I snapped a selfie in the restroom of our hotel room. I was wearing my trail uniform: blue jacket, trucker’s cap, hiking pants, buff, no makeup. “Until Wednesday …” I typed into my Instagram story. I put the phone down and looked in the mirror. One last moment to feel warm, dry and capable. I knew by the end of the day I’d be tucked into a slippery sleeping bag with all the opposites. The breakdown would be underway within hours.
I turned toward the bathroom door. “It’s a great day to be great” it read. Thank you, hotel bathroom door. I sure do appreciate that. I hoisted my pack, which was well over 35 pounds with a full water bladder, up onto my shoulder. The weight bent my torso forward awkwardly. I picked up my duffel bag, filled with civilian niceties, with my free hand as a counterweight.
We’d seen The General and Captain Cordage at breakfast that morning, but now they were 10 minutes ahead of us, driving toward the sun to meet the shuttle driver in the parking lot at Albert Mountain. I tossed my pack up to Bambi, who was crouched in the back of Just Matt’s Dodge Ram, Tank. He winced and heaved it toward the back of the cab.
We sat quietly, still groggy from our too-brief time in an actual bed. We’d gotten a late start the day before, Friday morning. Gravy had stood on our porch geared up for nearly 45 minutes waiting, as Just Matt and Bambi searched for a missing driver’s license at their house across the neighborhood.
As we drove down a two way road somewhere in Ohio, my brother rubbed a swollen tube … or ligament… or tendon of some sort, wrapping around the side of his right knee.
“Jeez Matt, why didn’t you go see someone about that?”
“Oh, it’s awful,” he said. “I literally heard something pop in there. Feel it.”
“No thanks.”
“Just feel it. It’s crazy.”
Against all of my better judgement, I reached over and pressed my pointer finger into his angry joint. I recoiled and scrunched my face. He smiled. Pleased. I don’t know what it is about men, or maybe it’s just my brother, but if it felt like a mature snake had crawled into my knee cap and I couldn’t bend it more than a centimeter, I’m pretty sure I would seek some sort of medical care. This injury, mind you, was a complement to the recently diagnosed torn ACL in his left knee. So, that’s what he was bringing into the mountains.
After a trifecta of spring break traffic jams, Just Matt making a last-minute turn that sent Bambi flying into the front seat and a late-night visit to a local big box store for gloves and Metamucil, we made it into Franklin, Georgia around 11:30 p.m. Friday night.
Just six hours later, we were on our way to the Appalachian Trail, the vibration of Tank’s tires both soothing and jostling our foursome awake. Gravy sat behind me, searching madly for a signal to help navigate. We had just under an hour to make it to the rendezvous point. Just Matt couldn’t get one either. I turned on my phone just .2 of a mile before our turn.
Just beyond a parking lot, we turned right and started up an unpaved narrow road.
“Is this right?” Just Matt asked.
“I think so,” Gravy offered.
Tank’s engine rumbled and surged as Just Matt tapped the gas, urging his broad truck around hairpin turns. From the passenger seat, I heard a branch slap the door beside me and a rock tumbled down the steep mountainside, just inches from the tires. I stared out over the treeline, a clementine sky breaking through the navy.“What a beautiful thing to see before I die,” I thought.
Around and up we went, for 10 minutes, then 20. The color drained from my hands, clenched firmly around the ledge between the door interior and the window. Just Matt was laughing. Then he wasn’t, as the path seemed to shrink the higher we climbed. Loose gravel sent Tank’s backend to the left, as my brother pulled the steering wheel to the right.
“Is this right?” Bambi asked his dad nervously from the back seat.
“It doesn’t matter now, does it?” he managed.
I hadn’t taken an actual breath for at least a half an hour. I was sure my heart was beating quickly and outside of my chest. We came around another turn and right into a dead end. I exhaled quickly.
“Are you freaking kidding me?” I screamed. My brother chuckled in the way the bad guy does in a movie after a woman – soon to be his victim – foolishly slaps him across the face.
“I’d say we’re going to miss the shuttle,” he conceded, throwing the truck into reverse, then drive, then reverse, then drive. Tank was like a hippo on the top layer of a five-tiered wedding cake, rotating inch by inch. Eventually we started to make our way back down the side of the mountain. Now I was on the side that hugged the structure’s skin. I could reach out and grab a handful of dirt from Albert’s coat. It was a different seat, but the scene was still terrifying.
We had just 20 minutes to get the shuttle and no one had a signal. As Bambi would say just 24 hours later, “This trip was doomed from the start.”
To be continued …
No Comments