A Limp in the Woods (Day 15)

An Appalachian Trail Tale

Day 15: Monday, April 8th, 2013
Bushnell Knob to the Fontana Dam Hilton = 12 miles

Miles to date: 166

The Hammer of the Gods

A bevy of locos (with loco motives) roused me around Absurd:30, the most unseemly of hours. It must have been two a.m. Narcotic hours, the pricks. They sounded like a locomotive and their headlights made daytime out of the nighttime sky, pointing in all directions, but primarily at my eyes. They were singing and yelling and sounded inebriated. I was quite incoherent myself--just starting to dream about what’s her name--and thought I’d slept beside some tracks, only to come to my senses. Fatty was sound asleep. She never heard a thing.

Night hiking is an enlivened adventure, but to extract its full power it should be experienced alone, without the use of artificial light. In my de facto holy book, Desert Solitaire, Monsieur Abbey writes, “There’s another disadvantage to the use of the flashlight: like many other mechanical gadgets it tends to separate a man from the world around him. If I switch it on my eyes adapt to it and I can see only the small pool of light it makes in front of me; I am isolated. Leaving the flashlight in my pocket where it belongs, I remain a part of the environment I walk through and my vision though limited has no sharp or definite boundary.”

Amen shaman Ed, amen.

It seemed these noisemakers were all about making miles, so they could check the Appalachian Trail off their “bucket list” (a term and a mentality I absolutely abhor; I once wasted a whole minute penning a bucket list; it ended up in the waste bucket). They’d formed their small gathering of about five or six in light of (so to speak) a common goal: to be done. Later in life they’ll be able to proclaim: “I did the AT,” having earned their bragging rights but still very much in search of something.

Long trails are littered with these type-A types, those desiring to be known. (I like to think you hike the AT to see the world, not so the world can see you.) The goal can’t be the actual experience--else they wouldn’t rush it--but rather the entitlement to boast, as if anyone gives a damn.

I had to ponder why I gave a damn. Group or no group, they were experiencing life on the trail on their terms, and it was not my place to judge. Besides, I had better things to do, like getting back to inspecting the back of my eyelids. I only wished they were a little more respectful and had tip-toed by.

When I recognized their backpacks an hour into the day’s walk, in a house-sized clearing, I realized trail karma does indeed exist. And so, to paraphrase Whitman, I sounded a barbaric yawp across the rooftops of their tarps as I traipsed by. The intro to Led Zeppelin’s ‘Immigrant Song’ seemed fitting enough (to fight the horde!). I wailed at least as thunderously as Mr. Plant had, though I may have been slightly off-key.

All the same, birds ceased their morning woodnotes as echoes bounced off neighboring hillsides, the returning sound taking its time. I swear I even heard a tree fall, though it may have just been the hammer of the gods. Paybacks are heaven.

A while later I rejoined Fatty, who’d left before me. She didn’t ask what the noise was, so I didn’t mention it. We just walked and enjoyed what looked to be spring’s authentic arrival. It was to be a short day and the miles drifted by effortlessly. That’s the effect of good company.

When we reached the Fontana Dam Village, we parted ways. Fatty went for a swim while I tended to the requisite resupply. (I’d’ve joined her, but these were unprotected waters and I’m not packing any arm-floaties.) Fontana was the last stop before the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. We were assured by others the terrain there would turn even nastier. It was good to enjoy a shorter hike and to do mostly nothing. Life on the AT: where nothing could be better (and may very well be).

Fontana's Dam Village