Hell, Heaven, and the Doctor in North Carolina

We arrived in the Smoky Mountains last Friday, and found a stretch of the Appalachian Trail to hike then next day by Fontana Dam. We were going to do a good day hike on it, but 2 wasps' nests caused a panic attack (for guess who) and ended our hike after a mile. I still did get to see an AT shelter, and got to imagine Tim laying there all sweaty and stinky with his trail buddies. It felt like the ghost of his old self was kind of hanging around, poking at the man standing there with me saying, "You know you want to do this again..." I could see it...he had his secretive smile on and twitching eyebrows that are a dead giveaway.

We ended up finding a decent campground at Deep Creek, where all the locals and some other Southerners go to tube down the creek and spend a week eating S'mores, hot dogs, and Budweiser. We decided we'd stick with our grub but were not going to miss the local tubing adventure. We had an awesome time floating around, hooting and hollering like a couple of idiots, and getting dumped out of our tubes. I suppose we had it so easy that we needed something to make us a little miserable.

So we decided to spend our last day before heading to Derek and Jen's place in the hills around Bryson City doing an overnight backpacking trip. Like dutiful little backpackers, we went to ask a ranger about the trails we'd picked out. The most helpful information he gave us was a raised eyebrow and a caution that copperheads are mean, and then sent us on our way. I suppose maybe we could have read more into the eyebrow but as it happened, we didn't. Our first day was going to be 7.8 miles on the Noland Divide Trail, cutting off onto Pole Creek Road Trail once we were deep in the Smokies for another 3.3 before coming to one of the designated backcountry sites just a few paces down our last trail turn onto Deep Creek Trail. We'd spend the night and then hike out the 7 or so miles back to the car.

It seemed strenuous but reasonable, so we loaded up our ridiculously heavy packs and set off (really, who packs PB in a glass jar, carries four apples and potatoes and onions and a zucchini and all kinds of water-laden crap into the woods?). Being a divide, we knew Noland would require some uphill walking since we'd be on a ridge most of the time. We started going uphill. A mile in I had my first hot-spot on my left heel, which we taped. Another mile in and a hornet scare later, I had my right heel taped, but not before blistering was averted. I was quite pleased then to think that there were 1500 bears in the Smokies, all of whom loved to eat wasp and hornet nests. Bring them out! I'd rather see a black bear than a wasp nest any day. The afternoon was hot and waterless and as we kept trudging, we began to notice that we had not taken one flat step since the beginning. The day ended up being utter hell, and I asked Tim at one point when we were supposed to start having fun or be rewarded for our work with a beautiful vista, and he couldn't answer. We climbed over 2,000 feet for all 7.8 miles until after 5 in the afternoon. We still had 3.3 miles to go to get to the campsite, and we were worried about getting there and getting set up before dark.

As soon as we turned onto Pole Creek Road Trail, the trail went downhill hard - we were descending to the stream, of course. After going up for almost 8 miles, my legs were so jelly-like and wobbly that I had serious trouble planting my feet properly. We weaved in and out of the stream, crossing over slippery mossy rocks. I slipped several times and Tim fell once. Honestly, I felt like crying but knew anything other than walking as fast as possible would deter me from my bed.

We finally made it to the campground where bear lines were already hung (yay!). We got naked immediately and jumped into the stream and then started hanging out our clothes, setting up the tent, and cooking food. As I cooked, spilling fuel all over the ground, and Tim set up the tent, I kept hearing noises off in the distance. I was already exhausted and anxious, and when the thunderclap finally came that had been too far to really pinpoint, I'd had it. I lost my appetite and got nauseous just as a storm rolled in. Tim took off all his clothes and walked around eating in his raincoat as we tried to get our packcovers on our food and smelly items hung up on the bear lines. Because I couldn't eat, we had almost an entire dinner left over that we somehow had to get off the ground. Tim used two binder clips through a mesh bag to hook onto the line, and we said "to hell with it!" and crawled into the tents just as the rain started to pour. From 9 PM until 2 AM it rained hard, with lots of thunder and lightning. Sleep was semi-futile despite fatigue and a bunch of trail horses and their riders thundered by early in the morning to get us up anyway.

When we crawled out of the tent and I went to take the food down, the binder clips were hanging onto literally one thread of mesh, and it fell off into my hands. It's a miracle it didn't come down in the night and attract a big ol' hungry bear. I retaped my heels and two toes that were blistered and we set off for a muggy 7 mile walk. Both of us were in agony. Our feet hurt, our hip belts hurt, and Tim's shoulders hurt from the combination of tubing and packing. It was utter misery. Why, oh why, is this something we do for recreation?

Just as we were getting to the end of the trail, we started walking through packs of butterflies. Tiny blue moths fluttered around our heads, yellow monarchs fluttered in front of us, and these beautiful black butterflies with irridescent blue back wings dazzled us. It was an amazing spectacle. As we got closer to the campground, the trail comes up on where all the tubers put in the creek. We got some pretty funny looks, probably because of our funny smell. It's so nuts to smell the scent of clean, sun-screened human when you've been sweating your ass off for the last day and a half in a muggy forest. Tim reported that the most funny looks were from younger girls and women toward me. I'm not sure what that means, but at that point, all I really cared about was taking my boots off and stripping off whatever of my clothes I could without getting a citation and jumping into the creek.

When we got back the creek was so, so cold on our hot bodies. We sat down in the creek amidst vacationing families and church buses in our underwear and felt a kind of heavenly rapture I've only experienced after hiking - when the pack is off, when the boots are off and you know you don't have to put them on again...when you know an ice cream cone is within reach and a shower and dry clothes and deodorant and a toilet...when your butt is on the bottom of the river and your feet aren't supporting anything, and the water on them is cold, cold, cold. There's nothing like it. It's like emerging out of the pit of hell into a bliss you've been dreaming about for miles and it's just as good if not better than you imagined -- something which I find to rarely be the case.

I'm not sure if that makes it worth it...I'm just really glad not all backpacking trips are that intense.

We're now in Derek and Jen's house, where I've been doting on Dr. Kensington, a sweet kitty cat who I loved the second I laid eyes on him. The new puppy, Inge, doesn't seem to like us all that much. When we got here yesterday, they weren't home yet from errand running, so I laid out my towel and fell instantly asleep while the Dr. purred next to me. When they got home, Derek told us that his neighbor had called him on his cell phone, reporting that there were 2 people in the yard and to see if he needed to come out and shoot some warning shots to scare us off. We're out of the Smokies, but apparently we won't be out of the woods for a while.

At any rate, we're established as bonafide visitors so no one should shoot at us for the rest of our stay here. I think I may wander down to the garden and see if some beans are ready for picking.