A Limp in the Woods (Day 1)

An Appalachian Trail Tale
Day 1: Monday, March 25th (or January 84th) 2013
The Approach Trail = 8-ish miles
(AT) Miles to Date: .25

The Approach / Two Feet per Mile

“Hello spare time!” ~Funnybone

The Grand Départ of a long (I hope!) journey

Seldom do I find myself apprehensive when I think of going for a walk, but this was no ordinary walk. This was the famed Appalachian Trail, a two thousand-plus mile test-tube filled with self-inflicted torture and, as I’d soon come to discover, learning. Developmental learning. No other hike I’d done--and I’d done a few--had me prepared for such a Herculean task.

“Hail to the trail!” I muttered through trembling lips. And so it begins. The walk finally supersedes the talk.

Whereabouts positioned me and my friend Ruth at 34°37’36”N 84°11’37”W, in Amicalola Falls State Park atop the 3,782-foot summit of Springer Mountain, thirty or forty miles north of the megalopolis that is Atlanta. Georgia. The state, not the country.

For us, it’s an alien land. For Ruth, backpacking is a novel affair. A month ago she found herself in the presence of a terrible idea. “Hike the Appalachian Trail?” she repeated. “Sounds stupid. Sign me up!” But she’s learned--every grown-up who hikes is happier. “I normally walk by car,” she jokes. A high-functioning cuddler, recovering academic and avowed--although selective--nymphomaniac,* she’s signed up for a week of commute-by-boot. Me? I hope to remain trail-tied for months, a continuous form of backpack bondage. (Hope, here, is a form of mental illness.) We answer this booty boot call this by choice; we are not mentally ill. Not entirely.

*She doesn’t even mind me saying so, proving the point.

We made it to this most mundane of woodsy places (even on a clear day Springer Mountain isn’t postcard material) in one piece apiece, though the effort in doing so was anything but a cakewalk. We walked the eight-plus-mile Approach Trail, as it’s called, and I now know: the forecast calls for the probability of pain. For the next half year. Gulp.

Springer!

My shoe of choice (two, in fact): Wal-Mart specials

The approach to the indistinct summit is not required to earn thru-hiker accolades; it’s not officially part of the Appalachian Trail. Most hiker hopefuls are escorted up by gas guzzler, to a short distance from Springer. We didn’t do this. It wasn’t because we preferred to avoid polluting or paying. We walked because it doesn’t matter what a strip of dirt is named; if it exists, I want to be on it. If it provides sublimity and serenity, as the approach trail does, it’s all the better.

Our strip of dirt was a strip of snow. Creaking snow. The frozen stuff had blown in all day; the higher we went, the more things began to take it up, flake it up, a notch. It felt as though it was January 84th, not March 25th, like were inside a violently-shaken snow globe. Because of the muddiness, the steepness, and the tripping wind, every step was an ordeal. The Appalachian Trail ought to come with a warning. (“If I go, there will be trouble.”) Not a word was heard, but Ruth and I wondered what we got ourselves into, despite the sublimity and serenity. If there was supposed to be a sense of belonging going on, it didn’t belong to us.

But we’re here now, at the start of the world’s grandest footpath, as excited as we are cold. Ready to join the classless society known as thru-hikers. Through with society, thru-hiking. Beat by beat, verse by verse.

The wind is scything. With windchill, it’s below the teens. It’s kicking up additional snow, so picture-time and journal-keeping are ephemeral affairs. It’s so cold our teeth hurt. We need to get to shelter. The trail’s first of many three-sided shelters is just a quarter-mile up-trail. If there’s room, we’ll make it our digs for the night. 

Ruth moved on. I stood still, immobilized by the vastness of the task ahead. Long is the way. Take a step, I told my legs.

~~~~~

Turns out there wasn’t any space in the shelter. A gaggle of college-aged kids were jammed together in a heap of humanity so tight and tangled it appeared they’d been stitched together. They were farting, smoking and joking. For us this was no joking matter. The temperature was a balmy twenty-five degrees, not factoring in the howling wind. At thirty miles-per-hour, it hacked through our clothes like a giant invisible ice axe. After waving the pot smoke aside, we asked, despite our inherent aversion to crowdedness, if they could make some room.

Appalachian Trail shelters operate on a first-come, first-serve basis; we already knew the answer. But we had to try. It was funny to be in such a situation; I’d originally avowed to avoid shelters; I’m a germaphobe, a claustrophobe, a sociophobe, and a mouse-o-phobe. But given the realities of storms, it was not a wise (pre)decision. In a resounding manner the kids replied, “HELL YEAH MAN! THE MORE, THE MERRIER!” If that’s what marijuana does to kids’ brains, I’m all for it. Ruth and I were soon claustrophobically content, adding to the aroma.

As the others had, we eschewed etiquette and pitched our sarcophagus in the shelter. Tent time is the right time. Ours is the size of a refrigerator (though oftentimes colder). We settled into our sleeping bags--along with our electronic devices and the water filter, so they wouldn’t freeze and be damaged; the damage will come when we roll over atop them. We ate dinner and, once our hands were operative enough, wrote in our journals. “Hello spare time!” I scribbled. “Here goes nothing. Boot camp begins.”

The next five or six months would allow me all the time in the world to do nothing. I smiled at the thought and continued to jot…

“It’s 2,186 miles to trail’s end @ two feet per mile! All that separated us from today’s frozen tundra was our half-inch soles. Ruth has boots worthy of the job, while I don my typical el-cheap-o Wally-World shoes. I hope to get four hundred miles out of the pair, but at sixteen bucks, the task might be a bit of an ask.”

“We’ll see. It’s one foot after the other, each taking me two feet closer to trail’s end. I shouldn’t be thinking that far in advance; there’re millions of strides between here and trail’s end. Millions! Millions I hope to take, millions I hope to make. Each step is a small victory of sorts. Some are gonna come harder than others...”

I paused. “I wonder how today’s’ll compare...”

I paused again.

Relentless forward progress! Let the good times stroll...

“The world reveals itself to those who travel on foot.”

~Werner Herzog

“My feet is my only carriage...”

~Bob Marley