Hollywood has a way of creating moments that deliver the feeling of the unexpected, even though we all kind of know what is going to happen. Great directors are able to take the same surprise-scene formulas and use them over and over again, with similar effect. Sometimes those moments themselves turn into cult classic situations on film. For example, we all know what “I’ll be right back” means in a horror film. Someone goes to the basement, or outside to check out a noise, and we all know that person is never coming back. We can all relate to the frustration of that person NOT foreseeing their obvious, imminent demise. “WHAT?! Don’t go! No, no, no! You’re going to die! NOOOOOOO!!!!!!…… Ok, fine. Go. You deserve it. Moron.”
We also know what happens when our protagonist plunges into the icy depths of a river after jumping off a bridge to evade capture. No one could survive that fall! The camera will pan over the water and show us the bubbles rising up, presumably from the corpse sinking into the depths. I wonder if that was ever a film crew discussion?
Film Crew Boss: “Guys, we need bubbles. Bodies emit bubbles when they sink to the bottom.”
Film Crew Underling: “When I throw sticks into the water, there’s no bubbles. Aren’t these people dead?”
Film Crew Boss: “It doesn’t matter! People expect bubbles. But no, stupid. They aren’t really dead. Hungry Cat is about to make that point.”
An uncomfortably impossible amount of time will pass with several panning shots convincing us that it’s all over. But then, inevitably, a gasping head will emerge from the frigid brook, and our beloved protagonist will defy all odds (yet again) and demonstrate survival of the impossible.
Hollywood has figured out how to keep us in suspense even when we know quite well what the outcome will be. It’s an art, and apparently not one that I have mastered. After I finished my thru-hike attempt of the CDT early, I kind of disappeared for a while. Sure, I wrote a few check in posts, but that’s about it. Resurfacing now, I’m kind of the equivalent of a series that ended with that classic protagonist drowning scene, and then failed to get funding when the next season came around. Two seasons later, the funding comes in, the protagonist gasps out of the icy depths in the first episode and everyone is like: “What? Who’s this guy again? What was this show about? Ohhhhh. Oh yeah, that guy. Poor bastard.”
So, SURPRISE! I’m back. I’m not dead, thankfully. I have a new website. Yep, again. I originally moved off of trail journals to make sure that I wouldn’t lose my content, which is never really guaranteed on someone else’s site. I also wanted more creative control, but I moved to a hosting provider called Wix. They make it easy to get started, but kind of hold your content hostage inside their platform. Good luck exporting all of your blog entries on your Wix site – it won’t happen! So, I moved again to WordPress, which is why the site looks very different. If you think it looks a bit stark and uncolorful, you’d be right. It’s kind of deliberately so, as I prefer a clean, minimal look to things where possible. I’m also no web designer, nor do I intend to be. Nevertheless, welcome to the machine (for all of you Pink Floyd fans out there). The new machine, I guess. It is still a work in progress, but I’m making progress. Here are some quick notes about the new site:
- All of my writings are still housed here, including old stuff. The categories you’ll see in the menu side bar group together trail journals and posts by trail.
- You can still subscribe to get notified of new posts. If you are receiving a notification of a post then you were previously subscribed via my old website and remain subscribed.
- You can comment on new posts and also contact me via my contact form.
- I added a page on gear that I am using. People often ask me about gear, so not only will I be posting gear lists for my hikes moving forward (so you can see what I pack for specific trips), but I am keeping a running list of the gear that I regularly use and love. I change out gear periodically, so this allows you to see the latest and greatest.
- I took away the videos page. All of my videos live on YouTube anyway, so it was redundant.
- I took away the photo gallery page. I think most people just view photos in posts where they have more context.
- I added a Trip Planner section. I generally put a fair bit of effort into planning my hikes, and I realized I could be sharing that and helping others with the knowledge and tools that I compile, so I plan to keep adding to that section. It might include map notes, resupply guides, mileage plans, etc. It’s a work in progress as some of the tools I’d like to share are currently too close to chicken scratch.
I’m sure I’ll write about my time between my botched CDT thru-hike and now (summer 2021) in detail at some point. There is too much to unpack there at the moment. That said, in a nutshell I:
- Set about finding a job
- Found a job with a tech startup
- Obsessed over that job and growing the business, working long hours much of the time
- Failed to maintain life balance and let select personalities get to me
- Willingly flew too close to the sun and almost burned myself back down to my pre-AT charred state, making Icarus, himself, jealous of my performance, seething in his mythical grave
- Quit said job, though I spent months hiring and training my replacement before finally exiting, so thankfully I left on good terms
And that kind of sums it up. I left the company with a more robust and seasoned skillset, one with which I could potentially go out on my own and use as a self-employed consultant. But, to date, I have not taken on any projects in the several months since my leaving. I’ve had several potential opportunities, but I’ve become painfully aware of the difference between being really good at something and actually enjoying it. I wish I enjoyed the implementation of that work more. I don’t. I get great satisfaction out of small aspects of it, and I’m really, really good at it. But inevitably, corporate culture and personalities suck the life out of it for me. It’s a conundrum, especially when it feels like my best way to put food on the table. Nevertheless, I turned those projects down. At least for now. I’m grateful to at least have some employable skills for when I need them.
Lucy the Cat continues to be our trusty companion. She’s getting old and has struggled over the last year with her health. We are currently still in the process of trying to figure out how best to help her and keep her comfortable in her older, wiser years. We actually got her out of the house and on a mini-adventure in a nearby park, which was interesting, to say the least. She sleeps more than she used to nowadays, except for when we are trying to sleep, which of course means she is trying to wake us up because if she’s awake, she wants us to be awake. She still plays with her red ribbon, though less frequently in her golden years.
When I finished hiking the AT, I said that I wanted to write more. I realized the benefit of having a creative outlet. Yet, I did not prioritize that when I went back into the grind. I guess that’s partially why the nickname “the grind” exists. Grinding is done to wear something down to small particles or dust. It’s the final frontier of resource utilization. Why would anyone want to willingly go back to that? In 2019 I named my website “Unfettered Footsteps,” partially as a reminder to myself that I didn’t want to go back to that kind of work-focused life. I will write more about it at some point, but let’s just say that, while my intentions were good and my motivations made sense at the time, I have learned some hard and good lessons this last round. In many ways, most of 2020 felt a little bit like going through a washing machine on “heavy” cycle. I’d like to think that I came out of it all a little cleaner somehow, but I guess I won’t really know until the effects of the agitator wear off, which will take some time.
All that is to say, if you have actually hung in with me this long and are reading this now, I’m incredibly grateful. I’m still often amazed that anyone would want to read anything that I write. At all. I appreciate you hanging in with me on this journey, whatever it is at this point. If you were previously subscribed via my old website, you should still be subscribed through my new WordPress site (hopefully I accomplished this properly). This may actually be the only reason anyone reads this! If you are subscribed and don’t want to be and can’t figure out how to unsubscribe from the email notifications of new posts, you can always fill out the contact page and I will take care of helping you get off of my notification list. I think I have the subscribe/unsubscribe stuff all working properly now, but it is by no means my intent to spam anyone with my writing.
Today, I just wanted to get back on the horse and share a little bit about some of the hiking I’ve been doing. After all, hiking is how we all became connected! I suppose you could argue that writing is how we all became connected. Maybe we’ll go with “writing about hiking is how we all became connected.”
The pandemic that started in 2020 kept my world pretty small. Pandemic + demanding job + growing a startup during a pandemic + obsessive personality = Hungry Cat’s head to the proverbial grindstone. Some might even say my head was in the sand. I would reply “there’s no sand in Georgia.” Then that person would outflank me with “But there is plenty of clay, which is thicker and stickier than sand, and you still managed to get your head stuck in it.” And this about sums up my social engagement level in 2020 – conversations with imaginary people inside my own head. My biggest outlet during that time was running, which has always been my easiest and most satisfying go-to de-stressing, re-centering activity. It helps bring me back to equalibrium, feeling good, and all I have to do is open the door and run outside.
I went out for a few occasional hikes. If I wasn’t running in my surrounding Atlanta neighborhoods, I was usually running on the trails at Stone Mountain Park. I came to love this place for its proximity and my ability to be surrounded by beautiful nature so close to home. I find that I can sink into a happy place while there, and while not the same as the feeling I get in more remote locations, it is incomparably satisfying in its own way. I enjoyed the trails at the park so much that I made a video about it, also capturing a training hike that I was on at the time. It was still chilly then – I’m wearing sweatpants in that video. That should tell you something about my fashion choices.
I was spending a lot of time training because I was planning another thru-hike. It’s what I do when I quit my corporate jobs, after all. I made another video specifically about training for long-distance hiking. I did this partly because I wanted to share my techniques (I’ll not claim to be a fitness whiz, but these specific 5 techniques work great for me), and partly to dispel the impression I seemed to have left some with: that I was this guy who was always out there backpacking. On the contrary, almost all of my training is actually done without backpacking, or even really hiking! I’ve already described how encompassed with work I can become. Combine that with other hobbies, responsibilities at home, relationships, a HUGE traffic disincentive for driving anywhere here in Atlanta, and the needs of Lucy the Cat, and you get the picture. I think this is probably the case for many people who like to go backpacking. It’s just hard to find the time to spend multiple days hiking to train for hiking. So I made that video, but I digress….
I like running and training regularly just to keep in good condition. It makes me feel good, physically and mentally. That said, in this case I was training specifically to prepare for a thru-hike of the Benton MacKaye Trail. The BMT is a 290 mile trail that winds from Springer Mountain through Georgia, Tennessee, and North Carolina, ending near Davenport Gap at the northern end of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. I had been wanting to hike this trail for quite a while. One of my favorite, closer-to-home (e.g. 2.5 hours) spots for a day hike or trail run is Three Forks – the area just north of Springer Mountain where it drops down into the valley that Noontootla Creek cuts through. The BMT and AT share the same footpath there for a short period of time. The AT drops down from Springer Mountain. The BMT does as well, though through a more winding path. Both join just before crossing over Noontootla Creek on a beautiful wooden bridge, and on the northern side of that bridge is Forest Service road FS58. I LOVE this area. It is full of mountain laurel and rhododendron. Unfortunately, it can be a little crowded on weekends because of the road access.
The BMT and AT split off at Long Creek Falls, which can be reached via a short side trail to the west. The BMT heads west away from the AT as it begins to snake around towards Blue Ridge, GA. This section is quite beautiful and, after nine miles, leads to a huge swinging cabled wooden bridge over the Toccoa River. I had paddled this river several times, including the stretch under this bridge. I had hiked the BMT to the bridge previously with my wife, where I famously got my camp mug stuck in a tree while trying to use it as a weight to throw a rope to hang a food bag. My wife enjoys reminding me about that. I had also hiked the BMT as part of a 60-mile loop I put together using the AT, Duncan Ridge Trail, and BMT, so that I could thru-hike the Duncan Ridge Trail. I made a video about that hike too, though I did so with my phone and was still trying to do point-of-view shots, so I definitely would not want anyone to judge my current or future videos by that one! It wasn’t my finest. Trust me – the BMT videos will be much better.
As you can see, I have somewhat of a history of flirting with the BMT. Over time, that developed into a real desire to get to know it better, and before long, into an ear-marked obsession with thru-hiking it. Danielle Steel could probably best describe my love affair with trails. They tend to get hot and heavy fast. Maybe it’s because I’m always kind of chasing the feeling I had with the first long trail I ever hiked – the Appalachian Trail. We won’t get all inwardly analytical about that drive in this post though. In fairness, I have always loved, and still love, the adventure of A to B journeys, whether that is paddling a river, hiking a trail, or just taking a new route on a neighborhood walk. The BMT was no different really – just more fascination with another adventure.
Newly (f)unemployed, I was training and planning to hike the BMT. At the same time, given my unemployed status and the fact that the BMT is not the longest of commitments at 290 miles, I decided I would also thru-hike the Bartram Trail. Of course, I would rest for a week or so in between hikes. Not unlike my interest in the BMT, I developed a fascination with the Bartram Trail while exploring around the Chattooga River with my wife. We were hiking along the Chattooga River Trail one day and parked at the Bartram trailhead on Highway 28 at Russell Bridge. As we turned off from the Bartram Trail to keep traveling along the Chattooga River, I thought, “Huh….I wonder where that goes….” And so it began. Later in 2020 I would hike the Bartram Trail from Warwoman Dell up to a side trail that leads to Pinnacle Knob. I remember that it was a Saturday and my boss began texting me about something he wanted. These were perfectly timed texts that arrived just as I came back into cell phone range on Pinnacle Knob. As the glory of its views entered my retinas, the buzz of my phone reminded me that my only escape was boundaries that I repeatedly failed to maintain.
The Bartram Trail is approximately 116 miles and runs from Georgia at the Georgia-South Carolina border up into North Carolina, ending at Cheoah Bald on the Appalachian Trail. It supposedly roughly retraces part of the path of 18th/19th century naturalist William Bartram. I started researching this trail and realized that it is not as commonly hiked, at least not as a thru-hike. This, of course, made it feel very adventurous and appealing to me, so I added it to my list of to-be trail mistresses. Indeed, I did complete this hike in early June.
So, I have two hikes to write about: the Benton MacKaye Trail and the Bartram Trail. They were very different hiking experiences, and different personal experiences for me. I wrote notes on both of them, and filmed both of them. I am currently working on finishing up editing what will be an episodic video series on the Benton MacKaye Trail thru-hike. The Bartram Trail videos will follow that. I learned a few good hiking and backpacking lessons on both trails that I will share, in addition to writing some of those trail memoirs. Honestly, I have no idea what writing about these hikes is going to produce. This is usually how it works with me – it just ends up coming out in whatever form it was meant to take on. I guess I’ll leave it there as “coming soon.”
I’ll delve back into some of the life stuff as well too, at some point, because I feel like honesty in that area can sometimes help give other people some justification, or validation, for their own experiences and feelings. I basically am going through a period right now where it simultaneously feels like I might sort of know what I want to do (maybe I don’t exactly know how to do it yet), but where I also have no idea what I’m doing. It’s always a little scary for me to watch money fly out of my bank account without new money coming in to replace it. But, I also feel that I’ve been a slave to that game for a long time and I need to do a better job of breaking the cycle. At least I’ve been a good saver. There’s that. It’s also always difficult going through times of feeling a bit lost. However, much like with hiking, pushing through these things is part of the journey, and that’s the part of the journey I’m on right now.
I will end this post here, to be continued. This will be my resurfacing. Let’s see how it goes. As I was preparing to type all of this, an old trail acquaintance from the AT emailed me to say hello: Sugarfoot! We met the day I left Mosey’s hostel in NJ and crossed the Pochuck Boardwalk. It was so nice to hear from someone from my Appalachian Trail journey, and also to find out that he is again attempting a thru-hike of the AT this year. You can read his Trail Journal and follow along – I have been catching up on it and really enjoying his writing. I think you will too. Best of luck Sugarfoot! I think often and fondly of my interactions with and the support I received from readers of my AT Trail Journals and those I met along the way. I hope this post finds you all happy and well!
Happy Trails, Talk Soon,
-Hungry Cat
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