Onions (Day 5) (64 miles hiked)

I was about 7 miles into my 2^nd day’s hike when I saw a short, shirtless hiker approaching me on the trail from the opposite direction. He had a big smile on his face and he joyfully asked me, “You want an onion?” In his hand, he held out five onions, which he seemed quite proud of.

“No, I’m good,” I replied.

The smile quickly vanished from the guy’s face and now, he looked concerned.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

As it turns out, I was not.

Suddenly, I was second guessing myself and I was now wondering if I should take him up on his offer. I didn’t need to do an inventory of my pack to know that my onion supply was quite low. In fact, I had none.

Up until that point, “zero” had seemed like a perfectly adequate number of onions to be carrying during an Appalachian Trail thru-hike, but the look on this guy’s face seemed to indicate otherwise. Why did this guy have five onions and why did he think I needed one? What did he know about onions that I didn’t? Are onions of some use on the Appalachian Trail or was this guy just straight up crazy to walk up to a stranger and offer an onion without even saying “hi” first?

“Uhh, no thanks,” I finally replied. (I assumed that even if onions did have some special powers in the woods, I wouldn’t how to use them anyway, so I was probably better off without one.)

He shrugged his shoulders, said “okay” in that “your loss, buddy” tone and continued passed me. I never saw him again.

If I knew more about long distance hiking, I probably wouldn't have spent the past 3 days utterly baffled and slightly concerned about the incident.

 Warning: This pack may (or may not) contain a dangerously low number of onions.

P.S. The Blue Ridge Mountains have been quite a sight.