10/14/2026
Wow.. man, this dude here is a memory that will stick with me till i die. This dude was spotted ascending blood mtn with a pillow like you would have on your bed at home and several grocery bags and an old ratty back pack plum packed full of nothing of use during a sleet/snow storm ontop of a mtn at 5 degrees f and windchill of -5. So the crossings crew immediately took action and called the sheriffs to come and fetch this dude off the mtn. They walked to the top of blood and pulled this old dog of the hill. When they got him down the parking area the decision was to get him down to town to a hotel where people can brainstorm and figure out what this old man is doing out here in his condition. So they sent him down to the seasons inn for chris and colleen to give him some hometown love and a place to warm up at their hotel on the blairsville circle the seasons inn and also our hiker safe spot is the grateful hiker. So the sheriffs give him a ride to the hotel and the brother gets booked in and he goes to his room to clean up. About an hour later he rolls into our shop and i have already been warned about the old dude of the mtn and so the plan is to figure out if our friend is going out into the forest like a wounded or dying animal and finding his resting spot or is he trying to hike or we need to get to the bottom of it so we can look out for him cause we are all very worried. So i sit with him and get him name which is spidermanak and this is spider man and he loved and lived in alaska for a long time and part of the name was alaska and so we had his name all we need to do was find out what his intentions are and so spidermanak or jason was his real name, he begins to tell me his story and so in 1976 the bicentennial year he walked thru all 50 states and he was sponsered by red wing boot and he wanted to try and hike the appalachian trail before he passed away. So he was unprepared and we all knew he was going to go no matter what we told him to do aaand also it is not our place to tell him what to do and the cops did their blue paper test and he passed it so all we can do is wish him well aaand hook him up with gear that will keep him dry, warm and safe.. so just bill and I and the mtn crossings crew all threw in our extra gear and stuff other hikers had left behind and we put together a nice set up for him. Dude, was decked out in osprey and had a feathered friends bag and tent and man we hooked him up with quick dry clothing and gloves and man this dude was ready gear wise to roll out. So we get his bag all loaded up and we tell him to go ahead and put it on and this dude was not in good condition and was frail and just an older dude that had loved his life and man he could barely get the pack on and man bill and i were extremely worried when we saw that he could barely lift the pack we knew this dude needed not to go back out, but we could not stop him.. so we got him set up and the sheriffs told us to call when he was ready to roll out and so we hit them up and made a morning time scheduling for them to meet at the grateful hiker and get him back to the trail. So the next day it is time for him to go and the cops are ready to load him up. They get there and we talk for a minute and the cop and i are totally not good with putting him back on trail and so they had been communicating with jasons sister in boone and man she somehow was able to talk jason into not going back out and coming back later in the year. And so the cop comes out and tells me jason wants to talk to me and that he wanted to make sure that he was not disappointing bill and I cause of all we had helped him with and man i told the brother that it is all about the journey and never tje destination.. the journey is the destination!! He did more than most will ever think about doing and we or i or bill or anyone that reached out and gave him hand up would never be disappointed and we only want to see the best for him and that he had been apart of my journey and it was a positive part and i thanked him for his kindness and we loaded him up into the sheriffs car and they took him to the bus station... so several weeks later around march 19th ish spidermanak was spotted near hawk mtn shelter and we had some friends on trail that saw him and stopped to check in him and so jason started telling them about me and so the friend sent me a pic of him sitting on the ground and said guess who!! Hahaha. And so he was forced to leave directly after the pic was taken because covid was shutting the world down and we all know the rest of that story.. k. That is the s5tory of spidermanak.. thank you all for supporting the team. One love. Peace and safe travels
