Chapter 143: The 100-Mile Wilderness (Take 2)

On a fateful day that presumably fell sometime during the week, Fredo, Hot Sauce and I finally set out into the infamous hundred mile wilderness. Spirits were low, despite the exhilaration we all felt from being so close to the end of our adventure. Though it took considerable effort, I heroically did my part to motivate and encourage my friends by walking slower than them, falling down and hurting myself a lot, and ceaslessly complaining about everything and everybody.

We soon happened upon a sign, weathered and stoic, belatedly advising all comers that attempting the “wilderness” with anything less than ten days of supplies was egregiously foolhardy and would surely result in our inevitable, gruesome deaths. We were already at least five minutes fifty yards feet from the road. We had come too far to turn back.

For a brief moment, I warmly remembered all the haters, mostly in the South, who had so often predicted our premature demise. There had been those who repeatedly warned us that if we didn't buy their $200 rain gear, for example, we were gonna die. Or that if we attempted to hike the Smokies with thermals that were even 20% cotton, we were gonna die. And that if we continued to hike naked, even for just one more day, under that blistering sun, we were definitely gonna get eaten by dragons and die. Rest assured, dear reader, we were well inured to these idle threats by now, and we were not about let this latest proclamation deter us. Besides, we had at least two and a half days of food. How bad could it be?

Very bad, as it turned out, though not on the first day, the proceedings of which, besides the spotting of the aforementioned sign, were not particularly memorable. Yes, it was on our second day out that the trouble really started, our lives irrevocably changed, and our hike forever ruined.

It was on the second day that we met them. The Georgia Peaches. I had fallen behind that morning, as I frequently did, taking long breaks to sob quietly into the underbrush. Cresting yet another of the innumerable boulder-strewn, granite slabbed ridges that merrily dot the New Hampshire and Maine sections of the trail, I spotted them. Their long, languid bodies lying lackadaisically across the trail, luxuriating in the sun and the attentions of a delirious, weak-minded fool. Fredo.

I knew immediately that he was in trouble, his three-mile-an-hour pace shot, the contents of his pack strewn about the ground, his food bag open. Curiously, the Peaches seemed not to be carrying any food or equipment themselves, and were so clean and cheerful in appearance and demeanor that I began to suspect that they hadn't hiked there at all, but had simply appeared at that very spot, emerging from the deepest depths of Hell that very morning.

They were sirens or succubi, I was sure of it, and were clearly intent on devouring my friend alive, leeching his life's spirit, or at the very least mooching his food. And they were good at what they did. But my attentions were elsewhere, my mind preoccupied with dreams of Katahdin, with long-nurtured secret plans of fantastic design and foolish ambition. I alone appeared immune to their "charms." Clearly, it was up to me to rescue my friend. But I didn't. I promptly left in disgust, and then mercilessly made fun of him for it later.

That night the three of us found a sweet stealth site by the west branch of the Pleasant River. We camped there with the frequently-naked Austrian, Matterhorn. Or was he Swiss? No matter. Any way, yes, Materhorn, the same man whose dinner I had accidentally destroyed not two nights earlier. I feared for my safety that night, and was plagued by nightmares in which I was repeatedly and viciously attacked by a very angry, very nude European wielding a terrifying pot of cold macaroni.

The next morning I awoke, unfortunately still alive, for little did I know what new terrors this day would bring...