Becoming Odyssa - Jennifer Pharr Davis [36]
“The Appalachian Trail,” she said. “Definitely!”
Putting my food bag back into my pack, I was shocked to look at my watch and see that two hours had elapsed since I had started talking to Iris. I was exhausted, and I still had several more miles to go before I reached no Business knob Shelter.
“Hey Iris, I’m gonna keep hiking. I’ll see you at the next shelter, okay?”
“Sounds good—if I make it. If I don’t, then it was nice meeting you, Odyssa.”
When I arrived at the shelter, I was hoping to see Second Gear, but he was nowhere in sight and had probably pushed on down the mountain to the nearby town of Erwin, Tennessee. Instead, the shelter was full—not with a group of weekenders, but with a couple from Washington State. They had commandeered the entire eight-person shelter by spreading out all of their wet rain gear.
“May I move a bit of your stuff to make room for my sleeping bag?” I asked.
Scowling with displeasure, the woman responded, “There are tent sites in the area if you want to tent.”
“Actually, I slept in the pouring rain last night and walked through it all day today, so all my stuff is wet. I want to sleep in the shelter.”
“Fine, do whatever makes you happy,” she snapped.
I was now on day three of a bad luck streak when it came to sharing the trail shelters: first Mr. Obscenity, then the weekenders, and now an unfriendly couple from the West Coast.
After sharing the shelter in silence for an hour, I was elated to see Iris approaching. Without asking the couple’s permission, I cleared a space for her next to my sleeping bag.
That night, as we went to bed, I was very satisfied to be dry, still, and lying on the dusty wooden floorboards next to another new friend. I had almost forgotten about the disgruntled Washingtonian couple several feet away, until I began to hear their loud rustling and heavy breathing. I had no clue what they were doing—well, okay, I did have a clue, but they couldn’t be . . . Oh, yes, they were!
I wasn’t going to pull my headlamp out and shine it on them, and I was too grossed out and mortified to say anything, but after hearing one final deep gasp followed by a heavy sigh, I was quite sure what had just happened eight feet away from where Iris and I were sleeping. No wonder they’d wanted me to tent outside! I was scared, annoyed, and ready for the sun to come up so I could leave.
The next morning, I was on the trail before daybreak. It seemed that trying to put distance between myself and undesirable company was becoming the motivating factor that would get me to Maine.
Once again, the day began with a cold, steady rainfall. It was four miles downhill into the Nolichucky River Basin and the outskirts of Erwin, Tennessee. I longed to stop. I knew that Second Gear was in Erwin and that Iris would be arriving there shortly. There were hostels and hotels in Erwin, grocery stores and restaurants, and the register at No business knob Shelter mentioned a hot tub and an all-you-can-eat pizza buffet. But I needed to continue hiking. I had arranged to meet friends in Banner Elk, North Carolina, on Sunday, and that meant I needed to cover fifty miles in forty-eight hours.
It took every ounce of willpower to overlook the wooden hostel to my left and the paved road that led into town, and instead begin the four-thousand-foot climb up Unaka Mountain. I only stopped to have a snack after I had walked far enough that I wouldn’t be tempted to turn around and go back into Erwin.
During my first few weeks on the trail, my appetite had actually seemed to diminish, but since leaving the Smokies, I began to notice an exponential rise in my hunger. This morning, as I stared into my food bag, I knew that even though I needed to stretch the contents out for another two days, I was hungry enough to eat all of my remaining food. Balancing self-restraint with desire, I ate more than I should have, but not everything.
The climb up Unaka was hard—really hard. There were no views and my disrupted sleep the night before, combined with a calorie deficit, left me utterly drained, and the entire section