Balancing the Karma Wheel (Part 2 of 7)

Very early on a late November morning, four of us – Keith Oakes, Greg Harrell, Mark Harrell, and I – drove a few miles to the #407 exit off I-40 and continued through Sevierville and Pigeon Forge with impunity. A drive like this – 4 am on a weekday in the off season – is the only time I like these tourist towns. We all felt a bit smug at being able to drive quickly down this road which is normally the travelling equivalent of quicksand. You just can’t move quickly though Sevierville and Pigeon Forge unless it’s a time like this. I imagine it’s the same feeling you would get by tiptoeing past a couple of guard dogs who were asleep at their post. You feel like you’ve pulled something over on someone.

During the drive we traded manly stories, mostly about old hiking injuries and camping blunders, including a number of vomiting and diarrhea incidents. As I recall, it was Mark’s fast driving on some winding roads combined with our Hardee’s sausage biscuit breakfast that raised the subject of nausea. I told of my tendency toward car sickness whenever I combined lack of sleep, greasy food, and winding roads. Over the past 30 years I’ve puked in the early morning hours on most of the roads in the Smokies. Mark didn’t get the hint and continued to drive the car like he’d just stolen it.

We arrived at Newfound Gap parking lot about 4:45 am under the light of a bright moon, and we soon headed into the woods just to the right of the stone platform where FDR had dedicated the park in 1940, six years after it was actually established. Relying on the light of the moon assumed that we’d have a cloudless night – a fairly safe bet for this season of year, not to mention the fact that we were at the end of one of the driest summers in Tennessee history. And that’s exactly what happened – a clear, bright night. All the pieces were falling into place for a great day. The clear sky would give us bright moonlight by night and fabulous, panoramic views during the day. Mother Nature was cooperating beyond anything that we deserved.

So, of course, we were worried. We’d all been on enough fishing and hiking trips to have grasped the concept of “paying your dues.” You know the idea. If things are going well, just wait. They’ll get worse. Or, if things are going badly, they are just balancing out some brief, good fortune you had in the past. Because you’ve gotta pay your dues.

Sometimes in the cold of January, Keith will get antsy and need to go fishing in one of the nearby rivers. We both know the chances of catching some trout on a fly are pretty slim, and the chances of being warm and dry are even slimmer. On a typical January day, you’ll be frozen to the core if the day is cold and clear, or you’ll be wet if the weather is rainy and mild. The fish prefer mild and rainy, so that is our preference, too. However, like most folks, it’s hard to get away from work, so we fish when we can, not when we’d prefer. So, cold or mild, dry or wet, Keith will call me the night before and say, “Let’s go out and pay some dues. We might as well do it now so we’ll be all paid up when spring gets here.” Any fisherman knows that the logic is irrefutable. So, we go to the river to balance the karma wheel.

Only people with that kind of world view can step onto the trail on a beautiful, crisp, clear morning in the Smoky Mountains and wonder when “it” is going to happen. You know, IT – the sprained ankle or broken leg, the forgotten jacket or lost water bottle, the 33 degree rain or the iced-over trail. The closest we can get to being optimistic in such circumstances is hoping that whatever “it” is, it will happen on the way home at the end of the trip. So we walked into the forest, thrilled but uneasy at such perfect conditions. And, being the oldest one in the group, I probably had the most to be worried about because it’s usually the old deer in the herd that dies when conditions become harsh.

[To be continued.]