Person of the week: Ron Brown
BONUS PERSON OF THE WEEK: Bill
They say that the journey of one thousand miles begins with a single step. Chandler and I now know that that saying implies an inverse correlation between mileage and barriers of entry. For example, in our case, the journey of one hundred miles began with six hundred stairs. The only anomaly I’ve found in this trend to date is the inconvenience of TSA checkpoints; in those cases, trips of all distances are a pain in the ass to get started. At least Greyhound offered that advantage!
We ended up spending two hours or so at the Greyhound station. Holding our packs close, we sat next to the aptly named dining establishment—”Restaurant”—and waited for our delayed bus. Order and organization did not seem to be priorities of the staff. When our bus finally did arrive, we boarded with our backpacks on; they were so oddly shaped and had so much strapped to the outside that we preferred not to have them carelessly thrown underneath with everything else. We probably would have regretted that decision regardless, but ending up in the very back row expedited the process. Our packs had nowhere to go except for our laps; the internal metal frames did not fit my definition of ‘plush.’ Luckily we had the bathroom right next to us to distract us from the alternating pain and numbness in our legs. That fresh bus-bathroom smell would greet us every time the sound of the door opening or closing kept us from falling asleep. Something—I’m assuming it has to do with the mechanics of buses—also made the back especially warm, which contributed to the smell as well as the general uncomfortability.
Our shuttle driver had other appointments that day and, since our bus was running late, was going to have to prioritize them over us. That would have stranded us in Atlanta for the majority of the day. Fortunately, we were able to arrange a new rendezvous point, getting us on the trail earlier and eliminating two hours on the bus. That’s not to say the shuttle was all blue skies and rainbows though; one might say we went out of the fire and into the frying pan (later to return to the fire. It’s kind of like a metaphorical boomerang video on Instagram, if you think about it.)
Ron Brown, our shuttle driver, was, as we would later learn and be reminded of every day, something of a regional celebrity—and rightly so. He knew the ins and outs of backpacking Georgia and North Carolina like Nicodemus knew the Pentateuch, and I’m pretty sure he could tell with one look that we were blissfully ignorant of what lay ahead of us. Like an archaeologist carefully excavating some ancient artifact though, he gently and slowly revealed our inadequacy to us rather than telling us point-blank. Little did any of us know, his polite warnings and cautionary advice, rather than proving to be prophetic realities that sent us home early, would carry us through the entirety of the trip.
The first evidence of Ron’s unbelief in our capabilities came when he brought up the approach trail. If I remember correctly, his commentary was exactly as follows:
Ron: “So you’re doing the approach trail?”
Me (naively enthusiastic): “Yeah!”
Ron: “Why?”
It’s difficult to convey through writing, as the most memorable part of it all was the tone of his voice; imagine the way your dad would talk to you—trying to lead you to condemn yourself rather than doing it for you—when the cops brought you home on prom night.
Moving forward in the conversation, he asked about our daily schedule. I retrieved my notebook from my backpack and began reading the start and end points for each day. The initial Oh, that’s going to be BRUTAL was discouraging. But when he said that after every daily description, we came to the conclusion that it was going to be BRUTAL regardless of how we divided it up. Having obtained sufficient evidence to confirm his premonitions that we were screwed, he began to dig emergency evacuation routes out of the severely unstable tunnel that was our plan, training us for the inevitable collapse.
To make the intervention easier for us, he showed us that we weren’t alone. He told us about how later that same day he’d be picking up a father and son who “just couldn’t make it as far as they’d expected to.” Ron made it clear that failure was as easy as giving him a ring and letting him know we’d need picked up a few days earlier, or even just at a different location than we originally planned on.
(At this point I’d like to throw in a disclaimer. While running some ideas for this post by my friend, he was confused: “You talked about Ron like he was so helpful. Why all the teasing? Did he really talk to you like the cops brought you home?” I’d like to be clear that Ron was the reason our hike lasted more than one day. In all situations he was kind and went out of his way to be helpful; he sincerely wanted us to have a great hike! There was just a very apparent contrast—even to us—between his extensive knowledge and experience and our complete poverty of know-how, which is comical to look back on. Ron was WONDERFUL. Any and all sarcasm or insincerity here is meant to poke fun at me and Chandler, not Ron.)
Disabusing us further, he brought the conversation back to the approach trail. Handing me a map (resourceful as he was, he kept several copies of several versions in his car), he described the “Hike Inn Trail”; there exists a wilderness lodge just south of the southern terminus of the AT called the Hike Inn. As Ron informed us, it is only accessible by its own dedicated trail (the only establishment of its kind in the region, if I’m not mistaken), which peels off of the approach trail shortly after its beginning and later reconnects. Though slightly longer than the approach trail, Ron believed the difference in difficulty (the Hike Inn Trail is significantly less strenuous) would be well worth it. In addition, we could (quite literally) take a load off for a short time, refill our water bottles, and enjoy some friendly conversation with the people there. Taking the map a bit dismissively and eventually taking his advice on a whim, I had no idea how indispensable that piece of counsel would be.
We finally arrived at the trailhead, and Ron offered to weigh our packs for us—something we should have done long before. My 65 liter pack weighed in at about 50 pounds; Chandler’s overstuffed 45 liter pack weighed 53. With these newfound statistics in mind, Ron reiterated his encouragement to choose the Hike Inn Trail. As parting gifts, he gave us each a ziploc bag of Gatorade powder (shortly thereafter when unknowingly catching a whiff of Ron’s vape, Chandler would call out to me a little too loudly “Hutton, I think your Gatorade bag broke. . .”), walked us to the threshold, took a picture for us, and watched us clumsily waddle off into the woods.
I mentioned in the intro that our journey began with 600 stairs. The trail wasted no time in bringing us there. Nearly crumbling under the weight of our packs and suffering from a significant lack of sleep (and failing to acknowledge the reality of Chandler’s jetlag), we took an extended breather every few steps; our first snack break of the trip was hosted by a bench just past the top of the stairs. My optimism that our exhaustion—especially Chandler’s, as he was very clearly suffering—was completely and solely a consequence of the stairs was swiftly crushed. The Hike Inn was about 4 miles up the trail; we covered roughly half that distance before Chandler was stopping every few steps to sit on the nearest log or rest the weight of his pack against a tree. After proceeding for awhile in that fashion, concerned that our hike may be at an end already, I told him to rest and drink water while I hurriedly forged on. I reached the Hike Inn, dropped my bag, and hustled back for Chandler. Meeting him after about a mile, I hoisted his pack and led him to our oasis in the wasteland (I don’t mean to pat myself on the back. Chandler was at a significant disadvantage for a variety of reasons. If anything, he deserves to be applauded for holding up as he did).
If you’re familiar with Dante’s Inferno, you’ll remember Virgil leading Dante the Pilgrim through Limbo. Surrounded by the greatest epic poets in the history of civilization, Dante is honored to be temporarily counted as one among them, despite having yet to make a name for himself in the history books; I would liken mine and Chandler’s time at the Hike Inn to that. They took us in. They consoled us with the information that most everybody overpacks on their first major venture. And, most importantly, Bill—whom I place on a similar pedestal to Ron when I think of the people who saved our trip—told us that, if we would sort through our food and figure out what was necessary for the next few days, he would take the rest into town the next day and ship it ahead to a location at which we could pick it up and resupply. My pack dropped 8 pounds or so. Chandler’s, notably more food-dense, dropped 20.
Bill, formerly a backpack expert at REI, also helped us adjust our borrowed packs; Chandler’s especially was horribly misadjusted (one of the many disadvantages I was alluding to earlier). Feeling rejuvenated and our hike having been effectively saved, they sent us on our way with pep in our step. We knocked out the several mile ascent of Springer Mountain, made a friend—Trey—along the way, ate some mashed potatoes at the top, and made camp for the night; having safely navigated the minefield of day 1, our preparedness for the 9 days ahead seemed impregnable.
How Not to Hike the Appalachian Trail 
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