200 Miles or so

A fortnight ago I was in my office, emotionally charged with anticipation of the challenge to come, combined with farewells and logistical stress of leaving London.  We worried about everything, had list after list of things that needed to be done before leaving, and seemed to be busy with five things at once crossing items off them. 

Now, I have only one thing to do at a given time – sleep, make or break camp, and walk. Mostly it is walk. We set the alarm on my watch for 5.30 am.  Ten minutes of snooze and then one of us will find the resolve to let the air out of their mattress and so with a gentle hiss we begin the day.  Sleeping bags (half length to reduce unnecessary weight) and puffy jackets are stowed into waterproof bags and we emerge to lower food bags from the trees into which they were hoisted out of reach of bears, strike camp and hit the trail. This all takes time, minor aches and pains, cramped space and – as often as not – rain all slow us down. But we usually start walking by about 6.30, just in time for sunrise to greet us at the top of the first mountain. 

​[wpvideo eaZ8Ga6V]​
​First light is the best time for walking. We share the trail only with birds and squirrels (whose leaf rustling is routinely mistaken for a bear’s!) and fresh morning legs devour the first five miles or so without complaint. 

A second Cliff Bar and perhaps an instant coffee await at about the five mile mark, peanut butter tortillas are lunch at about 10 miles, and instant mashed potatoes are dinner at camp. We snack of beef jerky and electrolyte gel. 

This new routine is, it may surprise you, completely consuming. I have the shortest of lists of daily tasks, and yet they occupy all 24 hours of the day.  Before the trail there was time for TV, emails, Facebook, and all manner of other small tasks. Occasional blogging, even. Now, all I do is walk – yet I am truly busy!  I compose blog entry after blog entry whilst walking, but with no time to be recorded they fade as quickly as they appear. 

Today is different, our first “zero”. That is hiker speak for a day on which zero miles are hiked. It means two consecutive nights in the same place – for us a Travelodge in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. We have had four or five consecutive wet days leading to monsoonal thunder storms through the heart of Smokey Mountains National Park. So, bedraggled and dripping we checked into a hotel and put the heater on overdrive to dry out. Several pizzas, burgers and super southern sized portions of ribs later we are back to the trail first thing tomorrow morning. 

Cell service and another zero are a couple of weeks away, when I’ll try to explain the smell of a through-hiker.