A New Kind of Hiking

Not five minutes into the shrouded humid forest, we sensed big trouble. Mosquitoes swarmed virtually every step, especially for the poor soul leading the charge, kicking them up from the damp overgrowth obscuring the seldom-used trail. Yet our defenses held them at bay. We had hoped against but rationally expected this possibility and soldiered on. Alas, the Achilles heel of our tenuous stand-off with the blood suckers was its sustainability. The oppressive humid heat and exertion encouraged ample sweating, quickly diluting the OFF!. You know the feeling when your sunscreen application is wearing off and you just barely sense the sun burning your skin? We all sensed almost simultaneously the bug spray wearing thin and, of the dozens if not a hundred mosquitoes literally bouncing off us every minute, one or two buzzing jerks gaining purchase. For me, it began on the heels of my hands where my hiking poles had rubbed the protection off first; not normally a choice site for a mosquito, eh? Yeah well, these suckers were tough. We heavily reapplied with OFF! and moved along.

After perhaps two miles, we reached a clearing at a gravel county road and paused to reassess in the cool open breeze. Billy had sustained more than a few bites on his shaved head, having unwisely opted for a hat during our initial ten minutes before donning the head net and unfortunately trapping one lucky mosquito inside. Gavin unhesitatingly ditched his head net for the full torso net (including head, quite stylish) and Billy and I followed. The suits were comfortable enough that I accidentally tried to eat a Snickers bar through mine (either that or I’m just dumb); the Snickers was so melted that it almost worked. We crossed the clearing and plunged into more trees.

While perhaps less inspiring than Yosemite’s panoramas or the desert’s vast austerity, this GT section featured some lovely scenery, most notably serene forested lakes and reedy grasslands. The going got rougher as we near-bushwhacked through the completely overgrown trail over marshy terrain and muddy depressions. The mosquitoes and horseflies never relented, occasionally scoring a good bite through the nets. Our mental fortitude hung tough but ebbed gradually over five, six, seven miles with the dipping sun until another all-too common setback struck--we lost the trail.

Every case runs a little differently, but it happens to everyone. Too many four-wheeler trails and other hiking trails crisscrossed, our vague map was no help, we followed the wrong blaze on a tree, took a presumed shortcut to reconnect and found ourselves still off the correct trail and uncertain of our exact location with perhaps 90 minutes of sun remaining. That was the final straw—beleaguered and grumpy, we agreed on an evacuation plan, determining to follow a trail south and west to hit one of two county roads that reconnected with the GT.

We exited the forest onto a county road, nervous about trespassing slightly between disconcertingly junk-strewn farms showcasing rusted equipment and a burning garbage can, all the while imagining rock salt-filled shotguns pointed at our backsides. We traversed our ninth mile of the day on concrete to reconnect with the trail. In the rapidly dwindling daylight, we scouted both sides of the trail intersecting the road with equally dismal results—one side in a thigh-high-grass field bordering a particularly unfriendly looming farmhouse, the other side ensconced in dark wet forest, both sides swarming with dusk-enthused mosquitoes. No decent place to situate a tent (much less two), with road signs additionally warning against tents and trespassing, and no water sources.

We may have contended and persevered against one or two such negative elements. But faced with mosquito swarms, trespassing, no flat dry ground, no water and no sunlight, we ultimately differentiated between roughing it and stupidity. For the first time in any of our lives, we embraced a completely new type of hiking—hitch-hiking.

Yes, you heard it, UHR 2008 aborted. While Gavin attempted via emergency cell phone to locate and contact the few motels and bars in the surrounding towns, searching in vain for a shuttle or taxi or desperate proprietor to drive 20 miles to a remote county road to pick up three strangers, Billy and I started thumbing the infrequently passing vehicles. Several slowed enough to observe our spooky mosquito net and headlamp getups before accelerating on; some drunken teenagers paused for amusement to hear our story and offer a few words of useless advice; in the dark a blood-chilling cacophony of howling let loose from the nearby looming farmhouse as if from a pack of wild dogs or perhaps werewolves (minutes later, our throats remained surprisingly intact).

Finally a beat-up car containing a man and several kids stopped. A local farmer, he offered useful advice regarding exactly where to camp without trespassing and then thank heavens! further offered to drive us to our car or a town bar. I’m certain we appeared an equal measure of probably normal but perhaps slightly odd to each other (eek, Deliverance!) as we carefully negotiated him dropping off his kids and returning to carry two of us--Billy and me without gear--back to our trailhead car 15 miles away via pitch black county roads. He did, and during the drive he said his kids had asked him why he actually returned to help us. He explained that he’d lived in Alaska for fifteen years and knew exactly the feeling of being bug-bitten, lost, thirsty and exhausted. Our guardian angel that night, for sure. We found our car, followed him back to find Gavin and the gear miraculously unaccosted in the dark after 40 minutes alone, paid him $20, thanked him profusely and sped gratefully toward the nearest decent-sized town with a real hotel. Chalk up 2008’s short UHR as the weirdest one yet.

Epilogue: while the mosquito bites were TNTC (too numerous to count), Gavin won the tick contest that evening, removing 10 from his chest, back and legs, vs. 6 for me and Billy’s mere 4, all tenaciously grippy but none yet engorged. Following UHR tradition, we consumed as much pizza and draft beer as our stomachs could hold at a local bar later that night.

Click to enlarge the GPS/Google Earth track (above) as hiked from right to left. Pictures: http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=2hd8fyj.1e9zyexn&x=0&y=vlfjqp&localeid=en_US