Harlowe Fire Station Responds to an Emergency

MST. Chapter 11. Segment 16 (Part 2)

Sep 04, 2023

This is my serialized story of hiking the Mountains-to-Sea Trail (MST), a 1,175-mile route that crosses the state of North Carolina. I’m hiking west from Jockey’s Ridge near Nags Head on the Outer Banks of the Atlantic Ocean to Kuwohi (formerly Clingmans Dome) near the Tennessee border in the Great Smoky Mountains. If you’d like to start at the beginning of my story, click here.

See the Mountains-to-Sea map at the bottom for reference.

Day eight: Today I’ll be hiking the Neusiok Trail in the eastern section of the Croatan National Forest here in North Carolina. The night before, I camped near the Dogwood Camp shelter eleven miles in and now am up early, expecting a long day ahead. The objective, as far as I can tell, is to walk the Neusiok Trail up to the Neuse River. I’ll even, at one point, be doing a ten-mile loop de loop that comes out precisely back where I started after first crossing state road NC 306.

The intent, I surmise, is to walk the entire Neusiok Trail itself - the Neusiok being over twenty-three miles long and the longest trail in Eastern North Carolina. Fortunately, I discover this added ten-mile loop doesn’t disappoint, with stands of Longleaf Pine - once the dominant coastal pine from Florida to Virginia and now only a fraction of what it once was due to being logged nearly to extinction over the past several centuries. I walk through the pine as well as plenty of swamps with narrow board walks, along nearly impregnable pocosins, and across numerous uplands and bogs.

Enjoying the forest all morning is a treat after hiking so many miles of beaches and state roads, but I force myself to focus on the possibility of snakes. Luckily, I see only one, and it slithers away, as I happen upon it, in a self-imposed race to disappear.

The Neuse River, too, as the end-point of the Neusiok, is spectacular here. It is incredible how wide it is. I had read that it is North Carolina’s longest river (270 miles) and, in fact, at its mouth (six miles), they say, the Neuse is the widest river in the U.S. The designers of the Mountains to Sea Trail offer an alternative route on the Neuse River for those who want to kayak or canoe from just below Raleigh to where I am standing. I can only imagine, given how wide the river is at this point, how difficult it would be finding this spot to disembark for those adventurous souls.

I find an old picnic table on a rise just above the fingernail of a beach and take off my backpack, which I realize is way too heavy (forty pounds) to be hiking with. I promise myself I will find a way to lower my backpack’s weight before the next time I go out on the trail. In the meanwhile, with nothing to be done about it, I sit and relish my short freedom from the pack and enjoy a bagel lunch covered in peanut butter and honey. Peanut butter and honey are always a good way to take your mind off of problems, and what a great way to savor the view after being in the forest with sneaky snakes all morning! A hawk glides over the river and I can’t help but think how fortunate I am to be alive at this moment.

Even as I look across the Neuse, I recognize that water and dehydration continue to be the main issue in hiking the eastern section of the Mountain to Sea Trail. Going into this segment of the hike, I was warned in the literature that very few places (if any) exist on the Neusiok to obtain clean water. Now a day-and-a-half into this hike, my water resources are limited. I realize I probably should go back down to the beach and take time to filter water from the Neuse, but, in choosing not to do this - hoping I have enough for the rest of the day - I’m probably making a mistake I’ll soon regret.

Last week, in fact, knowing I was facing this section of the MST, I replaced my 2 liter Camelbak with a 3 liter one - as I had already experienced dehydration several times on the beaches of the Outer Banks - so I rationalize, as I sit on this partially dilapidated picnic table, I should be good for the afternoon. This change, of course, is a reason my backpack is heavier, but if I calculated correctly, I probably have enough.

However, by mid-afternoon, in changing my socks after coming off the ten-mile loop, I discover I have drank it all - my Camelbak and Gatorade bottles are empty. I study my paper directions and realize I still have more than seven miles to go to reach my final destination for the day and, at least, five miles before the next convenience store.

Now, I either hike in the height of the afternoon with no water or I find someone willing to help me out - an unsuspecting trail Angel, if you will, someone, say, mowing their lawn who might take pity on a total stranger.

Two miles up the road I spot the fire station of the Harlowe Volunteer Department. As I pass by the brick building on the other side of the road, I am giving a great deal of thought as to who I can plead to for more water, running the scenarios in my head. I suddenly think, looking at the Harlowe fire facilities with its large garage doors for its fancy red trucks, ‘Why not - they save people from fires all the time. They must have a ton of water in that building!’ I can smell it. I can see it and feel it gushing over my fingers. Quickly I cross the road and, fortunately, the fire station’s door is unlocked.

I try not to rush inside, but I do. In an office near the back an older man (older than me?) is hard at work at his desk. When I say “Excuse me” from the doorframe, he is startled almost out of his seat. I am thinking, ‘No heart attacks, please, you old geezer. I am the one here with the emergency.’

Before he has a chance to kick me out, I show him my two empty 16-ounce Gatorade plastic bottles. “May I get some water?” I ask - like, say, the water from the kitchen sink I can see at the end of the corridor. He just sits there staring at me. Like he doesn’t know how to respond. We stare at each other. I guess he is trying to register how I came to be at his door with my forty-pound backpack, my sweat stained blue hat and my once yellow “year of the snake” bandanna. Not a pretty picture at all, I imagine, but, in my defense, not one where he would likely be robbed for water.

‘Officer,” he would say, “he looked like Quasimoto wearing a yellow bandanna, how did I know he only wanted water!’

Maybe they’re a little slow in these parts. Certainly I have been walking slower since the Neusiok Trail and my mind has been slower to comprehend the danger I am in, which could be due to the dry air and unpaved, sandy roads in these parts - so I offer assistance. “Could I use your sink?” I ask. “I could fill my Gatorade bottles in a sink...” - praying he’ll step up and offer me a drink from a pitcher of ice-cold water in their refrigerator. We could sit and talk about possible work for clowns, like me, in these parts, but when he speaks, it’s like he’s a mummy coming back to life. He murmurs slowly, “Oh. Ah, the men’s room is back up the hall.” No kitchen, no strawberry popsicles from the freezer, no pleasant exchange over sugary ice tea, nothing but the old men’s room. And that’s that.

Ten minutes later I have my two plastic bottles filled with water and stored in my pack, and, to top it off, I’ve taken advantage of the situation to actually pee in a urinal, a scarce commodity for thru-hikers in these parts and thoroughly wash my hands and face with actual soap. “Thank you,” I yell to him as I head out of the Harlowe Fire Station, but I think, by now, he has gone back to sleep.

I arrive at the convenience store, five miles later, with less than half-a-bottle of water in my possession. I guess, I really was in a walking emergency situation. Here, though, I celebrate my good fortune and sit outside the store between a large, white, bagged-ice container and a dirty blue garbage recepticle. I truly appear to be a vagabond, and customers pulling into the store, lock their cars before going inside. No one looks at me for fear I’ll ask them for money. But, I am good. I have a Snickers bar, a bag of Lays Classic potato chips, and a new bottle of Orange Gatorade. As my eyes roll into the back of my head, I realize, everyone thinks I’m totally stoned. Well, perhaps I am!

That’s when I have an extraordinary vision. A vision through the fog in my mind of a clean motel room. I check my cell phone for possibilities, stand up, put back on my dead-weight backpack, and slowly finish the final two miles of my hike. I can see ahead what I am after: like a mirage, a quarter of a mile up the road awaits an Econolodge motel. Rather than pitching my tent somewhere off the highway, as suggested in the instructions - I will get a hot shower, wash my clothes, eat a Good to Go dinner of mushroom risotto that I carried in my pack, and, most importantly, load up on water - wonderful, wonderful water - all in the privacy of my own room. No ticks and chiggers like last night, and shy of any bed bugs disturbing me tonight, I will be ready for my awaiting test tomorrow when I attempt the next critical section of the Croatan National Forest.

Heart, Hiking, Here & Now

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