A Little Magic Just in Time

For those of you who don't know, we have a couple of things out here called "trail magic" and "trail angels". At various random spots you may run into a trail angel or angels sitting at a roadside or a gap that have food and drink (trail magic) for the hikers as they come by. Some of them might be out there for a day and some of them might camp out a week or a month to provide much needed goodies for the hikers.

I hiked out of Hot Springs on Saturday morning (May 10th) and the weather was overcast and cool - perfect. I saw a couple of cute snakes and began to run into people that had been a week ahead of me. The next day I woke up to 37 degrees and 30-40 mph winds (outlook did not look good). From there it got worse. There were strong winds, hail pelting me between the eyes, and rain. I made it to another shelter by 3:00 and would normally have hiked on, but instead I threw down my bag, turned around to the trail and told it that I was not going to take another [insert expletive] step. I figured that tomorrow was another day and the hiking could wait until then. After that I called mom and wished her a Happy Mother's Day ... it's always good to hear mom's voice.

Mother Nature did not exactly cooperate the next day. The winds increased, but at least there was not any hail or rain, but it was still colder. And then it happened ... there on the trail was a storage container full of cookies, cupcakes, and hot coffee with just a note instructing the hikers to warm up and eat some goodies. I'm truly not sure if I've ever been so happy in my whole life. Just as things were going downhill, an anonymous angel provided cupcakes and coffee - really good coffee, too. I helped myself, wrote a thank you note, and then had renewed energy with the help of the caffeine and sugar to push forward up the damned hill. I made it to the top of Bald Mountain where I was blown off the trail a couple of times by the big winds and made it to the nearby shelter. There I learned that the night before another hiker measured the wind speed to be 50 mph and a temperature of 19 degrees. Still hyped up on my trail magic, myself and three others decided to push on to lower elevation so as not to freeze in misery. We went another 6 miles and found a great meadow by Spivey Gap (1700 feet lower)and threw up a couple of tents. In the end, I hiked 25 miles that day, my longest so far. I was tired and my knees were a little sore, but I felt good. I made it in here to Erwin, Tennessee today after 11 miles of crawling over trees that were blown over in the storms during the previous two days. Only a little blood was dropped in the process. I'm showered again and have some clean clothes for at least 12 hours and then I'll be back out there - smelling up the trail.

Again, I'm unable to post pictures, but don't worry - I'll get some on at some point.