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 this point I’ve felt all the emotional attachment to the AT as I do to hemorrhoids. For someone who’s lived life in the Sierra and in the Rockies, the Appalachians aren’t a place to go, but a place to get through. But things seem to be changing. I guess I must be having fun. Today would cast another good day to the collection, a sense of enoughness, maybe more. Thankfully, 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?
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 this point I’ve felt all the emotional attachment to the AT as I do to hemorrhoids. For someone who’s lived life in the Sierra and in the Rockies, the Appalachians aren’t a place to go, but a place to get through. But things seem to be changing. I guess I must be having fun. Today would cast another good day to the collection, a sense of enoughness, maybe more. Thankfully, 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 the peculiar thud of the ruffed grouse woke me. I’d noticed the sound ever since stepping onto this soupy trail. It is unlike any other noise I’ve experienced: a deep, 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 birds 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 bird’s nickname is Thunder-Chicken, a perfect trailname:
When a fellow hiker ultimately 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 testifies contrarily...
“The ruffed grouse differs from other grouse species in its courtship display. Unlike other species, 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 later. 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 until 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 the town’s main street, Laurel Avenue. An arc in the park welcomed AT hikers. A nearby signed invited them, in so many words, to please refrain from bathing in the rill. A couple of hyperactive squirrels were doing their parkour in the deciduous trees overhead.
I’d been to Damascus before, back in 1984, when, as a wispy, as-of-yet-untarnished teenager, I pedaled an overloaded 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 pondered setting 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.
The bird’s nickname is Thunder-Chicken, a perfect trailname:
You just got uh-lickin’ from da THUNDER CHICKEN!
When a fellow hiker ultimately 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 testifies contrarily...
“The ruffed grouse differs from other grouse species in its courtship display. Unlike other species, 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 later. 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 until 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 the town’s main street, Laurel Avenue. An arc in the park welcomed AT hikers. A nearby signed invited them, in so many words, to please refrain from bathing in the rill. A couple of hyperactive squirrels were doing their parkour in the deciduous trees overhead.
I’d been to Damascus before, back in 1984, when, as a wispy, as-of-yet-untarnished teenager, I pedaled an overloaded 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 pondered setting 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 and was designed for touring cyclists. I followed much of the route in the east since the region was essentially foreign to me. It has remained so since, alas. Only now am I getting a better feel for it.
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