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Holly Kays photo
A Cold Night and A Warm Fire On the A.T.
Morning light streams through a late autumn forest along the Appalachian Trail.
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Holly Kays photo
A Cold Night and A Warm Fire On the A.T.
Jim (from left), Becca and I smile big after a successful night out, while Arti tolerates the photo shoot.
I’d been feeling low-level grumpy for weeks about the fact that I’d somehow failed to fit a single backpacking trip into the fall months when an interesting message popped up on Facebook.
This friend was asking if I ever led backpacking trips for money, to which I replied that no, it had never occurred to me—why did she ask? It turned out that she’d recently gotten into hiking and was hoping to try out an overnight adventure with an outfitter. But none of them had open trips this late in the season, so she figured she’d ask.
It was a good ask, because I was ripe for any excuse to spend a weekend in the woods, no payment necessary. We set a date for the next time we both were free—we’d squeeze it in on the last weekend before Daylight Savings Time ended—and spent the next couple weeks talking food, gear and routes. We would hike the Appalachian Trail from U.S. 64 in Franklin to Rock Gap Shelter, about 3.7 miles, and for dinner we would have garlic and herb gnocci with tuna packets added for protein. Becca had secured a borrowed backpack, sleeping bag and pad, along with a tent large enough to hold both of us as well as my four-legged hiking partner Arti. She was excited, and so was I.
Then we checked the weather. The weekend was forecast to be sunny and dry, with highs in the 50s, but the lows were a different story. It was supposed to get down to 26 degrees on the night in question, and that was just in town. Who knew how cold it might get on the trail? I wanted Becca’s first backpacking experience to be a good one, and I couldn’t help but think of the first time my fiancé and I had gone camping together. He’d learned the hard way that his gear was not sufficient to ensure comfort in 30-degree weather—two years later, the episode still comes up whenever we plan a trip.
But Becca still wanted to go, and finally the day came. This was back in the pre-coronavirus era, so we carpooled in her SUV, made a pit stop to pick up her friend Jim, who would be joining us, and soon arrived at the trailhead.
There is nothing more beautiful than an Appalachian forest on a crisp fall day like the one that lay before us. Many of the leaves had fallen, but not all of them. The oaks, especially, still held their foliage, the sunlight streaming through them amplifying their color to something bright and jewel-like. At 55 degrees, the air was warm enough that we were soon stripping off layers as beads of sweat formed on our foreheads during the uphill portions but cool enough that we soon found ourselves putting those layers back on during breaks.
Eventually we reached the shelter, and with darkness as our deadline we quickly set about erecting tents, hanging a bear bag, gathering firewood and refilling our water bottles. As we began to prep for dinner, I could already feel the beginnings of the impending chill riding on the edges of the air.
Unfortunately, we were having little to no luck starting a fire. The A.T. sees a lot of traffic, and it seemed that much of the dead and down wood had already been burned. That, combined with the general dampness of the wood we did gather, forced us to give up our dreams of whiling away the cold, dark hours to come before the flickering warmth of a campfire.
Then, Birdman showed up. Or at least, that was his trail name. We were surprised to see him—most A.T. thru-hikers start the trail in Georgia during the springtime and hike north, and regardless November is pretty late to still be hiking. Birdman told us he’d initially started walking north from Hot Springs, North Carolina. He’d been with a few friends, and it was just supposed to be a short trip, but he decided to keep hiking. After reaching the trail’s end in Maine, he’d returned to North Carolina to finish the southern portion.
Birdman didn’t have a lot of words. He did, however, have some impressive fire-building skills, and for that we were grateful. We spent the evening gathered around the glowing results of his handiwork, sipping on hot tea and whiskey and feeling the cold pick at our shoulders.
Eventually, though, it was time to sleep. Becca and I cinched our mummy bags as tight as they would go, covering our heads with knit caps while we slept, and while I won’t say it was quite as warm as my bed at home, I woke in the morning feeling comfortable, happy and rested—despite the fact that Arti had spent the evening continually changing her mind as to which sleeping bag she wished to smush herself into.
It was frosty and cold outside, but the sun rose as quickly as it had set the night before, and soon enough it was warm and the day was bright and we’d forgotten all about the frigid night from which we’d just emerged. Before long, Becca was talking about the next trip, and I smiled. The only thing better than going backpacking is watching someone else experience it for the first time.