On our July hike up the largest of the Sugar Fingers on Sugarland
Mountain, Greg Harrell stayed ahead of me, as he usually does, but not too far
ahead because he knew that I was really struggling, possibly because he may
have heard a little whining from me at some point during the day. Sometimes he
was close enough that I didn’t even have to think about what route to take up
and over the cliffs and outcrops. I’d just follow his route. Other times, he
was far enough ahead that I didn’t know what route he had taken, which was
fine. Blazing one’s own path is a fun part of these sorts of trips, if you
don’t allow yourself to get spooked by the uncertainty of the challenge. This
was one of those trips in which you couldn’t possibly get lost, but you could
run into a dead-end every now and then by scrambling up a steep rock face maybe
ten or fifteen feet high, only to realize that you can’t finish the last ten
feet due to lack of handholds and footholds. You also can’t go easily back down
because you can’t see the footholds that you used on your way up. In those
moments, you aren’t stuck between a rock and a hard place; you are stuck
between a rock and open air… which is just as bad, or maybe worse. It should go
without saying that we try to avoid such places. It should also go without
saying that those places can’t always be avoided.
This trip was also an adventure because this was all new territory.
For the last two or three years, most of my off-trail hiking had been on old,
favorite routes – Drinkwater Pool, Trout Branch, Styx Branch, Cat Stairs. Some
of these routes are ones that we discovered and created from scratch. Others
were old routes from previous generations that were passed on to us, like a
torch, which we would pass on to others. I love those standard, familiar trips,
but it was good to experience the excitement and uncertainty of terra incognita again, helping to create
new paths out of thin air, rock, and dirt.
At the end of our nine-hour day we looked like a couple of coal miners
at the end of a long day underground, or maybe chimney sweeps emerging from the
fireplace… plus an acre of waist-deep stinging nettle at the end of the trip. My
day was miserable. I vowed never to hike again. But now that a few days have
passed and it appears that I may live, I’m reconsidering my vow. I may be
getting too old for this stuff, but I’ll probably revisit a few of the other
Sugar Fingers this fall, when temperatures are friendlier, and I have less
grass to cut, and the yellow jackets have died the slow, lingering death they
deserve.
And if I find that I’m too old or tired or beaten up to hike up from
the valley again, my ace in the hole will be that all these ridges are also accessible
from the top, from the Sugarland Mountain trail. I’m sure there are no worn
paths yet because this is all too new. But a few hardy souls may find the spots
where these side ribs meet the spine, and they’ll wander down as far as their sense
of adventure will allow. And maybe I’ll be one of them. Or maybe you.
