Category: Thru-Hiker

Trail Lessons

Mickelson Trail, South Dakota: My first hike.

Lynn Muchmore: He tried to save me from myself.

Day One: Lynn Muchmore and I planned to start in Edgemont, S.D., and hike north through the Black Hills to Deadwood. The 109-mile Mickelson Trail, an old railroad bed, was wide and smooth, a walk in the park compared to the Appalachian Trail, and a lot more scenic.

I didn’t know it but I was carrying way too much weight –43 pounds –double the weight I usually carry now.

[Pack weight, pack weight and pack weight are the three most important things about back packing.]

That first afternoon we hiked out of town, into the hills, about six miles, and camped in a clump of trees beside the trail.   My feet blistered a little but I ignored them.  Gotta be tough, I thought.

[If and when your feet begin to heat up you have to do something about it immediately.]

Day Two  — The scenery was stunning and Lynn said the northern end of the Mickelson Trail would be even better. It was hot, sunny, my ears and neck got a little red.  We did 21 miles before I yelled “Uncle!” Lynn could have done 25 or 30 but I was having a hard time.  My left heel was a bloody mess with a patch of missing skin the size of a silver dollar; the blister hadn’t broken yet on the other heel.

Late that day, to lighten my load by two pounds, I poured out a liter of water.  What was I thinking?!   I was thinking I could get more water when we camped. I was wrong. 

[Food you can do without. Water is everything, especially when you don’t have it.]

I skipped supper –I had no water to rehydrate my food– pitched my tent near a highway bridge and crawled into my sleeping bag, hurting and so thirsty.

Day three —  It was 17 miles to Custer, S.D., which was looking like the end of the trail for me. My feet were ruined but all I could think about was water. We hiked six more miles that morning before we came to a tiny town with a restaurant that served the best water I ever tasted. Breakfast was good, too.

Eleven miles to go.

Pat Stith: Learning to hike, the hard way.
Pat Stith: Learning the hard way how to hike.

Lucky for me, I guess, the weather had turned real bad north of Custer. Lynn didn’t want to hike in crappy weather and I couldn’t. All I had to do was make it to Custer.

With six miles to go the bad weather reached us and it began to snow. What a state, a blistering hot sun one day and snow the next. Lynn offered to walk to Custer alone and come back for me in a cab. It was good of him, really. But I would rather have rubbed my heels with salt and crawled to Custer than ride there in a cab.  

Postscript: I made it.

 For the next few days I wore socks but no shoes and Lynn and I went sight seeing. There’s lots to see in that part of the country, including Devil’s Tower and the Badlands. One day we went underground, down into a decommissioned U.S. Air Force silo that had once held a nuclear-tipped Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missile. On the steel door leading to the missile silo someone had drawn a pizza box lid and written these words: “Delivered hot anywhere in the world in 15 minutes.”

Why is that?

Lynn and I went to several museums in South Dakota I saw exhibits on Wounded Knee and Little Big Horn where the solders of the U.S. 7th Cavalry and Indians fought, and it got me to wondering.

Wounded Knee, where, according to the National Park Service, 153 Indians [including women and children] and 25 soldiers of the U.S 7th Cavalry were killed, and prisoners were taken, is called a “massacre.”

Little Big Horn, where all 210 soldiers under Col. George Armstrong Custer’s immediate command were killed [Indian casualties are unknown], and no prisoners were taken, is called a “battle.”

Why is that?

Coming Monday: Blame It On Youth

 

 

Lost On Blood Mountain – Part 2 of 2

It’s hard to appreciate how black total darkness is because we so rarely experience it. There’s always a little light somewhere, if only from the face of a digital clock. So I was surprised when my cap light died on Blood Mountain and I couldn’t see anything. It was as if I were standing in a closet at night with my eyes closed and the door shut — wearing a blindfold.

I dug into my pocket and pulled out a cigarette lighter.  But it wouldn’t light.  I discovered later that the flint was wet. 

That’s when I told myself: You make one more mistake –if one more thing goes wrong –you’re not going to Maine.  You’re not going home, either.

I had a spare cigarette lighter in my tool bag.   Now if I could just find it in the dark and coax my fingers, which were freezing and not working all that well, to make fire.   I fumbled through my pack and, somehow, I did find it. I shielded the lighter from the wind and got fire.  With that light I was able to replace the batteries in my cap light.  Now I was back in business.  I put the cap light back in my mouth and, in a few minutes, I had my tent up and I was inside, in my sleeping bag, starting to get warm.  Outside it was still sleeting.

Did I pray any that night when I was lost on Blood Mountain? Oh yes, without ceasing.

This photo was made at Nell Gap two days later, after the storm passed.
This photo was made at Neel Gap two days later, after the storm passed.

There was light coming through my tent when I woke up next morning. It was 6:40 a.m. Time to move. I had to get off that mountain.

Everything was frozen.   I could not open or close zippers.   My tent was frozen to the ground cover and the ground cover was frozen to the ground. I peeled them off. The joints of my tent frame were frozen.  I huffed and puffed warm breath on each joint, warming them up enough to pull them apart.

Worst of all, I had left my wet mittens outside and they were frozen. I should have slept with them.  The frozen mittens were a major problem. Unprotected in that kind of weather your fingers freeze in a few minutes and then they stop working.

I couldn’t just put my hands in my jacket pockets because I couldn’t hike on ice without using my poles.  So I stuck my frozen mittens under my shirt, next to my stomach, to melt the ice enough to get them on.

My plan was to walk down the Freeman Trail until I found the A.T. or I found civilization. No more turning back. I jammed my frozen gear in my backpack, strapped it on, and headed down the mountain.

It was slow going on the ice but, two hours later, there it was, a beautiful white blaze.  I had intersected the Appalachian Trail.   In another 45 minutes, I could see the roof of Mountain Crossings hostel through the ice laden trees.  What a beautiful sight! Warmth, food, safety.

NOTE: I got frostbite on two fingers, a thumb, and one of my ears but the sores healed in a few days.  The feeling returned to my fingers in a month or two and over the past two years part of the feeling has returned to my toes.

Postscript:

That's me, sitting by the fire the next day.
That’s me, sitting by a fire the next day in an outfitter store adjacent to the hostel.

I stayed at Mountain Crossings for two and a half days with seven other A.T. thru-hikers, waiting out a terrific winter storm and zero degree temperatures. I was glad to be indoors, but the hostel was not the toasty refuge I had imagined it would be.

It was cold inside the hostel.

How cold? So cold I wore a toboggan when I took a shower.

Nah, I made that up.

But how about this: the water in the dog’s bowl froze. No, the bowl wasn’t on the porch. The bowl was sitting on the “living room” floor of the hostel. And, no, I didn’t make that up.

Coming Monday: Take Her or Leave Her