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PAGE 8A PICKENS COUNTY PROGRESS THURSDAY. JULY 26. 2007
Two-thirds of the wav: closing on three quarters
Will Waller beyond the Hudson
Mills Seamless Gutters
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By Jeff Warren
Thursday, April 12, Pickens
County's Will Waller stepped
off on the Appalachian Trail
from the Georgia terminus at
Springer Mountain. By early
September, Waller hopes to hike
all of the trail (2,175 miles) to
end his trek on Maine's Mt.
Katahdin, the trail's northern
terminus.
Thursday, July 13, Waller
telephoned from New York state
where he had just crossed the
Hudson River. There, with
about 800 trail miles remaining.
Waller had already accom
plished two-thirds of his jour
ney.
"I have met a wide variety of
people," Waller said over the
wire. "Well, about thirteen-hun
dred miles of ever-changing
people. The hikers have been
fairly normal. The people who
come out and do trail magic
have been some of the most
eccentric people."
"Trail magic" amounts to
serendipitous treats or helps
hikers find along their path.
"Trail angels" are the eccentric
folk who take the time and trou
ble to make the magic happen.
“Hiking along you'll come to
a road,” Waller said, “and you'll
see a cooler there full of
Gatorade, water or Cokes. This
might happen twice a week, and
it's really fantastic.”
Waller said he has found a
cold beer waiting submerged in
a trail-side spring. Sometimes,
he said, he finds more than one,
(Waller arrived at legal drinking
age on the trail July 2.)
"You'll be miles away from a
road," Will said, "and you'll find
a 12-pack just for you." Well
maybe for you and a few of
your closest friends. "That's
been quite a delight, the trail
magic," he said.
At one road crossing, Waller
said, he met a trail angel hover
ing above a charcoal grill and at
just the right spot for a cheese
burger in paradise.
"I met one guy who said he
just got out of prison," Waller
recalled. The man told Will he
worked trail magic as a form of
penance and a way of washing
out the negative vibes of his
prison experience.
Recently, one of Waller's fel
low travelers (trail name:
Cheeseburger) happened on
trail magic that resulted in a
bear encounter. Waller said he
passed the site of the animal
confrontation a little behind
Cheeseburger where he noticed
a mangled styrofoam cooler.
Will said he learned the full
story later.
Cheeseburger told Waller he
came up on the bear while the
beast ate chocolate bars, caf-
feinated confection the fur-bag
was digging from a trail angel's
gift cooler. Emboldened by his
own chocolate cravings, the
brave Cheeseburger decided to
move the bear off the trove.
"This is our magic, not bear
magic," Waller maintained.
When the choco-boss bear
made no sign of budging,
Cheeseburger upped his brinks-
manship.
"He started making noises to
scare off the bear, and the bear
started chasing after him,"
Waller said. Hopped up on
Hershey's, the chocolate bear
was not to be messed with, and
Cheeseburger wisely, reluctant
ly surrendered the field.
"When he came back, the
bear had taken all the chocolate
but left the Cokes . . . which I
thought was bad form," Waller
commented. Maybe all those
Coke-swilling polar bears are
just an advertising ploy.
"Every state has its own fla
vor," Waller said of trail terrain.
"There's 200 miles of trail in
Pennsylvania, and it was not too
tough terrain-wise, but the rocks
are legendary there. There's no
dirt trail, just rocks."
"North Carolina and
Tennessee have huge ups and
huge downs," he said. Waller
found Georgia particularly
tough for its shorter ups and
downs in continuous supply. A
"roller coaster" he called it.
"The terrain gets much more
difficult as you go farther
north," Waller said. "After about
Connecticut, the three states
you worry about are Vermont,
New Hampshire and Maine,"
He said the Appalachian
Trail Conference website rates
hiking difficulty through New
Hampshire and Maine at eight
to ten. The difficulty scale tops
out at ten.
"It rates what I thought was
tough in North Carolina and
Georgia as sixes," Waller said.
New Hampshire and Maine
have longer mountain ascents,
he explained. "And they're noto
rious for not having switch-
backs, so it's straight up and
straight down," Waller said. "I'll
be finding out in a couple weeks
for sure."
Physically he feels ready, he
said. Ultra lean at the start from
Springer, he has gained five
pounds while on the trail. Most
through-hikers lose body
weight.
"I know one woman who's
lost 70 pounds," Waller said.
That sturdy, 35-year-old, Teuton
lass started with a 70-pound
pack, he said, and the only
weight dropped has been from
her physique. Trail name Alpine
Strider, "she'll put in huge
miles," Waller said. "She's very
German, and you don't mess
with her."
In the trail's overnight sleep
ing huts, the woman became
known as The Shelter Frau, he
said. That was for waking snor-
ers so she could inform them of
their infraction.
The Frau is in the United
States just to do the trail. Waller
said, and he has encountered a
Japanese man in-country for the
same reason.
"Most of the people I've met
are from Maine or Michigan,"
Waller said. "Thirty-one people
from Michigan." When he asks
where from in Michigan, they
raise one hand, he said, and
point to a spot on it. All of them
seem right proud their state is
shaped like a mitten, he com
mented.
Far from a solitary experi
ence, Waller's walk in the
woods is much more commu
nal. Nightly he shares a sleeping
shelter with other through-hik
ers in various states of grunge.
He encounters a hot shower and
a washing machine about once a
week, Waller said.
And he has given up logging
daily events on a digital audio
recorder as he did at the start.
He logs on paper now.
The other was too socially
awkward, Will explained.
Departing a packed lodge of fel
low travelers at day's end to go
sit alone in the dark and talk to
himself was uncomfortable, he
decided. Now he fills memo
books, writing six or seven
pages nightly by the light of his
headlamp, and mailing filled
books to his girlfriend.
His standard day has Waller
leaving camp around 9 a.m.,
lunching about 11 and making
camp at a shelter around 8 p.m.,
he said. After supper, he updates
the log and ends his day with
some reading, he said, again by
headlamp.
"I've been doing 20's [20-
mile days] since north Virginia,"
Waller said, with occasional
16's or 17's. His feet held up
until Virginia, he said, where his
toes started bleeding. That is
when Waller ditched hiking
boots for lighter footwear.
Today he cruises in Vasque Trail
Runners.
"They're real sturdy athletic
shoes, but they look just like
running shoes," he said.
"If you're unhappy on the
trail, it's one of two things,"
Waller said. "It's (1) your feet
hurt or (2) you're hungry. It's a
pretty simple life. And I'll tell
you, for me it's mostly the latter.
I can't eat enough."
Just now any fat, greasy
entree' would be the most
appealing, he said, as a break
from rehydrated pasta meals.
"I think the thing I crave the
most is fruit and vegetables," he
said. "I'll admit it's been getting
monotonous. If I don't see
another mac-n-cheese in my
life, Ill probably be OK with
that."
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Will Waller on the trail in Pennsylvania with girlfriend,
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"I thought that when I came
out here I would have all these
great epiphanies," Waller said.
"But most of the time I'm hav
ing to think about where I've got
to get to today. It's been disap
pointing in that way."
As with real life, he said,
daily tasks tend to crowd out
transcendent moments. At least
for Waller nothing self-induced
clouds opportunities to
encounter the transcendent. He
has discovered drug use com
mon among fellow hikers.
"There's a lot of pot," Waller
said. "Maybe half the people are
getting high. It's a hippie com
munity. It's everything you
think of when you think of get
ting away from society."
During the recent Trail Days
festival at Damascus, Virginia,
the popular intoxicant was psy
chedelic mushrooms. Rubbing
elbows with the drug culture has
taught him differences in peo
ple, Waller said.
"And it's taught me how similar
we all are," he said. "We're all
looking for something. Some
people are trying to find it on
the trail. Some people are trying
to find it in themselves. Some
people are trying to find it in
some mushrooms. But we're all
out here seeking."
Transcendent moments do
happen. There was catching
sight of the Potomac River at
Harpers Ferry, West Virginia
when Waller realized how far he
had walked to reach that point.
Dark days come too. His worst
on the trail came Wednesday,
July 11, he said, on the eve of
three months in.
"It was just hot," Waller said.
"It was the third straight day of
the heat. There was no water out
there. The water we had was
from the trail angels."
He felt bad physically that
day, had a headache and was
probably dehydrated, he said.
And he began to question
whether he needed to be out
there at all. The next day, the
day he spoke by telephone, had
been better.
“You never know what you
can really do,” he said. “I real
ized that today. I was climbing
the mountain called Black
Mountain. I'm usually looking
down at the trail, but I looked up
through a clearing in the trees
and could see the New York
skyline.
“As I'm standing on this
mountain, I'm seeing what looks
like a destroyer on the high seas,
and it's the skyline of New York,
and you can pick out the
Chrysler Building and stuff.”
He had hiked from Georgia
past New York City.
"The dreams that you think
can never happen, the things
that you think you can never do,
actually can happen," Waller
said, "and you'll end up surpris
ing yourself."
The day this story was pre
pared for the printing press,
Monday, July 23, Waller was
crossing into Vermont. His
mom, Jane Waller, said Will
would probably overnight
Monday in Vermont’s Seth
Warner Shelter, 1584.6 miles
beyond Georgia's Springer
Mountain.
With roughly 600 miles left in
the journey, Waller has 40 days
to reach Katahdin by Labor
Day. That schedule leaves him
two days to return to
Washington and Lee University
in Lexington, Virginia for the
start of senior classes
September 5th.
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