A Limp in the Woods (Day 84)

An Appalachian Trail Tale
Day 84: Sunday, June 16th, 2013
Eagle’s Nest Shelter area to Port Clinton = 9 miles
Miles to date: 1,213

Freaks of Nature

We awoke to the incessant ear-piercing drone of cicadas. They’re waking up from their seventeen-year slumber a little later the farther north we go. Cicadapocalypse. Many of the unsightly creatures fell from their perches, onto our nylon tents, adding to the hullabaloo. Graceful they are not.

Such clumsiness is a trait they share with the Pennsylvania ATer. For the past half day I’d been particularly lopsided with my crooked, knotted replacement stick. Those wise, wizened Gandalf lookers, with their lone walking staff, wouldn’t appear so stately in this state. Not with their kneepads on.

“If we slept here seventeen years from now, we could expect this racket again,” Goat yelled from his tent. None of us planned to.

After eating, we tore down camp, threw on our shoes (my fifth pair since Springer, all Wal-Mart cheapies averaging thirteen greenbacks a pair), and began walking. Or tried to. “Damn these rocks…” mumbled Gator. Pennsylvania’s AT is nothing more than ridgetop riverbeds, only the rocks aren’t rounded. They’re sharp--much sharper than the hiker who knowingly chooses to walk atop them.

We had no choice. We were enslaved to the task at hand--and foot. Sisyphean rock-rolling--that’s how we roll. Rock, rinse, repeat. Each footstep means getting closer to getting off our feet, hence getting our rocks off. It takes roughly five million (rough) steps to conclude the AT, and most of them point to that final fateful one, when you wish you could relive them all forever.

New Jersey wasn’t summoning us, like those majestic mountains summoned Monsieur Muir. But the US’s third state would surely improve the perambulation. It gave us a goal. Thru-hikers are led by the blind faith that the grass is always greener ahead. This has helped us tolerate the one hundred and forty-four miles we’ve seen of Pennsylvania so far. NJ lay just eighty-five miles away. Come on already!

A couple hours into the day’s deed, in the neighborhood of the Auburn Overlook, we’d each discover some embedded  deer ticks--not dear ticks. I had three, each aiming below the belt. To be fair to them, I wasn’t wearing a belt--except for hip-belts, belts are a no-go when hiking. Backstreet, ever the tick magnet, had seven ticks. A bagful. The guy could use a flea and tick collar.

The ticks were almost microscopic. We wouldn’t have detected them had it not been for our perpetual parasite paranoia. We scan every inch of ourselves daily now. It’s not a pleasant ass-ignment. Hair, oiliness, smell, hell.

Following extraction, each bloodsucker was subjected to a torturous death. My lighter whacked two of the invaders. The third one, the largest and most difficult to dislodge, met its demise via multiple pinpricks. I do not take pleasure in harming any of Nature’s animal kingdom, until they attempt to cause harm. Ticks, mosquitoes, biting flies, family members, vicious dogs…all fair game. But wolves, bears, mountain lions, megalodons, well. I hope I am fortunate enough to provide some sustenance.

It wasn’t much farther when we descended steeply--in my case, often on my backside--into what modern man calls the developed world. There, we crossed the famed Reading Railroad--the same set of tracks that’ll run you $200 in Monopoly--before disembarking at Port Clinton (Pop: 288, but shrinking like a post-sex penis).

Lately we seem to arrive in towns on weekends. This is not the choicest of timing for those who’d rather be elsewhere. The whistle-stop offered little--there was no grocer--but it was a short walk to Hamburg. There we browsed the aisles of Wal-Mart and Cabela’s, before diving into the adjacent Wendy’s for more carnivorous requirements. Hamburgers in Hamburg. Three of their beefiest burgers did the job. Extra mayo, extra ketchup. Gator pointed out that, “ketchup is a fruit smoothie.” We’d never thought of it like that.

Before I sign off for the day, let me first say some things about Cabela’s, the “Outdoorsman’s Shop.”

In shorthand: Six Acres Under One Roof!; terrible timing = Father’s Day; lumbersexual men; bored women and children; beer bellies and obesity aplenty; ginormous gas-guzzling playthings; guns, bows-n-arrows, ammunition, traps, snares, and other destructive devices; dozens of gun magazines(1) (the kind you read, not the kind you unload, though they had those too); camouflage; stuffed animals; elevated prices; Made in Chy-na, Inc.; unbridled consumerism; stares.

Gator poking fun

We were the ones stared at, being freaks of Nature and all. It bothered Backstreet. “That’s alright,” I said. “They ogle ‘cause we’re different. We stare right back, ‘cause they’re all the same.” For our part ‘twas nice to depart. None of us spent anything, since Cabela’s doesn’t cater to real outdoorsmen and women: long-distance backpackers.

By the way, and I don’t intend to offend, for I do not desire to raise one’s ire, but fuck Father’s Day(2)! There ought to be a celebratory day for those of us who (wisely) choose not to populate the planet. But then, every day without kids is a holiday. I don’t know anyone who receives as much joy from their kids as I do from my non-kids.

After a fruitless crack at hitchhiking--not fully fruitless; we raided roadside raspberries--we made it back to Port Clinton, where I now record all this, knowing my physiological filing system wouldn’t be capable of recalling it any other way.

We’re subletting a vacant lot across the street from a giant pavilion set aside for hikers. Our grassy accommodations are on the house, you could say. I’m atop a picnic bench next to the Little Schuylkill River, hoping it drowns out the buzz of the hillside highway. There are two dozen of us present, the largest herding of hikers any one of us has witnessed in weeks. A buckshot of extra strength B.O. is being fired into my face from every direction.

We’re all on a first name basis, or at least a trailname basis, and it has us all realizing that trail life is much more personal and intimate and scented than life in American sprawl. Bring back the tribal way of life!

PS: The nicest thing I can say about today’s walk is it put us nine miles nearer to Katahdin. The countdown continues. Nine hundred and seventy-three to go.

"Fire"note 1: Some with rather peculiar titles like WORLD OF FIREPOWER, TRIGGER HAPPY, CANCEL OUT, BRANDISH, COMBAT, TOP SHOT, and my personal favorite: SMALL PENIS COMPENSATION. I flipped through a small stack of these publications and not once did I see a black man or a native or an Asian-American holding a weapon. A white man's world, no doubt, though there was one periodical intended for women. It was half the price of the others.

"Foot"note 2: While I'm on this rant, fuck Mother's Day! And to hell with maternity leave too! Why should someone be required to pay you for work that's not getting done, just so you can populate the planet?