What a day. Descending from Baden-Powell, the trail swirled around the highway for most of the day, going up and down in the surrounding hills. After a bit of roadwalking along the highway (which wasn’t fun and populated with motorbikes), a campground came up, with a large group of people around a table. ‘Trail magic!’ someone shouted. Coyote and me rushed forward. There was fresh fruit, sodas and doughnuts. Only then did I have a look at the people at the table. All new faces, again. I’d at least expected to find Remedy, Tommy Hawk and Gnome again, but either they were more ahead, or we had missed them somewhere.
After the initial disappointment of seeing no one I recognized, we started talking. There was Spice, the eager Australian, who helped pop Coyote’s blisters (and filmed the popping process), an ex-professional snowboarder named Mouse and an older woman, Commando. Upon asking why she was called Commando, she pulled out a knife hanging from a sheath on her neck. Coyote and I feared we had finally caught up to the bubble of people we’d heard about the past few days. Although we were happy to meet new people, it did feel crowded.
Not much after, something crazy happened. A Search and Rescue helicopter hovered a 100 meter ahead of me, and seemed to be looking to descend further. Someone dropped out on a winch and disappeared out of sight on the lower ground. I hurried onward, and not much later came upon the group from earlier. Spice told me they found a kid with dehydration and had pushed the SOS button on their inreach. Not 10 minutes later, the helicopter had appeared, with a pick up truck arriving a bit later with additional support. The kid, only 12 years old, had been unable to hold anything down for the last couple hours. Since it quickly became clear the kid was going to be okay, consternation quickly turned into excitement to be seeing a search and rescue in action (and not to be the object of one, as it was in my case). Especially Spice couldn’t hold back and was screaming with excitement.
The kid got strapped into a harness and airlifted out, with everyone filming the evacuation on their phones. Crazy to be seeing this and I was surprised at the speed and effectiveness of the rescuers.
Later in the day, I got my wish for a familiar person granted. And of course, it was Jive Turkey. How he does it remains unclear to me, but we always pass him and somehow he turns up ahead of us. He walked with us for a time. He told us how his mom died when he was 18 and his dad when he was 27. For his cheerful and upbeat manner, you wouldn’t expect him to have gone through so much. What was also surprising, was that he is 39, instead of the early 30 I had estimated him. I seem to always guess people too young on this trail, so that when I think I found someone my age, they turn out to be way way older, like 29 or some other ungodly number.
To do this trail, Jive Turkey had sold his house, after already taking a leave of absence to hike the Appalachian Trail. At the next campsite, he reunited with his cohorts Machine and Lost and Found and we said goodbye for now. It’s funny how there’s always so much more to a person than one initially thinks, cliché as it might sound. Jive Turkey had appeared to me as a guy who was just out here for a good time, almost as if on a whim. How wrong I was.
We finished the day with 41 km on the tracker. Just shy of a marathon, but a new personal record nonetheless, one that felt particularly good with all the elevation. Spice, Mouse and Stinger joined us at our campsite, with the rest pushing on. I kinda hope we overtake them one of these days, to get out of the crowd, but at the same time I hope I keep seeing the aforementioned three. Solemate surprised us by arriving at the campsite as well, after we left her in the morning, just waking up when we took off. It was a great evening, a perfect end to the day.
An observation: most Germans we come across (Solemate excluded) don’t have trailnames. Coincidence? I think not!