I opened my eyes when I heard the monkeys howling in the trees. Wait, no, not monkeys, owls. It was the middle of the night, and a pair of barred owls were having quite the conversation right in camp. I closed my eyes, trying to fall back to sleep but I couldn’t; I was so cold. I double checked my sleeping bag to make sure it was zipped up. There wasn’t a draft, and I was as tucked in as I could be. I sighed as I realized what the issue was; I had to go to the bathroom, badly. I laid there for 30-45 minutes trying to convince myself to just get up and do it. I knew I would be cold all night long if I didn’t just get up. I knew that my body was working hard to keep my bladder warm instead of my body. It took a lot of convincing to get out of my tent, especially when I knew I’d have to take my pants off only to likely pee on myself in the dark. Begrudgingly, I did it. After snuggling back into my sleeping bag, I slept once more.

I woke up at 7:00, grumpy and cold. No, I thought and closed my eyes again, not yet.

My phone read 7:50, it still felt too cold to get up. I was not eager to pack up and get moving, so I decided I wasn’t going to immediately start hiking.

I layered up to get my food bag from the tree I hung it in. The sun felt good on my face and by the time I got back to my tent, it had warmed my sleeping bag too. I slid my legs into my bag again and began cooking breakfast. I didn’t usually cook in the mornings because I was trying to get hiking, but the cold air convinced me otherwise. I poured my boiling water into my bowl/cup and mixed in instant coffee and hot chocolate. The rest of the water went into my pouch of instant grits. I folded over the edge and set it in my now empty pot to keep it insulated. Sipping my coffee, I read my book while I waited for my grits to rehydrate.

I read, happy in the sun, until 11:00. I figured I had procrastinated hiking for long enough.

An hour later, I hiked to the top of Wayah Bald to the stone observation tower. The view seemed to span hundreds of miles; it was so vast. I called my parents to catch up; we couldn’t believe I had been on the AT for two weeks. When I had started the trail, my dad gave me some great advice. I was scared because I hadn’t been outside of Colorado for more than two weeks. He told me to think of my hike two weeks at a time. With the first two weeks completed, I knew I wanted to keep going.

Freshly Baked hiked with me until we got to the shelter. We learned more about one another; turned out we hadn’t spent much one on one time together. He was (and still is) really interesting and a great friend!

When I walked up to the shelter, I walked right into quite the hilarious conversation. The topic: “measures men will take to make pooping in the woods easier.” Before I get into the details of this conversation, I’ll start by adding a brief disclaimer. For some reason, I don’t know why, thru hiker conversations frequently revolve around poop. I know, I know, it’s gross but it’s true and I promised I’d share the truth with you all. So where were we? Right the conversation. Apparently, men do not like pooping in the woods. To be fair, women don’t either, but they didn’t complain about it nearly as much. The men in the group were sharing their methods for going number two while thru hiking. One man said he always used some kind of rope to wrap around the tree. Then while holding both ends of the rope, he would squat down. The rope and tree provided the support he needed to stay upright. The next man said he would only “go” if there was a log he could sit on and hang his butt over. The last man, named Subtly Sucks, claimed he needed to take one leg completely out of his pants before he went to the bathroom. I thought all of these measures were just ridiculous, but to each their own, I guess.

Another side note, Subtly Sucks was someone we had seen around since the beginning of trail. No one in my tramily knew his real name, his trail name, or if he even had a trail name. We called him Subtly Sucks, and he did not know this. I think Sweet Water named him, although I’m not sure. Every time someone had a conversation with him, they just couldn’t quite put their finger on why they didn’t like him.

“He just sucks, but subtly. Like, you don’t know why he sucks, he just does,” my tramily would describe him.

After dinner, I scanned the area for a tree to hang my food in. I spotted a slender one that seemed good enough for the job, so I took aim. I tossed the rock bag toward the high branches, but my left hand didn’t have enough slack. The line snapped tight, and in an instant, the rock bag wrapped around the branch three times.

“No, no, no,” I said. “Shit!”

I tried to yank the line in my hand to free the bag, but there was a branch sticking through the carabiner attached to the bag. Freshly Baked saw my predicament and offered to climb the tree to try to retrieve my rock bag. He tried to climb it, but the smooth bark kept him limited to only a few feet off the ground. I had to, literally, cut my losses and snip the line. I wonder if my rock bag is still up in the tree to this day.

I went to bed angry and embarrassed; I didn’t want to leave my garbage in the tree, but there wasn’t much else I could do. I learned an important lesson though. Don’t attach a carabiner to your rock bag when you’re throwing it, add it on after. With that, I decided I was done with my day, and I went to bed.

Next time on Packing It In: The trail was beating my legs up pretty bad. As usual, the uphills hurt my feet, and the downhills hurt my knees. The trail put my body to the test when it gave me a four mile stretch of steep downhill.

Take me to the next post!

Did you see a word you didn’t know? Check out my Appalachian Trail Thru Hiker Dictionary for a list of hiker terminology. If you don’t see the word on this list, comment below and I’ll add it!

Appalachian Trail Thru Hiker Dictionary