felt in any distance event, even the Kentucky 52K, which took me 11:42. Of course, there I didn't carry 35+ lbs. extra.

And the blisters have gotten worse. But now I don't have any viable alternative. To get out, I have to hike.

Tuesday

Mayte and I set out early at 6:50. We take a 20-minute break after the descent to Tellico Gap before tackling a climb comparable to yesterday's final 1.2 miles. Good thing it's earlier in the day, a little cooler, and we have more energy. And I keep reminding myself: the second half's downhill. The second half's downhill.

That doesn't provide much encouragement as we grunt and moan through the arduous, again seemingly endless, trek up to Wesser Bald. We arrive at about 10:40 a.m. After a 20 minute break, I'm about to suggest that we continue, when Cindy, Noel, and Carol arrive. This leads to another half-hour break, including climbing to the top of the observation tower.

Guillermo and Rafa arrive soon thereafter, about the time the first five of us begin to set out. Maybe 2/3 mile later we begin the overall descent. It does include maybe 1.5 miles with several short but very, very nasty uphills. Finally, about 1:00, I take a break at the highest point of my hike, about 5300'.

Guillermo shows up, followed by Rafa. I set out on what I expect to be a consistently easier downhill. I'll pass the Rufus Morgan Shelter, where the rest of the group will stay tonight, moving on to the Nantahala Outdoor Center (N.O.C.). I expect to get there in two and a half hours, maybe three. From there I'll wait 30-40 minutes for my prearranged shuttle back to Franklin, where I've left my car. Then I have to drive another two and a half hours, maybe three, to my hotel in Atlanta.

Downhill. Downhill. Downhill.

Yeah, downhill, but it brings several extended steep sections that often require very careful footing, and some deft maneuvering over rocks. I'd hoped to keep a steady, relatively brisk pace. No such luck. Still, if nothing else, every step of forward motion does bring me into more normally-oxygenated atmosphere. Good.

Guillermo, Rafa, and Mayte lag behind me. Carol, Cindy, and Noel have zipped on ahead to the shelter. I'm on my own in between the trios.

As I make one particular step on the sloping trail I hear a snap—and I feel my prosthetic "ankle" give. I can't know for sure how much it's broken, but as I gingerly test it I see and feel lateral motion—which should not happen at all.

The walking sticks aid my balance, but I have some 35 pounds packed on my back. If my prosthesis breaks any further, epecially on this sloping trail, I could easily go careening down the slope to my right (generally about a 40-degree angle, at least). I’m getting nervous. A moment going bad could have severe consequences here. The best I can do is step very carefully, very deliberately, every time I put down my right foot.

I call out for Cindy, Carol, or Noel several times, and I realize they’ve moved on too far ahead; they can’t hear me. I'll keep calling occasionally, though, because eventually I'll draw near enough to the camp. It doesn’t make sense to wait for Guillermo, Rafa, and Mayte; they could easily be 20, 30 minutes or more behind. I have to keep making forward motion, no matter how slowly.

I begin realizing another problem I hadn’t anticipated: hydration. My much slower pace leaves me vulnerable to running short on fluids. I estimate that I have 1.5, maybe 2 miles to go. This—despite being downhill!—could now easily take me a mile an hour, roughly twice as long as I expected. I have to drink less, at longer intervals. Also, I never imagined the possibility of heat exhaustion or even stroke. Now that also becomes a not necessarily likely prospect, but certainly not implausible. And if my prosthesis breaks any further—

I try not to think about these things, but too many scenarios become distressingly clear, especially during exertion required to surmount the remaining uphill exceptions to the downhill rule. I don't enjoy this particularly vivid experiential lesson in biology and physics.

Finally I hear Carol respond when I call. A few minutes later Noel comes back up the trail. He carries my pack as I walk, still painfully and still carefully, to the camp. I drink cold water, soak my shirt in it, and drape it over my shoulders and neck to help alleviate my body heat. And still I have to move on to the N.O.C.

Noel, no doubt tired from his own hiking, offers to carry my pack. This .7 mile, like too many other stretches in the last three days, stretches on and on and on. Without my pack I can move much more easily, certainly less anxiously, but the blisters on my stump still cause significant pain.

Eventually I hear vehicle traffic; a few minutes I get a glimpse of the road. After a few aggravating switchbacks down the hill, I'm done.

For years I’ve wanted to do perhaps a week’s hike, maybe 50 miles or more, on the AT. This goes only a little over halfway toward that goal, but I’ll let this experience qualify (with an asterisk) on my list.

(Later I'll find that both Mayte and Rafa also dropped out here. The rest of the group has another 29 miles to cover over the following three days.)