My big "Manventure"

Anyone checking this blog post expecting some witty commentary on Target or charming story about adorable children, please save yourself some time and stop reading now.

This is no nonsense, stinky, dirty, boring talk about sleeping outside and eating bad food. For what purpose? So that a couple of dudes could walk 70 miles from one of our cars to the other.

So Sean Spittle and I decided that since we have never really taken time just for ourselves we would take a few days and head up to the Great Smoky Mountain National park and hike the Appalachian Trail from the south end to the north end in five days. We chose to go in October so that we could see the leaves changing, and according to historical weather records, October is also the driest month of the year. So we stayed at a romantic little bed and breakfast on Tuesday night before hitting the trail Wednesday morning, the 6th of October.



We started at Fontana Dam at 9:00 in the morning full of enthusiasm and self-assuredness, headed up the trail with 40lb packs on our backs for a 17 mile, 3000 foot elevation gain day. At 6:00 p.m., 9 hours and five black bears later we stumbled into our first shelter of the night thoroughly exhausted, and no sooner did we stop than I started a fit of uncontrollable shakes and chills, and the two of us were barely able to make it down to the spring to refill our water bottles and cook dinner. We knew it was going to be a difficult day at the beginning, but I don't think we had any idea how physically and mentally challenging this trek was going to be. The last three miles we both ran out of water, and we weren't eating at regular intervals like we should have been in order to maintain our energy levels. Lessons learned.











That night about 10 minutes after we and nine other hikers had bunked down for the night, a 350lb black bear that had been watching us cook and prepare for bed from about 200 feet away sauntered into the shelter to check for leftovers. He licked the benches, grabbed a piece of some one's camp stove, and wandered off to stare up at the backpacks that we had strung in a nearby tree. We read by headlamp for a bit, popped in earplugs, and slept surprisingly well for the rest of the night.


Day two was another beautiful, sunny day, and our spirits were high having only 500 or so feet of elevation and just shy of 14 miles to cover. We learned that 500 feet net could still mean 3000 feet or more of up and down as we summitted and descended mountain after mountain. Day two treated us to some of the most spectacular views of the trip, 360 degree panoramas of mountains, valleys, fall foliage and clear blue skies. Day two is why the mountains call to me.



This was our shelter on day two and typical of the shelters along the A.T.



This was the spring where we got our water. The spring was literally weeping from the rocks, and at each spring there was a pipe to direct the water from the pool more easily into your water bottle.


This is the camping stove I made from Diet Coke cans and a Red Bull can. My stove and I became the stuff of legend along the trail, just sayin'.


And this is the view from the pooper. I thought it was quite lovely.



Sean and I were the only ones in the shelter that night. Don't we look content? We had no idea how our trip was about to change.



So when we woke up on Friday morning for day three, this was what we saw.



Oooohhh, clouds. The thing about clouds is that they are pretty wet. And these clouds were accompanied by a bit of rain. Booooooo! We had about 15 miles to do day three including summitting Clingman's dome, the highest peak east of the Mississippi.



Here is the thing about hiking up mountains in the rain. We were working so hard that we were dripping sweat and hotter than hot, but the driving wind and unending rain were soaking us from the outside and chilling our extremities. So the dilemma was whether or not to wear rain gear and sweat inside it or just abandon the rain gear and go with the "wet is wet" philosophy. Either way is fairly miserable, but let me say that the no rain gear option can end in hypothermia, see? As soon as we stopped hiking our core temperature dropped, and because Sean is generally too warm to begin with he had been wearing only a technical t-shirt all day and was unaware of how chilled he had become. Within minutes he became a bit foggy mentally and had chills so bad he could do nothing more than curl up in a ball in his sleeping bag. I made him cup after cup of broth, and after an hour or so, he was feeling much better. We were both grateful that we didn't have to resort to naked cuddling.


Day four was the big one, and we had been nervous about it from the beginning of the trek. We had to do more than 20 miles and summit six mountains in the process. We got up at 5:30 and were on the trail before sunrise knowing that we would be hiking all day. Thankfully we had learned a lot of lessons the previous three days including, staying as dry as possible, eating with regularity whether you were hungry or not, and drinking every time you thought about it even if you didn't think you were thirsty. Saturday morning was the coldest day yet with more heavy cloud cover, moderate winds, and continuous, unrelenting rain. The trail was one big mud puddle, and there was no point in trying to keep your feet dry, because it wasn't happening.



I had a particularly tough morning mentally as I was wet to the bone from perspiration within the first hour of hiking and chilled continually from the wind and rain. And I knew I had at least another eight hours on the trail. Fortunately, we changed some clothing mid-morning, made some great time, and spirits lifted as we had done 10 miles by noon. We ate lunch at mile 13 in a shelter with some college student age hikers who seemed pretty cool at the time, and afterward powered on down the trail, surprised at how easily we were able to summit peak after peak and cover mile after mile. At one point we caught back up to the group of four hikers who we had lunched with, and as soon as we came around the corner into view of the other guys they jumped up off the trail and took off again. Four miles later and 10 hours after our morning departure we rolled into our RESERVED shelter to see 12 bodies already there. About 10 minutes behind us were two more hikers with reservations for a total of 16 bodies looking at 12 bunks.

Here is the thing about the wilderness, there is no enforcing an unprovable reservation, and no ranger within 8 miles we could call upon for help. Sure we could have yelled and freaked out, but short of getting into a fist fight, nobody was getting up to make space for those of us who were legitimately supposed to sleep there that night. It was at that moment that we realized why those 4 dudes were literally racing down the trail ahead of us. No reservations. Nice, d-bags. Sean immediately said, let's just go. We had no tent, no tarp, sleeping pads that were only half body-length. We were unequipped to sleep on the ground, and so after thinking on it for a minuted I agreed that we should just hike out the last 8.5 miles. So at 5:15, 90 minutes before sunset, and still raining, we decided to finish the trek.

We ended up hiking the last four miles in the dark, hoping we wouldn't miss a turn off, slip on a rock, or run into a bear. And you know what, we did it. We powered up another 2200 foot mountain summit and finished up at 9:00 pm, 14 hours after we started, having covered 29 miles in one day. Sean and I have cute, matching black big toenails, I have tendonitis in both of my knees, IT band issues in Sean's right leg and complexion problems from hell. Awesome!!!


We both said that this was the single hardest thing we have ever done. 72 miles and a total of over 18,000 feet of elevation in four days. Do I want to run back up and do it again next week? Nope, but I hear Glacier National Park is nice in August!