Oats on the Pinhoti: Days 18 and 19
Note: This article was originally published on The Trek and can be found at the link here. Oats’ packing list for the Pin
I woke up, grateful to not be swept away by the river and that it had stopped raining overnight. I bravely slid my last pair of dry socks into my soaking wet shoes and began my last full day of hiking on the Pinhoti Trail.
In the first couple miles, I encountered yet another swollen stream, its stepping stones under a couple inches of moving water. Last year, Jennifer Pharr Davis (author, record-breaker, Sawyer ambassador, and overall badass) wrote about a concept called the Freedom Step, which is when you commit to soggy feet because you know there’s no way you’ll be able to keep them dry the whole day. It was early, clear, and bitterly cold, but I knew what I had to do.
FREEDOM STEP!!! My mind screamed as I plunged my feet into the water for the first time that day. It was definitely the right decision considering there were at least a dozen more creek crossings over the next 2 miles, many of which also would’ve required either wet feet or a DC 20 acrobatics check (and I have -2 to dexterity.)
There were a couple crossings where the rushing water came up to my knees, which isn’t nothing but certainly not as concerning as intimidating as what I’d faced yesterday. I took slow, sure steps as I remembered the feat I’d accomplished the day before with pride.
As the morning turned to afternoon, I encountered the first person I’d seen in quite some time: an older woman with a bright red visor and the pack of a thru-hiker. We happily greeted each other, as we closed the distance between us. The woman introduced herself as Intrepid, which was written on the bill of her visor alongside the acronyms NH48 and PCT. That quickly informed me this woman was a badass, and she later confirmed that it referred to the Pacific Crest Trail thru-hike under her belt and her accomplishment of summiting all 48 4,000-foot peaks in New Hampshire.
She told me about a campsite 6 miles ahead that I simply couldn’t pass up, featuring the largest Poplar in Georgia, and I told her about the numerous creek crossings ahead for her. Eventually, we wished each other happy trails, and she continued on her SOBO Pinhoti thru-hike that had just begun.
It wasn’t hard to find the campsite. Intrepid wasn’t kidding about the tree.
In short, it was as perfect as a last night on trail can be.
The next morning, as I was packing up camp for the final time, I thought back to Trail Angel Rick and his warning about the northern terminus. Looking at FarOut, the trail (now Shoal Creek Trail) continues past the northern terminus of the Pinhoti and ends at Jack River Falls Campground. Also, a mile or two before the terminus, the Pinhoti intersects with the 300+ mile Benton MacKaye Trail and continues another 70 miles north to meet the Appalachian Trail.
About a mile after I filled up at the last water source before the terminus, I realized something awful. My bandana wasn’t tied around my shoulder strap. This bandana has been with me on most long-distance trek, and was given to me by a buddy from my days in the rock world. And by “given” I mean Xopher was incredibly kind once and let me borrow it, and I unintentionally have never given it back. (Xopher if you’re reading this right now and still want it back, it’s yours!) Xopher is incredibly kind and loves to be of service to others, and once gave me the bandana smeared with soothing essential oils, because working the 6-week long Tucson Gem Show and hauling around 25 kg boxes all day isn’t easy. It was sentimental to say the least. So I quickly checked my watch, did the math on how close I was to the terminus, dropped my pack, and started running back down the trail.
My first experience with wild hogs on trail!
The last time I definitely remembered having it on me was at that water source maybe a mile back. I ran as fast as my body would let me, walking hills when I needed and carefully scanning the ground in front of me as I went.
I’m no record setter but I’m a strong hiker, and I pride myself for being on time to shuttles almost to the minute. I ran as long as I thought I could while still leaving enough time to backtrack and reach the terminus before meeting Sarah at the campground. Thankfully, it was more downhill on the way back, so I exhausted myself a little less and scanned the ground an extra time, just to make sure I hadn’t missed the bandana among the roots and leaves. I was equal parts dedicated and disappointed.
Once back to my pack, I hauled it on my shoulders and continued at break-neck pace until I finally encountered the official signpost, “Pinhoti Trail Northern Terminus.” I paused just long enough to take a red-faced selfie, and immediately continued on down the trail to catch the shuttle. The trail was now leading to a campground, but no longer officially considered Pinhoti. I was set to meet Sarah at 11. My watch read 11:02. I picked up the pace.
I vaguely remembered hearing about a campground if you continue on the Pinhoti, so I assumed that was the pick up point. The alternative would have been to turn around, backtrack on the Pinhoti and take the BMT to Watson Gap, so intuitively continuing on just made sense.
It took about 5 minutes for me to realize just how far the campground is from the northern terminus. Based on my little FarOut dot, I probably had 2.5 more miles of trail ahead. Buzzing with anxiety, I took off. Pack on back, I ran downhills and kept a fast pace uphills until I got sick with exhaustion. I didn’t have a good time – pausing occasionally to puke, pack on, off the side of the trail – but I appreciated the full circle moment as I thought back to my first on Flagg Mountain when I got sick on the first climb, and upon arriving at the first campsite.
Sad Oats 🙁
Eventually, gloriously, I finally arrived at the campground. And then I realized I was completely and utterly alone. A satisfying session of sobbing ensued. After a couple minutes of pitying myself and the situation I’d gotten myself into, I began to get some perspective. I hit the button on my SPOT that notified my family and friends of my exact coordinates, and started to settle in. After filtering water and some foot care, I walked back up to the gravel road to the turn-in for the campsite, parked myself in the sun directly in front of the sign, laid out my sleeping pad, grabbed some trail mix, closed my eyes, and began to photosynthesize.
My thought process was that I needed to stay where I was for the moment. After about 30 minutes of not seeing me, I figured Sarah had returned to Toadshade (and I didn’t blame her) and would come back for me later. I still had a day’s worth of food, a good water source, my home on my back, and it was a beautifully sunny day. Cold and clear sky above me, I started the long, relaxing process of sunbathing and drying off my socks, shoes, and trail tights that had seen at least a dozen creek crossings over the course of the morning. This was a beautiful place, I felt comfortable, and I knew eventually I would be okay, and, though not ideal, it wasn’t an emergency.
A couple hours of napping and snacking later, a pair of horses came around the bend of the gravel road over the creek. The horses and their riders steadily approached me and, given that this was the first sign of people I’d run into since I arrived, I got up to have a chat.
“Are you Oats?” The lady yelled from horseback when they were finally within earshot.
“Yep!” I said cheerily.
“We’re the search and rescue team sent out to find you!”
My stomach dropped. She must’ve seen the look of absolute horror on my face, because she quickly backtracked, laughing. “No, we just ran into Sarah at Watson Gap. She’s looking for you!”
Turns out Sarah usually picks up and drops off people at a spot about 5 miles north of the gravel road at a trailhead for the Benton MacKaye Trail called Watson Gap. Because it wasn’t intuitive that I turn around at the terminus and instead continued on to the site that was a straight shot south, and we never specifically named a site, we’d gotten unlucky and gone to different pick up points. And of course, I hadn’t seen service since before my bandana run.
The horse riders were a kind married couple out with their horses on the Pinhoti for the day. They said they would update Sarah when they either ran into her again or got service, but recommended I start to walk the gravel road and started on closing the gap myself. I thanked them about a million times and, camp shoes locked in, started slowly making my way north towards Watson Gap.
Happy Oats!
After about an hour and a half, I began to hear the crunching of gravel behind me. A truck! The couple rolled down the window, and immediately they asked if I needed anything. I smiled and asked if I could just leap into the bed of their truck for another couple miles. They told me to hop in! So I climbed the tire (in camp shoes and with a pack on, so, pretty clumsily) and hauled myself over the side and plopped into the empty truck bed.
What couldn’t have been more than a couple miles later, I saw a car approaching from the other direction with a blonde woman in the driver’s seat. I tapped the glass behind the couple inside. “That’s my ride!! I’ll hop out here!!”
Both vehicles crunched to a stop as they closed the distance between them, and before I knew it Sarah and I were embracing and laughing, giddy and pleased to we found each other at last.
As she drove me back to Toadshade, she told me of the morning she’d had. She sat at Watson Gap for 2 hours(!!!) before she started getting worried and texting mutual friends to see if they’d heard from me. After Nathan from Pinhoti Outdoor Center assured her I’m a strong hiker and it was unusual for me not to have shown up, her anxiety grew. She texted a couple hikers on trail I’d bumped into in the past 24 hours to see if they’d seen me more recently, and chatted with anyone entering or exiting the woods just in case they encountered me on trail.
That’s when the horse riders found me, and they’d smartly exchanged numbers to let her know I was, in fact, alive. But it still took a couple hours to get in touch when I finally got service away from the campground.
We were both so relieved to find each other, and I couldn’t thank Sarah enough for her efforts and dedication to keeping me safe. Suffice to say, I gave her a pretty good (and well-earned) tip.