8.8 Miles – In the Middle

This is Andrew’s dad, coming to you after one day of hiking.  To echo Andrew’s first blog – this is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.  I have a much better understanding of what Andrew has endured the past 2 months — and I only covered 4.4 miles twice…we estimate maybe 4 hours actual hiking time.  I say I covered it twice because I dropped Andrew off at the start of Shenandoah National Park, drove to Turk Gap and hiked back to Calf Mountain Shelter where we hooked up again…then hiked back to the SUV at Turk Gap.  Believe me, the return trip was much slower.

Highlights of my first day on the trail.  I drank spring water doused with three drops of bleach to ward of f bad bacteria.  It tasted like water with bleach in it.  I chewed on sassafras root, which smells of root beer.  Andrew ate a leaf — I passed.  We saw bears!  When I picked up Andrew at the hostel this morning he told me about a girl who was eaten by a black bear miles back on the trail, shortly after he passed that way.  So I was understandably focused on bears as I walked alone on my 4.4 miles.  I sang and whistled nonsense songs ( it’s hard to come up with a real song when you’re gasping for breath) to create scare-the-bear noise.  When Andrew and I hooked up he said the hikers who saw bears would knock their hiking poles together and the bears would turn tail like the cowards they are.  Shortly after we began hiking together, we saw a mother bear and several cubs about 50 yards up the mountain to our right.  I began clanging my poles together like a madman.  The mother bear took off so fast she left two of her cubs up a tree they’d climbed to escape the awful clacking hiking poles.  They shinnied down and lumbered after mom — so much for Sarah Palin and her mother bear protecting her young.  We continued hiking the trail in the same direction the bears had taken, which caused me some concern, but there was no more bear action this day.

All in all, I feel proud that I could join my son for a small part of his experience, and I know what he means when he says the notion of hiking the trail as a joyous, magical experience is a bunch of bull.  It’s sweating through every piece of clothing on your body, feebly swatting at the horse fly circling your head, watching where to place every step so you don’t turn an ankle and wondering who the evil people were that decided to create stone steps that you can barely lift your legs to negotiate.  So why do I feel so pleasantly refreshed tonight?