Tuesday, August 30, 2005
Day Six - hanging with the hikers
By the next day the rain was pouring down with no intention of stopping, so the hostel was full of bored hikers. One old guy who'd railed against 'fairweather hikers' the previous evening had already set out, but he was alone. He must have been slightly insane too, as he'd had a heart transplant not too long before. It had earned him the trail name 'Newheart'.
Everyone on the Appalachian Trail gets a trail name (well, everyone except the boring guy with sleep apnea). It's all part of the culture, and when you're swapping stories about some character you came across in Virginia, everyone knows who you're talking about. Take, for example, 'Lo-Jack', whose mum made him carry a GPS device of the same name just in case he ever got lost.
Even Nina and I had trail names - we took ours from 'Winnie the Pooh'. I was always worrying about what could go wrong and wasn't a big fan of taking risks, so I was Rabbit. Nina bounced along the trail and was endlessly optimistic, so she was Tigger. Not the toughest-sounding names in the world, but hey, we're girls.
So when we befriended some other hikers on that rainy morning, they introduced themselves by their trail names. There was Squid Jerky, who got his name from the dried seafood he ate on the trail, sent to him by a friend in Korea; then there was Lost Baggage (LB for short) who was constantly leaving things behind him on the trail; and finally York, who called himself that because he had family in England. Even though they lived in Stoke-on-Trent.
We were all sitting around eating breakfast and watching crap TV. There was some show on that involved animals doing lame tricks, and everyone was taking the mick out of it. The junky food, the excessive coffee, the rubbish TV, the ruthless cynicism: I felt like a student again.
But we couldn’t sit around the hostel eating junk and watching rubbish all day, so we decided to go to the cinema and do it there instead. And boy, was it rubbish. We saw ‘The Brothers Grimm’, which was incredibly confusing and not particularly enjoyable - the cinematic equivalent of a bad trip. If it wasn’t for the fun we had tearing the film to pieces afterwards, it would have been a complete letdown.
By the time we got back to the hostel, Nina and I were starting to get itchy feet again. We’d stuffed ourselves with pizza, popcorn and ice cream, and done no physical activity after four days of hiking. There was still time left before we had to get back to real life, so we made a decision. We’d drive until it stopped raining, then find a place to hike. First stop was the Adirondacks in New York State.
So we dropped the hikers off and headed west. After six hours of driving and failing to find a cheap hotel, Nina and I pulled over to the side of the road and slept in the car. We smelled, it was cold, and it was raining outside, but we didn’t mind – it was almost like being in the mountains again.
Everyone on the Appalachian Trail gets a trail name (well, everyone except the boring guy with sleep apnea). It's all part of the culture, and when you're swapping stories about some character you came across in Virginia, everyone knows who you're talking about. Take, for example, 'Lo-Jack', whose mum made him carry a GPS device of the same name just in case he ever got lost.
Even Nina and I had trail names - we took ours from 'Winnie the Pooh'. I was always worrying about what could go wrong and wasn't a big fan of taking risks, so I was Rabbit. Nina bounced along the trail and was endlessly optimistic, so she was Tigger. Not the toughest-sounding names in the world, but hey, we're girls.
So when we befriended some other hikers on that rainy morning, they introduced themselves by their trail names. There was Squid Jerky, who got his name from the dried seafood he ate on the trail, sent to him by a friend in Korea; then there was Lost Baggage (LB for short) who was constantly leaving things behind him on the trail; and finally York, who called himself that because he had family in England. Even though they lived in Stoke-on-Trent.
We were all sitting around eating breakfast and watching crap TV. There was some show on that involved animals doing lame tricks, and everyone was taking the mick out of it. The junky food, the excessive coffee, the rubbish TV, the ruthless cynicism: I felt like a student again.
But we couldn’t sit around the hostel eating junk and watching rubbish all day, so we decided to go to the cinema and do it there instead. And boy, was it rubbish. We saw ‘The Brothers Grimm’, which was incredibly confusing and not particularly enjoyable - the cinematic equivalent of a bad trip. If it wasn’t for the fun we had tearing the film to pieces afterwards, it would have been a complete letdown.
By the time we got back to the hostel, Nina and I were starting to get itchy feet again. We’d stuffed ourselves with pizza, popcorn and ice cream, and done no physical activity after four days of hiking. There was still time left before we had to get back to real life, so we made a decision. We’d drive until it stopped raining, then find a place to hike. First stop was the Adirondacks in New York State.
So we dropped the hikers off and headed west. After six hours of driving and failing to find a cheap hotel, Nina and I pulled over to the side of the road and slept in the car. We smelled, it was cold, and it was raining outside, but we didn’t mind – it was almost like being in the mountains again.
