"Greg Tries to Kill Himself" by Troy H. Cheek on Jun 06, 2005

A month or two back, I got an email from my old college buddy Greg saying that he was considering taking up hiking/backpacking/camping as a hobby. Having done some camping in my younger days, I advised that he take up a safer hobby.

Alligator wrestling, for example.

I tried to explain that I, in my younger, wilder, and dumber days, had tried hiking, backpacking, and camping. I long ago decided that any one of the three was difficult enough without combining them. I made a few suggestions.

First, I suggested that he try the camping part via the ancient secret Cheek method of car camping. That is, you throw all your camping equipment into your car, drive to a well-developed camping area, and set up tent there. If you forget anything, you can always drive to town and buy it. You're also surrounded by neighbors who can help you out in a jam.

Secondly, try the backpacking part. Throw everything you need in a backpack and lug it just a mile or so into the woods. Set up camp and stay overnight. If you forget anything or get in trouble, it's only a mile's walk back to the car.

Thirdly, try the hiking part by going on several all-day hikes on well-established and well-populated hiking trails. Once your feet get toughened up, start carrying your empty backpack. Once you're used to that, add some weight, get used to it, add more, etc.

When you reach the point where you can walk all day carrying everything you need to camp (which you've determined by your earlier camping experience), then you can go on a big week-long trek through the wilderness. Wilderness like this...

But why listen to me?

Greg said he'd been researching and assembling his kit for some time and felt more than ready to hit the woods. As he should have remembered from his excursions with me, the woods sometimes hit back. But I'll let him tell the story in his own words [with my comments in brackets]...

Three weeks ago [from the time of this writing, which makes it early May of 2005, when we had unseasonably cool Spring weather], I went on my first backpacking/hiking/camping trip. Despite the suggestion of my old college roommate and one former co-worker that I should "car camp" for my first outdoor experience, me and this guy from work headed out into the back country of the Smokey Mountains. We were well south of Cades Cove and Clingman's Dome and all the touristy stuff. We were actually on the North Carolina side of the Smokies. [Mountainous area where Winter hangs on well into Summer.]

The guy I went with is named Wes. He is a tall skinny guy and is not particularly muscular. I had invited him to my house a few days before the trip to look at my stuff. I said, "Okay, tell me what's frivolous. Tell me what I can throw away."

"Nothing, nothing," he said. "Everything looks great."

The only thing he was concerned about was the size of my tent. It weighed almost eight pounds packed. It was a three-man tent (I was trying to plan ahead for the day when someone would go hiking with me, and everything I read said a minimum of 50 square feet is great for two people in a tent). Wes had his own tent, and it was a one-man.

When considering how much I researched my backpacking equipment, you have to understand that every single time I have ever gone into the woods, I have been completely unprepared (perhaps you remember one of those times?) I spent months painstakingly researching and buying everything I would need for backpacking. I was confident in my gear, including my hiking boots and sweat-wicking socks. I had worn the boots for weeks to break them in, even took them out on some trails close to the house. I had set up the tent and tested the stove. I felt as prepared as I could be. I was ready.

Wes had a map of the trails and a little brown book that described each trail of the Smokies in pretty good detail. He mapped out a circular course. The plan was to hike 30 miles in three days. Ambitious, I know. But, I thought I could do 10 miles a day. As the day of the trip got closer, I began to worry. I have absolutely no upper body strength whatsoever, and I had not worked out in a month. My pack was heavy – about 35.5 pounds if I weighed it correctly. That worried me greatly.

The trip started at a place called "The Road to Nowhere." It was a road through the Smokies that the government stopped building back in the '40s because they ran out of money. We walked through a long tunnel, and then we hit the trail. Not a quarter-mile into it, my pack started cutting into my shoulder. It was like it was pulling and cutting the muscles that run down the left side of my neck. And my feet started hurting.

On that first day, we climbed 3,000 feet. Every step I took was a step up. At one point, I turned around to Wes and said, "Who would hike this?" I was breathing harder than I ever have in my life. My knees hurt, my feet hurt, and the pack was killing me.

Half-way up the mountain, when a white-hot ball of lactic acid felt like it was about to explode from my right leg, I turned to Wes and said, "I am serious as a heart attack. No mountains tomorrow. If I never see 'up' again, it will be too soon." The only thing I was looking forward too was reaching the top and walking down the other side.

But the trip down was arguably worse than the trip up. We descended through live and dry creek beds. Every step I made was on a rock, and with every step, I turned an ankle. Step, turn. Step, turn. Step, turn. Down, down, down. Then Wes says, "We need to make the river crossing before sunset."

We come to this river, and it was about 20 yards wide with knee deep water that was flowing fast. We would have to take our boots and socks off and wade across. I thought, hey, my feet hurt so bad some cool water will feel good. Seconds after stepping in the river, I couldn't feel my feet because the water was so cold. It was getting dark, and we had to navigate sharp and slick rocks, holding our boots in the air, still carrying our packs. I had already lost all my happy thoughts back on the mountain. I go charging across, and about 10 feet from the shore, I fell in. Boots got wet. Backpack went under. Almost lost my water bottle. I climbed out, freezing, boots soaked, and I sat on a fallen tree.

"I was going to wait and tell you this when we got to camp, but I'm done," I said to Wes, who made it across without incident. "I'm through. Call a ranger and have them come pick us up."

He had brought his cell phone and, surprisingly, he had a signal for most of the trip. "They're not going to come back here and pick us up," he said. "You have no idea how far away from the car we are."

"Then I want the shortest trail that gets us back to the car," I said.

We hiked about two more miles to the camp site – not the original camp site that we had intended, but it was dark, and we were absolutely exhausted. With only a small headlamp, I set up my tent, crawled inside, and took off my boots. A huge blister covered over half of my right foot, and I thought my toes looked like any photo of frostbite that I had ever seen. "They're going to have to take the tip of that one off," I thought. Then I went to sleep.

Wes' original plan for Saturday called for an even steeper mountain than Friday. But after our experience the previous day, he opted for a trail with slightly better terrain. The irony: the mountainous trail was shorter and would've gotten us back to the car quicker. But there was absolutely no way I could've done another mountain. My legs and feet were so shot from the previous day that I was walking very slowly. I had to walk sideways down the most modest of inclines because my knees felt like they could buckle at any second. On up in the day, we still had miles to go before the campsite, and Wes said we should swap packs. His was considerably lighter. After a few miles with my pack, he said, "Man, I don't know how you ever made it up that mountain yesterday." At that point, we guessed it weighed at least 40 pounds, if not more.

It was dusk when we made it to the campsite, and Wes was worried. We would have to walk over 12 miles Sunday to get back to the car. He said the most he had ever walked in a day was about eight miles.

The next day, we made much better time. I still had his pack, and he had mine. The terrain was much better, and we were walking next to Fontana Lake. I told him that we should wave down a fisherman, but he wouldn't have it. That evening, with just three miles to go, we met some young civil engineers who were out checking the structural integrity of the bridges on the trail. After hearing how far we had come, they offered to carry my pack back to the tunnel. I gave Wes his pack, and we walked out.

I called in sick the next day. I could barely move. I had blood blisters all over my feet. Sharp pain was shooting through my knees. I hadn't eaten in three days (I took plenty of that dehydrated stuff, but it made me feel like puking. All I ate were trail bars and energy bars. I lost over 11 pounds.) I was also severely dehydrated. Wes called.

"Man, you're going to kill me when I tell you how far we went."

"How far?" I asked.

"Forty-six point three miles," he said.

My foot doctor told me to stay off my feet for a week, so I was out of work. I slept mostly, just trying to recover. It was an absolute miracle that I did not die on that trip. On the last day, Wes about stepped on a three-foot-long diamond-back rattlesnake. If it had bitten either of us, that would've been it. The whole ordeal was an absolute horrible nightmare, and not one second of it was enjoyable. A lot of people told me that they hoped it wouldn't ruin my thoughts of hiking and backpacking in the future, and strangely it hasn't. I want to go camping again, but it will be a much shorter trail with no mountains and definitely without Wes. I don't know what was driving him. The only thing I can think is that he was out to prove something to himself. I wasn't out to prove anything on this trip; I wasn't trying to be some macho mountain man. I was just trying to get back to the car.

I'm back at work, but it will be awhile before I can wear shoes and socks again. And my knees are still killing me, three weeks later.

Greg further tells me that once his feet heal, he'd be honored to go on a hike with me. I've also offered to let him camp out in the woods behind my house, but we've been seeing rattlesnakes around here at night.

Copyright 2005 by Troy H. Cheek. Reprint with prior written permission only. Comments and questions to