Day 5: April 8, 2021
Baggs Creek Gap to Low Gap Shelter – 7.5 miles
Happy fall y’all! I wanted to start today with a couple of announcements. First of all, my new day for publishing is going to be Tuesday. My work schedule changed a little bit which shifted which days I have my “weekend” so to ensure I have enough time to get writing done I felt like I needed to do this. Secondly, I have a couple of important things going on that need some attention so for right now I am going to be publishing every other week. Hopefully I can get caught up on my projects enough to get back to a weekly schedule, but we will see. I appreciate your flexibility and support as I share my adventure and my stories with you all. Now, let’s get back to it!
Once the sun peeked over the horizon, the forest started to wake up. The birds sat in the trees, ruffling their feathers, fluffing them up to make a barrier between them and the morning chill. Small chirps and peeps matured into long, flowing songs that drifted through the trees. I sleepily opened my eyes to the calming sound that had become my alarm clock.
I loved my sleeping bag so much; it was comfortable and cozy. Leaving it in the morning was always a mental game though. Starting every morning by unzipping the bag and releasing all the air I worked so hard to warm up to just put clothes on that were stiff from cold. Even though I had only been out there for a short amount of time, my mentality changed a lot. Back home, if I started the morning in a 40-degree chill with freezing cold clothes, I would let it ruin my day. Out there was different though; I embraced the suck. I knew going into my thru hike that I would be uncomfortable, so when moments like that happened it was completely regular. I did not expect comfort, and so I wasn’t disappointed when I didn’t get it. If anything, I was far more grateful when I did; it was a treat.
I joined my friends for coffee and breakfast. After pouring frigid water in my small pot, I gently set it on my one burner stove and waited. Much like the birds, I too sat hunched over to conserve my warmth.
Jesse once again started his morning doing a yoga routine to stretch out any stiffness from sleep or the day before. He was so regular at doing this and others would follow his lead and mirror his stretches. After seeing this pattern, we offered up the name Yogi to him. And just like that, we had one more trail name in our tramily.
Two miles into the day we hiked down to Tesnatee Gap. At the road there were three people, a man and two women, who had set up tables full of donuts, coffee, fruits, and first aid supplies, and there were massage rollers spread out around the parking lot. It was such a wonderful sight! My tramily had started to gather in the gap, munching on donuts and drinking coffee. The man had a trail name and introduced himself as King Tut, and the women were named Lee and Betty. They were part of a church that did trail magic at this gap on Tuesdays and Thursdays in April. In addition to the food and supplies, there was a box of knit caps that were handmade by The Crochet Ladies at the church. I dug around in the box and found the perfect one. I was drawn to the white blaze crocheted into the design.
As my tramily filled in, King Tut started passing around a clipboard asking if we could write our names down. There was a column for our real names, or government names as we had begun to call them, and for our trail names. I got the clipboard first and started to fill in my information.
Name | Trail Name ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ella | Fiesty
I passed the clipboard off to Pickles, formerly Analis, with a smile on my face; happy to finally have a trail name.
“You spelled your name wrong,” she said to me.
“What?” I snatched the clipboard back, “How?”
“It’s supposed to be F-E-I, not F-I-E”
“But… what about the I before E rule? Also, pie is spelled I-E and it sounds just like the beginning of my name.”
“I don’t know why; I just know you spelled it wrong!” she chuckled. “It’s like you were trying to write fiesta. Hey! Maybe that can be your Spanish alter ego, Fiesty.”
Embarrassed, I crossed out my name that I had so proudly written and rewrote it correctly.
Name | Trail Name ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ella |FiestyFeisty
Clouds rolled in and reminded us that while the comforts of trail magic were nice, we needed to get moving and put some miles on the day. Lee and Betty asked to say a prayer for us before we hiked on, and we all gathered around and held hands. The two women asked God to watch over us and to keep us safe on our adventure. We thanked them for their kindness and started to head out.
Soon after leaving the parking lot, it started to rain. I dropped my pack and stuck my arm into it to find my rain cover. I slid the thin material over the outside of my backpack to keep it dry and I fastened it around my hip belt. After that, I slung my pack up to my shoulders, readjusted all the straps, and hiked on.
I didn’t want to put on my raincoat. The weather was warm and humid enough I thought having that additional layer would be more uncomfortable than being wet. I passed some beautiful white flowers, and I bent down to pick one to put behind my ear. It was a simple thing, but it made me happy. It made me feel like a woman. I felt gross most of the time, hiking in dirty clothes, switching between two pairs of underwear, having unwashed hair. For some reason, putting the flower behind my ear made me feel feminine and clean. Stache saw my new jewelry and swooped down to pick two flowers, one for each of his ears. We each hiked with our flowers all day.
Tristan hiked with me for a lot of the day. We listened to similar music, so I put on a Country music playlist, and we sang and hiked together until we got to camp.
We finished hiking around 1:00. When we got to Low Gap, I was shocked by how large the camping area was. The shelters I had stayed at before were so densely packed with the tent sites right near the shelter. This shelter, however, was far more spread out. I found a little area that was a solitary tent site away from the shelter. Crawling around camp was an iridescent green beetle that I was pretty sure was a scarab beetle. Immediately I picked up the little creature, feeling its hooked feet secure themselves onto my skin, and I carried it over to my friends. I showed them the beautiful colors and I urged them to look closely at the beetle so they could see they clubbed antennae that marked it as a scarab beetle. In college, I took an Entomology class which is the study of insects. Along with my Herpetology class that I mentioned before, Entomology was also one of my favorite classes. I loved being able to see brand new species of insects I had never seen before. Pickles said she also found a beetle at her camp site. I took that to mean this small creature was a good omen.
After I returned the beetle to its home, I reflected on how much I had changed. Back home, I would have never picked up a beetle. They are gross and I hated how their feet grappled into my skin. But out there, in the wilderness, I didn’t feel separated from the insects and plants. I wanted to touch everything and experience all the beauty or discomfort that came with it. I found myself staring at a vine as it crawled its way up a tree. Every few inches, there were miniscule tendrils that split off the main vine and they worked like fingers, growing through the bark of the tree to get a good hold. There was also moss growing everywhere and plentiful water. It felt magical!
Once dinner was finished, my tramily was all sitting around the picnic table at the shelter enjoying one another’s company. Stache started talking to Tristan and called him by name.
“You guys aren’t allowed to call me Tristan anymore, you’re going to get too attached to it. Until I have a trail name, I don’t have a name, OK” He said to us. He grabbed his filter and walked down to the stream to fill up for the night.
“Well, what are we going to call him?” Stache said.
We sat at the table for a little bit, tossing names around but nothing seemed right.
“The only thing I can think of is Cowboy since he’s from Wyoming,” I said. “But I feel like we could do better than that.”
After taking a second to think about it, Stache turned around and faced Tristan as he squatted by the water. He cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled “Hey Cowboy.” At that, Tristan turned to look right at Stache. We all cheered and laughed.
“Oh! You turned your head,” Stache said. “Your name is Cowboy now!”
“Yeah, Cowboy!”
“He’s got a name!” We all called out.
Cowboy walked over to us with a grin, happy to join the gang with a trail name.
The next section of trail goes by a road where we planned to catch a ride to a town called Helen. I was excited to be in a town so I could get a proper resupply. I sent my beetle picture to Mom and Dad and after talking on the phone for a little bit they asked if I was eating enough. They said I looked skinny in my picture. Food had been a bit of a struggle. By the end of my meal, I wasn’t always full, but I was disgusted by the food. Every single bite had the same texture and taste. I would always get down to the last two or three bites and be so grossed out by it that I would end up giving it to one of the boys to finish. I decided to get some almonds and olive oil to add some fat to my diet in case I lost weight.
I ran through my regular nightly routine, but I left my ear plugs out. Since I had been sleeping so close to other people, I had been using them as a precaution in case anyone snored, but I was far enough away to not need them. Because of that choice though, I woke up a lot in the night. My sleeping pad rubbed very loudly on the floor of my tent. Each time I moved the loud rustling noise would wake me up. At one point, I finally did manage to fall asleep, but I was woken up again by the sound of an animal howling in the trees. My heart raced as I lay, too scared to move, in my bed. Whatever was making the noise sounded just like a crazed monkey, howling and screaming in the branches above my tent. In my fear, I made up a story that we must be near a zoo and a monkey escaped. I could feel my heartbeat in my ears and my temperature rise as my body responded to the fear. I tried my best to calm down, reassuring myself that it wasn’t a monkey. Even though my tent was only millimeters thick, I convinced myself to feel safe in it like I was in some impenetrable force field. Eventually the animal moved on, and my heart rate slowed enough to let me sleep again.
Next time on Packing It In: A trip to town lead to laughs, memories, and tummy problems.
I’m curious to know if you ever figured out what the animal was! I enjoy your writings and look forward to reading more!💕