Bullets, Boarders and Beer

Still alive! Yes! I think the only people more amazed that me about this fact, are my parents.

To start, I would like to apologize for the brevity of my last post. I had 10 minutes in a library while Pokey Pokey waited in the rented car. I did not get to say as much as I would have liked, but will hopefully remedy that through this post. I am writing from Franklin, North Carolina.

That’s right! I made it through all of Georgia and crossed my first state line.  Woo hoo!  I honored this moment on the trail with a Snickers, or what I like to call “Manna from Heaven.” Franklin is also 107.6 miles into the trail which means I crossed my first major mileage milestone.

Perhaps against better judgment I got to Franklin by hitch-hiking, riding in the back of a pick-up loaded with empty beer cans, cigarette butts and shell casings.  Judging by the vehicle’s mud coating, I am sure the driver had been doing doughnuts at the dump just that morning. Ahhhh, gotta love the South. Fortunately, I am very familiar with riding in the back of pick-ups through the back hills of North Carolina (thank you Pops and Susan Dart) and can not imagine a more natural means of transportation. I am taking what hikers call a zero day tomorrow meaning zero miles gained, which my body needs after 12 days of hiking without rest and some nights without sleep. Now to the trail:

After Leaving Pokey Pokey, Ahab (Alex) and I decided to stick together, hiking the next few days. He was a great companion and together we covered a lot of ground. The first day, on the way to the summit of Mt. Tray, we ran into a fellow thru-hiker, Thor; and Peanut, a man who lives out of his truck in the backwoods of Georgia, usually scaring thru-hikers, but who today was handing out free beers, which I preferred. Ahab and I became close friends and hiked 16 miles the next day until our bodies gave out and we could barely set up our tents- in fact Ahab didn’t. “For being one of the worst days of my life, it sure is amazing,” he said and I couldn’t agree more. It turns out Ahab is an ex-actor from L.A., having posed as a husband on one of those reality home-makeovers shows after the original couple split up. He has also run with the bulls in Pamplona, and is opening his own rock climbing gym: one of his favorite hobbies despite his overwhelming fear of heights. He is truly a remarkable person which made it very difficult to say goodbye the next day as he was only section hiking. I will miss his company terribly, but am glad to have made a good friend on the Appalachian Trail.

After no sleep due to bad weather, I hiked 20 miles to try to catch up. I don’t know how, but for some reason I ended up a day behind a big group of hikers and a day ahead of another group and was frustrated being in the “gap.” That night I caught up with thru-hikers, Y2K, C-Bass, Mary Poppins and many more who have all been together since April 1st but who had passed me much earlier. Late arrivals that night included two conservative Jews who lit candles and said a prayer for Shabbat and even though it was late and their worship was happening not one foot from my tent, it was oddly calming and I slept better that night than any other.

It’s inspiring that these men would endure the extra weight of candles and yamakas for their beliefs.  Also these men are not young guys, in fact, most of the people out here are grandparents who tell me their kids are worried sick. I am usually the youngest in any group by many years, but by no means better advantaged because of age. I passed a 71 year old man the other day and when I asked if he was going to Maine replied, “I wouldn’t dare answer that question at 71,” but made it clear Maine was his intended destination.

I want to say thank you to everyone who wished me a “Happy Birthday” and sent me well wishes for the hike. This hike is really, really hard physically and emotionally, believe it or not, and it makes it easier to keep going knowing I have your love and support. So thank you so much again. I also wanted to mention that my friend Kate Klonick will be editing this blog to keep my grammar in check. She is currently a speech writer for Merrill Lynch and having worked for Esquire, the ABCNews.com and many other publications is an invaluable asset to me, and a bright young talent to the world of journalism. Her website is listed under my blog roll.

I may not be writing for a while as I am about to head into the Smokies one of the more challenging parts of the trail without any chance of communication with civilization.  Best wishes to all

Newt – GAME ’08

Trail Humor…

Thor: What’s pink and rolls down hills?

Peanut: Ex-Wives?

Thor: No, a blue triangle!!

Broken (In)

Today is my birthday and I am writing from a town called Helen– a small German village in rural Georgia (I know, right?) 50.1 miles into the Appalachian Trail. I am here to re-stock food, equipment and to send off my friend Susan who was hiking with us down to the trail which we had much difficulty finding. Between four people with cell phones, a computer, maps, a guide book and a GPS, we still managed to get lost and had to ask a group of hikers (who were without any technology) where we were.

The first day was glorious. A seasoned hiker on the first trail crossing gave us fruit punch juice boxes and told me I was the 30th thru-hiker he has met that day, but that I needed a trail name because there were already too many “Johns.”  We hiked five miles up to Springer Mountain which made the rocky slope and our brief encounter with a snake worth the trouble. The view was beautiful. We signed into the hikers log and continued to the first shelter. The shelter was packed and we arrived only an hour before dark, trying to learn how to errect our tent, cook a meal and use the bear bag cables before night fall.

There are many, many, people on the trail, most of whom have Maine as a goal– although roughly 25% give up in the first 30 miles which turned out to be the case with many people I have encountered.

The second day gave us Susan’s trail name “Pokey Pokey,” for which no explanation is necessary.  We also befriended a group of women hikers, the “Hen Hike” (which is a group of middle-aged women who met online with the shared goal of hiking the AT) and a guy from Susan’s hometown called “Spring Loaded Joe.” It also turns out the first section of the trail through Georgia houses an army base, so as we were hiking we were surrounded by the sounds of automatic weapon fire, explosions and the occasional low flying helicopter.

Our second night on the trail 130 soldiers with 80lb packs marched through our campsight without any light except the glow of GPS units (which I’m sure doubled as Gameboys). Their seargent informed us the AT was part of their night maneuvers training and that for the next two weeks there would be 800 soldiers in the area.

The next three days saw nothing but rain. We packed a wet tent with standing water into wet bags with wet sleeping bags and hiked about 30 miles into the trail.  It was miserable, and our tent leaked horribly.  As we tried to dry the rivers of water running down the inside of the tent, even more poured in through leaky seams.

In the midst of the rain, we met Alex, a Georgia native who is hiking the AT for a couple of weeks and has more crazy adventure stories than anyone I have ever met.  Some of these tales include 12lbs of chocolate pudding, sailing trips through the Panama Canal, and a failed canoe trip in the Everglades that wound up in the ocean.

So the “serious” hikers have passed us by as I begin to get my trail legs and fall into a routine, but as the AT says, “Everyone needs to hike their own trail,” which is what I intend to do. I still have two mountains to climb today including the second tallest in Georgia, Tray Mountain. Best wishes to all.

-NEWT (my trail name)

Wanderlust

Rebecca Solnit writes that the mind functions best at 3 mph. I must concede, for it seems to be failing me at rest in a hotel room in Stockton CA. As an actor on tour I spend most of my waking day on a bus watching landscape pass while wrestling with whether I am seeing the world or avoiding it altogether. As I prepare to hike the Appalachian Trail, all 2175 miles from Georgia to Maine, I am faced with the same ambiguity of purpose. Fortunately wanderlust propells me into this adventure and renders its motive irrelevant. This blog will be a point of reference as I travel, containing trail updates, reflections and progress both geographic and financial. Thank you in advance for your support even if it was only attending to this paragraph. Now go change the world.