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View Full Version : Turning point in your journey?



The Hog
02-25-2005, 08:49
Did you have a major turning point in your journey, a point at which things were unraveling, and you were having doubts about the whole thing, but then something happened that helped you to know that you were going to make it, that turned everything around? I'll get this started.

Mine came right at the outset. I started in Georgia in mid April with a summer sleeping bag, thinking that I could get away with wearing all my warm clothes inside, but I badly miscalculated. The first night was not so bad, but I nearly froze in the Gooch Gap Shelter the night of April 17th, 1984. After a night of no sleep I made it to the next LT (Blood Mtn) thoroughly exhausted, dispirited, utterly spent and thinking of all the miles ahead and the comforts that I would miss, and I started to doubt if I could go the distance. I was so demoralized that I didn't bother to admire a gorgeous sunset from the peak. I just retired to the hut early and collapsed. That night, I nursed a fire in the stone hut's fireplace, grateful that I didn't have to suffer once again from the cold.

Before sunup, I witnessed a sight that changed everything. Under a vaulted sky, a crimson band of light stretched 180 degrees around the horizon, bathing Blood Mountain in a primordial red. This was a shade of red I had never seen before, this was a sight that went way beyond merely sending chills up and down my spine. This was the Trail speaking to me in a blunt and visceral manner. I'm not religious, but it was a Godly vision. Blood Mtn, the clouds, everything shimmering in a fantastic red light. Dead silence, just me and the world around me glowing in a color like phosphorescent blood. I stood there, neophyte, greenhorn, struck speechless by the humbling power of nature.

Since I was filming a movie on the Trail, I thought about getting my camera out, waking up my companions and trying to get some silhouettes, but I shelved that idea, since this was a scene that no camera could ever do justice. Ever. The camera stayed packed away. I just let the scene wash over me and burn into my memory. In ten minutes, it was gone.

Two hours later, I trudged thru ice cold rain, soaked thru, miserable, but I had been given a glimpse of something eternal, a life-altering vision that carried me for the next five and a half months...