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Every once in a great while you take that trip that you look back and wonder Just what the hell was I thinking?!!

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I'm an adrenaline junkie 'I'll try just about anything once' kind of gal. So when the now very ex boyfriend suggested we backpack the Appalachian Trail, I was willing to give it a shot. (I plead temporary insanity!) That was my first mistake of many.

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The second mistake I made was agreeing to do this the week of the 4th of July, when the roads and campgrounds were packed.

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When I try something for the first time, I go all out so I went out and bought all new fancy backpacking gear without knowing a dang thing about backpacking. That was my third mistake of many.

We arrived in Pisgah National Forest in the late afternoon, managed to find a site in the  packed to the rafters campground and set up camp. 
We turned in early, our plan being to be up at the crack of dawn to begin our hike.

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We weren't an hour up the mountain when two forest rangers stopped us to inform us we were under arrest as potential poachers.
Unbeknownst to me, Chit for Brains boyfriend had been spotted putting his .45 pistol in his pack and someone had reported it.

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"YOU DID WHAT?!!" I yelled, loud enough for everyone in Pisgah Natl. Forest to hear me.

"DO YOU HAVE SH** FOR BRAINS?!! WHY IN GOD'S NAME WOULD YOU PUT A GUN IN YOUR PACK?!!"

"To protect you from bears!" Bill snapped.

"I GREW UP RAISING BEARS YOU IDIOT! I DON'T NEED PROTECTION FROM ANY BEARS!!"

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It was obvious to the rangers that I'd known nothing about the gun in Bill's backpack so they very kindly un-arrested me on the way down the trail...but I still had to accompany them back to the ranger station.I suppose because the two of them suspected they may end up with a homicide on their hands given the tirade I was laying on Chit For Brains boyfriend.

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Or as the male ranger pointed out to Bill, "Son, if I were you I'd be more worried about being mauled by that pissed off girlfriend of yours than by any bear!"

YOU TELL HIM, RANGER RICK!

With every passing second that heavy backpack of mine was looking better and better as a weapon with which to smack Chit For Brains boyfriend right upside the head.

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Long story short, we spent the entire morning in the ranger station as Ranger Rick booked Bill as being a potential poacher, all the while Bill begging Ranger Rick not to confiscate his .45 permanently.(Ranger Rick returned the gun to me, knowing I'd keep my promise to him that I'd lock the damn thing in the car - if I didn't toss it off the nearest cliff or into a river first. Right along with Chit For Brains boyfriend.)

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It was noon by the time we started back up the trail. By that time I was ready to chuck my grossly overweight backpack over the nearest cliff. I hadn't bothered to study up on backpacking or I would've discovered the fact your pack shouldn't weigh more than 10% to 15% of your total body weight. I weighed 125 pounds. My pack weighed in at 65 pounds. Nearly 20 pounds overweight. Which normally wouldn't have been a big deal for me as I was in good shape. But you're not in such good shape climbing to the altitudes we were. I was ready to chuck that sucker over the first cliff I saw.

To make matters even worse, I hadn't broken in

my new hiking boots so my feet were covered

with painful blisters in very short order.

My feet were so painful I actually stopped to soak them in an ice cold mountain stream to numb them sufficiently to continue hiking.

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We continued up the trail not saying much of anything to one another - at least not until Bill turned around and desperately whispered "There's a bear ahead on the trail! Bet you wish I had my gun NOW!"

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"Oh for crying out loud!" I said shoving him aside.

"Hey bear!" I said loudly while making myself appear as tall as possible. "Whatcha up to bear?"

The bear simply looked at me, then promptly ambled off into the woods as I knew he would.

"Happy now? See how EASY that was?" I said to Chit for Brains boyfriend. "No need at all to pump them full of lead," I smiled as sarcastically as I could.

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Next surprise and this one is for you gals: The altitude in the mountains changes your menstrual cycle and you will get your period whether you're due to or not. The problem with this is bears have good noses so pick up on the scent of blood, mistaking it for food. So I recommend if you're going to backpack the Appalachian Trail take not only your feminine necessities but a can of bear spray.

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As we were beginning to lose daylight, we decided to stop for the night and set up camp. Bill was too tired to fool with setting up the tent and I could barely walk so he decided we'd just camp in one of the Trail shelters.

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Understand that just because you claim your spot in one of these shelters, that doesn't mean it's "yours".
Any other hikers can join you in it at any time so you end up sleeping with a bunch of strangers.

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Oh goodie. I'm bear bait as I smell like food to a bear now and we're going to sleep in an open shelter where any hungry bear could stroll right in and drag me off in the middle of the night to make me its breakfast - no doubt, Chit For Brains boyfriend sleeping right through the entire incident. Could this trip get any better? Oh yeah...

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Introducing the Appalachian Trail outhouse...

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Wouldn't you think on a 2200 mile long trail flanked by forest on either side, at least one of those park rangers running the joint would come up with the novel idea of putting a DOOR on the flippen' outhouse?

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But no...you just pop a squat in full view of anyone passing by.

Delightful.

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We awoke the next morning (or at least Chit For Brains 

did, I was up most of the night on high alert for bears) to a very dense fog. Overnight another hiker must have joined us in the shelter, judging from the empty sleeping bag across from us. As tired as I was, this is what I saw in the dense fog...

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I thought OMG! HE'S HUNG HIMSELF BY THE NECK!

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Not at all an unreasonable thought when backpacking the Appalachian Trail, I assure you.

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Day 3, 4, 5? Who knew?

 

But we finally reached Sliding Rock, the only worthwhile part of the trip in that the water was so bone chilling cold that it numbed my entire painful body.

(I was envisioning the original explorers, Pinchot and Schenk sliding down the rock in their 1800's duds...)

I'm a paragraph. Click here to add your own text and edit me. It's easy.

I would've been content to stay right there until Flight for Life picked me up but unfortunately, we had to continue our hike. 

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It was incredibly hot and humid that week, in the high 90's. We stopped at a campsite next to a lone highway that ran through the mountains. On the other side of the highway was a mountain river bordered by thick foliage.

 

Being it was 4th of July week, the traffic on that lone mountain highway looked like this:

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Bill was sick with heatstroke. It was so ungodly hot that I stripped off all of my underwear and wore only my tee shirt and shorts. It was still so hot in the tent I could barely breathe so decided I'd get out of the tent and walk.
I was walking along the side of the highway when I spotted them...BLACKBERRIES! REAL FOOD!

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I went charging into that foliage like a bull in a china shop to snag me some of those berries...

and promptly stepped right into a ground wasp nest.

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I was a black cloud of stinging wasps and unlike bees, wasps can sting repeatedly. They were clinging to my tee shirt stinging through it, so I whipped off my shirt right in the middle of that packed highway while screaming for help.

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The last thing I remembered before losing consciousness was some woman yelling at her husband "GET BACK IN THIS CAR! HAVEN'T YOU EVER SEEN TITS BEFORE?!!"

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I woke up in the hospital with no idea of how I'd gotten there. The ER physician said they'd stopped counting at 183 stings and that he'd seen people die from far fewer stings than that. I was a mass of angry, very painful red welts from head to toe. I was hoping they'd keep me in the hospital but they didn't.

I spent the rest of that day in or next to that icy mountain stream trying to kill the pain with a good case of hypothermia.

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I also told the Chit for Brains boyfriend that was IT.  We were heading home.

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The first thing I did upon arriving home was break up with Chit for Brains boyfriend. The second thing I did was throw all of that expensive new backpack gear right in the trash dumpster. 

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If you want to backpack the Appalachian Trail, I can show you in one illustration what to expect...

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Just send up a flare when you're ready to be rescued...

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