A Limp in the Woods (Day 56)

An Appalachian Trail Tale
Day 56: Sunday, May 19th, 2013
Punchbowl Shelter to Cow Camp Gap = 15 miles
Miles to date: 806

Hiking in Heels

Yesterday’s cicada concerto ceased when the skies took on a lavender tint. When the sun surfaced it started right back up. It was not, however, a silent night.

The Punchbowl Shelter is set beside a murky millpond, but by the sounds of things it’s smack in the middle. The pond is home to the solar system’s noisiest frogs, and not one of ‘em can hold a tune or sustain a rhythm. That does not stop them from trying. (A trait they share with those carrying guitars out here.)

A Who concert wouldn’t be as loud. (I went to one to listen, but my eardrums were destroyed.) The Seattle Seahawks 12th Man ain’t even in the same ballpark--and he gets to enjoy a lengthy intermission at halftime and an even lengthier one when the previous play is under review. Set side-by-side, the amphibians and an atomic detonation would still favor the frogs. A frogless ground zero would be comparatively library-like.

I’ve never wanted to filet frogs or any other animal--and this was a no-kill shelter--but come dawn it’s all I’d brood upon. I didn’t sleep a wink--or any other number of winks. Yet I dreamt of a toad-terminating extravaganza. Anura annihilation! A frog finishing frenzy! My fully-automatic gunfire would mow them down in droves! Survivors would be disposed of with the Mother Of All Bombs. Sayonara slimy suckers! Oh, how they’d croak!

It was the only topic come breakfast. To be heard, we had to yell into each other’s ears, as if we were in a windstorm. We agreed: we’d never carp about cicadas again. It was disheartening to think that the frogs feed on the poor critters (and maybe carp, too). We wished the opposite. The world could use fewer frogs.

At least they’re not frogs! We’d laugh all day: The Snake & Newt Show!

After chow time it was trudge-time. The walkie-talkie continued, though more walkie than talkie. A few miles into our tramp, with our attention criminally nowhere near where we were, we came to a bulletin. Nailed to a tree, it’d been posted by the FBI. Gulp. It concerned a homicide on the path occurring just two years ago. 

A $10,000 reward is on offer for information leading to the arrest and conviction of whoever killed Scott A. Lilly, of South Bend, Indiana. Lilly, just thirty (I have tee-shirts as old), was thru-hiking. He was last seen alive where I record all this, at the Cow Camp Gap Shelter. (After seeing the flyer, we’d hoped to sleep anywhere but here, but fatigue got the better of us; instead of making cowards of us all, the lassitude left us too tired to care.)

Lilly’s body was found in a shallow grave which, although unlikely, could’ve been dug by an animal post-mortem. It was determined he died as a result of asphyxia. Poor dude was strangled to death. I’d only ever seen a single picture of him (below). He didn’t appear thin or emaciated. Someone, or a couple of someones, would’ve had their work cut out for them, fending off his defensive measures.

The first half of the day was filled with a morose mindset. This, in spite of the blueberry skies, chirpy birds, and an ideal temperature. Yet another murder along the trail--the fifth or sixth in Virginia alone. What a screwed-up world we live in. The human world, anyway.

(Out here we’re often asked, “Did you hear the news?” My response is always the same. “If it involves people I don’t care about it.”)

Eleven miles into our hike, at US Highway 60, we’d learn of more bad news. It occurred yesterday, during the Trail Days parade. (News--the Trekker’s Tribune--travels fast on the trail, especially given today’s technologies.) A car had plowed into a crowd of hikers--those marching within the ‘Class of 2013’ horde, in fact. Our hearts sank when we heard about it. We immediately thought of those we’d each met to this point and prayed it wasn’t as serious as it sounded.

Trail news can be inaccurate--and gossip soon becomes gospel--but the hiker who filled us in, a guy who called himself Jason (probably because his parents had done the same about thirty years ago), didn’t appear the embellishing or lying sort. And he shared a worried look on his face, a look of empathy and sincerity and a fair amount of freckles, but never mind that. The news was hard to take, and the one name he mentioned was Rainbow Bright, a young woman with a megawatt smile. I hiked with Rainbow back in North Carolina for an afternoon.

The Georgian had been hit and dragged by the driver’s big, ol’ Buick. The two-ton killing machine came to a halt only when a fellow hiker cartwheeled in and heaved on the e-brake. The motorist, a guy of about seventy--age and IQ--had been a part of the parade. He reportedly suffered an infarction or the effects of a booze binge; he was incoherent in the aftermath.

The extent of Rainbow’s injuries was unknown, but it didn’t figure too promising. She’d be the first to say thru-hiking isn’t achieved with the legs; it’s achieved with the heart. (She understands the assignment.) But we hikers know: legs are important. We rely heavily on them. More, even, than our gear.

I kept thinking how atingle the neophyte was to be weaving her dream. “I can’t believe I’m doing it!” she’d exclaimed in rapid succession, even though we were a hundred miles into this fray. Oh, to travel without reservations! Her enthusiasm elevated mine, and it trumped any skills she may have lacked. She reminded me--how could I have forgotten?--that there is a certain magic to traveling afar afoot. Hiking sets free the authentic self.

“The trail is where I’m the me I’m supposed to be.”

~Rainbow Bright

“I may be slow, but I go.”
~Rainbow Bright

I was crestfallen. All we could do was wait. Wait until we reached somewhere, where we could check email or the big bad Internet. We each had phones, but none were the “smart” kind, just the stupid ones that only provide the old-fashioned style of communication. And no one had called any of us. We thought of phoning friends, to have them do some searching online, but cell reception was nil, as it often is in the mountains. (Another reason to go.)

Perhaps it was because he felt at fault for sharing the latest, or maybe it was because he’s a giver, but Jason offered us a ride to Buena Vista, ten miles away. We sucked in our bellies and compressed into the mild-mannered guy’s older-model Corolla. We hoped to find out more at the town library, but we’d neglected to remember it was Sunday. The library was locked like a prison. In these parts, the Bible--the groomer’s handbook--is the only reading you’re to do on Sunday. (My version of hell’s bookstore would be a shop selling only the Bible.)

We made phone calls (no one knew a thing; no news yet) then swung through the local grocers. Then onto Subway, where I bought Jason lunch. His meal ran a fraction of what each of ours did. I’m not normally a soft drink drinker, but soda’s become my energy provider; I downloaded a toilet bowl’s worth of Coca Cola. A traditional toilet bowl, not those new-fangled low-capacity types that leave poo-smears everywhere.

Mountain Goat ended up sucking down an aquarium’s worth, and after all the fueling we returned to the hills, attempting to vaporize some of it. You know, switch it for sweat. It did not work.

The genetically-modified high-fructose corn syrup and the stimulants weren’t enough to trounce the day’s news or the day’s merciless topography. Nor our fatigue. We’d hang it up after a punishing two thousand foot climb up Bald Knob, taking a ten-minute side-trip off the AT to the aforementioned Cow Camp Gap Shelter.

We were hoping it’d be free of the human type, but no. (But no cows or frogs or cicadas, thankfully!) The only sleep space was on soil, or, in the case of those with hammocks, in the air. A few hikers were doing just that. It was already dark and dreary and starting to rain heavily. For once I wished I had one of those fancy strung-up cots. (The ground was an ankle-deep morass, more liquid than land. Cow-caused, we guessed.

The weather closing in on Backstreet

I decided to camp on the highest spot I could unearth, the trail itself. As I finish writing this, my mind is fixed on Rainbow Bright, and of course on Scott Lilly. May she rebound fully and continue her journey. And may he rest fully in peace, and continue his. Actually, I don’t believe in the term Rest In Peace. I believe that when we die, we die. We don’t rest at all, especially in Scott’s circumstances. Rather, we stew. So let me rethink this for a second…

May Mr. Lilly’s killer be captured and tortured, hung by his nards so that every hiker who passes by can boot him in the head without having to lift his or her kicking leg too high. We wouldn’t want to hurt our own groins, now would we? It might be the first time ever in which it would be more sensible to hike the AT in stiletto heels.

Scott Lilly’s final selfie