A Limp in the Woods (Day 11)

An Appalachian Trail Tale

Day 11: Thursday, April 4th, 2013
Beech Gap area to Long Branch Shelter = 12 miles

Miles to date: 102

Beware of Falling Ice

It’s not possible to walk in two directions at once, but there are two walks happening here. I’m walking another* long trail, and I am walking away from work. (*The AT is not merely another long trail; it is the granddaddy of ‘em all and knows no twin(1).) The worst part about walking away from work is that I had a job that afforded me all the passion long trails do, plus an actual cash income. Those who know me contend I’m running from responsibility. Wrong! I’m walking from it.

I don’t need work. Just food, shelter, and clothing. (Also: play doesn’t require work for balance.) As such, I walk away knowing it’s a step in the right direction. Anytime you’re atop a National Scenic Trail, you’re stepping in the right direction, regardless which way the needle points. The right place at the right time, all the time. A serene form of serendipity.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t apprehensive. And though duplicity isn’t difficult, apprehension is. I’m apprehensive of getting my job back. I’m apprehensive of wanting it back. I’m equally as apprehensive that I’ll toil onward, even if the passion no longer exists, slogging for the sake of an arbitrary goal called Katahdin, in the middle of Maine, near the middle of nowhere. (I’m told you can see the middle of nowhere from Katahdin’s summit.)

Worse yet, I’m nervous of a propensity to compare past trails and experiences. On the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT), the trail I’ve got the hots for (my mantra: do what’s best), where nearly every scene can be made into a postcard or screensaver, where awe is experienced daily, I crossed paths with AT hikers who did just this. It’s a filthy inclination I share. For us, the Promised Land is always somewhere else, somewhere we’re not. Here is just a gateway drug for there.

These trail comparisons are entirely pointless, like comparing Appalachians to oranges. But my PCT experience was one of life’s defining episodes. I tend to think back to it all too often.

(Things that were can still be! It’s never too late to live in the past!)

I know I shouldn’t live there--one trail at a time, please!--and some of the time I don’t. (A lousy memory helps; I recognize too that the past is the only dead thing that smells sweet.) But because I’ve forgotten all the pain; because hindsight is not 20/20; because memory is cunningly creative, I look back to my first thru-hike as the one they should all live up to. 

I hope history repeats itself. 

The past in my case is a poison; regret begets me. They say the future is the antidote; there’s a reason the windshield is larger than the rear-view mirror. Like a thru-hike, life is about headway, not about being lodged in your head, lodged in reverse.

I’d feel lodged in reverse, emotionally and physically, all day today, the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s murder. Emotions affect physical well-being, and physical well-being affects emotions. The catalyst in my case was emotion. My thoughts were elsewhere (the past and the future, as is typical) and not on the trail. This might have worked to my advantage (since the trail works hard to remind you of its presence with every step), if it weren’t for the physical result--fatigue.

The AT is hard enough without this ongoing head injury, this internal/infernal turmoil. Curse words flew in all directions for much of the day, only to land on deaf ears. My own. The thick winter hat only helps cover those ears, as does the wax museum inside ‘em.

It’s a choice to tackle strenuous miles like those in Appalachia; a life of self-imposed strife. With choice there can be no such thing as suffering. No one chooses to suffer. Suicidal types chose death because they wanted to end their suffering. They saw existence as abject(2). Just as it is with suicide, ending the AT struggle also ends the joys, and the potential for more.

Today was the first time I wanted to give this trail the boot. Fold like a camp chair, like many others have. (Where there’s no will, there’s no way.) Yet, verklempt thought I was, I knew it wasn’t an option. Ending it would end it all, and good things require effort.

What a day for effort. A contemptible rain had pelted all night. It fell as water and hit the ground as ice. Before walking, I sat in my portable shanty with cold feet. (And cold everything else.) I debated whether to weather the weather; it was that objectionable. It was so bad the ink in my ballpoint pen froze, which is why I bring a back-up pencil, like those Russian cosmonauts.

But boredom set in. I made the decision to quit arranging words and depart the constricting confines. Sometimes you wait for the storm to pass, sometimes you boogie in the rain. I opted out, into the brave old world. Before I could reverse my mind, I gulped some invigorating propellent, packed, and began to tear down the Bore-dome, only to find it fused to the ground. Had it been sewn down it would’ve been less secure. Not yet, yeti. False start! When tent becomes prison.

It’s casual dress day at work today

I set the setup up, did the contortionist thing, and went turtle. I didn’t know what to do, but was too cold to do nothing. Between bouts of push-ups I tried thawing the earth beneath the tent’s fabric floor. It seemed the only option. Me as de-icer. I’d lie there shivering under house arrest, pondering my degree of Appalachian appreciation. The degrees were few in every sense. I ate some unsalted Saltines and slowly peeled the flooring, hoping not to rend asunder, just like I do with my eyelids each morning.

Well damn if it didn’t work! Cabin fever no more! After twenty minutes this inmate was free and trudging. I wondered if homeowner’s insurance is obtainable for tents. I’d soon pass an abandoned tent, also adhered to the ground. It was a pricey Six Moon Designs model and had a poorly writ note attached. Trembling fingers had scribed: “PleeeAse doNt steAl this tEnt; wE’rE n0t dOne uSing It.”

The trail is here somewhere

Temperatures weren’t regular cold; they were penguins-in-parkas cold. It was as though winter and spring were in the throes of a custody battle. Winter was winning. Visibility was mostly invisible. Ten feet, tops. Blinded by the shite. (Wrecked off like a douche-uh in the middle of the night?)

Finding white blazes in a whiteout was nigh impossible, and there were no discernible footsteps ahead. (For a map to be of any help in such weather, its scale would need to be one inch to the inch.) Petrified water stuck to everything. Its weight bent every rhododendron branch, onto the path. I had to crawl more than I have since the time I was a baby--a little baby, not the cry baby I was today. My hands and knees began to freeze; my pack-plastered back remained sweaty. It was some of the toughest walking I’ve ever done, despite the topography’s benignity. I was alive! Storms are unparalleled champions of reminding you you exist. And that you don’t mean shit.

The gut-check, the crucible, came near a mountain called Albert. (“Uncle!” I pleaded.) The trail tilted upward sharply enough to force the use of hands and buttocks and knees, or whatever else would help keep a purchase on the earth. An ice-axe and pitons and ropes would’ve been reassuring, as would’ve a steaming mug of split-pea soup. Roots were ice-slickened, and handholds, especially vital, were few. My hands were inoperative anyhow, even after they’d been burrowing in my crotch. I swung my arms around like crazed windmill blades, hoping to get blood to them. God how I hate April winters.

I made it up--I make a lot of things up--and reached the tower on top. Not today, Satan. Besides a split-second break of the split pea soup, all I could detect were four posts fading into the fog above; there was no sense in climbing to see the views. I carried on past the hundred-mile mark to a brand spankin’ new shelter, the Long Branch. The structure was so well designed it looked like a kit. All it needed was a mirrored disco ball and it’d’ve been perfection. Well, maybe. Humans don’t make improvements to Nature. Perfection only exists outside humankind, outside. I had the inside to myself. 

I hate using the word epic to depict events--thru-hiking involves no bold or harrowing feats--but this day was epic. Had I stopped at any point prior I may not have been around to write this.

The glimpse of the Albert Mountain Fire Tower

One by one, others would pull up and pull in. They’re all hardcore types, including an army sniper whose “first time hunting was for humans” in Afghanistan. The kid had been discharged less than honorably (“thankfully”) and had a slew of things to say. My favorites:

“They told me during the White Phase of basic training I was a sharp shooter. But if I was that sharp, why’d I need basic training? And really, if I was sharp, would I have joined the military?”

     And...

“I truly believe most young guys who join [the military] do so not to defend this mosh pit nation, or its freedoms, which is BS anyway, but don’t get me goin’ on that. They do so ‘cause there’re few other jobs they can get. Their options are limited. A life of minimum wage slavery or a life of risk. Risk at least provides a way out, whether it’s risking your life in the army or risking it sellin’ drugs.”

Heavy shit from someone who’s been there among them. He said he’s walking the trail to deal with “all my issues,” before joking that the trail was now one of them. “Drugs would be a simpler solution.”

I joked to him I tried to join the military once. “They told me they didn’t need to win that bad.” We were fast friends, although I can’t remember his trailname.

Jason, the climber laying the groundwork for Denali, who Ruth and I camped with at Justus Creek on night three, also showed. The guy is NAILS. He’s hauling a nine-pound four-season tent, “for practice.” (Here’s to hoping they come up with a five-season tent, for days like today.) His load? SEVENTY-FIVE POUNDS! That’s three hundred Quarter Pounder patties (before cooking), and four times the weight of my pack. Then again, I’m wearing everything that had been in it, including the titanium cook pot atop my head.

"Foot"note 1: Though it does have a few steps.
"Foot"note 2: If you're depressed and suicidal you might as well be brave.