Girls Gone (to the) Wild

It has always been raining. It will always be raining. It will rain forever.

I thought this involuntarily as I sat on a log with my two friends, in the middle of the Chattahoochee Wilderness, at around minute 59 of being poured on by the first real rain that north Georgia had experienced in weeks. The three of us were on our third trip hiking part of the Appalachian Trail — our first without male companions — and after having prepared extensively for the dangers of bears, snakes and lust-crazed mountain men, we found ourselves facing the only adversary we hadn’t anticipated: nature itself.

We were two hours and two miles into the hike. We planned to do 20 miles in three days and two nights — an easy trip. We would do a short hike the first day to warm up, 11 miles the second day and six-and-a-half the third, trekking between good campsites and water sources. We had our maps, our food, our hiking boots, our determination. It should be doable, we had thought.

But as I huddled shivering on that log, with the sky-cold rain beating on my back and drumming the last remnants of warmth and sanity out of me, I had to wonder if we would make it.

The road we took

The Appalachian Trail should be familiar to most Knoxvillians, at least those who venture outdoors occasionally. It snakes from Springer Mountain, Ga., to Katahdin, Maine, passing through the heart of the Smoky Mountains for 71 of its 2,175 miles. If you’ve run across white paint streaks emblazoned on tree trunks along a footpath in that area, you’ve probably hiked a piece of it.

According to the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, a nonprofit that helps preserve the trail, more than 9,000 people (referred to as “through-hikers”) have reported walking the entire length since its completion in 1937. It is enjoyed yearly by thousands more day-hikers and “weekenders” like my friends and me. And it supports a network of hostels, shops and shuttles, catering to the needs of hikers for food, transport, shelter and good company.

The terrain itself varies from the mundane to the treacherous. Because the trail mostly keeps to remote areas, it traverses some of the highest ground in the eastern United States, with several of the roughest and most-rewarding sections found in Georgia, Tennessee and North Carolina. There are some glorious views, but at times, it can be compared to, as a friend once told me, “hiking in a green tunnel” — a very hilly one.

The things we carried

My friends Jennifer and Courtney and I began our journey at Walasi-yi Hostel, 30 miles north of Springer, where we weighed our packs on their hanging scale  —  36 pounds each, after shifting around food and supplies to even things out.

The heaviest single item we took was the tent, of which its sans poles weighed several pounds. As a category, however, food was our greatest burden. Since we were only going three days, we didn’t bother with meals that were dehydrated or would have to be cooked, instead choosing weightier ready-to-eat fare: trail mix, bagels, Cliff bars and packages of shredded chicken breast and microwaveable rice that we could eat cold.

Other essentials were a water filter, first aid kit, snake bite kit bought just for the occasion, Mace just in case, changes of clothing (which we tragically neglected to protect in plastic bags), toilet paper, extra socks, sleeping bags and a bear bag. We each had a “bladder,” a plastic pouch with a tube and mouthpiece from which you can drink as you hike, as well as several other containers for water because we had heard that as a result of the drought, the local water supply was low.

The rain comes down

We took a shuttle north with Dixie, an older woman who introduced herself to us in a stage whisper: “If anyone asks, I’m your aunt.” Apparently one needs a rather costly special license to shuttle people — who knew? Dixie dropped us off at Unicoi Gap, pointing us in the right direction, and we settled our packs on our backs and were off.

We stopped for a leisurely lunch at the top of the hill, a mile-long incline, and reveled in the freedom of our ladies-only trip. As Courtney said: “You can say ‘I’m tired’ without feeling like a girl.” The relaxed mood continued until we stopped to get water, which was when the clouds that had been gathering decided to dump everything they had on us. We hiked 20 more minutes to the campsite, where we sat for the remainder of an hour while cold trickles of water found their way inside our rain jackets and into our packs despite the trash bags we had put over them.