An Appalachian Trail Tale
Day 12: Friday, April 5th, 2013
Long Branch Shelter to Wayah Crest Picnic Area = 13 miles
Long Branch Shelter to Wayah Crest Picnic Area = 13 miles
Miles to date: 115
Feet of Mud
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| Long Branch Shelter and an AT fashionista |
To this point, it is precisely that--challenge--that leaps out. And, come night, what keeps me in.
The No Shelters rule I swore upon pre-hike no longer applies. I failed 2/10ths of a mile into the path, just five hundred footsteps into the five million I ache to take. So what’s the point of adhering to it now? I refuse to obstinately adhere to self-imposed limits, especially unrealistic ones. Smart folks set and possess limitations; we idiots know no limits. (Nor much else.) Tin roofs work. They work better than nylon roofs. Sleep should not be another challenge.
Plus, this: the AT is not a wilderness experience. Structures abound. Bridges, culverts, shelters, cisterns, water pumps, blazes, signs, directions, and so on. Roads also abound. The longest roadless stretch of the entire path is just forty miles, a two or three day amble. The longest shelterless stretch is shorter yet. These manmade things (like the trail itself) are part of the thru-hiking experience. In today’s world, man is a part of the wilderness. Wilderness is dead.
Last night’s shelter experience was one of the better ones. The structure had just been built (but was defiled already--damn you ‘NOMAD 2013’(1)). It smelled of freshly cut wood, one of the first nice scents I’d descried on this ride. Six of us sat around in our sleeping bags sharing abysmal food and unmitigated laughter. The trail had humbled us; we had to laugh at ourselves to think it would have done anything but. Even on a nice day the trail would’ve doled out a serious ass-whooping. It knows no limits.
After sleeping on my stomach all night, to keep the vitals warm, I was last to relinquish the auspices of the double-decker shelter. The house of the rising sun, not! Transmission trouble--I couldn’t get my butt in gear. It was 2:30 when I pushed on, a quarter of a day after my roommates. By 2:30 the frost lost and the ice had melted into liquid oblivion, into the ground. The clouds shifted, lifted, then drifted. It was a glorious afternoon, more autumn-y than spring-y, but enchanting just the same. I was excited and, for the first time in more than a hundred miles, strode with pep in the step.
Without the rime coating, the rhododendron withies had all sprung back out of the hiker’s way, out of harm’s way. (I’d been dismembering low-lying rhododendrons much of the day yesterday.) There were a few stretches where they’d encroached the trail, but it was otherwise tranquil. The slop and the slipperiness of the rocks or the roots were the main concerns, but usually only on the north facing slopes of a given hill. In mud nothing is simple.
By now we’ve grown used to stuff. We ATers--the Bog Brigade--live in it, and it lives on us. The gunk first clogs our shoes’ “aggressive” soles before finding its way atop and into those shoes; ten-ounce footwear ends up weighing three times its original intended weight. This makes the AT three times more difficult than its original intended difficulty.
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| Washing the shoes and socks |
Terra squirma then slides into the socks, before seeping beneath the toenails, into your blistered skin, into your bloodstream. It makes its way into zippers, and all fabric from the waist down ends up slathered in the stuff.
Wherever we camp mud locates us--unearths us, you could say. It is found in our tents, our sleeping bags, our hair, our ears, our nostrils, our pores, and our gums. It cakes our meals. (“Extra calories,” we joke.) We are from the Earth. We are of the Earth. We are the Earth.
Future ATers take note: After the dust settles THERE WILL BE MUD.
That’s the dirt on mud.
“We must eat a peck of dirt before we die.”
~old English proverb
That’s the dirt on mud.
As I drudged forth through the drowned ground, shoes squelching, I saw a large, saggy man approaching. He looked to be a blend of soldier (soil-dier?) and redneck, with a pinch of geek thrown in. Flannel, camouflage fatigues and modern materials draped from his pale, sweaty skin. He also had a holster, replete with Ruger. This made me ill at ease; guns always do.
We drew nearer and exchanged a few banal pleasantries, polite social fiction, before he finally caught his breath and exclaimed in a proud peculiarity: “Been out a week. Had to leave both behind: the missus and the masses. I’m a hardcore survivalist.”
How about that! A regular Jeremiah Johnson! A self-proclaimed survivalist who can’t survive the real world! I darn near swallowed my tongue trying to suppress a paroxysm of laughter. Had he not employed the word hardcore, I might’ve hardly noticed, but he wanted for emphasis, and thus attention, and I had to hand it to him. Nerd alert!
It was equally as funny, because as far as I could tell, he was far from being a paragon of health or endurance or durability. He carried cigarettes and what I estimated an extra seventy-five pounds on his frame. And it was easy tell by smell he smoked those cigarettes.
I mulled for a minute: Would a true survivalist inhale something known to cut short his very survival? And would he be such a fat fart?
I think not. A true (hardcore) survivalist would eat healthily, engage in aerobic exercise often, have many friends and a dog and (maybe) a missus, and he’d avoid things known to cut life short (e.g., obesity, tobacco, guns, knifes and trucks). Nor would he focus on survival. He’d aim for thrive-al.
Incidentally, while we’re on the matter, aren’t we all survivalists?! As long as we’re alive, doesn’t that make us so? I live, therefore I survive, no? Isn’t it simply a case of: “It’s the journey, not the destination”?
I thought of telling him I’d rather be a REAList than a survivalist, but instead kept my trap shut, because, well, I too am a survivalist. (Recall: gun on hip.) I just turned and slipped away, making some feeble excuse allowing me to do so, before wishing him well on his continued survival. I held in the hysteria and wrote as I walked...
“I suffer from connotation; I do not trust those in camouflage. And what the heck is tactical clothing? Is it really practical clothing?”
How about that! A regular Jeremiah Johnson! A self-proclaimed survivalist who can’t survive the real world! I darn near swallowed my tongue trying to suppress a paroxysm of laughter. Had he not employed the word hardcore, I might’ve hardly noticed, but he wanted for emphasis, and thus attention, and I had to hand it to him. Nerd alert!
It was equally as funny, because as far as I could tell, he was far from being a paragon of health or endurance or durability. He carried cigarettes and what I estimated an extra seventy-five pounds on his frame. And it was easy tell by smell he smoked those cigarettes.
I mulled for a minute: Would a true survivalist inhale something known to cut short his very survival? And would he be such a fat fart?
I think not. A true (hardcore) survivalist would eat healthily, engage in aerobic exercise often, have many friends and a dog and (maybe) a missus, and he’d avoid things known to cut life short (e.g., obesity, tobacco, guns, knifes and trucks). Nor would he focus on survival. He’d aim for thrive-al.
Incidentally, while we’re on the matter, aren’t we all survivalists?! As long as we’re alive, doesn’t that make us so? I live, therefore I survive, no? Isn’t it simply a case of: “It’s the journey, not the destination”?
I thought of telling him I’d rather be a REAList than a survivalist, but instead kept my trap shut, because, well, I too am a survivalist. (Recall: gun on hip.) I just turned and slipped away, making some feeble excuse allowing me to do so, before wishing him well on his continued survival. I held in the hysteria and wrote as I walked...
“I suffer from connotation; I do not trust those in camouflage. And what the heck is tactical clothing? Is it really practical clothing?”
With a spall sneaking around inside my left shoe, I descended from Mudlandia to Highway 64. I rotated between walking on my toes and my heels, in hopes I’d move the jagged little pill to the least uncomfortable spot. Although it felt like I was wearing sandpaper socks, I didn’t care to stop to remove it or the mud. Sitting and getting back up takes considerable effort during a thru-hike, as does bending over with a backpack. Sometimes it’s best to just keep moving. If the thru-hiker stopped for every impediment, he would not be a thru-hiker.
Towns, however!
Most hikers opt to hitchhike from the highway into Franklin, NC, ten miles down the winding way. I opted otherwise. Hitchhiking is not my preferred mode of travel and I’ve long since concluded that the less of it I do, the longer I’ll be able to hone my survival skills. Breathing is a treasured habit. Death at the hands--or chainsaw--of a hitchhiker-hunting madman can wait. Unfortunately, that’s all I think about when soliciting rides from complete--or incomplete--strangers. So I pack extra supplies to avoid more frequent hitches. There are enough hitches on the AT as it is. For example, the walking part.
And rocks in the socks.
After sitting to remove the fun-sized stone, following the dislocation of pack, shoe and sock, I scampered across the wide highway, Frogger style. I then mud-wrestled my way to the Wayah Crest Picnic Area. There, a few other survivalists, all complete strangers to me--and to one another--had built a fire, that olden day social magnet before radios or TVs ruined everything.
“Let me stand next to your fire,” I sang, Hendrix style. No one laughed or made much room.
We crowded around, furtively fighting for the least smoky spot, mesmerized by the flames. Shivering to no end, I gave up the quest and crawled into my dome-sweet-dome for the night. I’d covered a half-marathon on the day, which wasn’t half bad considering the delayed start. It’s well-known that half a marathon on the Appalachian Trail is an ultra-marathon anywhere else.
"Foot"note 1: I find it difficult to fault those who leave their names carved in shelters. The structures are man-made, an embodiment of people's presence on the trail, which is also man-made and destructive. As such, it doesn't irk me to see trash or feces near a shelter..."litter" has to go somewhere, whether in a landfill, a privy, or here. (Like most people, I litter at the landfill.) On the other hand, damage to natural features--rocks, trees, plants, land, rivers, etc--is completely disheartening.
"Foot"note 1: I find it difficult to fault those who leave their names carved in shelters. The structures are man-made, an embodiment of people's presence on the trail, which is also man-made and destructive. As such, it doesn't irk me to see trash or feces near a shelter..."litter" has to go somewhere, whether in a landfill, a privy, or here. (Like most people, I litter at the landfill.) On the other hand, damage to natural features--rocks, trees, plants, land, rivers, etc--is completely disheartening.
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