As bad as it was, it was only 12 miles. For the average successful Appalachian Trail through hikers, twelve miles isn’t too tough. Many hikers could knock it out in six or eight hours. Even on tough terrain, like the steep ascents and descents between Hawk and Justus Mountains, this shouldn’t be a bad hike.
Unfortunately I wasn’t an average hiker. I wasn’t even a mediocre hiker. Twelve miles on my third day ever of long distance hiking? Not a chance. If I had a strong daily exercise regimen in place ahead of the hike, maybe. That was not the case.
This was the first day that the discrepancy in Clever Girl and my trail aptitude truly reared its ugly head. Were I on my own, Hawk Mountain would have been a reasonable destination, about six miles from Stover Creek Shelter while Justus Creek Campground was well within range for Clever Girl*. With the benefit of hindsight, it’s easy to say that we should have split up and hiked our own hikes. But we didn’t, so instead we both have a story for our troubles. Here’s mine.
Clever Girl and I have called this fateful day, “Hell Night”. Now, that’s kind of inaccurate in a few ways. For one thing, much of the hike took place in the day. For another, as miserable as parts of the actual hike were, it was also kind of fun and filled with the usual magic the Appalachian Trail has to offer. For the part up to Sassafras Mountain’s summit, and even parts of the hike that night to Justus Creek Campground, it was more “Annoying Night that Wouldn’t End”. The other parts though...
Up to Hawk Mountain, the hike was a fairly standard hike. From Stover Creek Shelter, down we went to Three Forks along a well graded trail through rhododendron. It was a fast hike, even for me. From there Hawk Mountain shelter was an often steep uphill climb. It wasn’t great, but it wasn’t notably terrible. It did take longer than I felt it should have, but again nothing too out of the ordinary.
Finally, we arrived at Hawk Mountain, roughly halfway to Justus Creek Campground and a good place for a late lunch! Truth be told, I would have been fine stopping for the night at Hawk Mountain. I was ready for a long break, and there was water and a shelter there. If we had been there a couple years later, there would have been a large hiker campground established to accommodate the crowd of spring hikers. It would have delayed us a bit from the schedule we were trying to keep, but we would have avoided the later unpleasantness.
However, that campground was in the future, and Clever Girl (and I, for that matter) didn’t like the vibe of the cramped and soon to be packed shelter. There was a group of teenagers and an adult with guns who were staying there that night. It’s likely they were harmless, and on that part of the trail carrying guns was legal, but one of the rules for trail safety is to follow your gut if you are uneasy about the situation, so on we went.
It’s amazing how much time can be wasted taking a break on the trail. It was only a few minutes each time, but if you take a 5 minute break every 150-200 steps (sometimes an even smaller chunk of steps), it adds up. There were only a few miles from Hawk Mountain to the gap in front of Sassafras Mountain, but it felt like it took forever. If it felt like an eternity to me, it had to be much longer to Clever Girl. If you look at an elevation profile of the AT as it goes north from Springer Mountain, Sassafras sticks out as the first big climb. There are many steeper and longer climbs, but most of those come after weeks, if not months, of conditioning. It’s a challenge of a hike in the best of conditions, and the conditions that day were far from ideal.
The sun went down rapidly as we hiked up Sassafras Mountain. The climb was steep, the air kept getting colder, and after a sunny afternoon it clouded up again. This time the clouds brought a cutting wind and snow flurries. It was here that my decision to skimp a bit on my cold weather gear came back to haunt me. Beyond that, one essential set of gear (my gloves) were sitting uselessly back in Illinois. The wind and cold just ate away at whatever resolve I had left. My slow pace slowed down even more.
If I was done at Hawk Mountain, I was D-O-N-E at Sassafras Mountain. Against my better judgement, I convinced my sister to set up camp at one of the cleared campsites on the summit. Now in May or June, this would have been an excellent place to camp. Had it been a clear day, there would have been a nice sunset, the temperature would have been cool but pleasant, and it might have been a wonderful night, one of those that sticks with you for life in a good way.
Surprisingly, a night known as “Hell Night” turned out to not be one of those good nights. There was no lovely sunset, and the temperatures were cold and snowy. We didn’t bother with much of a dinner, just some food that could be eaten cold, some water, and some Tylenol. I wasn’t too worried about making it through the night, temperature wise. It would be uncomfortable, but as long as I avoided condensation I’d be fine**. As for Clever Girl? Well, she actually was well prepared for the temperatures and conditions. She’d be in better shape than I was.
Here is where you are thinking I’m one of those people who go start hiking the Appalachian Trail on a whim, only to find out it’s legitimately challenging. However, I swear I did put a lot of thought into my equipment and my clothing. In some cases I just forgot the gear at home (like my gloves). In others, I underestimated the necessity of the gear. However, the biggest frustration for me were my clothes.
I am a large person. In the normal course of things, I can find warm clothes that fit, as long as you don’t prioritize space or weight. There are also plenty of clothes that are made for hiking that keep you warm that are lightweight and compact when stored. They also fall far short of fitting me***. I had to compromise and improvise to get anything close to hiking weight that would fit me. Somewhere I found some very lightweight and warm Columbia long sleeve shirts and a pair of long underwear that helped out. And I did have a nice warm Marmot vest, so I wasn’t completely without options. But still, I was operating with a pair of ripped pants**** and a pair of shorts that weren’t good for anything but as in-town clothing. What I would have given for nice hiking clothes in my size.
Anyway, back to the story. Wind is your enemy on the trail. It can blow things away if they aren’t anchored down, and it can wreck your body temperature. Worst of all, the wind blows against trees. If it’s really bad, this can knock down trees entirely, which could be disastrous. But far more common, and often just as dangerous, is when the wind blows against dead tree limbs, some of which may not be entirely stable already. A poorly sighted tent can lead to tragedy if the wind blows in the wrong direction.
It’s hard to say one way or the other that we were in imminent danger from “widowmaker” branches. I don’t think we were in a position where there were branches that were going to come down on us, we were using a spot that had been camped on before. However, it’s hard to tell the dead trees from the dormant, so it was possible that we were in danger. Clever Girl’s trail instincts were telling her to get off the mountain, and I wasn’t about to argue. Stopping atop a summit on a cold, windy, and snowy night was a bad idea, even if I was spent. She was right, I was wrong, and it was the right decision to leave. I just wish I had come to my senses before I took six Tylenol PM to try to help me sleep.
The next couple of hours of hiking are kind of foggy for me. I remember having to fight drowsiness, and being incredibly calm while also very apprehensive about the hike off the mountain. Clever Girl has told me how anxious she was to get off the mountain. We both were running off adrenaline at this point. As much as I had to fight against falling asleep, the medicine helped me get through that night. Had I been more aware of what I was doing, I might have been too tense to just go with it as well as I did. Sassafras Mountain was steep going down, the steepest of the hike that day. It was slow going, it was annoying, and it was often a close run thing to keep from falling. But we made it down to Cooper Gap, which was right before Justus Mountain.
With the benefit of hindsight, and dozens of nights of backpacking experience, we both realize that stopping at Cooper Gap would have been a decent compromise. As windy as the gap was, we were out of danger, and we weren’t deep in a valley along a creek, so condensation would not be as bad as it could be**. There was some concern of safety, being that the gap also had a road going through it, but it wasn’t likely there’d be trouble, given how ugly of a night it was.
As always hindsight is 20/20, so instead we vowed to continue on. But before we did, I had to get myself to a mental place to get up there. Clever Girl broke out her camp stove and fixed some instant oatmeal for me, a thing that I am very grateful for. I was in no shape to do much of anything but walk or not walk. The oatmeal was not sufficient for me to be back to optimal hiking shape, but it was enough to get me up and over Justus Mountain.
If Sassafras Mountain was a bad experience, the hike up and over Justus Mountain to the campground was kind of fun. The wind kind of died down, and the snow was pretty much done. There was a kind of beauty in the twinkling lights of houses and farms down in the surrounding valleys, and there might have even been some stars poke through the clouds. Night hiking turned out to not be that bad. In fact, it had its own advantages, the biggest being a lack of people getting in your way as you hike. This was my first extended experience hiking at night anywhere. As you might tell from my trail name (Nighthawk), it would not be my last.
We made OK time going down to Justus Creek. It was still fairly slow because of me being exhausted, but it was faster than it had been on the ups and downs of around Sassafras Mountain. By then the medicine had worn off, so I was fairly alert. As much as I just wanted to stop for the night, I was able to take the time to pay attention to nature around me and enjoy it as much as I could as we descended down the hill.
Finally we reached the creek crossing, the gateway to Justus Creek Campground. We found a couple clear campsites and set up our tents. Clever Girl had to help me set up my camp due to my exhaustion and numb fingers. We got the camp set up, settled into our tents and tried to get some sleep. Dawn would come in a few hours. We had made it!
The good thing about a campsite in a valley next to a creek is that it is warmer and more sheltered from the wind than up on a ridge. The bad thing is the condensation is terrible. On a warm night, condensation is an annoyance, a thing that might leave your sleeping bag a bit damp. On a cold night it can be life threatening.
If I got any sleep, it was just a few minutes at a time and not all that productive. Making it to daylight was a higher priority than sleep. All night I repeated a pattern. I’d lay down with the tent in my face, and try to sleep until I start shivering. Once I was shivering I sat up in the middle of the tent, where the ceiling of the tent is higher and condensation wasn’t an issue. I’d warm up just enough that I could lay back down, and try to get some sleep. For several hours I kept this up. Now, I never felt like my life was in imminent danger. If I had, I would have broken camp to try to shoot for Gooch Mountain Shelter, or even Gooch Gap. Instead I cycled up and down like that for hours.
Finally the sun started rising and I was ready to continue on. After “Hell Night” I was ready to call for a shuttle into the hostel at Suches when we reached Gooch Gap. But first we had to get there. Clever Girl and I decided we’d meet at Gooch Mountain shelter for breakfast before we headed to the gap. I walked slowly up from the campground to the shelter. The day started to warm up, I refilled my water and a creek part way between the two places, and met Clever Girl in the later part of the morning. I enjoyed the oatmeal and cider I fixed with my stove, a well earned if not quite sufficient breakfast. As we ate breakfast, a boy scout group was camping nearby. They were wanting to practice their fire making skills, and Clever Girl and I were happy to oblige. We enjoyed the fire, enjoyed the company, and enjoyed our breakfast.
Eventually we had to move on and make the short hike to the Gap, where we could arrange a shuttle from the hostel. As usual, Clever Girl hiked ahead, and I made my way as best as I could. The day got warmer as we moved down to the gap and the sun came out. At the gap, we saw they were dismantling the setup for a hiker breakfast at the gap*****. After a short wait, the shuttle to the hostel showed up, and our hike was done for the day. The rest of our day would be spent taking hot showers, reconnecting to the Internet, doing laundry as the cats and dogs of the hostel looked on at us, and eating absolute junk from the convenience store that was attached to the hostel. We made it through “Hell Night”, weary but intact.
But was it really a “Hell Night”? Sure, Sassafras Mountain was terrible, and the night spent keeping from freezing at the campground was bad. But we made it through, and it showed something of my character. As miserable as it was, eventually the sun came up. There was uncertainty and doubt, but also oatmeal and warm fires, and the twinkle of lights in the valley below. There was boredom, there was fear, there was terror, and even a little anger, but there was also the quiet serenity of a forest at night, and the beauty of a trail cut through the rhododendron, a common sight along the AT in Georgia. It may have been hell getting there, but at the end of the day we were in a warm room with running water, with mediocre gas station pizza, greasy chips, and a cold Coke as our reward. Even the worst night on the trail was still a night on the trail, and that is pretty far from hell.
* Clever Girl is the trailname of my sister.
** This might come up later.
*** A problem that has only gotten worse if I wish to wear women’s clothing when hiking.
**** I ripped my only pair of pants the first night, so I had to wear my thermal underwear while hiking and not just in camp. This was a very bad idea.
***** Just barely missing trail magic would be a pattern for Clever Girl