​Misplaced Wanderers (Continuation of “Life (Mere Existence or Tantalizing Tale))

Finley Cane Trail (Smoky Mountains National Park)

I left the old bear to his musings and continued on up the mountain. It was an absolutely lovely day. The sun was playing hide and seek behind some clouds every now and again; but on the whole, it was beautiful with just enough sun to bring warmth and enough shade to provide some counter–coolness.

There are times when being on the trail up in the Smokies is enchanting. This was one of those days. After a couple of miles you start thinking you have the whole world to yourself. Traffic noise is gone with nothing left but the underlying sound the wood offers that is indescribable, a little disconcerting, and yet comforting at the same time.

With the old bear out of my nostrils, I was left to enjoy the fragrance of the early autumn hills. It’s an odd mixture of leaf litter, late blooming flowers, and a freshness that you just don’t find anywhere else. The seacoast has its sweet salty breezes and the mountain has this distinctive freshness. Both are lovely in their own right, but I have to admit to being partial to the mountain’s freshness, myself. The mountain air seems to reach deep inside and refresh my well of peace somehow.

As I continued on my way, I was just beginning to truly appreciate the particular joy that solitude brings, when I sensed that something was out of order. I stopped and listened carefully, and in a moment I heard it; the thing that a true hiker hates to hear more than anything else. I heard voices. Not the quiet subdued voice of experience, but the loud obnoxious voice of the young and uninitiated.

There is an interesting phenomenon that takes place in the mountains. Often sound seems to appear and disappear as if by magic. As sound travels across the expanse of a valley and ricochets off of the surrounding mountain sides, sometimes it gets lost in the ether only to return from a different direction. On top of that, sound in the mountains is mysterious, with an eerie reverb added by the many echoes and the many directions from which they come. So it was with the voices that I heard. At first they reverberated through the trees that surrounded me as if they were coming from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Then they disappeared altogether.

After a moment or two, I chuckled to myself. “Perhaps prayers are answered,” I said. “Maybe those weren’t voices at all. Maybe they were just audio apparitions of morons past.”

Well, with the beauty of the day and the joy of hiking, I soon forgot those voices and continued making my way up the mountain. I won’t go into the joy of solitude in this writing. Just know it exists and is a treasure when it’s found, and on this day the treasure was mine.

Eventually I made my way to the intersection of the Finley Cane Trail, the Bote Mountain Trail, and the West Pronged Trail. There was a nice sign there telling me where I was and that I was at an elevation of about 2200 feet. As it turns out, I was perched on the ridge of Bote Mountain. Some Good Samaritan, in days gone by, had blazed a rough side trail beginning just behind the sign and ending in a little meadow with a nice view of the valleys beyond. On top of that they had provided a nice log upon which you could sit and eat your lunch. By this time in my travels, I was a bit peckish, so I sat down and ate my lunch.

Some misguided people, who are less advanced gastronomically than myself, may disagree with this statement, but in my mind there is no meal more satisfying to the body and soul than a can or two of Vienna sausages, accompanied by a banana, or an apple, all washed down with some lukewarm water from a canteen; as Andy would say “It’s Mm, Mm Good.”

I was finishing up my meal and carefully watching a particularly ominous looking bank of black clouds work its way over the valleys before me when I heard it again. The voices were back and not just in my head this time. This time they were behind me on the trail, and they were confused. It would appear that they were not quite certain of where they were headed. Well, I figured that since a good Samaritan had helped me out with a nice log to sit on, the least I could do was go see if I could help these folks.

To say I was surprised at what I saw when I came back out onto the trail would be an understatement. There were five college-age folks arguing over which way they needed to turn. They were dressed in cutoffs and T-shirts, with various colored flip-flops finishing their ensembles. There wasn’t a pack, or a canteen, or a map amongst them.

I never thought of myself as a messiah before, but they sure looked at me as if I was one. After we talked for a while, I found out that they were looking for backcountry campsite number nine.

I took out my trusty old map and told them they needed to go three point seven miles down the Bote Mountain Trail and then turn right on the Anthony Creek Trail. After that  a walk of about one quarter of a mile at the most should do it, and they would be there.

I told them I would be praying for them as they traveled because there was a big old bear wandering around hereabouts. They looked a little startled, so to calm them down I asked them who the slowest runner amongst them was. Four of them pointed to one of them, so I told the four that they had no reason to worry. After that I headed down the trail whistling, secure in the knowledge that my newfound friends would get to their destination sooner rather than later.

After they had been gone five or ten minutes, and I was working my way back down the trail the rumbling above started. When I pause to take a look back up the trail, a streak of lightning hit the top of the ridge that I had just left. Then a big old raindrop hit me right smack on top of the head, and that starts the next chapter in this journey.

Hopefully I’ll have time to tell you about the bikini-clad travelers and the sodden surgeon I met on the trail next time, but for now that is all the time I have.

Being a preacher I can usually find an allegory in a Campbell soup commercial, and I have found one in this story.

There are a lot of lost people wandering around on this planet. Most of whom are ill prepared for this life much less the next. As I worked my way back down the trail that rainy afternoon, I kept asking myself a question.
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I wondered if I was as prepared and as confident in my preparations to guide someone to their heavenly home as I had been to guide those misplaced college kids to campsite number nine. I didn’t like the answer.
How about you?
 
Love, Pastor Tony 

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