A Limp in the Woods (Day 80)

An Appalachian Trail Tale
Day 80: Wednesday, June 12th, 2013
Darlington Shelter to Clarks Ferry Shelter = 16 miles
Miles to date: 1,147

The Doyle

The trip into Duncannon went by in a blur. It was as though we’d been shot from a cannon, only our cannonball wasn’t so destructive. We recited poetry and planned a revolution--all before breakfast--but I couldn’t recall much about the eleven miles. Like many AT miles, they probably weren’t worth remembering, as views or rocks go. The company is what makes the memories. At least the company I keep. (Needless to say, but I will anyway: I feel for them, given the company they keep. It proves they’ve each got a funnybone, if not a weak spot.)

In town we dropped in on the disreputable Doyle Hotel, specifically its tavern. It’s not basement-bound, but it is a true dive bar, with a urine-stained quality, the way bars should be. Only prison bars beget greater indignation. Be damned, sports bars! A large banner advertised that hikers and other ne’er-do-wells were tolerated, and that the hotel had been operating for over a century. (Today, the handwriting is on its walls; the drunk tank is a sinking ship.)

Barring hikers, the joint had a spiritedness comparable to cooked cabbage. Our server was a jaundiced, throaty woman as dead as the Doyle. We watched her walk our way--for minutes. She was withering away in front of our eyes. A cigarette dangled from her thin, blue lips. She had backups tucked above each ear, lest the lit one was lost.

We didn’t dare envision how many tubs of draft ATers have imbibed over the years. Or how many mildewy asses have sat atop the bar stools. That thought was a trifle alarming, so we donned protective rain pants before sitting anywhere. A wholesome family establishment, the Doyle. Our packs stayed outside, where they’d effuse fumes without fuss. For safety sake, pedestrians used the other side of the street. The air freshener dangling from my pack was no cover-up.

We sat in a booth; the bar was congested with contagions and other seedy sorts. We knew a few. Of the diseases. Later starters were catching us daily--and nightly--now. We knew them not. Still, it was good to see others at this most-established of trail taverns. The booth’s benches sagged from eons of use. Our postures had us looking more like curved trolls than humans. We fit right in.

We each ordered something in the order of three thousand calories, mostly bacon cheeseburgers. Murdered pigs atop murdered cattle, chased by impenetrable milkshakes. Even the smell of the burgers had calories. It took minutes to eat and seconds to assimilate; thru-hiker metabolisms hum at a high heat. Food processors, we. Feces factories. I’m burning six thousand calories a day. The others rev through more than that, given their sprightly ages. The barkeeps were hep to hiker needs, having run the restaurant since antediluvian times.

The rooms upstairs were as bad as our booth. They infringed upon scores of health code and fire code violations. (To say the place is in disrepair implies it’d once been in repair.) Some hikers didn’t care; Kalamity Jane shared a room, and presumably a bed, with a striking blue-eyed guy we hadn’t seen before. Her on-trail romance with a bloke named Bane was just that; other men were fair game whenever the two drifted apart. I envied blue-eyed guy. How I hate hormones; they make me feel even lonelier.

Done with the Doyle, we dove into the market for a fresh stockpile of not-so-fresh food. Then, vámonos. The trail stuck to decaying sidewalks and chip-sealed pavement, past modest houses, each like the next. (Small town America is a boring place for most small town Americans.) Each house had its curtains drawn shut, occluding any natural light. Strange behavior.

Nature doing Nature things

On my strolls in Colorado, that frack-happy, pot-licit land where the sun shines NINETY percent of the time each year (“but only during daytime!” critics cry), residents remain shut-ins. Behind the blinds the flickering radiance of TV and iPad screens feed their sad, pathetic minds. Why care? It opens the outdoors to less gridlock, and we could all use fewer locks.

Every house here had a well-tended lawn, a waist-high chain link fence, and a municipally-supplied garbage bin. Each bin was the size of a porta-potty, but with wheels. Garbage day was just around the bend, gauging by the overflow. None of us espied recycling bins. As we hoofed on, we were forced to evade the timber wolves townsfolk keep as watchdogs. One by one the rabid wolves ambushed, only to screech to a halt and pee on its perimeter. We surmised that our scent sparked a scare--and potential emotional scarring. Once smelled, we can’t be unsmelled. Dogs know this. They also recognize us as wild animals--wilder than they are.

Guard dog doing guard dog things

We hunted white blazes. Along with aerosol art, most our markers were defacing sign posts and utility poles. We continued, soon to discover that our route bypassed a strip club or two. What? THE AT HAS STRIP CLUBS? I’m hereby obliged to retract every bad thing I’ve said about this trail! Had it been a little later in the day we might’ve stopped in. But it wasn’t a little later in the day. (Public service announcement: it never is.) We didn’t care to loiter until it was. Plus, we could only guess what the strippers might’ve looked like. Teeth were few in Duncannon, and most women were twice their intended size. We decided it was best to walk, rather than watch somebody--some body--jiggle.

“Maybe we should invite a dancer or two along for the trip,” I said. “A big babe could be useful. Warmth on cold nights, shade on a sunny afternoon like this.” No one laughed. Neither did I.

It’s a strange career choice, removing ones clothing. Tends to be good for viewers, but bad for doers. If I ever had kids--note: not happening; I’m too socially and environmentally responsible--I’d hope they’d choose to do something more entertaining for themselves. When people watch people working, they’re apt to lambaste.

The walking remained easy, but the backdrop was noisy as all get-out. The “nature path” is a highway shoulder as it leaves town. It crosses the bemired Susquehanna River, which is on an eternal mission to help feed the hungry Chesapeake Bay. A tributary of trash, leaking into an ocean of pollution. What a world. Have I mentioned I hate humans?

A concrete divider kept us from the realm of roadkill, though we did have a half-full (half-empty?) beer bottle hurled at us from a speeding muscle car. (Muscle car: puny penis car.) It might’ve maimed. By now its glass is on the bottom of the Susquehanna, scraping its way into the dying ocean. Along with the old tires. Along with refrigerators and other appliances. Along with the metal household containers and road signs and other human remnants, including human remains. The cigarette butts, the plastic bags and bottles, the candy bar wrappers, the colorful motor oil, the floss-picks, and the Styrofoam cups/coolers all floated.

Life in plastic, it’s fantastic; welcome to the (obscene) Plastoscene

Beyond the radiant river, the gurgling sewer, it’s necessary to cross another high-decibel highway (and possibly witness more drive-by shitting). NOBOers then have to cross two sets of rusty railroads. After all this the path finally returns to its native soil. Almost immediately it tilts upward at an impossibly steep angle. It’s a wonder any loam could call the hill home.

Goat and Klutz camped part way up the climb, presumably to roll around in the dirt. Gator, Backstreet and I carried on to the Clarks Ferry Shelter. We’re going halves in it with Spacey, the quirky twenty-four year-old from the City of Angels (and others). Halves, because he’s spread his stuff out all over the place. Californians love their spreads.

Coming from the wrong side of the tracks...

Even without Spacey’s stuff, the place was cramped. And in disrepair, provided--as per the Doyle--it’d ever been in repair. But it had a rain gutter affixed to its front-facing overhang. It also came with a broom, so occupants (aka daredevils) could brush the mouse turds and potential hanta virus away, into the absorbent murk below. The privy was overfed (yum!) and had been destroyed by hiker hoodlums. Probably NOMAD.

“Why didn’t you consider the PCT, since it veers so close to home?” I asked Spacey. 

We began settling in for the night. Backstreet was preparing a Knorr Pasta Side--or maybe it was a Knorr Pesticide. Gator stayed busy swatting at the unsavory and undeterred cloud of mosquitoes and black flies hanging over him. He wished he had pesticide.

“I thought about it,” Spacey replied in his high-register nasally voice. “But my buddy browbeat me into tagging along here. ‘Course, we went separate ways when he began pink-blazing every chick he saw.”(1)

Despite being on the outs with his mate, the baldilocks was still chipping away. I assured him he’d be a perfect PCTer, as would anyone who’s made it this far. “I might do it one day,” he said.

“It’ll take more than one day,” I joked. “But it’s the bomb dot com. A total pleasure cruise compared to this bush-league BS--

--on the AT, you count down the miles; on the PCT, you add them up.”

We knew we were counting down the miles, at least until Vermont, where mountains pop back up. We had four hundred and forty-six to go till then. All filler--lowly links between two other places you’d rather be, and one in particular. Backpacking, for all its glory, is frequently like that. Thru-hiking always is.

“Foot”note 1: As mentioned before, “pink-blazing” is chasing a chick, or chicks, up the trail. “Beard-blazing” is when a girl chases a guy, or guys. Mountain Goat thinks beard-blazing should be renamed ‘sausage-blazing,’ since some women on the AT also sport beards. (A nonprofessional hiker may wish to employ a professional interpreter to decode the vast array of trail terminology.)