Imminent Storm

MST. Chapter 20. Segment 14 (Part 3)

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.

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Waking up to a National Weather Report is not a great way to begin the day. My watch says its five a.m., and the good news is I have made it through the night sleeping in the Kelly Museum storage room. I am still alive and that’s a good sign for the day.

A quick check with my feet and they seem much happier. After a night of sleeping on an old couch, I too feel fairly refreshed. No bee carcasses anywhere near me.

Soon I am up and packing, putting everything back into my backpack in such a way that the weight will be evenly distributed on my back. A quick breakfast of hot oatmeal and a cup of instant coffee in my styrofoam cup follows and, shortly thereafter, my tiny burner, pot, and packets of food are packed away. Two thank you notes to write—one to Richard Smith, the man who oversees the museum and gave me permission to sleep here, and another to the young couple who generously provided me with a hot meal (I’m returning their dinner plate—washed and dried)—then I am ready to go.

The sun has not yet risen when I step into the cold night air and lock up the storage building. My head lamp shines brightly on the road in front of me as I walk to the small grocery store and gas station. Several delivery trucks are parked in front, along with a pickup truck. Clearly the store is open. I enter and hear men talking near the rear.

When I walk back an aisle full of candy, chips, oil cans, and other quick-purchase items, I don’t see Richard, but four men stop their conversation and stare at me. They are sitting around a chipped laminate kitchen table drinking coffee; two are delivery men. I ask if they know Richard Smith and, of course, they all say they do. One—the owner, I think—answers that he will be at the store in a little while. I hand him the keys to the storage facility and he promises to give them to Richard.

He gets up and walks with me to the front of the store. As we pass the coffee machine, he offers me a cup and I generously accept. When I go to pay, he says it’s on the house. He mentions he also has a set of keys so people can get into the building when Richard is not around, and I agree that this is a good backup for hikers on the Mountains-to-Sea Trail.

He says it’s supposed to get stormy today and asks which way I’m heading: Moores Creek or White Lake? He whistles when I tell him how far I walked yesterday and says he had no idea the campground at Moores Creek closed.

I say, “I can’t wait for Richard; White Lake is about twenty miles away and with the storm approaching, I need to get there by noon.”

He says, “Good luck. It’s going to be a wild day!”

By six-twenty I am walking Route 53 to White Lake. My headlamp shines on the road ahead, but still, I jump off the brim when logging trucks approach. I wonder if they, too, are trying to get as many trips in hauling sawed trees before the storm hits.

As I walk, the area becomes more and more remote and soon I am surrounded by pine forests on either side of the road. Nothing for miles except me and pine, that is, except for the empty fields where the trees have been logged and hauled away.

About six miles into the hike a pickup truck slows down as it approaches. This happens on occasion as drivers ask if I need a ride, but this time when I stop and turn towards the vehicle, I see Richard from the museum in the driver’s seat.

“Hey Jonathan,” he says from his open window. “How’s it going?”

“Richard,” I respond, “what the heck—what are you doing here?”

“I’ve come to check in on you and see if you want a lift before the storm.”

I laugh. “I need to hike this or else I’ll have to come back. But Richard, thank you for your offer to help, for everything you’ve done for me, and, please, thank your family for the meal last night.”

“I saw your note,” he says. “That wasn’t from my family. I don’t know who that was.”

I can see a car coming, but before I can say anything further, he waves to me, does a K-turn on the road, and drives back toward Kelly.

Wow. Was I dreaming? Who knew I stayed there? Could it have been the Sheriff’s deputy? Who could he have talked to?

I guess I’ll never know, but I loved the gesture and it really made a difference. Kelly, in spite of all the zombie bees, gets a star in my book for its extraordinary people.

Shortly thereafter, I see a sign that says White Lake thirteen miles ahead. With a heavy sigh, I estimate that this is at least four hours away. Even at eight-thirty a.m., I realize I need to buck up and get going.

The press is on to reach White Lake by noon. I pass by the 3,200-acre Whitehall Plantation Game Lands between Pender and Bladen Counties walking fast along Highway 53 and soon enter a tip of the 33,000-acre Bladen Lakes State Forest, the largest state-owned forest in North Carolina. In the days ahead my hikes should take me through the Bladen Lakes forests near Singletary Lake, Turnbull Experimental Station, and Suggs Mill Pond Game Lands.

For someone hiking the NC Mountains-to-Sea Trail, highway 53 is a lonely stretch of road that passes long swaths of forested lands. The area is sparsely populated and at no point do I see a gas station, convenience store, or church to get out of a winter storm if it arrives early. The trucks rushing past are loggers with heavy loads of pine—as, I realize, these forests are actively being cut and (hopefully) replanted. Frequently, I’ve actually been told, the state is taking out fields of Loblolly Pine and replanting with the more endangered Long Leaf Pine in their stead.

My mind, though, is not on the trees but on the endless road that seems to lead no where fast. I am tired, I realize, and my feet are starting to hurt. Today’s hike seems to crawl along as I find I am frequently checking my watch, which, in addition to telling the time, shows how long I have been walking and the mileage I’ve walked.

It’s going on ten a.m., and I’ve got miles to go.

I am wearing my rain coat and have my backpack covered. I stop and take off my coat and put it in my backpack. The raincoat stays on, but still, I’m hot. A quick protein bar, a drink of water, a pee in the woods, and I am back walking the road.

Bladen county is the fifth largest county in the state, and boy do I feel it. But, it only has a population of 30,000 people. Here I am, then, hiking like mad in a large county and no people—just my luck! In fact, I have been and will be hiking through three of the five largest counties in the state in terms of square miles—all five of them, as it turns out, are located here in the Southwestern edge of the state. The Mountains-to-Sea Trail had me hike through Pender County to get here, and I’ll still have Sampson County to go. Now, though, I am finally in Bladen County where I expect to enter a number of state parks and public game lands. I’ll enjoy getting off the road.

However, this morning it’s all about pushing to White Lake. When I come to Singletary State Park, I have reached the end of Segment 14 of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail. Going forward with Segment 13, I would typically follow trail through the park to get to White Lake. But as I drove through the park over the summer and am concerned that taking the trail this morning will delay my arrival into the town (what with more than three miles still to go and, now, only an hour before noon), I decide to stay on the road, following the alternative route signs for the MST.

This is a bit disappointing as Singletary Lake is the first of the Carolina Bay Lakes I will encounter on this trip. Carolina Bay Lakes are fresh water lakes formed thousands of years ago all long the Eastern coastal plain from New Jersey to Florida (as well as in other locations around the world). Formed from the melting of permafrost at the end of the Ice age, these lakes are fed by rainwater rather than streams and are located in depressions on the land that negate drainage. The lakes that remain to this day have been affected by droughts and wind and are now uniformly in a northwestern to southeastern geographical position. I would love to have had the time to hike the trail around part of Singletary Lake and promise myself I’ll be back.

An old Mustang drives past me and slows down. It turns around and comes back to me, pulling off on the side of the road in front of me. I walk up to the driver’s side of the car and an older Hispanic man rolls down his window. In halting English, he offers me a ride. I tell him my story as best I can and he says he too is going to White Lake. I tell him I hope I see him there and thank him for stopping for me. After I walk beyond the car, I hear him turn around. He drive past me and we both wave. As sore as I am, having walked nearly sixty miles in thirty-six hours, I would have loved to jump in that car with him.

I finally arrive in the town of White Lake and note that I am closer to twelve-thirty p.m. than I am to noon. The weather has been holding off, but I know I am on borrowed time. The road ahead swings around the lake, giving every inch of lakefront to gift shops, arcades, motels, cabins, and RV parks. The lake, too, is a perfect example of a Carolina Bay and is famous for its crystal clear freshwater, and, the town, itself, is famous as a perfect summer spot for the hundreds of families who don’t want to vacation at the ocean. For me, the town seems like it has been transported from the 1950s. Everything has a sense of a bygone era.

I sit on a bench and look up Google Maps to find the motel where I’ll be staying. I can feel the rain starting and am delighted that the motel is only five minutes away. Then, I realize, it’s five minutes if I’m driving. I am actually three miles away and, given I’m hiking with a thirty-pound pack, I quickly calculate another hour. As I start off for the motel on a sidewalk winding around the lake, the rain, with a driving wind, sweeps at me in waves.

Even though I am wearing my raincoat and have my backpack covered, I am soaked by the time I get to the motel. Across the street a gas station with a Subway sign is open and busy, so rather than check in at the motel, I decide to get something to eat before the storm becomes worse. In the building I take off my backpack in the Subway eating area, but soon realize that the station has a small deli area and the staff is serving hot food. Before long I am sitting in Subway with a hot coffee and a plate of mashed potatoes with brown gravy, green beans, and corn. I mix it into a soup and it is wonderful. When I get up to pay for a cup of coffee to go, the woman behind the counter looks at me in my wet clothes and heavy backpack and says, “We’re good. This one’s on us. Be safe.”

I cross the street in the pouring rain and enter the motel office. The clerk says, “Thank goodness, you’ve arrived. We were so worried about you.” This is such a nice comment. In fact, even as the storm rages outside, I feel like I have been in the embrace of kind friends the entire day. In my room I wash my clothes in the sink and hang them everywhere to dry. I take a shower and show much love to my feet with a massage and foot cream. I am done for the day, for the ordeal of the past two days, and fall asleep to the sound of buffeting rain slashing against my motel window.

Click here to read the previous chapter.

Click here to read the next chapter.

Map of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail. This post focuses on Segment 14b.