One of the most exciting things about a long distance hike, especially on a trail as well traveled as the AT, is the people you meet along the way. In the next few weeks I will try to do several posts about some of the different people Jesse and I ran into along the way. Many AT thru-hikers have a huge community of fellow thru-hikers that they hike along side of all the way to Maine. When you spend that much time hiking alone, interactions with other humans become incredibly valuable. Many people who begin their thru-hike do begin alone, and I admire those brave people. Luckily, I had one of my best friends hiking with me so I never had to experience week long stretches where I rarely saw another human being. Being completely alone in the middle of the woods can drive any sane person to the brink of insanity. We ran into many people who were so starved for human interaction that I felt like I knew most of their life story before I could even get in two words. Humans tend to be social creatures and the lack of social interaction often times is one of the major factors that can drive someone off of the trail permanatly. Because Jesse and I started so early, we didn’t have too many fellow hiking partners that we saw on a daily basis. We leaned on each other when things were tough and it was fortuante that we knew we always would have one another there to pick each other up when we began to lose motivation. Without that support from one another I don’t know if either of us would have been able to keep the fire burning on such a strenuous trip. However, the majority of people do begin alone and rely on others they meet along the way to fill their need for social interaction. There were a few people we met that hiked with us for a few weeks and who became our trail companions. However, there was one person that stayed with us for an extended period of time (from Pennsylvania to Maine) and who helped shape some of my fondest memories and funniest stories from our thru-hike.
When we started in the middle of one of the worst winter weather storms in recent history in north Georgia, we felt like we were the only ones on the trail. We hardly ran into anyone for several weeks other than day hikers who thought we were absolutely crazy for starting a thru-hike in that kind of weather. There were several names that kept popping up in the shelter registers for the first week or so, but which stopped appearing shortly after because they had gotten off of the trail due to the weather. (For those that don’t know a shelter register is a note book found in almost every shelter for hikers to sign in and write what ever they want. Thru-hikers often use them to show where they have stopped or stayed and to write encouragements, warnings, instructions, etc. to hikers behind them. It is one of the major forms of communication on the trail and allows you to see what other thru-hikers might be near you.) One name we saw consistantly was Uncle Frank. Uncle Frank did not sign the register like most hikers, however. Typically when I wrote in the register it would look something like this:
“Tough day today. Battled blow down trees and deep snow for 16 miles. Trail maintenance crews, ya’ll have your work cut out for you this year. On to the NOC tomorrow for some pizza and PBR! - Boomerang.”
Short, sweet, and to the point. It lets people know we were not pleased with the condition of the trail, but that we had no intention of turning around. It also lets any other hikers that might be near us know where we are headed if they would like to push on and meet up with us.
However, an Uncle Frank entry would probably look something more along the lines of this:
“WWWHHHHOOOOOAAA WEEEEE DOGGGY DOG DAMN DITTY! Talk about the ice age, I’m cooler than a polar bear’s tonails right now. Killed three mice with my trekking pole in this shelter, I’m so hungry I just might eat em’.... joking... but seriously, I might. Here’s a riddle: What’s hungry as hell and cold as a block of ice? The Aswer is Uncle Frank! I’m freakin’ starvin’ bitches! Pushin’ on to the NOC, I heard they got pizza and beer. Who wants some???? Can I get an Amen??? - Uncle Frank”
That type of entry would almost always be followed by some crazy, abstract cartoon drawing that made very little sense. His entries were always off the wall and obnoxious, but somehow entertaining. I remember the first time we started speculating about what this Uncle Frank Character might be like.
I looked up after studying the register of the Low Gap Shelter in Georgia for quite some time. “This Uncle Frank guy has been here too,” I said to Jesse. “Get a load of this picture he drew.” I tossed the notebook to Jesse who was fiddling with his sleeping bag.
His eyes scanned the page and a confused smile stretched accross his face. “This guy seems like a dueche bag,” he said, his eyes still searching the page for clues.
“Uncle Frank,” I repeated. “How old do you think he is?”
“I don’t know. He is probably one of those old, crazy drifter dudes that lives on the trail.”
I let the image form in my head for a mintue. “Yeah, I’ll bet he has one of those crazy beards that hasn’t been trimmed in about 10 years," I said. “Probably, a nest and birds and crap living in it.”
“Yeah dude, I guarantee you he’s hauling around an old army rucksack full of weapons and weird stuff.” Jesse studied the eccentric artwork for another minute. “Yeah man, no doubt about it. This Uncle Frank guy has killed people,” he announced and tossed the notebook to the corner of the shelter.
And that was the image we had of Uncle Frank for a long time: An old, wild haired, bearded, possibly murdering drifter. I had that image even after we ran into another guy, Kevin, who told us that he had gone through the Smokies with him. Kevin swore to us that he was a young kid, about 21, that was funny and good natured. That was not the image I got from reading his shelter register entries or from the trail name, “Uncle Frank.” I liked the image I had created in my head better, despite the multiple differing reports we got from people that had met him. It was a topic of discussion quite frequently between Jesse and I, though. Who was this mysterious Uncle Frank and when were we finally going to run into him? There was one thing we were sure about him, however. The dude could hike. We knew from his entries that he had started the trail the day before we did, so we never expected him to be too far ahead of us. Still, we had burned through the 570+ mile state of Virginia without taking a day off and still had not caught him. We knew he was not far ahead of us because we never missed one of his eccentric register entries. Nonetheless, the real Uncle Frank alluded us and all we had to go on was the image of a hiker which was somewhere inbetween a murdering mad man and a fun loving young kid.
It was not until just before we hit the Pennsylvania line that we would learn the real identity of this mystery man. It was a warm day in late April and we knew from the registers that we were right on his heels. Two different day hikers we had passed told us they had seen a guy that introduced himself as Uncle Frank that morning and that he was probably not far ahead of us on the trail. Then, late that afternoon we came across a trekking pole in the middle of the trail. The pole had a note on it which read something along the lines of: “Hear thee, hear thee. This trekking pole has been of the utmost benefit of the great and noble Uncle Frank. It has accompanied me on my long journey beginning in the mountains of Georgia, and at last, it rests here for it’s next quest. It was made in my basement from the finest PVC pipe known to man. Please enjoy. Sincerely, -Uncle Frank”
The home made trekking pole was the first physical evidence other than his journal entries that this elusive figure actually existed. We were close indeed. We hiked on quickly, determined to finally meet him for ourselves. Finally, just when we had crossed into Pennsylvania we saw him standing there. Just beyond the sign that marked the Pennsylvania border there were railroad tracks, and he stood in the middle of the tracks staring straight up at the sky. He was far too preoccupied to notice us approaching.
We knew it was Uncle Frank as soon as we saw him, though. After reading someone’s entries for over two and a half months you get the feeling that you know that person without even having met them. I mean come on, a guy standing in the middle of some railroad tracks staring at the sky? That is such an Uncle Frank thing to do. There was no doubt about it.
His eyes stayed fixed on the sky as we approached. I followed his gaze, but there was nothing extraordinary about the direction he was looking. Just some clouds and a couple of birds overhead. He looked as others had described hime with short hair and a thru-hiker beard, but not one that was housing a family of birds as I had pictured. He did look quite young and not very threatening. So much for the murdering drifter image. He had on dirty rain pants and a rain jacket although it was a sunny day. The waist belt of his pack dangled unbuckled by his sides and the pack itself was tiny. It was an ultralight pack, which explains some of the reasons why we had such difficulty catching up to him.
We were about fifteen yards from him before he realized we were there. He jerked his head toward us and looked startled. He blinked hard a couple of times and shook his head as if to dislodge whatever he had been transfixed on a moment ago. Then he smiled.
“You must be the Georgia Boys!” he exclaimed.
Jesse and I exchanged glances. Evidently our reputation had proceeded us as well. “Yes sir,” Jesse said. “And you, no doubt, must be the one and only Uncle Frank."
"His eyes darted back and forth between the two of us. “Yeah! How’d you know?” he said excitedly.
“We have seen every one of your shelter register entries since Georgia,” I said.
Uncle Frank looked puzzled as if he was not aware that other people read the register entries after he left them behind. “Oh right, right,” he said. There was a pause as he considered that and I was about to ask him how far he was planning on hiking today, but he quickly began firing off one question after another before I could get a word out. Where did you come from today? What about the day before? Did you meet Fama? Kevin? Where did you see him last? When did you get through the Smokies? Did you have snow shoes? How long did it take? What was your favorite part of Virginia? and the questions kept coming. After a break in the barrage of questions Uncle Frank’s eyes lit up and he dug into the pockets of his rain pants for something.
“Hey! I almost forgot,” he exclaimed. “Do you guys like chicken?” he said.
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| Uncle Frank in his rain gear on another sunny day |
“Chicken?” Jesse said suspiciously.
“Yeah! Fried Chicken” Uncle Frank said. He pulled two pieces of fried chicken out of his pocket and offered them to us. “Yeah go ahead.” He grinned and nodded at the chicken in his extended hand. “It’s still fresh, some lady gave me her left overs at the park around lunch time.”
Jesse and I looked at each other. Then Jesse shrugged and grabbed a piece from Uncle Frank’s extended hand.
“Oh what the hell," I muttered under my breath and reluctantly grabbed a piece and took a bite. Uncle Frank dug deeper into his pockets and produced another piece for himself. The three of us stood there on the rail road tracks talking and laughing for a long time as we ate all of the reserves of chicken that Uncle Frank had stashed away in his pockets.
We didn’t know it at the time, but Uncle Frank, or Ford (his real name), would become one of closest friends on the trail. He was not as crazy in person as his register entries made him out to be, but his tendency to be a little off the wall led to some fun times and good memories. He was a funny guy that helped make things entertaining again when the trail had seemed like it was starting to become a chore. I think that this story is a good indication that with Uncle Frank we never knew exactly what to expect. Whether it was finding us some sketchy place to stay for the night in a town or having to lie down in the middle of the trail to take a nap because of his narcolepsy, there was always something unexpected happening when he was around. |
| Uncle Frank and me after we all hitched a ride into town in an ambulance |
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| Uncle Frank at the Vermont/New Hampshire border |
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