The Mystery of Uncle Frank

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.

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

Uncle Frank at the Vermont/New Hampshire border

Hopefully, that paints a pretty clear picture of our buddy Uncle Frank and offers a little more insight to what trail life was like. There are plenty more funny stories that involve Uncle Frank that I will try to write about soon so be sure to check in again.

Trail People

Anyone who has spent a significant amount of time hiking around the Appalachian Trail will tell you that it can be full of some strange people. There are also plenty of great, "normal" outdoor enthusiasts you might run into as well. However, chances are you are going to run into people that there is really no other word to describe them than just weird. The solitude and lack of judgment the AT offers to anyone, especially someone who might leave much of society scratching their head in confusion, is indeed attractive. You don't even have to go by your real name on the trail. In fact, it is discouraged. People you meet don't want to know your real name. Rather, you are always asked for your trail name.  People might have raised their eyebrows and assumed I was a weekend warrior, rather than a thru-hiker, if I were to introduce myself as Dave and not Boomerang. Receiving a trail name and actually using it is part of the thru-hiking experience and it adds to the allure of it all. You can step out of your old life and into a world where no judgment - well less judgment anyway- is passed simply based on the fact that you are a hiker striving to achieve some goal. The culture of the hiking community is very intriguing. One day you can be Steve the accountant who drives a Jetta and lives in a studio in the city and a month later you are "Bear Trap" the homeless, unemployed hiker who travels from state to state on foot.  Nonetheless, this is completely acceptable. It may not make a lot of sense to Steve's friends, family, or employer, but within the hiking community on the AT, it makes perfect sense. You can be whoever you want to be on the trail and nobody will really know the difference. Likewise, people that really do have a few screws loose have the freedom to be themselves without the consequence of alienating people around them, because most encounters on the trail are fairly brief. That person probably took to the trail for solitude anyway, rather than as a chance build long lasting relationships.

Everyone has their own reason for wanting to do a long distant hike and for most, their motivation for it cannot be explained in one simple, concise answer. There is no one common driving force behind every thru-hiker's decision to spend months walking up and down mountains, and that is why it attracts such a wide variety of people. The one thing everyone who hikes the trail does have in common is the conviction and willingness to do something truly out of the ordinary. The idea of spending 4-7 months hiking through some of America's most beautiful places sounds like a great and noble adventure to most people. However, actually acting on the idea is simply out of the question for the majority of people. And I agree, the majority of people are correct in their thinking. It takes a ton of sacrifice and it IS, in fact, pretty crazy by society's standards. Therefore, everyone you encounter on the trail that is spending a great deal of time out there is going to be out of the ordinary in some way or another. Some just tend to be much, much more out of the ordinary than others.

In my next few posts I would like to spend some time talking about some the different people we met during our hike. There were some that became our friends, some that we couldn't get away from soon enough, and some that were so downright strange that we couldn't help but like them.







Check back in soon for some hopefully entertaining stories and if you aren't a follower please take a minute to subscribe to the blog, and also recommend it to your friends.

Winter Wonderland

To everyone that reads my blog,

I would like to apologize to both of you for not updating much recently. A combination of being away at work, being lazy at home, and my computer being screwy and not allowing me to log in to my blog has led to this lack of updates. I'm sure you guys have been on the edge of your seat waiting for the next update so I'm sorry.

The mountains have been incredibly warm for this time of year. I leave to go back into the mountains for another 8 days tomorrow morning and the forecast looks like it is going to be another warm week with highs in the mid 60s and lows only in the low 40s. It feels strange that it is February but I am not complaining one bit. I don't want to get too attached to it because I anticipate another big freeze before spring comes, but I am definitely alright with a warm winter. It sure beats what we went through two years ago on the AT. The amount of snow we went through left me feeling like I would be fine if I never saw snow again in my life. I'll leave you guys with some pictures that make me shiver just looking at them again.

That is taken in the Great Smokey Mountains. Little did we know that would be just the beginning of the most physically challenging few days of my life.

There were miles of stretches where three steps might hold you somewhat near the top of the snow, but every third step or so you found yourself in this post hole position. It was incredibly frustrating and exausting to have to pull ourselves out of this all day.

Reckless, who is from south Georgia and had never seen snow until we began this trip, is also thrilled. Even though it was VERY cold, we wore short sleeves most of the time through the deep snow because we were working so hard to get through it that we got overheated pretty quickly.

Now this one may look like one of the least impressive because the snow is only ankle deep. However, this was the most miserable day of the entire trail because that is not snow. That is a river of ice water that the trail had become and there was no way to walk around it. Also, it was about 35 degrees and raining so it wasn't just our feet that were soaked.

 Those pictures remind me that as much as I love the mountains, they can be pretty cruel in the winter. I spent a lot of time asking myself why I wanted to hike the AT after graduation rather than taking a long trip to the beach. However, we made it through the bad winter weather and I know that I am a much tougher person than I was before. It was the hardest thing I'm sure either of us has ever done. Even the hardest highschool football two-a-days workouts I went through cannot compare to how physically and mentally hard it was to hike through that crazy winter weather for so long.

 Looking back over these photos makes me think that this next week in the mountains with lows only in the 40s and plenty of sunshine will feel like a summer day in Florida.

Trail Memories

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." - Henry David Thoreau

Two years ago yesterday Jesse and I began our journey on the Appalachian Trail. It seems crazy to think that it has already been two years, but that is the way it goes I suppose. Time goes on and things are constantly changing. It seems like we just got back, but as I was thumbing through my journals from the trip I began to realize how cloudy some of the memories had become. For example, in the entry from today two years ago I wrote about details concerning the terrain we had covered and the shelter we were staying at that I had forgotten about completely. There was a kid named Bobby who was staying at the shelter who was getting off the trail after just day two of his thru-hike. Bobby had taken a semester off of school, spent who know how much money on gear and transportation, and had maticulously planned his mail drops over the whole trail only to have his thru-hike likely end on the second day after he fell and hurt his leg. We must have brought kid up in conversations a few thousand times randomly throughout the four and half months we were out there. After a long day we'd sit back and say, "Daaaaaamn my feet are killing me! But hey, at least we're in Pennsylvania and not on the couch back home like ol' Bobby probably is right now." Or as we were heading into a hostel we might say, "Dude, I'm going to flip if Bobby is sitting in that place and has somehow got back on the trail and crushed some miles to pass us!" It was ironic and we felt really bad for the guy, but it was one of our numerous running jokes and it gave us something to talk about when we had exausted every other subject. Until I just re-read that journal entry I had kind of forgotten about Bobby.

Now looking back over this journal I can remember sitting at the Gooch Mountain shelter on Februrary 8th of 2010. I remember Bobby hobbling around with his cell phone trying to get a hold of someone to pick him up the next day. I remember sitting around a fire listening to my little radio and enjoying a beautiful, unseasonably warm north Georgia night. I remember what the Gooch Mountain shelter looked like and how I felt that night. However, the only reason I remember all those things is because I have a journal entry about it, and I have a picture of Jesse reclined in his crazy creek beside our fire.

What if I didn't have that picture and that journal entry? I didn't even remember about poor old Bobby and his misfortunes until I looked back at the journal, despite it being something that we talked about all the way to Maine.


We stayed in so many shelters and met so many interesting people that it is sometimes hard to recall them all only two years later. Of course I remember a lot of things after jogging my memory a little, but if I flip to a random page in my journal and look at the headline I can't remember the details about that day. Let's try it...4/28/2010 it says we went from Pine Knob Shelter to Tumbling Run Shelters and traveled 26.3 miles. Sounds like a pretty big mileage day so we must have seen some really cool things right? Hell if I know. Without doing some math I could't even tell you what state we were in at that time, let alone what Pine Knob Shelter looked like, what we might have seen that day, or what people we might have met. However, it turns out afer reading my journal entry that this is the day we crossed into Pennsylvania and met our buddy, Uncle Frank . We had been following him in the shelter registers since Georgia and had been excited about meeting this eccentric character. It turns out he was no dissipointment. We ran into him while he was standing in the trail staring at the sky directly on the Pennsylvania border. He  had excitedly greeted us and offered us a couple pieces of fried chicken that he pulled out of his pocket (yes, of course we ate chicken from a strangers pocket). Uncle Frank would hike with us for almost the entire rest of the trail and turned out to be one of our best friends on the trail. Uncle Frank is a topic for aother blog entry altogether.


The point is that I could not remember details about such an eventful day on the trail on my own. I have a journal and pictures but there were week long strechtes I would go without taking a single picture, and there were plenty of days that I didn't write a journal entry because I was just too tired or felt like doing something else instead. So what about those days? Are they just lost in space and time? And if I didn't have a journal or take any pictures would the entire trip be pointless because the details are going to fade with time? The asnwer is no. Of course not. I'm thankful I do have pictures and journals to remind me exactly what things looked like, what I was feeling, and what people were with me at certain times. The details are great and I love looking back at the things that remind me of specific memories. Still, the core of the journey cannot be be summarized in one snap shot. The greater things I took away from the trip are more internal realizations and no lost picture, written account, or memory of any one instance can take away from the overall impact the entire trip has had on me. I found the Thoreau quote at the beginning of this article in a book by David Brill in which he reflects on his thru-hike in 1979. In the book, Brill explains, "I doubt that any other even of my life will choke me with as much emotion, fill me with as much pride, or define more clearly who I am than my summer on the Appalachian Trail." I would have to agree with Brill on that. I pushed myself harder than I have ever been pushed and I was lucky enough to make it all the way. The prize certainly wasn't any physical gain. There wasn't a trophy, or medal, or plaque waiting on me at the top of Mt. Katahdin. I wasn't awarded a signing bonus to a hiking team and I didn't even make the Sportscenter top ten. I can't even remember all the details of the trip, and my memory surely isn't going to get better as I continue to get older. However, something I will never forget is the pride I felt when I finished. I experienced the wholehearted kindness of complete strangers and realized the world is a lot better than many people are willing to give it credit for. I experienced beauty in nature that literally was able to snatch the breath right out of my lungs.  I lived deliberately, and I learned what I was made of. I may not remember every detail of the Appalachian Trail, but time cannot tarnish the core memory of the journey.

See You Next Week

Well, it's that time again. Time to head back out into the woods for another 8 days of work. Obviously we don't have computers out there in the middle of nowhere so, unfortunately, I won't be able to update until at least next Tuesday. I appreciate the people that have subscribed to the blog so far, and I encourage you to invite other people to follow as well. There are only five, but that is five times as many followers as there were at the beginning of the week. Maybe, just maybe, there will be ten when I come back next Tuesday. I really enjoy sharing my thoughts with you guys, but obviously I want people to actually read and enjoy what I write. Therefore, you guys send me some topics you might want me to write about! Anything from my AT thru hike, gear I like and dislike, wilderness therapy,  general life lessons (which I am in no way qualified to write about for the record), or anthing else you can possibly think of. While I am gone, my buddy Jesse (my AT hiking companion) has been getting back in the blogging groove so check out what he has to say http://www.recklessnobo.blogspot.com/  If you follow me but not him go ahead and jump on his blog wagon too. If for some reason you are on this site and follow him and not me, shame on you. Click the button to the right of this post and set up an account. It ain't that hard.



For now, I'm calling it a night. Thanks for tuning in and I look forward to updating after another week out in the woods where the living is easy.... except when there is wind, rain, sleet, hail, freezing temps, harmful bacteria in the water, dangerous animals, agrivating insects, falling trees, lightening strikes, etc. It's what I love and I am lucky someone pays me to live out there in it all.



Thank you guys,



Dave

Reflections On the AT Three Months After I Returned

Here is an article I wrote a couple of months after returning from the Appalachian Trail when I began to realize that the so called "real world" was closing in on me. It was a strange feeling when I realized I could no longer just wake up and out hike any problems.



September 2010:

When I think back on the accomplishment that I’ve achieved I still don’t know if it has fully sunk in. 2,179 miles on the Appalachian trail. 2,179 miles of wandering aimlessly through the woods for almost 5 months. Not making any money and certainly not making any ground on paying back the vast amount of student loans I have outstanding. Five months of aimlessly wandering a well beaten footpath of the Eastern US for only the opportunity to say that I’ve completed the trail. I lived homeless, dirty, completely exhausted, and without the comfort of friends, family, or even a damn television (how did I ever get by without Sportscenter?). A modern day gypsy, scraping to get by with barely enough food or energy to get me to the next town. Day after day, the same exact thing. Isolated from the rest of the world and things I once took solace in. Would I do it again? Absolutely. Never before have I ever felt so free.

I’ve been home for almost three months now and while I have indulged in the things I went so long without, I still long for the simplicity I left behind on the trail. There is a certain sense of freedom you achieve when you have nothing but what you need to survive. Sure it was stressful to find the things I needed to make it, but it was nothing compared to the stress of seeking out the things that I am “supposed” to need and desire back in real life. I miss waking up every morning knowing that I had a completely grueling, physically tough day ahead of me, but at the end of the day I would be one step closer to Maine. Now I wake up knowing what is expected of me. I know that it will be equally as hard, but will only lead me one step closer to the routine that will be mine for the rest of my life. I want to be successful and make money and be a productive member of society just as much as anyone. But I miss the days on the trail when I didn’t have to be. Everyday now I am one step closer to that permanent routine. That is what society expects of me and I can’t argue with it. Many of my friends are there now. My parents have done it and without them I would not have even had this amazing opportunity that many could only dream of. They have given me a good life and I could only hope to provide my future children with the same opportunities and experiences that I have had in my life thus far. However, it is scary because once I’m at that point there is no turning back. With money and financial independence comes responsibility and obligation. I can’t foresee a future scenario where I will be able to continue working a decent job and have the personal freedom to take five months to aimlessly wander through the wilderness with no real worries. Still, it was a truly liberating and free time. I miss the cool mountain air and the stars at night. I miss the relationships built with the people killing their bodies along side of me for the same common goal. Mt. Katahdin was the destination we all sought, but in the back of our minds hoped was not actually a real place. As if the trail would stretch on forever. Because as much as we wanted to go back home and hug our parents, kiss our girlfriends, or drink a beer with our friends we all knew that we would never again be in that same situation. We would never be as free as we were in any one moment on the trail.

Welcome

Welcome to the blog! I decided to create this blog because my good friend Jesse created a backpacking blog ( http://recklessnobo.blogspot.com/) and, quite frankly, I don't want to be out done. I will use this page to talk mostly about topics related to backpacking. Yes, that is pretty broad. Basically, I'll write about whatever I feel like as long as someone is willing to read it. So if you enjoy the great outdoors, hiking, backpacking, fishing, eating, breathing, music, or whatever go ahead and follow the blog. This blog is created to share some of my experiences, inofrm, inspire,  and..... who am I kidding? Really I'm creating this for me to figure out what is on my own mind. So saddle up with me if you dare, and take a ride into the mind of Boomerang.