Day 3 - April 6, 2021
Gooch Mountain Shelter to Jarrard Gap – 10 miles
(I really wanted to avoid talking about the pandemic on my Substack. Personally, I feel like we’ve all had enough of the bullshit that came with it. Unfortunately, it happened, and it caused a lot of issues for me. While I was hiking, I spent a lot of time reflecting and remembering the hardships and it was a big part of the day, so I decided to write about it in today’s post.)
The sun dappling through my window shone on my face, illuminating my eyelids with a light golden color. I turned in my bed and questioned why it felt different. I sleepily opened my eyes and laid there shocked; my room was orange and made of mesh. Wait a minute, this wasn’t my room; I was in a tent! I couldn’t hear anything though, so I reached up and removed the foam that was deeply lodged in my ears. I heard quiet murmurs, camp stoves, and birdsong. I was sleeping so deeply that I could have sworn I was in my room back home; I had forgotten I was on the Appalachian Trail. I started doing what had become a regular morning routine of packing my gear, changing, getting my food bag from the bear box, and preparing to leave.
I was in a good mood once I got moving. I had my cereal in a bag on the go again, the sun was shining, and it was day 3! Since I had made a private friends and family Facebook group, I wanted to make sure I was taking lots of pictures and videos, so I took my phone out and documented the morning.
I realized I hadn’t felt this good in a long time. I checked the date and remembered that I had a phone appointment with my therapist soon. Since I had started hiking, I had felt like a completely different person; I forgot I was broken.
2020 was a very hard year for me. The pandemic started when I was still in college. The first few months of quarantine weren’t too bad though; in fact, I had a blast. I was living in my house with my two best friends, Skylar and Bella. The three of us bonded so much during that time. It didn’t seem all that bad because even though we couldn’t interact with the world anymore, we had each other. But that didn’t last long. Our lease ended in May and neither of them were still in school. They had both graduated early and they were ready to move on to their next steps, but I still had a couple of semesters left. I didn’t renew my lease for fear of being stuck with strangers, so I had made a plan of my own. Months before the end of the lease, I found a woman who was looking to rent one of the rooms in her house to a student. When the pandemic started, I emailed her and made sure she was still OK with our arrangement, and I let her know I was still working and in school. She said she was excited to have me.
A few days into living with her I knew I had to leave. She hated that I had an in-person class and that I was still going to work. Every morning when I would go into the kitchen, she would tell me how scared she was and that she was certain if she got Covid, she would die. She told me that since I was the only one leaving the house, I would be the reason she got sick and thus the reason she would die. Then, after giving me her fearmongering speech, she would say “OK, well have a good day, I’m off to Lowes to do some shopping.” She clearly didn’t see the hypocrisy in that. One week after moving in I told her I wanted to leave, and my parents had me packed up and moved out by the next day.
Luckily, my mom had found somewhere for me to move into. It was a five bed, five bath house with four women I didn’t know living in it. Most of my new roommates were nice and we got along but there was one that caused a lot of drama and made living there stressful. She seemed hellbent on stirring up all kinds of issues.
Covid College (or Da Crib University as I had begun to call it) only got worse the longer it went on. I was glad to be graduating early because I just couldn’t do it anymore. I wasn’t learning anything in any of my classes; honestly, I barely even knew which classes I was taking.
I started to develop a lot of anxiety, and I found that I was nervous around people. I was constantly being told that by not wearing a mask or staying home, I would be the reason someone died. The anxiety got to be too much, and I started developing panic attacks. I struggled to make new friends as the world around me started to change. Strangers who used to be kind started to hate each other. You didn’t look anyone in the eye anymore let alone say pleasantries like “excuse me” or “thank you.” The few friendships I still had weren’t as strong anymore and before I knew it, they were completely gone. I was alone. I tried my best to keep going and just finish strong, but I felt like I was drowning. I didn’t know what to do with all these new emotions, so I let them eat me alive. My brain started to feel like it belonged to someone else, someone really sick. I hated myself but I never told anyone.
It wasn’t until I moved back home after graduating that I had to face some of these issues. I came into the house like a wrecking ball. I felt like I was out of control of my actions, and I didn’t realize how hard it was on my parents. My mom and I constantly fought, and my dad had no idea why suddenly their house was a war zone. We did our best to try to “fix” me before I left for the AT. I was put on a couple different medications to try to control anxiety and depression. I felt like a husk of who I once was. I used to be strong, confident, and happy. I didn’t recognize myself anymore. That was why starting the trail was so scary for me. The Ella I was a year ago could definitely hike the entire AT, but this sniveling worm I had become was weak and scared. There was no way she was going to be able to do this; she was broken.
But…I didn’t feel like that anymore. I felt happy again. I felt like myself again. I sobbed reliving all this trauma, but I didn’t cry because I was sad. I cried because I was so relieved to feel proud and strong again. When I had cell service, I texted my therapist and canceled all our appointments; I didn’t need her anymore.
I stopped recording the video and felt disgusted. I clicked the delete button and hovered my thumb over the prompt asking me if I was sure. I opted to keep it for some reason, I don’t know why. This was deeply personal for me, and it still is. I haven’t shown anybody this video until now, but I promised I would show the good, the bad, and the ugly about thru hiking, so here it is.
A little while later, I met a sweet old lady. She introduced herself as Fireweed. Oh my God, what a cool name! I thought jealously. I asked her if she was thru hiking, but she said, “Oh no! I just like to hike the first 100 miles of the trail every Spring to get in shape.”
“Wow! That’s incredible.” I told her. She asked what my trail name was, and I confessed I didn’t have one. I told her about Sweet Water wanting to call me Chicken Little, but she shook her head.
“Oh, that’s not a very good name. You need something that fits you, something you’re proud of.” She suggested my name should be Columbine because I’m from Colorado, and because she liked the wildflower name theme. I told her I’d consider it but in truth, I never liked it. I wanted to be named by my friends not by myself. For some reason, naming myself felt like cheating.
Fireweed was right though, I wanted something I was proud of, something strong and confident. I was sure I would have a good name soon.
Around lunch time, I got to a road crossing called Woody Gap and I was happy to see there was more trail magic! I hopped in a line to get some soup and found a seat next to a few people I recognized from camp. I looked around and took in my surroundings. The people hosting trail magic looked Amish or Morman; the men all had beards, and the women wore long dresses and had long hair. There was also a vehicle that appeared to be one bus welded on top of another bus.
“Who are these guys? Are they a church or something?” I asked the people around me.
“Yeah, kind of. It’s the Twelve Tribes,” one replied.
I had heard of this group. It was a well-known religious “community” that everyone on trail knew was a cult.
“Haha, be careful! Don’t drink the Kool-Aid,” someone said, referring to the Jonestown massacre in 1978.
I nervously looked down at my food and debated throwing the rest away in case it was drugged, but hesitantly continued eating because it was good food, and I was hungry.
“Hey, can I look at the bus?” I heard one hiker ask a Twelve Tribes member.
“Yeah of course! Anyone that wants to look in the bus is welcome to,” he replied.
Nope, I thought, that’s a trap for sure. I imagined someone waiting inside the bus, ready to grab a curious hiker and hold chloroform over his nose and mouth. Clearly, I thought the only way for a cult to get new members was to kidnap them. I finished eating, threw my paper bowl away, and got the hell out of there before they could snatch me.
The parts of the day when I hiked downhill were by far the worst. The tendons and muscles in my knees took the brunt of the work resulting in deep, shooting pain each time I bent my legs. The pain got worse as the day went on and I was forced to hike slowly. It felt like the day would never end. I was one mile away from Lance Creek, the campsite I planned to stop at, and I reached a stream. The water looked clean and refreshing so I took off my pack to fill my water. Dunking my hand in the cold water gave me an idea and I took off my shoes and socks. I walked into the stream, sat down, and positioned my knee so that it was under the flow of the water.
After “icing” my knee, I gathered up my dirty clothes to do a bit of laundry. I took off my shirt and grabbed my pants, socks, and underwear out of my clothes bag. I didn’t carry any soap with me, but I was able to rinse off the sweat and dirt. I strapped my wet clothes to the outside of my pack so they could dry, and I hiked my last mile in my sports bra, shorts, and sandals.
Lance Creek was a small camp area with six tent spots, but my friends weren’t there. I walked into the camp and began inspecting the tenting areas to find which one I wanted to claim when I saw two other people there. Crouched together were two men who looked at me as I walked by. I waved to them expecting the same kindness I had seen from other people, but they did not wave back. They made me feel very uneasy, but I was hopeful that once more people I recognized started to fill the camp I would feel better. I found a spot and set down my pack. My clothes were still wet, so I strung up my paracord between two trees to make a clothesline. While I hung up my clothes, I kept looking expectantly at the entrance to camp, hopeful to see someone I knew walking in, but no one came.
I thought back on the day and I remembered everyone passing me when I got off trail to go to the bathroom earlier. If I hadn’t passed them yet, then that meant I hadn’t found where they were camping. I pulled my phone out to look at the map. There was one other place to camp 2.4 miles away; they had to be there. I didn’t want to add more miles to my day, but I had a bad feeling about these two guys. I changed into my hiking shoes, took down my paracord, and restrung the clothes to my pack to continue drying. In the short time I was at Lance Creek, my muscles had stiffened up and my knees felt terrible. I put my earbuds in and played Queen and Elton John to motivate me to hike hard for the next two and a half miles.
I found my friends scattered around a dusty hillside right off the trail. I stopped my music and happily joined them, thankful to be away from the two scary men from earlier. I picked a space that seemed flat for my tent and began setting up. When I was finished, I grabbed my food bag and joined a few others that had already sat down to start dinner. I began boiling water in my pot, and I grabbed the four-cheese risotto I had planned to eat. I poured the uncooked risotto into a Freezer Ziplock bag and waited until the water was ready. I had learned in my research, that the Freezer bags wouldn’t melt from the heat of boiling water, but the regular bags would. You may be asking yourself why this matters. Some of my friends cooked their dinner like normal in their pots. I never wanted to mess with cleaning my dishes after dinner, so I cooked my food in Ziplock bags. I would pour the boiling water into the bag with my food, give it a stir, and let it rehydrate. After letting the risotto sit for 20 minutes, it was ready to eat.
As dinner time came to an end, Mike gathered his things and said he was off to bed. He grabbed the bag that held his trowel and toilet paper, and he waved it around with a smile on his face. “I’m going to put the shit kit right next to my tent door. I have a feeling I’m going to need it on short notice tonight.”
Raucous laughter broke out amongst us, and I decided I would be calling my bathroom bag the shit kit as well.
Since we weren’t camping at a shelter, we didn’t have a bear box so it would be my first time hanging my food bag. I had practiced once or twice at home, so I had an idea of how I wanted to do it. I walked over to a group of trees and picked out a branch I’d shoot for. Jesse joined me and together we tackled the new challenge of learning how to hang our food. We each had a little bag that we filled with rocks and tied our rope to it. I used my paracord from earlier and after a few attempts I was able to successfully get the rope wrapped around the tree limb.
“How are you going to tie yours?” Jesse asked me.
“When I was back home, I had read that we should do something called a PCT hang,” I said.
“Oh yeah, I read about that, but I could never tie the clove hitch. Can you show me?”
“Yeah, I’ll try!”
I did my best to demonstrate and explain the process to him and we were both successfully able to hang our food.
It was close to getting dark, so I went back to my tent for the night. I had gotten in the habit of setting my sleeping pad up on one side of my tent and leaving the other side clear so I could sit there. It was a great space for changing my clothes, stretching, or writing in my journal. I hadn’t found a comfortable position to write in though, so I sat hunched over balancing my journal on my leg while I scribbled down my thoughts and stories. I changed into my sleeping clothes and nestled into my bed. It was an emotional day, and I was physically exhausted, but my spirits were still high. I was proud of myself for completing another day.
I wanted to explain how I hung my food bag, but it turned out to be difficult to put into words. Luckily, I found a video that explains it perfectly! Feel free to check this out, I really hope you find it informative and useful.
Next time on Packing It In: I make it to a big checkpoint on the AT where I get to resupply and shower. My friendships start getting stronger and I’m finally given my trail name!
So glad you were (and now) able to share your emotions! What a relief of emotional baggage 🥲you are strong and will succeed in all your endeavors 💕proud of you!