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[at-l] Jackalope's Life Altering Adventure
With their permission, I repeat the full article I refered to at URL:
http://www.newsadvance.com/
They will move the story to their BACK PAGE later today, at URL:
http://www.newsadvance.com/Back%20Pages.html, or
http://www.newsadvance.com/Back Pages/hiker.html
Jim "Jackalope" Tennant, AT Class of 96, appears to have e-mail at
jackalope8@aol.com for those who may want to follow up.
Pete Lascell
Forest, VA
w4wwq@juno.com
-----------------------------------------------------------
Published in the Lynchburg Virginia News & Advance
February 18, 1997
Trail Adventure Life Altering
By Christie Richardson
The News & Advance
After 2,150 miles of uphill, downhill, rocky and slippery steps, Jim
Tennant has learned how important a good shoe can be.
He tried a half-dozen brands, styles and materials before narrowing
it down to five pairs. The first pair lasted until he had four
missing
toe nails and he reached New York. The second and third sets of
boots made it about two weeks before "blowing out." The fourth
pair lasted from Vermont to Maine, where they rotted from the
inside out.
The fifth pair is standing in his Wildwood subdivision bedroom
closet wearing Tennant's seal of approval as the best pair of boots
to wear on a hike of the Appalachian Trail. Of course, it had to be
the very last pair he wore.
Tennant bases his ranking of the shoes on how many pieces of duct
tape he used to wrap his dilapidated feet.
"Duct tape makes great Band-aids," he said, chuckling. "There
were times when I had all my toes individually taped, tape around
my arches and tape around the back of my heel. It's rough.
Mentally, you have to walk in pain."
Tennant's narrow, size 11 feet became objects of his attention July
1 when he started out on a trip from Afton Mountain outside of
Charlottesville to the mountains of Maine.
"Shoes are very personal things," he said, looking down at his
beige-colored bucks. "Each one fits each person differently."
But a general rule on the trail was simplicity. Sunup was getup and
dessert was hitting the pillow. Bathing was optional - and unlikely.
Staples were peanut butter, candy bars and Pop-tarts.
Recommended attire consisted of two pair of shorts, two shirts and
three pairs of socks for the entire hike. After all, what you took,
you carried.
Just ask Bess Tennant. Her husband may have been the one on the
trail, but the hike was just as much a part of her daily life, she
said.
Mrs. Tennant had supply duty. Her job was to get one day's meal
into a gallon-size plastic bag, keep up with her husband's pace and
the weather to ensure he received the right supplies and keep
everything light.
One thing she didn't pack was a razor. "I didn't even recognize
him," she whispered, adding that he wore a very ungroomed beard
on the trip. "He lost 25 or 30 pounds he didn't need to lose and he
really looked terrible. He looked like skin hanging on bones."
The rules, and outcome, of the hike were not new to Tennant
because he has hiked since the early 1980s. But when he compared
his usual long-weekend hikes from Roanoke to Waynesboro to his
hike up Mount Washington in New Hampshire, survival became a
bigger issue.
The sign at the bottom said Mount Washington had the highest
recorded wind velocity in the world, he said. Every year, someone
dies from hypothermia.
The fog was thick and the wind whipped. A normal 45-minute
climb took Tennant two hours.
When he got to the top, he was 2,000 feet above the tree line,
above the clouds and several storms brewing below.
"It was literally like being on top of the world," he said. "You feel
this exhilarating feeling that you're at the mercy of God."
And you are. When he was hiking in Vermont, Tennant got caught
on top of a bald mountain in a hail and lightening storm. For five
minutes, all the hair on his body stood on end and the hail pelted
his
head.
"Five minutes felt like an eternity," he recalled. "I thought I was
going to get fried."
About 2,000 people attempt the Appalachian Trail hike each year.
Only 10 percent of the group make it.
"It was the big one, the mother of all hikes," he said.
Tennant decided to hit the trail a couple years ago. He felt the need
for a challenge, and when 1995 went by with little to talk about, he
was convinced that the hike was what he needed to rejuvenate.
The experience still brings tears to his eyes. While about three
months have passed since he returned, and his toenails have had
time to grow back, flipping through the pages of his two photo
albums transports him to days of eating breakfast out of a plastic
bag, sharing snacks with the animals and trail magic.
One man lent Tennant his car to go buy a new pair of boots.
Another woman bandaged his bleeding feet. Hitching a ride took a
matter of minutes when you had a pack on your back.
Some call it luck, but on the trail it's called trail magic.
"It's the right thing that happens at the right time that makes your
day," Tennant said.
Then there were those things that almost ruined his nights -
lightening, rain, rats. Tennant recalled a friend he made one night
while lying in a dilapidated shelter trying to get some shut-eye.
His friend, a rat with enough weight to shake the tent that served as
Tennant's temporary home, tried everything possible to keep the
hiker awake. Taking sleeping pills to ensure a full night's sleep,
Tennant placed one of the pills outside of the tent's opening.
"I slept the rest of the night without a problem," he said,
chuckling.
But Tennant made just as many human friends as he did furry ones.
With names like Blister Sister, Merlin and Rapunzel, they're people
who are hard for him to forget.
But the trail names the hikers assigned themselves fit their
personalities. Merlin had a long beard, Blister Sister had a
permanent limp.
Tennant's trail name was Jackalope.
"It is the creature that God forgot," he said, cutting a playful eye
at
his wife. "A jack rabbit is swift a foot, turns on a dime. An
antelope
is graceful, smooth and delightful."
Trail names were a way for hikers to clean the slate, take on a new
identity, Tennant explained.
"People who didn't have trail names felt shunned, an outsider," he
said. "It's part of you. Without a name, you stand out like a sore
thumb."
Standing out was likely in the towns you passed through, too,
Tennant said. Whether it was due to your smell or the pack
weighing you down, locals were always willing to help.
"The sites and sounds get repetitious, but the people are always
different," he said.
And you could always tell the "day hikers" from the rest of the
group by their sweet smells.
"You could smell them coming a mile away," he said, scrunching his
nose. "It's offensive. It's like an intrusion in nature."
Intrusions were the only thing about the hike that left a bad taste
in
Tennant's mouth. He said he hated when the trail wound too close
to the road or if he could hear an airplane overhead.
He wanted to experience the hike alone.
"No thermostat to turn up the heat, no shelter from the rain - it's
you
and the elements, whatever God sends you," he said, leaning back
in his chair. "It's unbelievable."
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