An Appalachian Trail Tale
Day 33: Friday, April 26th, 2013
A mile past Abingdon Gap Shelter to Damascus, Virginia = 9 miles
Miles to date: 467
Up to now I’ve felt all the emotional attachment to the AT as I do to hemorrhoids. For someone who’s lived in the Sierra and the Rockies, the Appalachians aren’t a place to go, but a place to get through. But things seem to be changing. Is this captive developing feelings for his Appalachian captor? A victim of Stockholm Syndrome? I guess I must be having fun.
Day 33: Friday, April 26th, 2013
A mile past Abingdon Gap Shelter to Damascus, Virginia = 9 miles
Miles to date: 467
Thunder Chicken!
Up to now I’ve felt all the emotional attachment to the AT as I do to hemorrhoids. For someone who’s lived in the Sierra and the Rockies, the Appalachians aren’t a place to go, but a place to get through. But things seem to be changing. Is this captive developing feelings for his Appalachian captor? A victim of Stockholm Syndrome? I guess I must be having fun.
Today would cast another good day to the collection, a sense of enoughness, maybe more. Too much of a good thing can be all right! Surely I’m not falling for this trail. Is it becoming more becoming with familiarity? Am I finally getting a foothold? Am I being seduced? Or bamboozled? Wooed by the woods? Under the influence of the umbrage?
I was comatose till 10am--a rill of drool oozing from the gaping orifice on my face--when a peculiar thud woke me. I’d noticed the sound ever since stepping onto this soupy trail. It’s unlike any noise I’ve heard: a muffled thumping that seems inside your head and yours only. Each time I thought I was having some weird sort of heart murmur, the beginnings of a cardiac arrest, which I figured normal, given the demands of the trail.
The noise carries no echoes and there are no scurrying critters to be heard, just an internal sonorous weirdness that assures you you’re about to die. (This assumes the commotion can be heard above your own heartbeat.)
The thumping’s origin is the ruffed grouse, aka the Thunder-Chicken, a perfect trailname:
When a hiker taught me it was a one-pound poultrygeist making the ghostly sound, and not a heart stoppage under construction, I’d assumed the tactic was used to warn other grouse (grease?) of imminent danger. Wikipedia states contrarily...
“The ruffed grouse differs from other grouse in its courtship display. Unlike other grouse, the ruffed grouse relies entirely on a non-vocal acoustic display, known as drumming. The drumming is a rapid, wing-beating display that creates a low frequency sound, starting slow and speeding up (thump...thump...thump..thump-thump-thump-thump). Even in thick woods this can be heard for a quarter mile or more.”
I’d learn this in Damascus’s library, but let me back things up; no sense getting ahead of myself. It would be nice if I could get ahead of myself on this trail, but forget that for now.
Yesterday’s wretched excess, a near FORTY-MILER, left me in a state of disrepair. I was grateful today was only a single-digit day. Then salvation, in the form of chairs. Yesterday’s lilt was today’s limp, and that limp was palpable and pronounced. Each footstep was similar to the thick resonant thud of the ruffed grouse, only much, much slower:
Thump.
............Thump.
....................….Thump.
......................................Fuck.
It gave new meaning to the term stomping grounds.
I’d breach Virginia’s border four hours into the shuffle, the fourth of fourteen states. I was just behind a couple of lightning lopers--Daypack, who’d hiked the AT last year, and his apprenti prétendu Shrek, an unspoken but smiley first-time AT addict. They were putting in a gigantic jaunt like I had yesterday. They started before the sun clocked in. Town beckoned.
A sharp descent leveled out right at the town limits. The route headed straight for the non-beating heart of Damascus (pop: 800 and dying), first via the aptly-named Town Park, then over a steadily-flowing Beaverdam Creek before finally veering onto Laurel Avenue, the main street. An arc in the park welcomed AT hikers. Another sign told hikers to refrain from bathing in the brook. A couple of hyperkinetic squirrels were doing their parkour high in the deciduous trees.
I’d visited Damascus before, back in 1984, when, as a wispy, untarnished teenager, I pedaled a wide-load mountain bike across the United States(1*). The parish hadn’t changed much since--the years had left it alone--though a few more shop doors were bolted shut. I set my watch back a few decades; walking through felt like a retreat through time, to an emptier era.
The thumping’s origin is the ruffed grouse, aka the Thunder-Chicken, a perfect trailname:
You just got uh-lickin’ from da THUNDER CHICKEN!
When a hiker taught me it was a one-pound poultrygeist making the ghostly sound, and not a heart stoppage under construction, I’d assumed the tactic was used to warn other grouse (grease?) of imminent danger. Wikipedia states contrarily...
“The ruffed grouse differs from other grouse in its courtship display. Unlike other grouse, the ruffed grouse relies entirely on a non-vocal acoustic display, known as drumming. The drumming is a rapid, wing-beating display that creates a low frequency sound, starting slow and speeding up (thump...thump...thump..thump-thump-thump-thump). Even in thick woods this can be heard for a quarter mile or more.”
I’d learn this in Damascus’s library, but let me back things up; no sense getting ahead of myself. It would be nice if I could get ahead of myself on this trail, but forget that for now.
Yesterday’s wretched excess, a near FORTY-MILER, left me in a state of disrepair. I was grateful today was only a single-digit day. Then salvation, in the form of chairs. Yesterday’s lilt was today’s limp, and that limp was palpable and pronounced. Each footstep was similar to the thick resonant thud of the ruffed grouse, only much, much slower:
Thump.
............Thump.
....................….Thump.
......................................Fuck.
It gave new meaning to the term stomping grounds.
I’d breach Virginia’s border four hours into the shuffle, the fourth of fourteen states. I was just behind a couple of lightning lopers--Daypack, who’d hiked the AT last year, and his apprenti prétendu Shrek, an unspoken but smiley first-time AT addict. They were putting in a gigantic jaunt like I had yesterday. They started before the sun clocked in. Town beckoned.
A sharp descent leveled out right at the town limits. The route headed straight for the non-beating heart of Damascus (pop: 800 and dying), first via the aptly-named Town Park, then over a steadily-flowing Beaverdam Creek before finally veering onto Laurel Avenue, the main street. An arc in the park welcomed AT hikers. Another sign told hikers to refrain from bathing in the brook. A couple of hyperkinetic squirrels were doing their parkour high in the deciduous trees.
I’d visited Damascus before, back in 1984, when, as a wispy, untarnished teenager, I pedaled a wide-load mountain bike across the United States(1*). The parish hadn’t changed much since--the years had left it alone--though a few more shop doors were bolted shut. I set my watch back a few decades; walking through felt like a retreat through time, to an emptier era.
Normally I’d view any such retreat as a treat, but for some reason it was sad to see here; it seemed a happier place then. Or maybe I was in a happier place. I remember thinking it would be a great place to call home. That’s what I’ll be doing for the next day or two. More later. Or not.
"Pedal"note 1*: The Bikecentennial TransAmerica Trail (Route 76) crosses the US. It was designed for touring cyclists. I followed much of the route in the east since the area was foreign to me. It has remained so since, alas. Only now am I getting a better feel for it.
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