AT 2024, Day 3: The Awkward Phase
Day 3, Thursday, 5.2.2024
New Thing: Showy Orchid!!!
Start: Mile 520.9, Mossy Glade
End: Mile 534.7, Sketchy Stealth Site close to road and bus
Miles Hiked: 13.8
Total Miles: 32.3
Elevation Gain: 2,362 feet
Sleeping late is a crime against my circadian rhythms , especially when the birds start their morning cacophony at 5:30 am. Once I’m awake, I’m twitching and ready to go.
So even though I dilly-dallied along the trail, taking long breaks to sketch and listen to the birds and even stand in a meadow and watch a Scarlet Tanager flash across the sky, I still arrived at the Mt. Rogers Visitor Center at 2:20 pm—early AF.
What a day!
My plan was to camp nearby, maybe at the Partnership Shelter, and go into Marion early for breakfast and the all-important hot coffee-shop coffee.
Joy in a ceramic mug! Or a paper cup. I don’t care.
So I settled into the bench at the Visitor Center (BACKREST!!!!!) waiting for the gaggle of boy hikers to clear out so I could plug in my stuff. I made good use of the running water and flush toilets and even perambulated around the tiny visitor’s center, ogling the taxidermied bear and reading the educational exhibits.
I’m at that awkward stage in my hike where I don’t know anyone and all the thru hikers ignore me, no doubt thinking I’m some lowly section hiker or, worse, just out for an overnight trip.
The hiker heirarchy is real, Y’all!
So they ignore me and I’m forced to tamp down my own, deeply-ingrained feelings of never-quite-belonging in order to put myself in the mix, to start a conversation, to introduce myself and make myself visible.
It’s a process that doesn’t come naturally to me and requires constant practice and I’ve only ever really been successful at this kind of small-talk mingling out here on the trail. Cocktail parties give me panic attacks, but hikers are my peeps.
Celery
I psyche myself up and chat to the guy sitting next to me who has a bunch of celery he is debunching and deleafing and scraping the dirt off of. His trail name is Celery and he says, of the celery, “It’s kind of my thing.”
It makes me crave celery, now that my bag of radishes is gone.
I can’t really get anything going with him, but it’s a start. I’m out of practice, but confident my mingling skills will return. It gets easier once you’ve been on the trail a while and people start to recognize you and realize you’re not just out for a few days.
Did I mention that the Hiker Hierarchy is real?
May is such a great time to hike. No bugs!
Sketch Camping
I didn’t stealth camp so much as sketch camp tonight. I’m .2 up from the road right next to the trail. Not great for safety. I wait until almost dark to pitch my tent, trying to be as low-vis as possible.
PRO TIP: Forget bears. It’s people who make me nervous and camping next to a road increases the possibility of running into people who are not hikers. I don’t usually camp so close to roads where there is ample parking nearby, but the urge for coffee was just too great.
