Day 57: Snake!
Day 57: June 8th Keffer Oak – Stream Camp
*Note, cover photo is a snake from farther up the trail in Pennsylvania. I didn’t get any photos of the snake described in this post.
Today, I don’t feel like hiking. Or to be more specific, I don’t feel like hiking just eight miles only to spend another day waiting for Etienne. Just strangers today, just waiting around at shelters, scratching my bug bites and eating too many snacks from my heavy food bag.
I wish I’d begged my mom to take me home yesterday, and this is a problem, because I fixate on perceived mistakes, whether trivial or serious. So as soon as I frame it this way – “I should have been assertive enough to ask Mom if that would be okay” – I start to sink into a hole. In this hole, I remember all the stupid mistakes I’ve ever made by not being assertive enough, all the mistakes I’ve made when I should have acted differently. I spiral like this until I can’t stand myself, until I feel physical disgust at being forced to exist inside my own skin and my own head, until I feel like me trying to exist as a functioning human is a laughably hopeless lost cause.
Down,
and down,
and down.
It’s been hot the last few days, and I’m filthy to the point that it’s getting uncomfortable. Sweaty, itchy, gross. I think about the shower I could have taken and the laundry I could have done at home. Then I think I about Four Pines Hostel. Maybe I’ll push there in two days instead of three, and just zero there until Etienne catches me. But now I’m back to where I started: even though my problem seems rooted in not being able to hike enough, today I don’t feel like hiking.
I often get trapped in these ugly circles. Much less, when I’m out here, but it still happens.
They say “the geographical cure” is when you believe that changing your location will fix your problems. I think about how I’ve moved every year since graduating college. Dominican Republic, Spain, back to Virginia, Morocco, and now the Appalachian Trail. The geographical cure has always appealed to me, because I feel most capable and stable when I’m in the midst of adapting to new circumstances. Diving headfirst into a new adventure always feels like a turning point, like it will make me a New And Improved Person TM. But it’s a flawed approach if your problems aren’t with a place. If they’re with you, they always catch up again.
My problems are definitely with me. Even here, on the Appalachian Trail.
I imagine most thru-hikers confront this reality at some point on the trail, during all this time that we have to exist inside our own heads while we walk and walk and walk. This dirt path from Georgia to Maine has some restorative, even transformative power. But it isn’t a cure-all. I am, after all, still me.
I take a deep breath and look up at the Keffer Oak.
It’s a beautiful, beautiful tree, and it’s been casting a shadow in this spot for three centuries. Right now, I imagine it speaking to me like the ocean in the Mary Oliver poem.
Excuse me, I have work to do.
Humbling. Reassuring. My self-loathing suddenly feels petty and small.
I sigh, and I get ready to hike.
During the day, my mood improves. After a steep climb, the terrain flattens out in the ridge, and there’s some bouldering to do, where the slanted rocks are tough on the ankles, but the bright sunshine and nice views break up the green tunnel. After the first ridge section, I’m walking along just ahead of two older men when I notice something yellow by my foot. It registers in my brain after half a second, and I jump backwards.
It’s a rattle, with a well-disguised snake attached. Its geometric pattern is oddly good camouflage on the sun-spangled packed earth.
The snake notices me in the same moment. It rattles once, but doesn’t coil. I back up a healthy distance, my heart hammering, unnerved by the mere inches that had separated me from stepping on it. I stop the two men when they reach me and point out the snake. One pulls out his phone and starts recording. The snake oozes across the trail, and I think we’re about to see the last of him, but as we all take a step forward to watch him cruise away, he rattles again and coils into a striking position, a foot off the trail. We pass with a wide berth, but cannot in good conscience walk on, leaving an agitated rattlesnake, mostly obscured from a Nobo’s view by a tree, just inches from where an unsuspecting hiker might prod him with a trekking pole and provoke a bite. One of the men finds a long branch, six or seven feet, and uses it to nudge the snake away from the trail. Coiled so tightly, the snake flips like a pancake down the hill, then unspools and slithers into a pile of rocks. Still unnervingly close to the trail, but not exposed or in a position to strike.
For the next hour, I am wary. My eyes stay glued to the trail in front of me, vigilant on the many rocky areas. Then, while I’m picking around at a view, FingerLickin catches me. I haven’t seen her since Jenny Knob. She got sick around the same time Etienne did. We chat, and while we’re doing so, Ash and Rob arrive, whom I haven’t seen since Partnership Shelter.
They’re all shooting for the shelter after Niday, where I’m planning to stop. It will make a 22-mile day for them, but it would only be 18.5 for me. I like the idea of reaching Catawba tomorrow instead of Sunday, and I’m cheered by the familiar faces. The remaining miles to the shelter pass quickly. We eat lunch, then set off. But at a beautiful campsite by a river, Ash and Rob and I all decide to stop. It means a 15-mile day to Four Pines tomorrow, where I’ll wait until Sunday or Monday for Etienne to catch up. I find myself missing him sharply, in a way that seems irrational for a mere week apart. Heck, I’ve known him for less than two months.
The three of us have a fun evening. I dunk myself in the river and feel a bit cleaner. We build a fire and cook dinner. Then, as we’re chatting, I spot a large black shape on the hillside 50 or 60 yards away.
“Bear!” We all scramble for our cameras, but the inky-black bear is gone before any of us can get a good photo. We’re extra careful packing up our food and toiletries, knowing the bear is nearby. We hang our bags from the bridge over the river and debate about whether a bear could have the ninja skills to reach it from the bridge supports.
Eventually, we go to sleep.
(Despite all that happened on this day, I have no photos except 10+ portrait shots of this cool bug, so… enjoy?)
