Childress, Texas

Childress is white. White sky, white roads, white everything. What was walkable terrain yesterday is now likely a lot of ice, and that means finally using my Yak Traks. The Weather Channel has predicted flurries from the system moving through the region, and from the looks of the day, they're probably correct.

Night before last, I camped in this weather. I wanted to know what it was like to be in an ice storm. The day had been in the 60s and 70s, and when the weather's good, it's hard to feel anything but confident. While nothing much happened, this is obviously a dangerous attitude to have.

I rigged my tarp up between two bushes and staked the corners. This worked fine until the wind started blowing hard. After about an hour of trying to manage this from the inside of the tarp, I got up, didn't bother putting on pants, put my shoes on with no socks, and tackled the problem from the outside. Had it been raining, I wouldn't have been so careless, but the temperature was probably still 40s at this point and not unbearably cold. I made several new stakes and made sure there was something in every grommet. This, I felt, would do the job.

While I was working, I could feel the temperature dropping. Some people are naturals at knowing about what the temperature is, and while I've never been good at this, I've gotten a lot better on this trip. Five degrees can make a world of difference. I hurried my work, then got back in my sleeping bag and tarp before the rain started. I was dry and warm, and while I would remain such during the night and morning, things started to go very very wrong.

I got a few hours of sleep before a corner of my tarp whipping back and forth in the wind woke me up. I was a little frustrated. How many stakes would this job take? I wondered. As the night wore on, more and more stakes started coming out due to this strong wind. I would put them back in, albeit in a different spot where the ground wasn't loose, and weigh them down with my shoes. Fifteen minutes later, I'd have to repeat the process. I could've started a farm for all the tilling I'd done.

During all of this, not much of my stuff had gotten wet. I was still warm, dry, and in good spirits. My tarp structure had been reduced to junk, but I had not. When the sky turned from dark to white, I ate some ash bread I had made the night before and snacked on some trail mix. Whether you're home by the fire or in the middle of nowhere, life seems pretty good when you're eating homemade bread.

Then my body started churning. The party was over. I knew that sooner or later I would have to go out in the storm.

So I changed positions and procrastinated as long as I could. Trains went by in the background, likely carrying several nice bathroom facilities with them. The wind and rain continued like an inexhaustible orchestra. One last gurgle, and I got dressed.

From the outside, I could see what had happened. The freezing rain had coated everything with an ever-increasing layer of ice. The ice had weighed down the mesquite bushes I had tied my tarp to. This created slack in my tarp which the wind started blowing into like a kite. And that's why the stakes kept coming up.

My tarp was almost completely collapsed. While I had enjoyed a certain measure of warmth and dryness from the inside, I'm not sure how much longer it would have lasted. The side of my tarp had accumulated lots of water and hail, which was turning into a huge slab of solid ice, and after I had done my personal business, my rain gear was a little wet too. I decided to hoof it.

The rest you can guess. It was a long fifteen or sixteen miles to Childress, though I walked fast. My gloves and shoes, which both had claimed to be waterproof, were not. My hands which at one point had started to heat up, lost all their warmth and started to go numb. I took off the gloves, put my poles on my pack, and stuck my hands in my jacket. I could feel the water in my shoes, but because I was walking, my feet generated enough heat to be okay.

Perhaps the most important thing I did was an assessment every twenty minutes or so. I'd go through each of my body parts and say how cold or warm they were and whether this was an improvement or not from the previous assessment. Then I'd assess my spirits, my will to continue. While my levels of warmth fluctuated due to weather or gear, my overall attitude never faltered.

I made it to Childress. Half the city lacked power, so I continued until I found a motel with the lights on. When I took my pack off and looked at myself, I found ice all over me. When signing my name, I lacked the finger dexterity to make it look like my signature.

From all I've heard, I'd say it was an appropriate introduction to the Texas Panhandle.

Until next time...

Dear Perimeter Hiker

People ask me things about my endeavor all the time. "Why?" is probably the most frequent question, and I think about what it means and how I would answer it just about every day. The questions I use in these "Dear Perimeter Hiker" installments are pretty close to what was originally asked. I go off the assumption that if one person was curious there might be others equally curious.

.

On my way out of Paris, I met a bookstore owner who asked me some pretty tough questions. One is a version of "Why?", and the other is a good all-around question. His are the first and second ones.

. . .

. . .

One Foot into Arkansas, Bowie County & Miller County, Day 73

. . .

Dear Perimeter Hiker,

What was your goal before starting your trek and are you accomplishing it?

Gotta Stay Focused

.

Dear GSF,

I had a lot of surface goals before starting the trek. In no particular order, they were: to do something never done before, to have an adventure, to see Texas, to meet interesting people, to see different things, to visit places I'd never otherwise visit, and to write about all of the above. I have accomplished these goals and checked them off.

.

If all I had were these goals, I might be inclined to quit while I was ahead. Both fortunately and unfortunately, it goes deeper than the above list.

.

Just slightly deeper is the notion that I wanted to accomplish something, to start and finish a project that I had created, and that the creation and completion was enough just by itself. As with anything, if a person conceives of an idea and follows through with it, a pattern is created that can then be repeated. Likewise, a person can conceive of some do-able idea and choose not to do anything with it, also creating a pattern and a similar though opposite effect. In my case, I was tired of not doing anything and wanted to reverse that.

.

However, there is something underneath all of the above reasons that defies my attempts to explain it. I feel compelled to walk, as if my future relied upon it in ways I have yet to understand. Comprehension is not the goal, though; it's a byproduct of giving myself this time. I'm open to the possibility that I'll never understand the impact of this project on me and my life, only that it was important for me to do.

. . .

. . .

Is God Satisfied with Your Life?, Red River County, Day 78

. . .

Dear Perimeter Hiker,

What if anything have you learned thus far?

Looking for Answers

.

Dear LFA,

I've learned that homemade peanut brittle is wonderful, that some people are trusting of strangers and others are not, that camping in the middle of nowhere is not terribly difficult, that people offer rides even when you're not asking, that the importance of meaningful human contact is impossible to overvalue, that store purchases are decent icebreakers, that no matter how you act some people will always judge you on your looks, that walking on a paved road really hurts after a while, that walking with a foot injury hurts even more, that East Texas is beautiful, that Couchsurfing.org is a great idea, that my family and friends are rooting for me, that Texas newspapers are going to be around for a long time, that DeKalb is pronounced DEE-CAB, that it's fun to visit with friends of my parents when my parents aren't around, that a smile is just about the best thing to receive after a long day, that mountain lions aren't real fun to hear close at night, that I harbor within me the same prejudices I experience, and that God has presented himself everywhere I have traveled. There's probably more, but that'll do.

. . .

. . .

Texas Bricks, Longview, Harrison County, Day 62

. . .

Dear Perimeter Hiker,

What are you going to do during the Panhandle winter?

Getting Cold Just Thinking About It

.

Dear GCJTAI,

I have a few options. I can attempt to go through it as long as the weather holds up decently. This is difficult as the blue northers usually sweep in without much warning. With good boots and a good sleeping bag, I'm confident the hiking would be manageable.

.

However, I'm not thrilled with the idea of hiking wet or - worst case scenario - in a white out. If I feel like I need to bail for a few weeks or more, I have two non-hiking options: 1) get a job up north or 2) volunteer at a park in the region. I intend to look into these options during the Thanksgiving break.

. . .

. . .

Stay tuned! More updates on the way...