Revision of The Appalachian Trail Trip from Fri, 06/27/2008 - 09:28

This is an account of the funniest, most disastrous, and crazy learning experience that I have ever had on a wilderness trip. Unlike the previous trips that my close friends and I had taken as a group, we decided to plan and organize this one all by ourselves. That was a big mistake in thinking. Not only did we not fully understand how to organize a wilderness trip, we hadn't even been backpacking in nearly 7 years. In fact, myself and a couple of others had never been backpacking, only canoeing. And worst of all, I proclaimed myself the leader since I was the focal point and main contact for everyone else who was to go on the ill-fated expedition. The following events are told to the best of my recollection, so if anyone that went on this trip has anything to add or subtract from my writings, please let me know. Here goes...

The participants:

• Jeremy Adams - Me! Self proclaimed leader, organizer, and provider of transportation (my father's '89 Suburban -it's a BIG truck/van). I was also the brunt of most of the vicious verbal attacks from close friends/hiking companions due to my self proclaimed leadership role. :)
• Aaron Pifer - Main contributor to initial planning as well as last minute shopping, planning, and organization. Also accompanied me on all previous canoeing trips, and had even been on one backpacking trip, nearly 8 years ago.
• Brad Fisher - Would have helped me plan more of the trip, but too many make out sessions with his then girlfriend, now wife, Nikki, kept him too preoccupied to help. (Ok, his five jobs also didn't help, but women always take away more time than anything else. Don't be offended Nikki.) Same wilderness experiences as the above named Aaron Pifer.
• Brandon Wood - Unable to assist as he too was working and going to school in Michigan with Brad. Same wilderness experiences as Aaron and Brad, minus one canoe trip, possibly the funniest, that he was unable to go on for extenuating circumstances.
• Matt Campbell - Supplied Pur (now sold under the Katadyn label) water filter (our savior each and every day and THE best water filter on the market for the price), and other nifty gadgets that aided in our travels. We would have died without Matt's trinkets and whatnots; figuratively speaking any ways.
• Aaron Alexander - Supplied big feet and a 10 quart camel bag that usually ran out of water halfway through the day due to my unending thirst. (That's right, I was the water hog and was also constantly getting harped on about how much water I drank.)
• Nathan Pifer - One of the 'youngsters' of the trip and Aaron Pifer's little brother. Ok, he is actually bigger than Aaron (sorry Aaron, but it's true), but by age and sibling rivalry bragging rights, he's still Aaron's little brother.
• Justin Wood - Brandon's little brother and the other 'youngster'. Supplied one of the most awkward, heavy army backpacks I have ever seen, proponent of drab green, and general carrier of food stuffs.

Table of Contents Day 0: The Drive Day 1: Reaching the Appalachian Trail Day 2: The Easy Hike Day 3: No Dry Bones Here Day 4: The Plan

Day 1: Reaching the Appalachian Trail

We had decided that we would get on the Appalachian Trail via a side trail near Damascus, VA, hike southwards towards the Watuaga Dam, and then be picked up by my other aunt that lives in North Carolina. We parked the van, unloaded our stuff, and geared up. Once we had all gotten our packs on, bandanna's tied, and the Suburban locked up, we posed for a few pictures and started off. We noticed two trails, one led up a steep set of rock stairs, and I do mean STEEP, and another led off into the woods going upwards at a gentler pace. We decided the stairs were definitely meant for the trail to the top of the natural bridge and decided to head off on the easier trail. Brad led the way, but quickly large rhododendron plants began interfering with our trail. After a good two minutes of hiking, Brad came upon a rhododendron plant that completely blocked the way. Thinking that it was just there because of a recent storm we urged him to find a way through it. We all began crawling on our stomachs underneath the plant. Brad made it through after about 5 minutes and began to go again. I followed him, Aaron P. behind me, and the rest following him. Once Aaron and I had made it through, Brad declared that the path stopped and was most definitely NOT the trail leading to the Appalachian Trail. We spent another ten minutes clawing our way back to the parking lot. By now we were all, dirty, sweaty, and looked a lot worse off than we really were. To top it all off, we came out of this 50 yard hike to find several other people who had come to see the natural bridge standing in the parking lot. Sheepishly we explained that we were idiots and that they should definitely not go the way we had just taken. Knowing now that the steep stone steps were are only way, we started once again towards the Appalachian trail. To our chagrin, the stone steps didn't stop after 30 of them like we thought. In fact, 60 steps later we were already getting tired and wondering what we had gotten ourselves into. And over the next two and half miles of straight uphill climbing the trail just got steeper and less well maintained. By 12:30 that day we were exhausted! We had finally made it to the Appalachian trail, and therefore decided to reward ourselves by breaking for lunch. We dropped our packs, rung out our sweat soaked shirts (it was sunny and HOT that day), and began to dig into the bagels, peanut butter, and jelly, and the massive amount of Tang that we had brought. Unfortunately, we had to conserve our water since we knew we wouldn't get to a water source until our camp that night. As we sat there eating lunch, a few women thru-hikers came by heading northward on the trail. They paused and chatted for a couple of minutes with us about the way they had just come. They soon went on their way, and we immediately proceeded to debate on which one was the cutest of the three, realizing we most likely wouldn't see any more women until the end of the week. At approximately 1:30 we started off again heading uphill, but at a much gentler slope. We joked and talked to keep our minds off of our already worn down bodies as we marched onwards. We found our campsite at about 5:30 or 6:00 that evening, and immediately hiked the 1/4 of a mile to the fresh spring to refill on water since we had gone without it for the past hour. At around 6:30 another hiker heading southwards stopped at our site (it was a rather large campsite) and decided he would spend the night there as well. Most of us were too tired to talk to him, except for Matt and Justin I think. Matt relayed to us later that night that he went by the name Spyder and had been hiking for about 6 weeks (I think) now, on his way to Georgia. We slept in late the next morning, and by the time most of us were just crawling out of bed, Spyder was getting ready to head on down the trail. Thus began Day 2.

Day 2: The Easy Hike

Day 2 began with a warm cup of disgusting tasting espresso that Matt made from his camp espresso maker. It was small and quite portable, but it just didn't work right out in the middle of the woods. Soon enough, we were ready to go again, and began our second day of hiking up one hill and down the other. It was uncharacteristically hot that day, but we weren't too bad off as we were usually hiking through thick woods. The one memory that stands out from this day was when we happened upon a group of Forestry Service workers on a logging road. We came trudging out of the woods and happened upon about 8 older men. Most of them looked about 60 years old or older, and must have been taking some kind of break as they were all standing around their two pickup trucks smoking and talking. We greeted them and struck up conversation about the adventures we had had so far. A couple of them talked about how they had all walked various parts of the trail and two of them had actually maintained the trail for several years, but were now 'retired'. But I'll never forget the old balding fella that sat in the white truck. Matt, Nathan, and I were talking to him and his old buddy about something, when he brings up another friend of theirs who had since died. Here's how he told the story: "You remember old Jim?" the man in the truck asked his friend standing nearby. "Yep. Used to walk part of the trail ev'ry year." "Yeh, didn't he do some maintenance on the trail ever so often?" "Yeh, even up until he died I think." "Yeh, let me tel'ya boys, ya sure don't wanna go out like old Jim did, no siree. That old bum had lost his wife and kid 'bout a year before, and jus couldn't take it no mores. So he went and sealed 'imself in this tent, and ran a garden hose from his truck's exhaust pipe into the tent and gassed 'imself to death. And donated his body to science." Now before this story, we were already feeling like we should get moving before these good 'ol boys... did something to us. However, after that story Matt and I started giving excuses about why we REALLY needed to get going again so that we could get to our next campsite. As soon as we were a little ways down the trail, that story began circulating and we were soon laughing hysterically about 'old Jim gassin' 'imself to death.' I do have to say though, they were nice old guys. A little wacked in the head from too much moonshine perhaps, but decent old fellas. The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. We passed Spyder towards the end of the day. He had decided to stay in the Double Springs shelter, but we kept going the extra mile to a campsite where we could be alone. That evening as we were making camp, 3 or 4 different hikers passed us, and was probably the busiest we saw the trail the entire trip. That night we had an awful time trying to get a campfire going and it took us an entire box of matches, half a lighter and some lighter fluid before we finally kindled a flame into a persistent fire. We hung out our once again sweat soaked T-shirts, hoping the next day would bring some relief from the very hot, dry weather the first two days had brought. And so we come to Day 3.

Day 3: No Dry Bones Here

Now, before this day we had been doing ok. This day would test our mettle and determination to the core. This would be hiking at its worst. We woke up, had some coffee/hot chocolate, suited up and headed on our way. I think we left at around 8:30 or 9:00 in the morning and by 11:00 we were starving. Today would be soups of various flavors, so we decided to stop just before hitting a marshy section of the trail where a boardwalk had been built to help protect the trail. While we were beginning to make our various soups this old man with a worn walking stick passed us again. He stopped to talk to us for awhile about our hike so far. Flash back: First day on the trail. Old man with worn walking stick passes us on trail and wishes us a good hike. He's old and has no pack, odd... So now we're thinking this guy is stalking us, or at least the crazed survivalist that had escaped earlier that month and was rumored to be near the part of the Trail that we were hiking. Just as we were getting all our gear back on and ready for the rest of the day's hike, it began to sprinkle. We had been anticipating some precipitation any time as it had begun to get cloudy and slightly windier all morning. So we helped each other get poncho's on, pack rain-fly's (if you had one, which I did), and any other wet weather gear we could find. I decided to brave it and wear only my pack (with rainfly on) and my usual T-shirt, BDU pants, and a tiger-stripe, camoflaged bandanna on my head. By the time we got moving again it was a pretty steady rain which seemed to be turning into a downpour. We walked for about 20 minutes before the rain let up and was lightly sprinkling. But we had another challenge to conquer, an approximate 30 degree uphill climb for an entire mile! God shone down his beauty at that moment by opening up the heavens just as we began our climb. As we began our ascent, the forest around us became misty from the continous downpour and the 90 degree temperature that afternoon. Our ascent took us up a straight path with drop-offs on either side of the narrow trail of about 45 degrees for most of the ascent. We were right on top of the ridge of the mountains, but due to the immense downpour, we could only see about 50 feet in any direction, and therefore were unable to see anything to the right or left of the trail looking down from the mountain. After about an hour of hiking since our lunch, the trail had become a convenient little mountain runoff stream. My boots and socks sloshed with each step from all of the water. My feet were actually sort of hot though because all of the water stuck in my boots was kept warm from my body heat in addition to wearing the most excellent pair of socks I have ever worn. I wore a pair of trekking SmartWool socks, which I must endorse whole heartedly as the sock of choice for hiking. Not only do they feel comfortable when dry, they feel comfortable (relatively speaking) when wet. I was one of the very few of our group that did not get blisters because of that one pair of socks (I wore the same pair every day). Also, my entire body, and every article of clothing on me was saturated with sweat and rain, making for a rather unpleasant hike. Nobody talked much as it was hard to hear each other over the rain. But in a curious way, I think the constant pounding of the rain made for a more steady hiking rhythm. By the time we reached the Nick Grandstaff Monument at the top of the ascent, we were all exhausted. Two hours of continous uphill can do that to you. We firmly decided then, that no matter what, we were making camp at the Iron Mountain Shelter about 1 1/2 miles further down the Trail. We needed somewhere to dry out and the shelter would offer the best solution to the problem. We pressed on, hoping each new hill we conquered would reveal the promised land of the shelter. Of course, hiking is sort of like watching a pot of water begin to boil; it never happens. Finally we reached the shelter, when who should we find, Spyder. He kindly offered for us to stay at the shelter with him as there was plenty of room for tents outside the shelter, as well as sleeping bags in the shelter. Spyder had made it to the shelter much earlier in the day, and had been spared much of the drenching rains that we had hiked through. We began to strip off the wet slop that we called clothes and changed into dryer clothing that had been kept bone dry inside our packs (YEAH RIGHT!). My clothes weren't wet, but a few people had some slightly moist changes of clothes. Matt and Aaron A. decided they would sleep in their tents, but the rest of us decided to take refuge in the shelter with Spyder. After hanging out EVERYTHING to dry in the 120% humidty of the still sweltering heat of the evening, we began to unpack our food to cook dinner. A few people hiked several hundred yards down to the closest water stream and retrieved our water supply for the night. We were all glad when they returned because now we could make some Tang. Now, our supply of Tang was an interesting thing. We had started with about 8 jars of the powdery substance and were now down to ONLY 6 zip lock bags of it, two of which were only half full. Upon pulling one bag of tang out of a backpack Spyder began laughing hysterically. What was so funny? He told us how crazy we were for carrying so much weight from that bag of Tang. Then we produced the other 5 bags from various backpacks. Spyder was nearly crying for laughing so hard at us. And not with us, AT us. Of course, by this point our unending stupidity didn't surprise us, so we all joined in the fun and cracked on each other, especially those who bought all that Tang in the first place. We did eventually get around to making ourselves some 'danger' Tang though. 'Danger' Tang is basically equal parts water and Tang, . . . it tastes like orange soup. And the added bonus was that it got rid of all that powdered sugar weight that we were carrying around. We began playing card games in the shelter with Spyder later that evening. Well, everyone except for Matt and Aaron. Matt was still trying to get his tent set up across from Aaron who was still involved with his struggle to construct his bivy. He was the boy in a bivy, BOY! After sharing many funny moments playing cards with Spyder we decided it was time to hit the proverbial hay. We said goodnight to one another, climbed in our sleeping bags, and proceeded to sweat the muggy night away. Not long after we quieted down, someone farted. This led to a series of silly jokes and more bodily noises. Eventually we were once again quite and trying to go to sleep. But now Matt and Aaron were debating the finer points of the book of James in the Bible. We didn't know what they were talking about exactly, but they wouldn't shut up. So one of us yelled at them to shutup. That didn't work after several attempts, so Spyder picked up a rock and hurled it at the bivy. He missed, but we all laughed as we began a new series of jokes and cruel comments at Aaron and Matt's expense. As we began to once again drift off to sleep, something moved in the rafters of the shelter. Spyder pulled out a flashlight and shone it overhead to reveal a mouse scurrying away from the light. Great, now we would be knawed to death in our sleep by dirty wild mice! But then a bat flew from one end of this 15 foot shelter to the other end, and we knew that we would just be bitten once in the neck, and then die. Actually, we enjoyed a pretty good nights sleep, considering the conditions, in that shelter.

DAY 4: The Plan

The next morning, we discovered that it was good that we had slept in the shelter. Aaron A's bivy had broken in the night due to wind, and he had crawled into the already cramped shelter with us. Matt's tent got a little water in it, so he didn't sleep so well either. Some thought it was time to just get off the trail before it got any worse. But, before we left that morning, we would need a really hearty breakfast to sustain us on our final journey. It was the perfect time to fix some pancakes! Especially since we had brought pancake mix and syrup for this purpose. Below are the ingredients and tools needed to properly cook pancakes on the trail:

• Pancake mix - this we had, and in great supply. About 3 pounds of the stuff to be exact. (Spyder stuck around long enough to see this ridicuolously large bag of pancake mix, and thought that this was even more ludicrous than the bags of Tang).
• Bottle of syrup - yep, brought that too. Talk about HEAVY, dead weight.
• Skillet - Uhh. . ., woops forgot to bring that.
• Spatula - now who would've ever think to bring this on a camping trip?! Go figure!
• Butter (or grease) - We didn't have this, but we did have sausages. Those can produce plenty of grease, right? (NO).

Ok, so we weren't entirely prepared to cook pancakes, as we soon found out, but we were resourceful young men, we could figure a solution out, right? Wrong! Well, since we didn't have a skillet or spatula, just a fork, knife, and pan, we thought we could somehow make thin pancakes and scrape them up with the knife or fork. We tried to first make really thin pancake mix by adding extra water. Why not? We had MORE than enough pancake mix to experiment with. But this didn't work. It just burnt the thin runny pancake mix to the pan, partly due to the fact that sausages do not provide much grease, they just burn when applied against a hot pan. So we cleaned the remains of expirement no.1 out and tried a new approach. Why not make really thick pancake mix and then drop it into boiling water sort of how dumplings are made. This was my first idea, and a pretty good one . . ., in theory at least. So we prepared the boiling water and thick, lumpy pancake mix. As soon as Matt, our primary cook for this expirement, dropped the pancake globs in the pot, they liquified in the hot water, making pancake soup. (Definitely one of the most disgusting cooking experiences I have ever witnessed). So we dumped that out and tried to think up a new idea. Meanwhile Justin and Nathan were getting hungry, and since they had opted not to dig into the lunchtime food supply like the rest of the sorry bums, they wanted some pancakes. Well, all we had was excess pancake mix (remember that their was a 3 pound bag of this stuff to begin with), so we poured some gooey uncooked pancake mix into their cups and let them eat it. This was Nathan's idea I think. It was also his idea to eat these 'pancakes' with syrup squirted into the cup. UGH! It nearly made me sick watching those two sit there and spoon feed themselves liquified pancakes. However, I did come up with my second idea, which was to make super thick and lumpy pancakes out of the pancake mix. So thick in fact, that when we plopped it in the pot it would just kind of cook like a scrambled egg would. Hence, Matt and I created the scrambled pancake. Mixing was done using the fork. Actually, this worked to some degree and created the thickest, heaviset 'pancake' I have ever seen. But, Matt and I poured syrup on the scrambled pancakes we had made and actually ate them. They really were the consistency of scrambled eggs and didn't taste bad at all. Everyone else made fun of us, but we didn't care, we were eating like kings out in the wilderness. That is, until I got to my second helping. I managed to get it all down, just like Matt did with his second helping (one helping was about the size of one scrambled egg), but by now my belly was screaming for me to stop. I felt like I was going to explode. Those suckers expanded in my stomach fast and furious! I think those two 'scrambled pancakes' were the equivalent of oh . . ., 10-15 regular pancakes. Just ask Matt, I think he was feeling it too. After the scrambled pancakes disaster, we decided to just burn the stupid Tang and pancake mix so that it wouldn't attract animals. Luckily, Spyder had shown us a neat little trick. Pour a little lighter fluid (or a lot, depending on the situation) onto the campfire before you light it, and it will begin burning beautifully. So, we poured bag after bag of Tang, and all the pancake remains into a stone fire pit that had been constructed right in front of the shelter. This pit was about 1.5 - 2 feet high and surrounded by large, flat stones. We then threw some nearby branches on top of the pit to provide some continous burn to the fire we would create. Using Spyder's trick, Aaron A. poured about 8 ounces of camp stove fuel onto the pit, and with 8 ounces of camp stove fuel remaining in the open container in his right hand, he began to try and light the fire with the lighter in his left hand. (The entire area wreaked of butane at this point). The first two times he flicked the lighter on he was unable to ignite anything, but like they say, third time's a charm! Holding the lighter very close to the fire pit, it finally ignited the fuel that had been poured onto the pit. Flames shot ten feet straight up, five feet in all other directions, and out the bottom of the pit through the rocks. Aaron jumped back in obvious surprise, spilling additional lighter fluid from his open container on his right arm, which just happened to be the one closest to the explosion in the fire pit. Luckily, the spilled stove fuel did not ignite, but the flames did burn hair off his body anyways. Nothin' like the smell of burnt human hair in the mornin'! Brad and I had been standing nearby and both jumped back instantly to avoid the licks of flame going everywhere. Aaron apologized later for his complete lack of incompetence, and no one was hurt. Unless of course a fly happened to be within 5 feet of the fire pit, in which case it would have been vaporized. After this we all were cleaning up, packing up and getting ready for another long hike. Some of those in the group decided that they were sick and tired of hiking, and just wanted to get back to civilization. We had talked on and off about trying to find a place to leave the trail early already in our adventure, but we had never made a firm decision. It was put to a vote. I personally didn't mind hanging out on the trail another day, but the vote went to those in favor of finishing our hiking by the end of the day. So I found what looked to be a good place to leave the AT on my map, and although it was ten miles away (not counting all of the up and downs of the AT) we decided one long day of hiking was going to be better than two. So we packed up and set off. The destination was another shelter that looked like it had a side trail that led down to a nearby road. From here we could simply climb our way off the mountains and call my aunt and uncle for an earlier than expected pick up. As we trudged along we tried to sing or talk, but usually we just kept quiet, because by now we were exhausted. Now at this point I'm going to have to make a plug for the BEST pair of socks ever. The day before, we of course, were soaked to the bone. This included my boots, socks, pants, underwear, shirt, and any other item of apparel that was worn on day 3. Since it was such a hot and humid night, none of our wet clothing even began to dry out. But, since I only had one pair of wool socks, I had to wear them regardless of the fact that they were still all wet. The socks I wore were SmartWool Socks. They are made from marino wool and are extra soft to the touch (unlike a lot of wool products which take a little getting used to). To make a long story short, these socks still felt great the entire 12 miles we ended up hiking on the last day. And my boots were still wet too! Now that right there, wet socks AND boots, is the perfect combination for how really wicked blisters begin. But, to the socks' credit, I didn't get one blister, NOT ONE! I did have heat soars on the tops of my toes, but that was due to a very steep decline in the trail right at the end which lasted for at least 3/4 of a mile. Cramming my toes into the ends of my shoe on this decline is how the heat sores began, and if it wasn't for the SmartWool socks, I would have had major blisters. On with the story... So, we hiked, and hiked, and hiked some more. 10 miles was getting longer and longer. This is when we discovered a very interesting couple miles of the AT. As we hiked, we came across a nice, beautiful section of trail with plenty of ferns and rodendren bushes/trees. But just as soon as we had entered this area, all of these thorny bushes, stinging nettle, and other assorted ugly undergrowth greeted our legs and arms as we hiked. This pattern of thorns, then ferns, thorns, then ferns, continued most of the fourth day. That's why we would chant, ~FERNS~ in a sing-song happy voice and contemplate the wonderful world of heaven. Then, when we got to the thorny, stinging nettle sections, it was *!Thorns!*, spoken in an angry, devilish way, accurately describing the pain and torture that the Netherworld must have. Just about everyone's legs got cut, scratched, or itched all day because of those stupid stinging nettle bushes. They were everywhere!! We stopped for lunch, but luckily the scambled pancakes had expanded to about ten times their original size on the plate while digesting in Matt and I's stomach, so we were not quite as hungry as everyone else. At our lunch time resting spot we were at one of the highest points on our map (I think), and could look almost straight down to the Watauga Lake below us. It had to have been a good 1500-2000 feet below us. It was a rather spectacular sight considering we had climbed that high under our own power. We were all tired, but we were past our halfway point to the shelter, and freedom from the trail. Once more, we slugged our packs over our shoulders, got up on to our weary feet, and started to hike once again. Eventually we made it to the last shelter, and what I had thought was a trail on our map for getting down off the mountain must be around the shelter somewhere. However, the shelter was only about 20 feet from a several hundred foot cliff! We searched and searched, and took a few pictures, but couldn't find this little side trail as we had seen it on the map. After about 30 minutes of resting and all of us searching for this side trail, some people decided to just look at the map again while having a much needed rest in the shelter. As I was looking out over the cliff to the lake and trees below, I heard: "Jeremy, come over here!" Interesting, why are they 'demanding' I come over there? Oh well, I turned around and walked the ten or so feet back to the shelter where everyone was sitting. "What?" I ask Aaron Alexander. "Look at this map again, show us where this trail is," he says. "Right here," I said, as I pointed to a dashed-dotted line on the map leading away from our current position. Aaron Alexander then pointed to the map legend and said: "That's a county line, you idiot!" Ooooops! I just made a BIG mistake. "Oh." I said. At this point, everyone started making fun of me, and rightly so, for I had led them astray. Needless to say, our plan had backfired. Some laughed, some cried, most were mad, and I just felt pretty bad for being so stupid. So now what to do? We discussed our options: Stay at the shelter and spend another day on the trail, or hike another 2 miles down a pretty steep incline to reach the Watuaga Dam state park area where we would surely find water, restrooms, and a pay phone to call for extraction by my aunt and uncle. We decided to hoof it. And ohhh... did we hoof it! The final 2 miles down managed to jam our toes firmly into the front of our boots the entire way, as the descent was indeed quite steep. By the time we arrived at a road that the trail crossed at the Watuaga Dam state park we were all entirely exhausted. As we were finally relieving our backs of our packs, we started talking about how to find a pay phone or someone to help us get in touch with my relatives to come pick us up. While we were standing there discussing what to do, Aaron Alexander went to move my pack which was leaning against something which he wanted to get at. He grabbed my pack, and with a stiff jerk, nearly launched it through the air with one big heave. "Oh my gosh!" Aaron exclaimed. "Your pack is light as a feather!" And it was true, my pack had grown considerably lighter, as all of ours had during the past 4 days on the trail, but apparently mine was A LOT lighter than everyone else's pack. Everyone came over to feel for themselves just how light my pack was, and I received a fair amount of criticism for having drank so much water during the past 4 days, while maintaining the lightest pack of the bunch. Ooops! As night began to fall and we continued to debate what to do next, a late model Ford van came around the corner and stopped at our resting spot. Leaning towards the passenger side seat, the driver of the van (who was clearly a local Tennessee bumpkin) asked us if we needed a ride. I asked him if he knew how near a pay phone might be, as we only needed to contact my relatives to get picked up. He said him and his family were heading down to a picnic area that might have a pay phone, and offered to drive us down to the pay phone if we wished. Quickly assessing the situation, we decided it would be best if two of us went (for safety sake) so Brad and I hopped in the back of their van. We thanked this family for helping us out, and we headed off to destination unknown. Now, you would think that this is where the adventure ends, but no, it gets even better. Imagine the most stereotypical rednecks, and you now have in mind what these people looked like, including their two grade school aged children, a boy and a girl, that were sitting in the back with Brad and I, motionlessly staring at us. The van, too, will help set the picture of this family in your mind. The back of the van was more or less gutted of seating... well, not exactly because while Brad and I were sitting against the door-side wall of the van, the two children sat opposite us in a beat up, no legs couch that would have been great at a college campus, after football game, victory front-porch burning. The interior walls of this van were, no joke, cheap wood veneer. Hanging out of the center console (where the radio used to be) were two 6x9 speakers which were apparently hooked up to the radio which was sitting on the floor of the van between the driver and passenger seats. The windows were dirty, there was a slight funky smell of steal and sweat, the children's faces were dirty, the wife's hair was mangy, the guy had a mustard stained T-shirt, and it seemed to be taking an incredibly long time to get to this picnic area through an increasingly wooded drive as the sun continued to set. Clearly we were living Deliverance! Fortunately, it was not Deliverance. We arrived at the picnic area, and indeed there was a pay phone near the picnic sites. The family dropped us off at the pay phone, we thanked them profusely for helping us, and they were quite congenial to us as they bid us goodbye and drove the remaining 200yds to the picnic area. While Brad and I fumbled with the few quarters we had and tried all of my aunt and uncle's various phone numbers to get a hold of someone, one of the children of the redneck family came walking up and offered us a couple of Cokes. Wow! How cool! They may have had the scariest looking van I have ever ridden in, but they sure were kind folks. Thank goodness for southern hospitality. Brad and I gladly accepted, and thankfully managed to contact my cousin with one of the very last quarters that we had on our persons. We explained where we were in the park, and asked if my aunt could come pick us up. They said it would be a while, but they would come pick us up. Brad and I decided to wait at the picnic area so that they could retrieve us first, and then we could direct them back to the rest of our friends. We waited for at least 30 or 45 minutes, but eventually they showed up, with all of our friends in their truck and van! Apparently they ran across the rest of our crew on the roadside, but had a hard time locating the picnic area that Brad and I were at. My cousin, being kin, mentioned immediately how badly we all stank. But that was OK, they were going to take us to get some pizza at a local restaraunt in Boone, NC, and then take us back to their house so we could clean up and have nice, cold showers away from all the summer heat we had endured the past few nights. So ends our Appalachian Trail Trip - one I will never forget, and a trip that I don't wish to repeat. P.S. I'm fairly certain that our waiter at the pizza place that we went to simply wanted to die from the stench of 8 guys stinking up their entire place right before closing time. I also think we may have destroyed my aunt and uncle's toilets, showers, bathtubs, and bathrooms with our filth and stench, but I've never been able to confirm either of these things.