Beyond The Bryson Threshold

And zombie ramen updates.

Author

Rusty Foster
October 10, 2024

I’m at Loft Mountain campground today, one of the big drive-in campgrounds in Shenandoah National Park. My plan was to take advantage of the nice picnic table and quiet campsite this morning to write you a proper newsletter post. But today dawned 42 degrees and windy, so instead I’m huddled in my tent, thumb-typing this quick update just so no one thinks I’ve died. A friend has kindly offered to pick me up from Rockfish Gap at the south end of the park and host me at a real house this weekend (!) so I’ll have a proper post for you on Sunday instead.

In the meantime, here are three brief items of news:

1. I have passed The Bryson Threshold

Yesterday I reached Pinefield Gap, which is 128 miles past the Potomac River bridge at Harper’s Ferry. Added to the 743 miles from Katahdin to Rt. 22 in New York, that makes 871 total miles hiked, one more than Bill Bryson managed in A Walk In The Woods. I’ve maintained my one-sided feud with Bryson for a goof, but in all honesty 870 miles of hiking is an awful lot and no one should dismiss what he accomplished.

Of course I’ve now accomplished more, so suck it, Bryson.

2. Shenandoah National Park is an amazing hike

After one day of clinging fog, the weather for the last four days has been gorgeous, and the trail here in Shenandoah has been uniformly well constructed and well maintained. It’s not a land of dramatic alpine vistas, but I’m enjoying the gentle ascents and descents, and the occasional unexpected view out across the Shenandoah Valley. Also every day or so I’ve passed one of the roadside restaurant / store combos that they call Waysides, so I’ve been able to resupply without even leaving the trail and also stuff myself with burgers, fries, and the park specialty blackberry milkshakes. If the whole trail were arranged like Shenandoah National Park, the thru-hike completion rate would be 100%.

A local told me that’s Massanutten in the middle distance.

3. A Mica Update

Mica has made it to Pennsylvania, and is enjoying not being made to sit around at burger places stuffing himself. In his trail journal, he wrote about being concerned that he was going to run out of stove fuel, so he decided to cold-soak his breakfast ramen overnight and then just heat it up quickly in the morning, to conserve fuel. Here’s Mica on how that went:

Cold-soaked ramen was not a success. It looked promising enough when I got it out of the bear box- the noodles were soft but not mushy, and it smelled fine as I heated it up. But as soon as I took a bite I could tell something was wrong. There was something of the uncanny valley about this ramen, something not raw but not exactly cooked either. I thought of Dr. Frankenstein's revulsion at the undead being he created. I thought of the ancient mariner's Nightmare Life-in-Death, of Poe's Rowena whose corpse became all the more horrible for its semblance of vitality. My soup was warm but no amount of heat could chase away the frigid pallor of the grave.

You never waste food while backpacking; I choked down my zombie noodles. But I won't be repeating the experiment.

I think he’s got some potential as a writer.

Skyline Drive is pretty nice too.

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