Nine and half miles, our longest day of hiking yet. We strolled into Hawk Mountain Shelter; were greeted as “the Yoga Sisters;” met with the grossest privy this side of the Mason-Dixon; discovered that when surrounded by other males, Greg was inclined to take their side; punched Yukon Cornelius, started a fireside brawl, settled everything with an arm-wrestling match thereby asserting our dominance; met Fireball just before she became “Fireball” along with her sister, Sam, and made my sister cry trying to convince her to hike up Sassafras Mountain in the dark.
That about covers it—all the things that happened plus maybe some that should have. The rest of the evening passed with light conversation on our side of camp, another camper joining our circle, and introducing himself as “Marky Mark.” His father, a gentle older man whom we came to know as “New Hope,” accompanied him. They were headed to Maine together as his father’s lifelong dream was to hike the trail.
Soon, Marky Mark was offering his best Bigfoot impressions, and my excited sister sprang to her feet. She had sasquatch skills she’d been keeping under wraps. Impressed, I watched them trying to feel relieved.
As night fell, a young man shuffled into camp, dropped like a rock, and began heaving.
“Oh god, what now?” I whispered to Walkie.
We watched from across camp as Yukon took charge and tried to revive the young hiker, making him drink Gatorade. Word spread through camp that he had hiked from the bottom of the falls all the way here in one day. With each step they took towards Maine, these thru-hikers would find 15 mile days less and less intimidating, but on his first day of hiking, this hiker was not conditioned for it yet. He was severely dehydrated and exhausted.
This place was cursed. We needed a firetalker and a priest. I wished today was yesterday and tomorrow would come right now.
But Walkie was determined to maintain our positivity and go eat with the other hikers up at the shelter, so I carefully unpacked the pieces of our stove and set them all down in the dirt—we carried the same camping stove as the one which had exploded on Sam and Fireball. I put all the pieces together as usual, and proceeded to glare at it.
“Are you scared of it?” Walkie said, watching me. “It’s just a tool. It’s a tool we’ve used fifty times. You can’t be afraid of it.”
I pressed the button to light it and jumped away.
“You know how to light the stove.” She told me and smiled. She was our father through and through. And she was our Grandma Myrtle. Logical, tough. She knew if I didn’t do it now, I would never light our stove again.
With her sitting just beside me, I pressed the button again, and a soft, blue flame sprang to life under the pitcher filled with water for boiling. Soon, we were stirring it into a pouch and carrying our dinner up to the shelter.
Mostly staying quiet, my sister and I tried to ignore the fact that the young hiker was still getting sick near his tent. Between bouts of nausea, he got up and walked a bit, came around to the front of the shelter, checked in with Yukon, and drank water. Walkie and I were sharing our rehydrated beef Stroganov, when Yukon asked us whether it was any good. “Yes,” we said in unison. “You don’t have to lie about it,” he said laughing.
He was right. We were lying, it was terrible and might have been put to better use had we soaked my sister’s feet in it. She was rolling out her soles over and over with a cork ball, and I began wondering if her old injury was bothering her. She hadn’t mentioned any pain as we’d hiked that day.
I would have been raising a fuss and worrying myself sick if I’d had an old fracture in my foot like she did. It was so like my sister to go along as if nothing was wrong, as if it was the act of that admission which would confirm it and make it so. And again, I guiltily remembered my almost pushing her on for another seven hours in the dark.
I had to remember that her brand of toughness, like our father’s, included a stoicism that would not betray itself with whining or complaining. I had to become a more careful observer of my sister; she was not likely to express any worries until after things had reached a breaking point, but not before. And maybe not even then.
Meanwhile, Yukon was saying to the group how hard Sassafras would be tomorrow, featuring an elevation of 666 feet over one mile.
“Uphill always sucks. Suck is suck,” I said and stood up.
We were between two mountains, it was either go over Sassafras or turn around and go back over Springer, there was no use discussing it. There were mountains all around us.
We retreated to our side of camp and climbed into our tent, nearly numb, minds drained. “Well, before we got here, this was favorite day so far,” I said staring at the ceiling of the tent.
“It was my least favorite,” my sister admitted to her one negative thought to my thirty.
We both fell asleep shortly thereafter, but not before we heard Yukon call out “I snore really loudly, just warning you all, so you don’t start hating me.”
“Too late,” my sister said and turned over. I didn’t hear Yukon snoring, but I did hear that poor boy retching at the shelter well into the night.
In the dark early morning, mice skittered over the top of our tent, and as I slept, Walkie lay frozen watching them run back and forth.
Rocks & Roots 