Originally Posted by
njordan2
This is an interesting little story depending on how you interpret the events.
Around 3 years ago, or so, two of my uncle and I were on our annual week long hike of the Appalachian Trail. We put in somewhere around muskrat and were headed to Springer.
A few days in, it began to rain buckets and did not stop for, like, three days. We stayed on top of Blood Mountain during the worst storm of the trip, (and incidentaly, the worst storm of my life). But man, let me tell you, that is the shelter to stay in when there is a terrible storm. It is made from rocks and huge timbers.
The next day we hiked to Gootch Gap shelter and a man was there who had claimed the entire top half of the shelter as his own. He had hung up a tarp in front like a wall and seemed to have been there for a while.
There was also a gentleman at the shelter of very slight stature from Austria. He did not speak English well, and for the most part just kept to himself.
Talking to the man who had been there for a while seemed to be revealing. Not of anything specifically about him, but that in general, everything he said was a lie. For instance, when asked how far he was going, of course his reply was "all the way. Full 2,000+ miles". This did not agree with the general state of his equipment. For one thing, he carried his water in a milk jug. Also, he claimed to be from New Jersey. Not being from the area, I would judge his accent as pure Northern Georgia or surrounding areas. Of course, he claimed to have just arrived at the shelter the previous day and was waiting out the storm. There was the smell of a skunk in the area and he said "that old skunk shows up day after day just looking for a free meal". That comment seemed out of place for someone who had been there less than 24 hours.
In general the guy just seemed weird and shifty, but hey, the way I see it, big deal. Nobody is perfect.
That night he did not sleep, but stayed awake rustling around up stairs, listening to the radio, brewing coffee and smoking some stinking cigars. (That in turn kept me awake!!)
Come morning, my uncles were suited up and off to the trail while I was still finishing breakfast sitting at the picnic table in front of the shelter.
I thought I heard someone jump behind me, so I stood up and there was ol' stinky cigar smoker standing, head cocked to the side and back, with a bowie knife in one hand and a frying pan in the other looking at me. He raised the knife pointing over my shoulder to my backpack hanging on a nail and said,
"That's a mighty nice pack ya got there."
"I like it" I replied while making the note not to turn my back on him.
He jestured again the knife toward the pack and asked, "Is that a Kelty?"
"No, it's a Gregory" Just like the emblem you can read from where your standing says, I thought to myself.
"Oh, Gregory. That is a nice pack" He took a step closer to me and struck with his knife the bottom of the pan he held in his other hand in a sharpening type of motion while he maintained direct eye contact with me. I thought to myself, "Man this is gonna hurt." I do not know any fighting skills and had no weapons near by.
He took another step and I heard over my left shoulder in the gruff voice of my uncle
"This is f#%king b#llsh#%t!" I turned to look and it was, indeed my uncle.
A little about this uncle of mine. Unlike me, he is a trained fighter. Skilled in several forms of martial arts, very large at around 230lb and of very imposing presence. Often times he's the one who scares the others away.
I then wipped back around just in time to see ol' stinky cigar smoker split and run off the other direction.
To my uncle, I was all like, "Oh dude, I am glad you came back! I was just..."
Mid sentence he cut me off and said "Yea, this is f#%cking b*ll*****. I put on all this rain gear, hit the trail and it stops raining. I figured I needed to reconfigure my pack anyway and this picnic table is here, so I came back to change out of my rain gear"
He had no idea what was going down at the moment he re-arrived at the shelter. It was shear "luck" that he was there when he was.
Once we regrouped and discussed the events, we remembered a few days before, when we dropped our car off at Amacalola, the park ranger had a police wanted poster and said to be on the look out for a guy who fit this description between Springer and Neal's Gap.
A couple of years later, I was shown a picture on the internet of a man and I said that it looked alot like the weathered man I ran into at Gooch Gap. Only this time it appeared he had shaved his head. I was then informed that that was the picture of a man from that area who was arrested for the murder of a girl in that area.
I have always wondered what ever became of the young man from Austria who we left behind.
just my take on the story...
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