Some memories of the Appalachian Trail from 1980 are very clear. Others are somewhat clear. I don't remember the exact date or location, but the events of that evening were permanently burned into my memory banks.
At the end of a long day I crossed a road and walked a couple of miles to a shelter. No one else was there, so I began to settle in for the night. I cooked a huge pot of supper and had just finished eating when I heard a sound. In the woods, you get used to many different sounds. Some sounds are from the wind, some from the insects and animals, but some are made by humans. The distinct "clomp, clomp, clomp" noise was unmistakably the sound of a hiker coming down the trail. Since the light was beginning to fade, I was sure that the hiker was headed toward the shelter.
Sure enough, a hiker arrived. It was a woman and she looked vaguely familiar. She wore clothing that was soiled from many miles on the trail. When she arrived at the shelter I also noticed the smell. Now, I'm not complaining about the smell. We all sweat while hiking on the trail. And we all had a smell that was ok for the outdoors but would get us kicked out of some places in civilization! Yes, she had the look and the smell of a thru hiker.
Then I noticed two other things. First it was the hair on her stubby legs. It was obvious that this woman had not had a razor on her legs for a long, long time. The hair on her legs was only surpassed by the hair sprouting out from under her arms, revealed by her dirty tank top shirt. The second thing I noticed was a small can attached the the strap of her pack. Somehow that small can looked familiar too. Most hikers didn't carry things clipped to the shoulder straps of their packs. Why were these things familiar? Who was this woman?
And then it hit me. I knew exactly who this was! I remembered Hot Springs, North Carolina. I remembered the woman who arrived at the hostel with the can of mace hanging from the shoulder strap of her backpack. I wrote about it in the blog entitled "Who carries a can of mace on the Appalachian Trail?!!" on May 5, 2011. That was over two and a half months ago. She was ahead of me on the trail (or so I thought). How did she end up at this place and at this time?
We fell into conversation as hikers usually do at shelters. Yes, she did remember me from Hot Springs, N.C. Yes, she had been ahead of me and had been making very good time. But something happened. Her boyfriend in Arizona broke up with her and quit mailing her packages with all of her supplies. She had to get off of the trail and go home for two weeks in order to get things set up for a family member to mail her the rest of her supply packages.
"Two weeks," I thought to myself. "don't they have razors in Arizona? Why didn't she shave off all that nasty hair while she was home? It's one thing for a woman to get all hairy while hiking on the trail, but good grief!" That's not what I said, but it's what I thought. Then I realized that I was probably being too harsh. Perhaps she had to get off the trail and go home a couple of months ago. Perhaps she had been behind me and was only just now catching up to me on the trail. Her odor and dirty clothes were certainly evidence that she had been on the trail for a while. Perhaps I was being too hard on her after all....
Then I made the mistake of asking the question. I wish now that I had not asked. I wish that I didn't know the truth. I wish that I had gone on giving her the benefit of the doubt. Instead, I asked the question, "how long have you been back on the trail?"
"Oh," she replied, "I just got back on the trail today. As a matter of fact I just got a ride to the road a couple of miles south of here."
Again, my thoughts began to race, "What?!!! How can you smell so bad if you just got back on the trail? Why are your clothes filthy dirty? Why didn't you at least shave? And why on earth are you carrying a can of mace? Believe me, I have seen bears that are more attractive." Well, that's what I thought. It's not what I said. Fortunately it got dark quickly. In the morning the woman was up and off early. She hiked faster than me and that's the last time I saw her. But the smell lingered for a while......
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