Chapter 5
Apple House Shelter, Tennessee
381 miles down and 1787 miles to go

Doc's Knob Shelter Register:

     "These last few days of walking in the gloom and rain have fueled a lot of heavy thought.  I won't try to record it all here, but in hearing of friends and acquaintances ahead and behind who have had to leave the trail for one reason or another, I have been thinking of what it must mean to end such a journey prematurely.  I think it all depends on why a person is out here to begin with.  When I started my hike, my view of the trail was that it was something to be finished.  If I had quit then, it would have been like a failure.  Since then I have learned that the trail is an experience.  To have been a part of it is all that matters.  Each day we move closer to the end, but I reached my goal that day in the Nantahalas when I realized what I was a part of here.  I intend to finish the trail, but to leave would be no tragedy.   Every day can be as rich as a day on the trail, no matter who you are.  This is the most important thing I have learned, as Thoreau put it, 'to live deliberately.'
     May you all learn from the trail, whatever the lesson, and grow from being a part of it, even if not for 2000 miles."

Wayah the Wolf
GA>ME

     Jones dropped his stick in the fire as he laughed, trying not to howl as there were friends asleep in the shelter and tents nearby. He sat on a log next to Squirrelfight and struggled for breath, his hand clutching his stomach. Squirrel couldn't stop either, his hair and beard framed a laugh that was as much a grimace as joy, with tears starting to squeeze from his tightly shut eyes. Wayah sat across from them on the ground, stomach vibrating, an endless, silent laugh stuck to his face and a wicked look in his eye. Joker's Wild had wandered off into the dark to relieve himself and to look for one of the cheap beers they had carried in from town and weighed down in the stream to cool. There were only a few left now that it was late and the other hikers in the shelter had already retired. The empty cans were in a pile to be hoisted out of reach with the rest of the food and trash. He had been gone a while now, and there had been several comments about his possible activities.

     The larger group of hikers that traveled through the Smokies and entered Hot Springs with Squirrelfight, Jones, and Jokers were all ahead of them now. Wayah had suggested taking another day to relax and heal in the luxury of Hot Springs, and these three had joined him while the bulk of the group went on. The four of them had been hiking and camping together ever since. Wayah was the youngest member of the group. At twenty-one he was a couple of years younger than Jones or Squirrelfight, and a good bit younger than the elder Joker. At six-foot-two and stocky, he was the largest by a good bit. Jones was smaller, and very impressed by his new definition. When he started the trail, he had been carrying quite a bit more body weight, but now he was showing some sturdy muscle. He always wore his white cap, curled down at the brim like the college boys do. They had all been laughing for quite a while, and now the momentum of the silliness needed only an occasional shove, which Wayah was happy to give.

     "Stop! Please stop!" Jones managed to choke out between gasps, "You're killing me. I'm gonna die!" Out of the darkness came Jokers' wiry, thickly bearded figure. After finding the beer, he had gone to secretly stash the empty cans from the evening's celebration under Jones' sleeping bag, and was ready to get back to the warmth of the fire and join in the laughter again. He was in his thirties, at least ten years older than the rest of them but childish enough to earn him the name Jokers Wild for his endless pranks.

     Even though they were camping every day, a campfire was still an event. Most nights they would come in just before dark, and the hissing of four little white gas stoves would replace some of the chatter as they tried to get supper cooked before they lost their daylight. Many nights after a long day's hike they were too tired to make a fire or to stay awake long enough for it to die down. The night before Easter, though, they had a good fire. They had stopped in Elk Park, Tennessee that morning to have a big breakfast at a local restaurant and pick up supplies and mail from the post office. After spending an hour or so sorting food and then shopping at the town store for the bread and other supplies that hadn't come in their mail drops (and having a bit of ice cream), they headed for the phone and the all-you-can-eat diner down the road. By the time they were finished there, bellies well rounded and heads swimming with contentment, it was past noon. The section of trail ahead was unique because the locals had a particular dislike of the hikers and were known to be hostile and sometimes violent. The postmaster had urged them to move through the area quickly, not to stop for at least 13 miles, and not to drink any water over that stretch. The locals had been known to pour gas or oil in the streams to poison them. It was hard to believe, after all the hospitality they had seen, that a town would collectively decide to hate hikers that way. A few years ago there had even been an assault when locals came to burn down a shelter near their town and found a hiker there. Nothing particularly bad had happened since then, but the hostility was still tangible and the proximity was dangerously uncomfortable. They would have to carry a lot of water to cover all those miles in the heat and humidity that had built up rather suddenly in the past few days since the Smokies. Normally they would start the day with a full load of water, weighing about eight pounds, and refill during the day and in the evening. Not refilling in the middle of the day, especially a hot one, meant carrying extra bottles. Since they only carried a few quart bottles, they had purchased containers of Gatorade in the town store to fill with additional water. Well the day was hot, they were stuffed, and 13 was a lot to do after lunch anyway, more so with full packs and extra water. It wasn't very hard to convince each other to go back down the trail to the shelter and take the day off.

     They decided to make phone calls and buy some food for the afternoon and some cheap beer for the night. Then they headed back to the Apple House Shelter where they had stayed the night before. On the way back down the road to the trail head, a car pulled over behind them. Considering the reputation of the area, they were a bit nervous, but in fact it was a thru-hiker from years past named Jump Start because he had parachuted down to the beginning of the trail. He gave them some apples, played his tiny harmonica for them, and told them to say "hi" to Rusty for him before disappearing down the road again. It would be a long time before they reached Rusty's famous hostel, but they were already beginning to hear stories about the place and see clues in shelters about how to find it. The stories seemed conflicted- some about rest, some about mischief, but they were mysterious and far away still.

     Back at the shelter, a few newcomers had arrived. Two British gentlemen known as Greylag and Optimist (or collectively as "the Brits") had moved into the shelter and annexed a corner of it. They were both over 60. Every morning they soft boiled two eggs and placed them in wooden egg holders, which they carried so as to eat the eggs properly. There was also a photographer there going by the name of Tall Grass Prairie (or TGP). He and his partner, a writer named Curly, were hiking a section of the trail as part of a confederacy of reporters publishing a progression of stories while relay hiking the entire trail that year. These two were covering the second leg, and Curly had fallen in with one of the few women on the trail, a woman named Harper's Fairy, leaving the photographer behind since his feet were bothering him. TGP was a little frustrated at being left alone, and the other hikers were a little frustrated that Harper's Fairy was no longer available. The stranded photographer was welcomed into the thru-hiker's camp, and he busily went about his job of documenting their activities. When Squirrel started cleaning his boots, TGP was taking pictures. When Jones wrote in his journal, TGP was taking pictures. Wayah watched his back as he headed into the woods to use the bathroom.

     The day wore on at a relaxed pace. It was nice to take time for leisure, but the miles ahead would always beckon when the rest wasn't absolutely necessary. Wayah had been carrying a small roll of duct tape with him since the start, and now he used it for the first time, wrapping it into a ball. Jones dropped his sitting mat down as home plate, and they had a sporting game of ducttapeball using a stick for a bat. The night found them making their fire and passing around beers. Tall Grass Prairie even put down the camera for a while to drink with them. As Optimist finished his beer and left the circle to find his sleeping bag he mentioned that as a minister of the Dominican order, he would be giving Easter mass at sunup if any one would like to be in attendance. The thought of a mass in the woods was an unusual suprise and everyone promised not to miss it.
     "So where do your people come from, Wayah?" Jokers asked quickly.
     "Well, my family name is German or Austrian, but my most recently migrated relatives are Norse," the group all nodded, looking at his large, tall frame, "My people are Vikings. I was pretty much bred to vike."

     "Born to vike," Squirrelfight laughed, "I like it. That should be our name, the Vikings!" The four of them had been hiking together for ten days and had never stopped enjoying each other. Ten days wasn't much before the trail, but in the woods, seeing each other most of the day every day, a week seemed like months, and it had been suggested that the four of them come up with a group name. They hadn't met many continuous groups. There were a lot of pairs or couples, but in the days ahead, they would rarely find groups that had hiked together as long as they did. They laughed into the night about the name, thinking of ways to loot and pillage along the trail, mostly a process of renaming their normal activities. Raiding villages instead of resupplying and having a nice meal. Pillaging the world for everything that it had to offer. It was a harsh contrast to the truly gentle and considerate natures of the four men, but that was the humor of the name, and they felt far more like Viking raiders in the woods than they did like vacationers. Something primal about the idea seemed to fit.

     The conversation slowly died down with the fire. The campers drifted away until only Jones and Squirrelfight sat whispering. They waited into the night to watch the full moon rise that night before Easter and deposited plastic eggs full of candy into the boots and tent flaps of their friends. They had originally planned to hike under the full moon all night, planting the eggs in the gear of hikers they passed in the night. Unfortunately, their location that day made the task a bit large as there would be no hikers for fourteen miles, and passing them would mean doing more miles that night than they liked to do in the day. So instead they dropped the candy in the cavities and corners of their own campsite. Returning to their tents to finally rest, the sound of crushing and twisting aluminum followed by quiet cursing and laughter could be heard from Jones' tent, and a snicker from Jokers Wild as he lay in the shelter.

     Before sunrise, the camp began to stir. There was some excitement about the candy, but the focus was on Optimist, who was preparing for his service. He asked Jones to start a fire in the fire pit, sat in front of it with the rest of the hikers around the rest of the ring. From the fire he lit a candle and began the service. The fire symbolized God, the candle flame his son. Optimist performed the Easter ceremony just as he might have in a cathedral. He had even brought blessed wine for the communion in a small vial that he had carried for the last 380 miles. He explained the significance of all the symbols and of Easter itself to the five hikers sitting around the fire. The trees towered over them, the fire spun comfortably in the stone ring, and the trail waited quietly behind them. There were no two people of the same faith around that ring, but among the rocks and the trees and the peace was a holiness not easily found indoors. As the service came to a close, the sun was slowly peaking over the hill beside the shelter, and the gathering was charged with a cleansing light. Thanking Optimist and filling their extra water bottles for the long, non-stop day ahead. The Vikings pulled on their packs, loaded down with a full food resupply, and leaned down the trail hoping for a non-confrontational holiday. As it turned out, the locals certainly weren't accepting, but they let the Vikings pass mostly without event. A man on a motorcycle with his daughter in his lap did give them the finger as he rode by, but passing the wreckage of the burned shelter later that day, and seeing the rusted oil drums in the streams, the Vikings knew that they had certainly missed the worst of what happened there. The Viking's worst adversaries that day were weight and heat.