Two tales illustrate the best and, rarely, worst on trails

Ford took quickly to the proper way of drawing clear droplets of sweet from honeysuckle flowers. My grandson and I stopped on the trail at thickly blooming patches of the vines on our way to Nassau from Lewes.

Bicycles parked in Monday’s warm sun, we waded into the flowers, kept our eyes out for snakes also after the sweetness - saw none - and then stood there agreeing on a couple of things: Honey from the yellow flowers is sweeter than from the white flowers, and it would take a week of steady work to collect enough honeysuckle juice to pour over just one stack of pancakes.

We also stopped at the honeysuckle patch on the way back to Lewes. Ford said the trip homeward went by more quickly. A simple reason, I told him. A stiff southwest wind pushed against us on the way out of town. Coming home it pushed in our favor. That felt good to his 6-year old legs that pumped hard to keep speed up. It felt good to my 69-year-old legs too.

A group of us had just come back Sunday from a cycling and hiking trip to the Mount Rogers area of southwestern Virginia. We hiked nine miles in the mountains on the first day, cycled 36 miles on the Virginia Creeper Trail the next day, and topped it off with three more miles of hiking on Saturday.

Those who have read this column through the years know the Virginia Creeper is one of my favorite trails. It’s worth the 10-hour drive from Lewes. Forty-five bridges cross rushing mountain creeks and rivers. The first 18 miles of the trail are all downhill, the next 18 level and pretty. Acres and acres of Fraser fir Christmas trees in various stages of growth stand on the 3,500-foot-plus mountainsides. And mid-May produces plenty of blooming flowers to identify and appreciate.

On the long mountain hike, we lay back in a sloping meadow carpeted with yellow flowers. They reminded me of the poppies in The Wizard of Oz. Like the travelers in that famous tale, we too slept,  digesting ham and cheese sandwiches chased with water and little tangerines.

The third line of a haiku completed the little poem as I slipped back into wakefulness.

Mountainside napping. Ocean of yellow flowers. Happy mystery.

But all is not as sweet and innocent as teaching grandchildren proper honeysuckle form, or drifting into a nap surrounded by yellow flowers as clouds pass above.

A tragic reminder

On the Creeper ride, we intersected the Appalachian Trail. A through-hiker who calls herself Snowflake rested at a bench as her young and friendly pit bull puppy sniffed around the area. She told us she rescued him in a small town in Tennessee a few weeks before and named him D'Artagnan. D’Artagnan was a French musketeer who served Louis XIV as captain of the Musketeers of the Guard.

“A sheriff told me the dog - unless adopted - was a likely candidate for euthanisia, because of his age and breed. So I took him,” said Snowflake. “He’s carrying his own food and water.”

Snowflake said she encountered a hiker, who called himself Sovereign, in the parking lot of a hostel in Tennessee. Those who keep up with the news may have read about the man who, just a couple of weeks back, stabbed two trail hikers - one fatally. It was in the same area - outside the trail town of Damascus - where we stopped to talk with Snowflake. The man she encountered a few weeks earlier was Sovereign.

“I was there talking with the hostel owner when he approached,” she said. “I could tell immediately that he was schizophrenic - by the way he was talking and the way he was acting. At one point he pulled out this big knife. It was no pocket knife. I can tell you that. He stuck it into the top of a picnic table we were standing near and kept talking a lot of nonsense. It was scary but he never directly threatened us,” said Snowflake.

“Still, the hostel owner stepped into the building and came out with a pistol. He told the man to get his knife and get away. Sovereign pulled the knife out of the wood and stood there. That’s when the hostel owner lifted his .38 and fired a shot beside the man’s head. He said something like ‘Don’t kill me, I’m leaving,’ and then turned around and walked away. Now I hear he showed up in this area recently and killed a man while also critically wounding the man’s girlfriend. He reportedly harassed some other hikers along the way, threatening to throw gas on their tents and burning them. But when that was reported to the police, the hikers said they didn’t want to press charges. They didn’t want to have to come back to testify. That’s wrong. Selfish. Of course they didn’t know he would go on to kill.”

Hundreds of hikers were passing through Damascus the day we encountered Snowflake. It was the weekend of Trail Days. The fiddle and banjo music of a bluegrass band filled spaces between craft vendors in the town park. The hikers, most of them young, traded stories about the killing, but there was little talk of leaving the quest.

The Appalachian Trail - stretching from Georgia to Maine - passes straight through the center of Damascus, as does the Creeper trail. On either side of town, where the trail passes through the highest mountains of Virginia, white blazes on rocks and tree trunks mark the way. In Damascus, the blazes are posted on telephone poles on the town's main street.

Snowflake wanted no part of the throngs in town for the weekend celebration. “I’m 53, in my 107th day since leaving Georgia, and I’ve had enough of scenes like that,” she said, finishing a cigarette. She had another tucked behind her right ear. Playing it safe clearly isn't her thing.

She was among the majority mourning the loss of a fellow hiker, but continuing on despite the tragedy. “They caught him quickly and now have him locked up awaiting a psychological examination to determine whether he knows what he’s doing. No doubt in my mind he’s crazy.”

D’Artagnan crawled up in Snowflake’s lap and licked her face as she finished her story. “He’s getting antsy now, ready to go,” she said.

Thousands of people hike on the Appalachian Trail every year. Tragedies like the one we heard about are rare. It’s generally a safe place, as are the trails with which our own Cape Region is blessed.

Unfortunately, we’re sadly reminded now and then that we have to be ever vigilant. We have to be careful all the time.