I took my time leaving Wesser bald shelter as did most everybody the next morning.  I did the 5.7 miles slowly, continuing to stop and massage my calf- but it seemed like it was on the mend.  

What scared me was that the injury is a previous injury site from when I had torn it by chasing a seagull on Good Harbor Beach last summer (which is a typical activity for a mature 60-year old man). However, it seemed to be good enough to walk slowly and I arrived at the Nantahala Outdoor Center (NOC) mid-afternoon. This is an interesting big complex of buildings directly on the Trail that caters to Hikers.

However, there were two stores and neither had Ramen noodles. I dashed off a tersely worded letter to the Manager, Ramen Noodles Department, Nantahala Outdoor Center-subtly threatening a lawsuit if the situation wasn’t corrected with alacrity.  

I got a room for the night,  did laundry, took a shower and continued to manage my calf. It was a great ending to the day.

Check out the view of the river from where I sat and had a hamburger in a restaurant at the NOV.

Also note all these purple wildflowers which are becoming more numerous. Wildflowers are an increasingly pleasant surprise; they are strewn about like candy on the forest floor.

 Also here’s a movie from where I was on a cool ridgeline.

Administrative note:  Some of you may have noticed that I capitalize the word ‘Trail’.  Please know that I am aware that this is a proper noun violation in that the Appalachian Trail, a clear proper noun, has been truncated.   Therefore, does it shed it’s right to a capital letter via that truncation?  The point is moot;  I instead rely on the informal culture of being able to capitalize those things that are so immediately important and central to one’s life that their life revolves around it, and it defines them.  Thus engaged with the ‘Trail’, I claim that right.  ‘God’ is a good example of this, also, since it fails the ‘entity’ test of the definition of a Proper Noun. As a more clear example, consider my brother Keith.  He would be well within his rights -believe me- to capitalize the letter ‘C’ when in correspondence he uses the word ‘couch’.

Nice Hike today.  

Decent weather, and I think 11.6 miles was good for the terrain- we do nothing but climb mountains and hills: up and down.  It would be a F$&@ing pleasure to walk across a parking lot.  (Think of that the next time you can’t get a parking space right close to your gym.  [Editor’s note:  Wha… ?]) 

By the way, Siler Bald Shelter was way, way off the Trail!  Usually they’re much closer to the Trail!  I felt violated by the ‘Shelter’ sign the same way I feel when I pull off the highway because of a McDonald’s sign and you have to go way, way too far to get there!   Doesn’t any law govern that situation?   

You have two choices in the McDonald’s scenario, and I’ve opted for both at various times.  

1.). Punt.  At some point, you stop saying ‘ok- just to the next goddamned corner and if I don’t see it…’ and so you turn around, are back on the highway, and are truly disgruntled.  And you grunt contemptuously about that situation and the world in general, and it puts a little stain on your heart that stays – like a tattoo.

2.). You finally get to McDonald’s.  You walk in begrudgingly and you broadcast your begrudgment with exquisitely nuanced body language.  Then, while eating the burgers and fries back on the highway, you’re happy as shit.

Saw this snail today, had a brief chat, – turns out he’s Thru-Hiking the Trail too!!!  I didn’t have the heart to raise the obvious issue.

Turned a corner and the mountainside was covered with this field of wildflowers!  It was arresting- zoom in close to really see the wildflowers…

This greenery looked good enough to eat.

Cool caterpillar.  (He’s not Thru-Hiking.)

This was a neat area of old-growth looking moss covered trees.

This movie is from the Summit of Siler Bald Mountain.

Got to Cold Spring Shelter-  nice little place with a stream, and privy, and fire ring all close.  Built in 1930- one of the originals! 

One of my favorite parts about each day is, as night falls, the moment when from inside my tent I zipper up first the outside tent fly – then retreat a bit further in – and zipper up the tent itself.  Safe.   I savor being in my little tiny world with all my little tiny things just so…

And it is of course a paradox that I am out here on the Appalachian Trail to be in the wide open world of nature.  And indeed I love that too!  I enjoy that all day, hiking the Trail, rolling up and down mountains and valleys under the great blue sky above.

Back to the tent:  What is it about the confines that gives such special satisfaction?  I read an amazing article once in a scientific journal about how most zoo animals feel safe and good in their little spaces, (I’m not kidding- it was a very credible and researched piece)  and I don’t know how to feel about that.  Disappointed somehow?  But glad that I don’t have to feel bad for them too?  Is freedom terrifying to most animals most of the time?  And am I feeling that very visceral pull of the safety of a cave, all these tens of thousands of years later?

The reasons for the fear have subsided for us humans of course but the utter satisfaction of hiding still swims in our DNA. Especially at night.

For just a moment I feel very connected to those millions of poor souls, our ancestors , who really needed that cave, that place to hide and huddle, to protect the family group, to survive another day in their short brutal lives.

I am in a tent next to a river now and it will lull me to sleep tonight as the stars come out, and the cold and dark descend.

And that is something timeless.

An administrative note from your hiking friend:

I really love all the comments and support from so many people!  Wow.  I didn’t expect that this would go beyond myself, Memory, and a few of my immensely bored friends.  Anyway, for many reasons, and I am sorry, I can’t respond to them -but I get them- and it really is a fun lift when I get a few minutes and have the connectivity to find them and read them.

Anyway.

Very short hike today – it’s an in-town resupply day.

Kept seeing these delicate and beautiful little clumps of green moss as I walked along.  Really just an amazing thing to see up close. 

I smelled it, and it has the most beautiful, earthy, sweet garden smell.  Between this, the Mountain Bluets, the purple and white wildflowers coming up everywhere–  All this beauty!  All this intricacy of design, and complexity of function and symbiosis!  Surely it can’t all be accidental.  Surely it carries great and profound meaning!  It’s enough to make one believe that there really must be a . . . forest. 

• 

• 

Last night at the campfire (aka Appalachian Trail T.V.), I was around the fire with a pack of early-20-somethings.  They talked delightedly, loudly, and laughed easily, in a long and remarkably substance-free conversation zone.  I was fascinated.  I have never been so interested in nothing.  (I’m so glad I was never their age!)  

Long great day today.  I was in the zone, physically and mentally.  Climbed Standing Indian Mountain, the first one over 5000 feet, and Albert Mountain, also over 5000 feet and crazy steep.  Crossed the vaunted 100-mile mark!  You know what they say about completing the Appalachian Trail:  If a person makes it the first 100 miles, the odds go way up that they’ll . . . well . . . be pretty tired.  Saw weird stuff all day!  Look at this spooky section of Trail!

I’m so glad I wasn’t alone, cold, wet, and afraid out in the middle of nowhere when I hit this section of Trail.  Or- I was.  It’s one of the two; I forget which.

The Dragon Tree. 

Tell me this tree doesn’t come alive at night and chase you if you’ve been bad! 

The Prehistoric petrified shark.

  And then this tree.  OMG.  We all know that in the forest, one must answer the calls of nature periodically, and that the procedure usually involves a tree.  Any tree.  And then I came across this: Whatever this poor tree did, among millions of trees, to piss off the Boss so much that it would be designated as THE tree . . . I can only imagine . . .  

I should probably stop eating the mushrooms alongside the Trail.