Skywalker--Close Encounters on the Appalachian Trail Read Free Page B

go, at least for awhile, but they all demurred. I still had never spent a single night outside, and wondered if I had what it took to head off alone into the woods for six months, take what comes. It was at this point that a lack of resolution led to my first major blunder.

     
    Warren Doyle had a practice hike scheduled from April 1 to April 4, starting in Ceres, Virginia. It was a grueling march of seventy-four miles in four days. Those who completed it were eligible to go on his “expedition,” which was van-assisted. I called Warren and asked permission to try out. “Why are you suddenly interested in this?” he asked, dubiously.
    Nonetheless, he warily assented.
    What followed was a comedy of errors. First, I arrived late and missed the “Circle of Dreams.” This was a huddle in which expedition members solemnly yearn to make it all the way to Mount Katahdin in Maine. Then, I got caught red-handed violating the prohibition against eating anything but cold food for the four-day march. Finally, the weather was so diabolical on the second evening that I told Warren that I would have to sleep inside my car because of fear of hypothermia.
    “Then, you’re not going on the expedition,” he fired back.
    Before we parted ways he said, “Bill, this is a major journey you are about to undertake, and you don’t appear to be ready .” When I thanked him for his honesty, he said “It’s not me that’s telling you. It’s the trail telling you.”
    When I arrived home two days early on Monday afternoon, April 4, my mother laughed knowingly at my vague explanation of what had happened. I then endured another lecture to attempt just a section, culminated with the question, “Why set yourself up for failure?”
    I replied softly, “I’m starting this Sunday,” and went upstairs to bed, exhausted.
    I still hadn’t ever spent a full night outside and decided to spend the night of Tuesday, April 5, out on my mother’s lawn. Since there weren’t two trees the right distance apart to set up my tarp, I just threw the sleeping bag on the ground, cowboy style, and tried to sleep. After about two or three hours of uneven sleep I woke up cold, with tensed-up neck muscles, and was unable to get back to sleep. At first light the next morning I went back inside and got three or four hours of deep, lusty sleep in my soft, warm bed.
    When I woke up I decided I needed a sleeping bag with the “full mummy” feature, to fully envelop my neck and the back of my head. So I called Western Mountaineering and asked if I could switch it out for a full-mummy, seven-foot, down-filled bag. The saleswoman got the manager on the line: Yes, they could finish one called “ the Badger ” in a couple hours and overnight it to me. When it arrived on Thursday, April 7, I tried it out on the rug inside, but had no idea how well I would be able to sleep in it.
    The last couple days I spent loading my backpack and agonizing over which items were absolutely necessary and which weighed more than the benefits. I was especially sensitive to my cold nature. Two sets of long johns, a balaklava and stocking cap, a fleece vest, two rain jackets, rain pants, and four pairs of socks made the cut. But also heavily influenced by Warren Doyle’s minimalist philosophy, a stove, a camera, underwear, and even a watch, fell by the wayside. And I would only have the one shirt and pair of pants on me every day. I was “ready.”

     

part II
     
    “The woods are lovely, dark, and deep.”— Robert Frost

Chapter 2
     
    D aniel Boone described the southern Appalachians as “so wild and horrored that it is impossible to behold them without terror.”
    The southern terminus of the AT is at Springer Mountain, in north Georgia, seventy-six miles south of the North Carolina border. Just getting there can be complicated, as it lies right in the middle of the Chattahoochee Valley National Forest, nowhere near a town of any note. My mother volunteered to drive me to this