Jack and I slowly wheeled up the gravel drive to Camp Wildcat Battlefield. We were a long way from home, Lexington, we had sliced down I-75 past the Kentucky and Rockastle Rivers to this tiny rural community called Hazel Patch, on the outskirts of London in Laurel County. Something had got into my heart that I should give myself to the wilderness of Kentucky for a little bit and see how I would come out of it, and here I was, about to strike out on my own, onto the Sheltowee Trace for a couple of days.
The Sheltowee Trace National Recreation Trail was created in 1979 and runs 323 miles through Kentucky's Daniel Boone National Forest and into Tennessee for the last 50ish miles. It winds through quiet valleys and over major roadways, over and along countless creeks, streams, and rivers. When I first learned of it I thought I would be a unique way to see every different landscape my home state had to offer me, test my abilities to survive off my wits, and learn what I alone could accomplish. With very little experience in backpacking, I wanted to try hiking the whole trail in three segments a weeklong each through the course of spring.
But the world was turned sideways a little and a major pandemic boiled over, displacing students, laying off countless workers, and closing recreation areas like Red River Gorge, through which the Trace runs in its northern portion. Having already requested a week off for work, I contemplated the ethics of a long-distance hiking trip in a time like this. I considered just chilling at home, fearing I could unwittingly spread the virus to one of the small towns along the trace if I did asymptomatically carry it. Travelling 2 hours south of your home for a week is definitely the opposite of being quarantined. But I am stubborn and selfish and decided to go anyways, picking a trailhead to begin from in the southern half, past the more populated recreation areas and parks. I would carry everything I needed with me so I wouldn't have to go to any stores and limit my interactions with others.
So during a global pandemic my brainless thot ass was about to go on a solo backpacking trip for the first time in my life. We spent a little time reading the placards detailing one of the earliest engagements of the Civil War, the 1861 Battle of Camp Wildcat. I took note of two differing accounts different soldiers had given of the land i was about to journey into: one described it as full of contentment for anyone who enjoys nature, another "the most desolate place on earth". But I guess that desolation was what I was searching for.
We said goodbye to each other around 7 PM and then I was standing on the shoulder of the road waving as Jack turned away in his car. And I began walking down this 41-year old path in the rain on a tuesday night alone. I made my way down gravel road past a small roadside waterfall, over a bridge under which the mellow Shetland creek, past a flooded field where 159 years ago Confederate soldiers made camp in a time of national turmoil. Neighborhood dogs yawped and an old cemetry stood eerie as the daylight leaked out of Hazel Patch, and a drizzly night settled in.
I made it to my first campsite along the trail two miles from where I was dropped off, in a field behind a church friendly to wayward voyagers like me. I fumbled with tent poles and the rainfly nervously as the rain picked up, but soon I was chilling tucked into Jack's 50 degree sleeping bag, ruminating on the raindrops spattering against my tent. After a dinner of nonperishable ~zesty lemon tuna~ out a plastic bag, I chewed on my motivations and hopes for embarking on this journey.
I only really got into hiking last year. January of 2019, in the winter of a dark and confusing senior year, my friend Tullio took me to a local hiking spot called Halls on the River, a straight shot down Richmond Road out of town. I saw a waterfall emptying into a creek as the evening sun refracted off the water. I carried the beauty of that day with me, nature became a bright spot for me through the year as I struggled with depression, trying to graduate high school and moving on to tackle college.
That spring I wanted to fill every inch of spare time with appreciating the world around me. I recently remarked in retrospect to my friend Ian that our friend group spent so much time together smoking and exploring the world because we didn't feel completely safe or accepted or understood in our home lives, or at school. We were carving out our own safe spaces to be ourselves in while hotboxing Harold, Ian's 2009 Subaru Outback, or trespassing to see Indian Falls, or frolicking in the grass at sunset at a park.
By June, after I graduated, I had saved up enough to get a real pair of hiking boots and a Subaru Outback of my own, appropriately christened him Baby Harold, got my foot on the floor, and never looked back. When I got my own car the freedom was addicting, I spent hours and wasted tanks of gas exploring the backroads and country drives around our little city.
I met Jack (now my neanderthal roommate) in June. The first day we met I took him to Halls on the River and we sat in silence stoned out of our minds regarding the falls and I felt that I had found a kindred spirit to share the wonders of the world with. August came, he went back to school in Louisiana, and the beast of Freshman year lay soon ahead for me to battle.
I got ballsy in August when I started getting comfortable with hiking alone, with 2-hour drives down to the London, Kentucky area to spend time with its falls and valleys. I fell in love with the Daniel Boone National Forest, with the way the sunlight seemed to electrify the evergreens, with the peace of the rush of the creek as it flows through the hollow, with the night stars scintillating and the moon a sentry over the solitude of the woods. My grades and attendance at UK slipped as I felt really isolated on campus and unprepared for college, and I found myself withdrawing from classes in November after midterms. I felt like I needed a break to just bake idly in the sun before I was ready to go at school again. Jack came home from school and found work here in construction in December and we signed a 6-month lease together, and assigned ourselves to turn our faces away from school for a bit, becoming the blue collar workers of a Norman Rockwell fantasy.
However I wanted to feel like I had gotten somewhere with my time off. I thought tackling all the Sheltowee Trace would be a tribute to my beloved bluegrass state and a solid goal to work towards in the standstill of my life void of school.
But now I was shivering in the cold of the night in this stupid summer sleeping bag, wondering whither i was bound tomorrow, a rich broth of anxiety and excitement bubbling within. Hounds yapped into the night, a train rattled over its tracks tucked into this tiny community, and the rain drizzled on. Miles of trail lay open ahead for me to roam; I dreamt of what I might see for myself when the sun rose.
Me and my dumbie stoopie smile before Jack dropped me off.
Area I walked around in before night came--from the monument to just after the railroad tracks and hazel patch creek.
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