The hike had its bad points; I took a nasty fall, the effects of which I still suffer pain from to this day, and a severe underestimate of the amount of water needed for the hike. One would think April to be cool, however, this April day was very hot and the trees had absolutely no foliage upon them. Combine this with the lack of water and the fall I took, and you have the preverbal “Perfect Storm”.
So here it is… a repost of “Caveman Hiking”…
The trail guide says “Depart trail head and walk 0.1 miles to Appalachian Trail crossing” so we do that… only takes a minute or so. I’m thinking, “Man, this is so easy a cave man can do it”. We read on, “now descend 2.7 miles along blue blazed trail into deep hollow to third highest waterfall in Shenandoah National park”.
With the assist of gravity (gravity is good) we begin our decent. The hike down is beautiful, only marred by one minor incident. I’m sure everyone can relate, having had this happen at one time or another. You are walking along on an outcrop of rocks and the next thing you know your feet are somewhere out in front of you and then there is a sudden jolt through your body as it hits the hard sloping rock of the cliff followed by a distinct feeling of weightlessness. Then you find yourself laying on your back looking up into a cloudless sky feeling like you are going to throw-up (and would have if there were anything in your stomach). I’m sure it happens to folks all the time. I lay there for a while, wondering if my arm is broken and wondering if this ever happened to those cavemen. Except for that, and the constant throbbing pain in my elbow after the fall, the hike down into the hollow goes just fine.
After two hours of hiking we arrive at a spot near the base of the falls, but the approach to the falls is a scamper over many large slippery looking rocks. My elbow throbs intensely, as if to tell me “If you do this I’m going to make sure you wind up on your back again… don’t forget I’m your elbow and I am in contact with other parts of your body… and we talk… a lot”. So we choose to save the last 0.1 mile trek to the base of the falls for another attempt (perhaps in another lifetime).
Now here is where the difference between reading and doing becomes orthogonal. The guide says “retrace your steps and ascend 2.7 miles to crossing with the Appalachian Trail”. I think back to the hike down into the hollow… every single step of it… all 2.7 miles of them… were steps down. The vast majority of them very steeply down. This is the part where the caveman says “Heck no, not me, I’m going to make camp right here. In fact, I’m a hunter-gatherer and I think I’ll just live here. You’all have a nice hike out. See ya.”
It takes us three hours to retrace our steps. Somewhere around the half way mark I find myself willing to pay $100 for one of the cold drinks sitting in the ice filled cooler in the back of our car. A little while later I am willing to pay $100 for one the ice cubes. Soon after that I begin to notice things… strange things. Are these odd shaped rocks really rocks? They begin to look likes bones… bones of other 52 year old hikers whom made the decent into this forsaken hollow. Yes, I am sure of it now… they are bones. I begin to realize I am not going to make it out, at least not alive.
As I begin to picture our children coming to claim our remains I notice we are back at the crossing with the Appalachian Trail. The last 0.1 miles to the trail head that we scampered down in less than a minute earlier in the day only takes another 20 minutes or so. Then we are back. And the cave man in me says “That wasn’t so bad, was it? You did it, both of you, and all on your own”. I look up at the clear sky and take a deep breath of fresh mountain air and say to myself “Yes… yes we did… and we are never going back again”.
