Tag: Christian Stith

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

 

 

 

Lost On Blood Mountain – Part 1 of 2

Two years ago today I was on the second day of my Appalachian Trail hike from Georgia to Maine.  It could have been my last.

My trail name, "Lucky," didn't fit on Day One -- it was 8 degrees.
My trail name, “Lucky,” didn’t fit on Day One — it was 8 degrees.

Day One was cold, 8 degrees, when I got out of Brother Dave’s car, met my kinsman, Cary Tucker, who hiked with me that first morning, and climbed Springer Mountain, the A.T.’s southern terminus.

Day Two was colder.   An ice storm was rolling in and there was a lot of wind.  Off and on all day and into the night, it sleeted.

I had planned to hike from the Gooch Mountain shelter, where I spent my first night in a tent, to Neel Gap, 15.9 miles, to a hostel there called Mountain Crossings. But Blood Mountain, which I had to cross at the end of the day, was giving me pause.  I had hiked it before with one of my grandsons, Christian Stith, and I knew what it was like. At 4,461 feet, it is the highest point on the A.T. in Georgia, and it’s steep, especially at the top on the north side. It would be icy, too. So I decided to spend the night at Woods Hole shelter, 3.5 miles short of my goal.

But when I got to Woods Hole, late that afternoon, I didn’t stay.  I should have, but I didn’t.  I decided to climb Blood Mountain, only another 1.1 mile from Woods Hole, and stay at the shelter on top of the mountain.

The shelter on Blood Mountain, the way it looks on a beautiful day.
The shelter on Blood Mountain, the way it looks on a beautiful day.

But when I got to the top of the mountain I didn’t like what I saw. The shelter, one of the few made of stone, was dark, cold, and, like Woods Hole, empty.  At the bottom of the mountain, only 2.4 miles away at Neel Gap, there was a hostel where I could get hot food and a shower. There would be people there too, probably, other thru-hikers.   It was 6 o’clock, almost dark, but I decided to keep going – I could be there in an hour or so.  It was a decision I would soon regret.

The northbound descent from Blood Mountain starts with a series of mostly flat boulders slanted downhill, strung together by short pieces of trail. On this night, those boulders were covered with ice. I couldn’t stay on my feet, I had to sit down and slide.   Twice I careened out of control, bouncing off whatever got in the way, banging up one of my knees in the process.

White blazes marking the trail were painted on the rocks but, covered with ice and snow, I couldn’t see them. Or, maybe, zipping by like a runaway train, I just didn’t see them.  When I finally came to a stop at the bottom I couldn’t find the trail and, believe you me, it was not for lack of trying.

My situation reminded me of an old adage I picked up from one of my nephews, Chuck Stith: “If you’re gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough.”

There was no going back to the shelter at the top of the mountain, the boulders were way too slick to climb.  My only choice was to bushwhack down the mountain, through the woods, until I found the A.T.  I put my cap light in my mouth — normally I would have clipped it to a baseball cap but I was wearing a toboggan — to light the way, to free my hands so I could use my hiking poles, and took off.

Finally, after full dark, I found a trail.  Thank goodness!

I turned to my left and hiked on down the mountain for half an hour until I saw a blue blaze. I was not on the A.T., the A.T. is marked with white blazes. I had stumbled on to the Freeman Trail, which intersects the A.T. somewhere on the north slope of Blood Mountain.  But where?  Should I keep going or turn back?

I turned back, hiked to the place where I had come out of the woods, and kept on going, looking for the A.T.  It was 8:30 p.m. when I decided to call it a day. I had been hiking more than 12 hours on the two pop tarts I had eaten for breakfast.  I had skipped lunch and, of course, supper.

Now I had to find a spot on the trail wide enough and flat enough to pitch my tent.  And I did, finally, a four-by-eight-foot sheet of ice.  Not flat, but flat enough.  I took my backpack off and, at that moment, my cap light battery died.  I was in total darkness. It was still sleeting.

Continued tomorrow.