Sierra Club One Day Hike - 2013 ... The
Hike on 27 April
Saturday 27 April 2013 dawned crisp, clear,
and cool.
But our day started way before dawn.
Earlier in the week, Ann and I drove from home to the starting place
for the Sierra Club One Day Hike to check the time estimates from Mapquest and Google Maps. We also
wanted to make sure we understood the directions. Ann especially
wanted to make sure she would know how to get back home after
dropping me off. So on hike day we knew where to go and how long it
would take us.
We got up at 1:00. I'd actually slept
pretty soundly. And since I had packed my bags on Thursday night, and
set my hiking clothes out on the floor of my study, I was dressed and
ready to leave the house at 1:15. It took us 45 or 50 minutes to
drive to the Thompson's Boathouse parking lot in Georgetown,
Washington, DC where people were already gathering. Ann and I said
goodbye, and agreed that she would try to meet me at the second
checkpoint on the hike. Ann drove home to get some more sleep. I went
off to sign in and get my number.
After getting signed in there was a lot
of waiting around until all the others showed up and we got our final
safety talk from Mike. I sat on the curb and rested, not really
understanding why so many others seemed to prefer standing or walking
around. Seems to me that the first few miles would provide warm-up
enough for anyone's day. The full moon was bright overhead. There was
a chill in the air.
Then it was 3:00 and Mike led us out
into Georgetown to the start of the canal towpath.
I usually hike alone - and did all my
training alone - so it was quite different to be setting off in the
dark with about 100 other hikers. Most wore headlamps and we must
have been quite the sight. Anyway, as we got going I didn't feel that
I was anywhere near my usual pace, but figured things would thin out
as the tortises fell back and the hares leapt ahead. Then I thought
I could pick up to my usual tempo.
Very soon we got to the C & O Canal
itself and Mike sent us on our way. Then before very long I spied the
1 mile marker on the left side of the towpath. I thought I'd be
seeing them all as we went by in a crowd, but actually missed seeing
many of the markers. Things did thin out before too long, but we
weren't by any means hiking alone. We passed under the Beltway and
that's when I knew we were out of DC. If there was a sign at the
border, I missed it, too.
Then I saw the 10 mile marker! (hadn't
seen any others in the dark) I pulled out my watch to see how long it
had taken to get there. It was 5:30. The arithmetic was simple: 4
miles an hour. Faster than my usual pace, so between trying not to
be run over on the one hand, and trying to stay close to the people
in front of me on the other hand, it was clear we were moving at a
steady clip. And it was shortly after that point that I noticed that
things were really thinning out. I never had the sense that a lot of
people were passing me or that I was passing a lot of others. Seemed
to me that those numbers evened out, and I was pretty sure that more
people were in front of me than behind me. (I did ask twice at aid
stations if they could give me a rough estimate of how many people
were in front of me. Both times they looked at their clipboards and
said, "Oh, about 25 or 30." I don't really know if that was
the case or if that's what they tell everyone but the clear leaders.
I had thought I was back closer to # 50 or so out of the 95-125 who
were said to be starting the 100K.)
The first check-in spot came a couple
miles later. The One Day Hike folks had set up tables with Gatorade
on a small footbridge over the canal. We got checked off the list
and I poured down two cups of Gatorade before heading on up the path.
As I understand it, this is really where they get they count of how
many hikers they have. I suppose someone could check in at the
start, but decide at the last minute not to walk. And someone could
show up at 3:05, check in and follow the crowd up the path. But if
you're still walking at the 12 mile mark, you've committed to go as
far as you can.
The sun had come up enough at that
point that nobody had their headlamps on any longer. We passed Great
Falls and I saw the trailheads for the Billy Goat Trail. Near those spots the canal was wide and beautiful as the morning mists burned off:
I hadn't been sure Ann would get to the
aid station before me, but she clearly had. As we walked in from
there I enjoyed telling her that I'd seen lots of Mayapples blooming
along the way, but that the best sighting so far had been a pair of
red trillium that were just a day at most from opening in amongst a
Mayapple stand. Very soon the Seneca Creek aid station came into
view, and I settled into a chair so I could change my socks and eat
some of the fruit they had available. This was our "breakfast"
stop, so it included yogurt, fruit, coffee (?!), muffins, bagels, and
probably other food. I gulped some down and said goodbye to Ann.
Then I was off again. The next aid
station was at Edwards Ferry, only 8 miles away. On foot that's 2 or
2.5 hours. Ann made the drive much more quickly of course. As I was
walking along I stopped to take a photo of the 26 mile marker (at
9:51 am), and emailed it right away to my daughter in Iowa.
I hadn't
told any of my family that I was going to be walking 62 miles, so I
thought maybe seeing mile markers might pique their interest. Okay,
so 6 hours and 50 minutes isn't a fast marathon time; but we were
walking not running -- and were only a little over 1/3 of the way
done for the day.
Coming into the aid stations was always
good. Even if the rest was only for a couple minutes, it broke up the
day. And provided the chance for a little something different to
snack on. I had packed along a "trail mix" that I made up
of mixed nuts that Ann had roasted, some raisins, sunflower seeds and
M&M candies. I also took along a package of store-brand lemon
creme sandwich cookies. Protein, fat, sugar, and salt: the four
building blocks of life. The aid stations had oranges and bananas,
for example. Good stuff.
At Edwards Ferry Ann heard an older
volunteer talking to another walker and understood the volunteer to
say that she had walked the towpath 15 times. She also told us that
we would probably be running into 50K hikers soon. It's only 4.9
miles from Edwards Ferry to Whites Ferry where the 50K starts, and in
order for them to get a full 50 kilometers, they have to walk
downriver a bit, make a U-turn, and only then head upriver toward
Harpers Ferry. They'd all made the turn by the time I got there.
The Whites Ferry stop was our lunch
stop. I stopped briefly, got a custom-made peanut butter sandwich
from the support crew, changed my socks again, and shed my down vest.
Ann, acting as personal support crew, took the vest and sweaty socks
in her car so that I wouldn't have to carry them. Five or so miles
after Whites Ferry I snapped a photo of the mile 40 marker as I
passed it at a minute or two before 2:00 pm and emailed it to all my
kids. The arithmetic says that's a 3.6 mph pace overall, even with
the breaks at the aid stations. (Didn't figure that out at the time
the way I often figured my pace during practice hikes, but having
timed a few individual miles during the day I felt good about my
pace.) I seemed to be on target to finish by 10 pm.
On to the Monocacy River stop, 6.4
miles ahead, at the 42 mile marker. This was where Ann and I had
visited the canal a few weeks earlier. It's one of the many places
where the amazing engineering of the 19th century is still visible.
What to do when you're building a canal alongside the Potomac River,
and another creek or river joins in from the same side? Well, if
you're building the C&O Canal, you build a culvert for the
smaller creeks and run them under the canal; or you build an aqueduct
for your canal when you come to something the size of the Monocacy
River.
I stopped to change socks, get a snack,
put a couple quick bandaids on two toes, and talk with Ann. She took
a photo of me there at just before 2:45:
It was a bit after this station, that
there was a secret spot aid station for the hike. It was just a
couple people with a cooler of bottled water. I took advantage of the
opportunity to soak my bandana and pour a little water over my head
cool off a little. It was never really hot during the day, but this
was the warmest part of the day and I did need the cooling that
provided.
The next aid station was at Point of
Rocks, presumably named for some navigation hazard in the river. This
was the "dinner" stop for the hike. They were serving hot
soup that held no appeal for me at all. But I did order a lettuce,
tomato, and cheese sandwich, washed down with about a liter of
Gatorade.
While I was eating, seated on a small
grassy hill, Ann noticed some other folks spraying themselves down
with some sort of bug repellant. I hadn't noticed any bugs worth
worrying over during my whole walk, so that held no interest for me.
I suppose a July or August hike might have called for bug spray.
Another change of socks and I was on my
way.
The whole hike was passing fairly
quickly. Here's the C&O Canal in typical disrepair -- filled with trees and bushes rather than water -- as it appeared through much of the walk:
The Brunswick aid station was 6.6 miles
beyond Point of Rocks. Towards the end of that leg, I think it was,
the towpath turned into a road or driveway for some large summer camp
sort of affair. Ann met me before I got to that part of it, and we
walked in together as usual. Somewhere along the last mile before
Brunswick I felt a blister pop up on the little toe of my right foot.
It was at about the 50 mile mark. I had never done a 50 mile training
hike, though I'd thought about it, and the blister just may have been
avoided if I had. Or maybe not.
At Brunswick I hobbled into the first
aid part of the station, took a seat and un-booted my feet. One of
the first aid workers attended to blisters on both feet while Ann was
filling my Nalgenes with drink. I took another ibuprofen or two, as I
had done about every 4 hours, put on fresh socks and my boots, and
stepped very gingerly out of the first aid tent.
It was still light, but late in the
day. The next stop was the last one, and sat 7.3 miles ahead. It
would take a bit to get there. I've found that whenever I'm hiking
or backpacking more than just a couple miles, it's always hard to
convince the soles of my feet to get started again, especially after
having had my boots off. Usually that settles out after a dozen
steps. This time, it took a couple miles.
I fell in with a 50K walker and we
talked a bit as we went on. Less than a mile out of Brunswick I
stopped at the 55 mile marker to take a photo of it, and told her I
had emailed a couple photos to my kids without comments so as to make
them curious about what I was doing. She offered to take a picture of
me next to the marker, which I thought was nice.
We walked on, and after a couple miles,
as I said, my feet started to feel better again. Whether the nerve
endings just gave up sending pain signals, or the ibuprofen kicked
in, or what, I'm not sure. Anyway, I remarked on it and the other
hiker urged me to go on at my own speed. I wished her good hiking and
headed off ahead of her (she got to the finish while we were still
there, not too far behind me).
Darkness settled in and the few hikers
nearby -- mostly 50 K hikers, I think -- turned on their headlamps.
They struck me as 50 K walkers because they were in groups of 2 and 4
and chatting. The 100K walkers were pretty much all solo artists by
this point, focused, determined, and really not chatting (although I
had just talked for 2 miles, hadn't I?).
The full moon hadn't risen yet and I
checked my backpack again for the headlamp that I was pretty sure I
had left in a pocket of the down vest Ann had taken for me. Yeah, it
wasn't in the pack. The plus side of that was that then Ann could use
it as she came down from the finish line to walk with me. And that
she did. She must have come out about 2 miles from the end point,
down the hill through town, across the bridge over the Potomac, down
the towpath. It was good, as it always is, to see her.
People had talked about how hard it is
to climb the stairs from the towpath to the bridge, and then to walk
up the mile-long hill through Harpers Ferry. I didn't find either
hard on my legs. Different muscle groups maybe. Or that I had
trained well enough. What I would have found hard (without Ann) was
convincing myself that I hadn't missed a turn on the walk up through
town. The One Day Hike volunteers were there where we left the
towpath at the bridge, and in Harpers Ferry at the bottom of the town
(in the historic area), pointing the way to go. But blocks and
blocks later, with no signs pointing the way, my certainty was
wavering. Without my guide at my side I may have faltered. (There's a
sermon illustration in there.) Until, eventually and finally, there
were volunteers at the spot where we were to cross the road and head
into the Bolivar Community Center.
Then it was over. Just before 10:00 pm.
Cheers from the volunteers at the finish line as they checked my
number off and wrote down the time. A photo taken. A colorful patch
given. Some more food. Sitting a spell. And then off to our hotel,
where Ann had already checked us in.
It was only in the last couple miles
that my legs bothered me at all, and that was a spot behind my knee,
not in my muscles. Lots of rest over Sunday, and more ibuprofen cleared that
up quickly, too. And by Tuesday my toes and soles were recovered.
Now, a week later, I'm saying things to
myself like "Well, if I do it again, I'll make notes along the
way while I'm walking. And I'll take photos of the rest stops and
volunteers."
But we'll see about that later. Right
now I am thinking that since the available spots are so sought after,
that the nice thing to do would be to sit back let someone else sign
up in the February scramble for spots. Then, just maybe, if there is
room and the registration re-opens later, maybe then I might sign up
for another round.
