AN: New posting schedule - Tuesdays and Thursdays!
La Sua Bella Mente
Chapter Seven: Rain
Date: March 15, 2003
Starting Location: Neels Gap
Destination: Whitley Gap Shelter
Total Trip Miles: 38.4
BPOV
Although Jacob and Leah encourage me to stay with them, at least for another day, I hike out after lunch the following afternoon. I'm sporting a new internal frame backpack, having left my old external frame pack—which once belonged to Granny Higginbotham and which Jacob claims is an antique—hanging among the other dated and well-used gear on display along one wall of Mountain Crossings.
Allday and Dreamer arrive just as I'm leaving. I must have managed to pass them somewhere on my seventeen-mile day. They look good, a little dirty and obviously in need of a shower, but otherwise happy and healthy as they enter Jake's store. She greets me with a cheerful smile, asking how I've been and if I'm doing all right. I can hear Allday inquiring about an overnight stay in a cabin and a shuttle to town for dinner. After a brief conversation and a goodbye hug, I leave them to their negotiations and start the steep climb out of the gap.
My new pack sits comfortably on the top of my hips—hips that, even in my skinny, awkward, and gawky adolescence, I hated for their unfashionable wide flair. Now that the rest of me has filled out and I don't look quite so bottom heavy, I've learned to accept their generous curve. Granny had called them "child-bearin' hips" and told me I'd be grateful for their width when it came time to give birth. I'm not sure that being a mother is something that will ever happen for me, but I'm currently grateful for the way they carry the weight of my pack. I've had to accept that I'll never be like the tall, thin, graceful, elegant women who exist in Edward's world. Out here in the woods that doesn't seem as important as it once did.
Inside this pack is a new down sleeping bag with a water-resistant cover, a new blow-up, air sleeping pad, and a small, very light weight, one-person tent. Jake replaced my old canister stove with a fold-up Esbit stove the size of a deck of cards, which burns little squares of solid fuel. I have new rain gear, a new pair of synthetic shorts and T-shirt, a down-filled pullover sweater that weighs mere ounces, and an in-line water filter that attaches to the drinking tube of my water bladder. With four days' worth of meals and snacks and enough water to get me to the next shelter, my pack weighs around twenty-seven pounds. Almost ten pounds less than it did before Jake worked his magic.
I may have thrown a little hissy fit when he refused to charge me for the new gear. I know how expensive everything is. When I reminded him that he was running a business and deserved to make a profit, he offered to let me work off the price of the equipment. He laughed when I rolled my eyes at his pathetic attempt to get me stay but then finally agreed to let me pay the wholesale cost of my new gear.
I'm not exactly destitute. Between life insurance policies and her savings, Granny left me a sizable inheritance, and Edward had structured our business finances so that we both, along with our two programmers, Eric and Tyler, were paid a decent wage. I own the intellectual property rights to the math theories our software is based on. Those alone have the potential to make me a wealthy woman … someday. Selling our systems would have been a much more lucrative deal, but now, I'm not sure I'll ever see any income from what was once our business. The legal papers I never had a chance to sign also contained provisions to give Eric and Tyler shares in the company. Eventually they, too, would have been financially secure.
There is a fundamental truth that every hiker learns very soon after starting the trail: for every easy descent into a gap, road crossing, or shelter site, there is an equally brutal uphill climb out of that location. The climb out of Neels Gap is just that, cruel, never-ending, and just plain hard. I huff and puff, sweat and swear, leaning heavily on my hiking poles as I trudge up the endless switchbacks. To make matters worse it begins to rain.
Some hikers love walking in the rain, others hate it with a passion. I have mixed feelings. A light, misting rain can be a welcome relief on a hot, humid southern afternoon; in those instances, the best thing to do is just cover your pack and let Mother Nature give you and your clothing a nice refreshing shower. It's a completely different scenario if it's cold and wet.
The air temperature doesn't have to be below freezing for the symptoms of hypothermia to occur. All you need is cold air, a brisk breeze, and exposed wet skin to start the shivering and mental confusion that is characteristic of mild hypothermia. The physical exertion of hiking helps generate heat and protects the body's core, but dressing in the appropriate rain clothing is even more important.
As I continue to climb, the temperature drops and the light rain turns into a heavy deluge. This is obviously a major low front moving through and there is no sign of the rain tapering off as I hike into the thickening fog. Before long, my teeth are chattering, and I know I should stop, refuel with some high-calorie food and change into drier, warmer protective clothing.
Off to the right of the trail I spot a cedar tree with low lying limbs. Stepping under its sheltering branches gives me a break from the worst of the storm. Soon, I'm stripping off my wet clothes and pulling on the dry shorts and T-shirt, the down sweater, and the new rain pants and jacket that Jacob insisted I take.
I'm immediately glad I listened to him when I step back onto the trail. The rain still beats down on me, but I'm warm, dry, and my pack protected as I shuffle along on the rain-slick pathway.
Time seems to drag as I continue doggedly forward in the rain and fog. My mind wanders, recalling scenes from my childhood, some clear, some muddled, some confusing glimpses of unknown faces that I suspect might be my mother or perhaps my father. I have only a few distinct memories from my life before I began living with Gran.
I think about my college and post-graduate years, the fear and excitement of moving to Cambridge, and the acceptance I found there—from both the students and the faculty. Suddenly, it was okay to be different, to be smart, and to like math, science and computers. Even though I was still a teenager, I felt like I belonged, and relished that sense of being part of a bigger whole, of being with people who were just like me. Living with Dr. Banner and his wife eased the transition from rural Georgia to urban Massachusetts, from the Deep South to New England. They welcomed me into their home, treating me like another daughter. I realize, with a guilty start, that I haven't called them. They're sure to be worried about my sudden disappearance.
I should call Angela, too. Although she is our company lawyer, she is also my friend and I haven't spoken to her since that last night in New York when I had gone to Edward's condo to confront him about what happened that day only to find Jane living there. The things she'd told me had undermined all my false bravado, sending me back to my apartment in a frenzy to escape the city and my humiliation. I called Angela then, explaining what I had learned from Jane and asking her not to fight Edward's leaving. She begged me to stay, telling me that I must have misunderstood when Jane informed me that Edward had stripped his trust fund to keep our business afloat and so, in effect, owned the company. We needed to speak to him directly, she argued, but I had taken the coward's way, leaving as soon as I could arrange a flight out of New York. I'm sure she must be worried, too.
I resolve to call Dr. Banner and Angela when I stop for supplies in a few days and have access to a phone.
So lost am I in my thoughts that I don't even realize I've crested the last ridge and I'm heading down into the valley where Whitley Gap Shelter is located. I've only taken a few steps downhill when I fall.
Everyone falls when they are hiking. It must be some unwritten, unspoken universal rule that you are going to fall, especially when you aren't paying attention. Falling with a backpack on is a completely different experience than a normal trip and tumble. If you fall face first, the weight of your pack feels like a giant hand slamming you to the ground. It's almost impossible to stop yourself from getting a face full of dirt. If you fall on your back, you end up looking like an upended turtle, unable to right yourself until you can roll over and get your legs beneath you. Hiking poles can make things worse as you flail your arms trying to keep you balance and they end up whipping around through the air. If you're lucky, you just sit down … very, very hard, no broken bones, or sprained ankles.
This time I'm lucky.
Stepping over a pile of exposed rocks in the trail way, I plant my foot, heel first, on a patch of soggy leaves that cover the ground. The leaves have lost all adhesion to the wet clay under them, and before my conscious mind can register what is happening, I'm slipping and sliding, feet going in opposite directions as I try to find my balance on hiking poles that seem to be trying their hardest to wrap themselves around my ankles. I sit with a thump, not hard enough to be seriously hurt but certainly enough to remind me to start paying better attention to my wet, slippery surroundings.
Getting up is tricky. My hiking poles, still attached to my wrists with their webbing loops, are somewhere behind me, and I wave them around, trying to position them in front of me before placing my feet on what I hope is firmer ground. With a grunt, I haul myself up, the pack on my back feeling like an anchor tethering me to the ground.
My once new, once clean, rain pants are streaked with mud and my hand comes away covered in wet leaves when I brush off my seat. It could have been much worse, and I'm thankful it wasn't.
I'm very careful as I continue down the mountain.
It's evening before I reach the side trail that leads to the shelter. The rain and the low-lying clouds have made it much darker than normal and I almost miss the blue blaze that marks the turn-off. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn't consider staying at this shelter. The turn-off is less than a quarter of a mile from the nearest highway, although the shelter itself is over a mile from the trail. Apparently, that's not far enough to discourage the locals because when I reach the shelter in the deepening chill, it's evident that it's used as a secluded party destination.
Piles of trash litter the ground around the outside and graffiti decorates the inside walls. The fire pit is full of burned beer cans. This is not a safe place for a lone female hiker. Yet, I decide to stay. The cold temperatures and the heavy rain almost guarantee that none of the locals will want to brave the walk to get here and only determined hikers would be trying to reach a shelter this late.
To give myself a little more privacy and a little more protection from the blowing rain, I erect my tent inside the three-sided building. It's not considered proper hiker etiquette to put a tent up inside a shelter, but with no one else here I'm free to do what I think will help protect me. Anyone arriving after dark will not know there is a woman inside the tent.
While my dinner simmers in my new titanium pot, I peruse the shelter register, reading the entries left by previous hikers. I find Yellow and Wonderland's names and the date. Apparently, they ate lunch here just two days before. I leave my trail name and the date adding a note about the slippery trail conditions.
Finished with dinner, I sit on the edge of the raised sleeping platform listening to the rain beat a steady pattern on the tin roof, the plink, plink of drops on the beer cans in the fire pit a counterpoint to its constant rhythm.
Fog has settled into a solid blanket, wrapping the lean-to in a sound-muffling shroud of murky white. A fitful wind blows wisps of more opaque bits of cloud across the meadow in front of the shelter. Like ghosts they twist and writhe, fighting to join me in my seclusion before a stronger gust sweeps them away. They're like the memories I've hiked with all afternoon, scattered fragments of people and places, painful events I've tried to bury in the deepest recesses of my mind. In this quiet, lonely setting they demand to be set free … examined … acknowledged. Insisting that I face the experiences that molded me.
The shelter register rests beside me on the wooden floor, a blank page calling to me. I situate it on my lap, pick up the attached pen, and begin to write.
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AN: As always, thank you for reading and for the wonderful reviews. Many thanks to Ipsita for pre-reading and for the lovely banner. Sally catches my grammar, punctuation, and spelling mistakes. Hugs to her for her hard work. Any remaining mistakes are all mine.
