Chapter Seventeen: Above the Clouds

A red pickup truck pulled off the roadside, and a shaggy man poked his head out the window, calling out to us “want some candy, little girls?”

“Weirdo,” Red Braid commented quietly, but I did, in fact, want candy. We approached as he and his companion exited the truck and opened the hatch revealing hiker supplies of every kind.

“What do you need? You need some toilet paper? Do you have any trash? I’ll take that, too.” Trading trash for candy was one of the best transactions we’d made, perhaps ever.

A little while later, the shuttle driver arrived, gathered our packs, walking sticks, and stinking selves into his SUV. Careening down narrow country roads, he shared his own stories about hiking the trail, he and Walkie bantering back and forth as I braced my knees against the inside of the car door and gripped the edges of my seat.

Walkie was living her best life as I sat in the backseat with Red Braid wondering how I would break the news about not going over Blood Mountain.

“We hear there are a lot more bears in Blood Mountain Wilderness,” Walkie was saying to our shuttle driver.

“Oh, they won’t bother you. They’re so timid.” He told her.

“Our sister-in-law was bitten by a black bear and dragged out of her sleeping bag once,” Walkie countered, doubting his assessment.

By the time we reached Above the Clouds hostel, I was empty of thought, empty of energy, empty of confidence. I was a good hiker, I knew. I just couldn’t face Blood Mountain, had known it since we stood at the bottom of the falls, before we’d gotten ourselves so deep in the woods with no options. Weighing my ability against the mountain, I found myself lacking. I was and always had been, an outsider among real hikers. As a zombie, I sifted through clean loaner clothes piled in two laundry baskets selecting a baggy shirt and loose pajama bottoms.

The hostel was run by two hikers who had become part of the life of the trail after hiking it at least “three times.” As Nimrod told us, “Admitting to any more than that would be embarrassing.” They couldn’t leave this life in the woods, so they stayed and offered a warm bed, food, and encouragement to thru-hikers.

My body wanted two things—food and a shower. We arrived a little after most of the other hikers, and I was enveloped in an invisible forcefield of stench that I couldn’t even smell as I wandered to the kitchen. To me, I only smelled like trees and dirt. The already showered hikers were gathered around the kitchen table and did not move away to let on that I was wretched.

There was a pizza on the table. A fellow hiker had ordered it, eaten some and left the rest. I gestured vaguely to him and then, to the pizza box. Accurately interpreting my stunted communication, he told me I could have as much as I wanted. I ate four pieces one after the other, plus a Twix bar, a baggy of Cheez-its, a 6-pack of peanut butter crackers, and two sodas.

My sister came in from out on the front porch. “They have a kitten,” she told me. She was somehow already showered and wearing her loner clothes. Climbing atop a barstool, she paused to look at me. “How are you doing?”

I said words at her. I could see my sister clearly talking with Sam and Fireball. The rest of the hikers were a halo, a glimmering aura of humanity.

Hikers regaled each other with tales of their various thru-hiking experiences—a low roar of words sprinkled with laughter. Yukon had met a tall, lanky hiker who was fuller of crap than he was, but he was staying in the game.

I stared at my empty food wrappers, then walked to the shower where I cleaned my entire body three times. Soap, suds, hot water, dirt streaming down the drain.

Later, I floated back to the table and stared at the space between my sister and the shuttle driver who’d already shared his name with me a few times. He caught my eyes and I stared through him. He mouthed words at me, but I couldn’t decipher them. He had a nice beard.

Walkie Talkie laughed and joked with the other hikers. News travels up and down the trail carried by slower and faster hikers, so Nimrod and Nice Beard had heard about Fireball and her accident before she arrived. “So, you’re Fireball!” They greeted her warmly amidst the chatter.

Nice Beard and Nimrod started dinner while I joined my sister on a barstool overlooking the proceedings.

“You okay?” My sister nudged me with her elbow and smiled. I registered her voice first, her words third, in between my brain was just treading water.

“Okay, tell me the color of your tent,” Nice Beard handed me a cup of steaming coffee. Real coffee.

I stared at him, trying to make words come. And then, sipped my coffee and turned to Walkie.

“Come on, if you tell us the color, we’ll tell you what tent you have,” he smiled broadly, shaking salt into the aluminum pot on the stovetop.

“Um,” I said, “Hold on, it has red on it, I think.”

“You’re not sure?” He laughed. “Have you been camping recently?”

“It is! It’s red and gray,” my sister laughed, agreeing with me.

“There are no red and gray tents. Next,” he laughed moving onto the next hiker.

“Are you sure it’s not orange?” Nimrod said threw over his shoulder, opening a jar of red sauce.

“I guess you could maybe call it orange,” Walkie told him.

“You have the REI Quarter Dome 2, ” Nimrod said emptying the jar into a sauce pan.

“That’s right!” Sis exclaimed.

“How bad is Blood Mountain?” I blurted out. My sister quickly glanced over to me.

“If you can do Sassafras, you can do Blood Mountain,” said Nice Beard and turned back to the boiling water, breaking a fistful of spaghetti noodles and throwing them in.

“It’s partly the name that scares people. It’s easier than Sassafras,” offered Nimrod.

That was it. I had done Sassafras. Blood Mountain was easier that Sassafras. We were still doing this. I had this in the bag. I had to still myself on the barstool as energy surged back into my limbs.

Expectations were important. I just needed someone to reset them. It would be hard, but we would get up and over it. My internal topographical map held more peaks and valleys than the Appalachian Trail. Resolving myself to face the mountain, I was a hiker again and reunited with my sister’s spirit which never seemed to doubt.

We would face Blood Mountain together. And now, I could clearly see it in my mind—we would make it over the top the day after tomorrow. In two days, we would emerge from the forest to find ourselves in Neel’s Gap, and maybe get a cabin and stay out of the thunderstorms slated for that approaching Friday evening.

After dinner, I found Nice Beard and a hiker named “Smoke” sharing more stories out on the back porch. These folks lived for the woods, Smoke having thru-hiked the trail multiple times.

“So, any advice for Blood Mountain?” I asked them, as their black and white kitten purred around my ankles.

“Once you reach the boulder field, stay to the left,” said Nice Beard. “The blazes are on the rocks since there aren’t any trees, but they’re easy to miss.”

Doable, totally doable.

“Watch your step,” he continued. “I took a spill up there the first time I through-hiked. Fell clean down a boulder. Had to get off the trail.”

Maybe doable. Probably doable.

He ended up here at the hostel after that, and served as the shuttle driver while planning his next attempt at the trail.

I didn’t think we would fall on Blood Mountain. We couldn’t. My expectations were set for battle, my sister and I versus the mountain. And after all, the outcome to such a battle was pretty clear, odds favored the mountain.

Yukon joined us for a bit, and he no longer bothered me. Now, that my resolve was clear, I could see his well-intentioned warnings to other hikers were meant as kindnesses. I was no longer busy resenting my own fears and pinning them on him.

I mulled over the fact that he was an actual medical professional who had assisted no less than two hikers so far. I could see why he’d been compelled to offer his insights during our night-hiking deliberation at Hawk Mountain Shelter. Still, he’d nearly pushed my sister in the opposite direction, but that was largely due to the matter of her strong will, which was not to be tampered with.

We had internet service that night, and my sister called her sweet husband, while I called home to the boys. They were still surviving, but I sensed a forced cheerfulness in my son’s voice. I thought of them passing through this whole week without me there to tuck him in, watch him sleep, and pick him up from school.

It was such a generous undertaking for them to let me go off with my sister, continuing to offer support and love, while we camped and hiked. I couldn’t tell how anyone could really make it all the way to Maine without a loving team of people back home.

Walkie and I were left more homesick than before by our respective phone calls home.

“Tipu has been bringing dead treats to the porch,” she told me. “I think he’s hoping if he feeds me, I’ll come home.” She paused. “Did you see Blaze?”

“Yeah, cute little fluffball was cuddling my feet earlier,” I told her.

As we lay in our private bunkhouse that night, missing our respective family members, my sister turned onto her side and told me “Mom wrote a message today saying we’re her heroes.”

“Well, she’s my hero,” I said.

“Me, too,” said my sister, rolling onto her back again.

Every big family is clannish, and ours was no different. With three brothers and a sister, I had lifelong friends for whom I was thankful every day of my life. No clan is without a captain and hero to guide them, who was our father. And a center to hold us all together, who was our mother.

“They were right. Our tent is orange,” she said a little while later. “I looked up the description online.”

“It’s red,” I said.

“I know,” she smiled satisfied that we were in stubborn agreement.

“Myrt?” She asked a few minutes later, “what are some of the things you can’t wait to tell people when you get back home?”

I stared at the ceiling wondering how on earth I could begin to explain this experience to anyone. “I guess I’ll just say we walked 47 miles and saw a lot of trees.”