A Limp in the Woods (Day 87)

An Appalachian Trail Tale
Day 87: Wednesday, June 19th, 2013
Palmerton to near Metallica Creek = 4 miles
Miles to date: 1,258

The Edge of Allegiance

Though uninviting, the Palmerton jail-cum-hostel was crawling with detainees last night. Most its captives were threadbare thru-hikers. A few were fragmental folk, piecemealing the path. One chap was clearly of the homeless variety, a master in finding things free. This time he found a roof, the ol’ Graybar Motel. In the house, on the house. Our trained eyes knew this the second we saw him, another Crazy Horse type. John Wayne Gacy, for all we knew. But we all slept well and woke up breathing.

After our usual limacine beginning--trail or town, we are equal-opportunity slugs--we beelined back to Bert’s for breakfast. Again I left a hefty tip for the same heartrendingly beautiful server. Slow-learner, I. She was to be on my mind for days. The omelets, however, were wholly forgettable. “Is this, um, cheese?” I inquired. “That or its stunt double,” she grinned. Yep, love.

We limped to the library after our platinum-plate performance. ATers who can still read are offered a complimentary book, from the used sale section downstairs. I snatched The Catcher in the Rye, by the recluse J.D. Salinger. I hadn’t read the novel since being forced to in 10th grade, when I was a whole year smarter than I had been in 9th grade. I figured I might now better comprehend it, since I recall not being able to then. 

(Hi skool wuz duh tuffest sicks yeers uv my life, and not just becuz uv duh eye-lyner and rezulting beet-downz I dezervd for wareing it; the AT is comparatively effortless.)

At two hundred-ish pages, the paperback is skimpy enough not to burden the backbone. No breaking the bank; no breaking the back--salient determinants for this hiker. Plus, I might get through it before the usual lack of allure sets in. So the idea goes. It’s tough enough tromping around all day, and more and more all I’ve wanted to do when I’m not walking is slip into a soupy vegetative state.

The last book I tried to read was the jingoistic American Sniper. Published last year, it was printed with the same grotesque font as that of the (handwritten) US Constitution. Patriotic Sans or some shit. It’d been dumped in a dumpy hut in one of the Virginias. I say tried, but I didn’t try hard. It had too many words(1). Let’s just say it wasn’t my (olive-drab canvas duffel) bag; it didn’t jell with what we’re doing out here. For a worldly citizen, the Rah Rah USA! twaddle is irritating. So’s the killing and the author’s style. Light reading, heavy book. We get about twenty-seven thousand days in this pot called life; why piss one away on a potboiler?

I suppose I’m glad there are those who were raised to be robots, those submissive sorts subjugating themselves to superiors, who feel it their patriotic duty to “follow orders.” But the author, a testosterone-laden Texan named Chris Kyle, and I would likely have never gotten along. A philosopher forgery, I view nationality as irrationality. My loyalties side with countryside, not country. I back the outback. I am an autonomous patriot of the planet, not a subject of any unnatural system. Especially a broken one.

(To wit: I have no clue what e pluribus unum is. A fish? What else? I do not buy into capitalism; I do not pay income taxes (for religious reasons); I selected not to register for the Selective Service (again, religious reasons); I will never report for jury “duty” (you guessed it: religious reasons); and I know just one part of one verse in The Star-Spangled Boner: O say can you see / by dawn’s early night? / what we proudly watched were the ram parts...).

Could Kyle and I have approached that elusive place of deeper understanding? Of the big picture? Of one another’s thinking? I don’t know. Now that he and his patriotism have met their end, I know we won’t.

The dude was killed just a few months ago. A fellow veteran shot him. (Live by the sword...) Kyle was helping the kid recover from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder--even though the G.I. Joke never saw action. He had taken him, of all places, to a shooting range.

It’s all so sad, as was the book--read into that what you will. I burned it two-thirds through, swiping perfectly good nesting material from the mice. My biological half-dad (half, ‘cause he wasn’t a full-bird father, at least not to his children) would surely have loved the narrative. He’d’ve bemoaned my blasphemous flag-burning behavior as unsportsmanlike. “We must fight for peace!” the retired colonel would bark, whilst I waved a black flag, hoping reflexive patriotism wasn’t a genetic condition. “Why are you so dumb?” he once asked me. “I don’t know,” I answered. “Could be hereditary.”

Anyhow, I hoped Catcher might better entertain or enlighten or inspire. I prefer recluses over the reckless. When it comes to books I generally prefer travel ones with an environmental slant, although I can’t help noticing almost all are written by authors who drive or fly to everywhere they write about. It can make it hard to value their message. What do you see when driving? Walking is a superior way to see and appreciate the countryside. Its scale, its infinite beauty, its wrinkles, its harsh, harsh realities.

We thanked the librarian and moseyed to the Country Harvest Family Market, where “everyone is family.” Families share; we were each offered one piece of fruit, free. Gator smiled, “I’ll grab us a watermelon.” I settled on an avocado the size (and hardness) of a bowling ball; I discovered later it was about as tasty. Therein lies the trouble with fruit. Inconsistency. Some avocados are tasty, others fibrous and brown. Some apples are delicious, some are disgusting. You know what’s consistent? Doritos! And would it kill avocado makers to include a different toy from time to time? I’m tired of hard wooden balls.

We packed our packs with the same ol’ new supplies--and with the Doritos. “I’d’uh boughten more bags if I knew I could open ‘em,” Gator joked. We discarded the pile of packaging our supplies spawned, transferring everything but the chips into more plastic--Zip-Locs. “I find it funny how we buy fifty items wrapped in plastic, but then plastic bags are frowned upon at the checkout counter,” Gator said. After the organizing, it was high time to hitch out of this most hospitable of trail towns. It was late, but we hoped to resume our furtherance, the trademark of the thru-hiker. Here now, gone soon after. Mad nomads. Go-getters gettin’ goin.’

But by now it was formally hot, and ahead of us stood some of the most demanding trail yet. Stood, all right; the path was perpendicular to the horizon. It was treacherous and altogether malicious. Had we known this in advance, we might’ve made today a zero day, but not one of us had glanced at our guidebook; we each figured someone else would’ve. Classic cluster conditioning.

Once our little cluster scaled the sobering wall leaving Lehigh Gap, which took longer than expected--despite having no expectations--we were atop a defunct zinc mine. By the looks of it bigger plant life has since had a tough time of it. A wonderland-cum-wasteland. The largest tree trunk was as spindly as my arms. Toothpicks, by Appalachian standards. But it’s not the mineral that’s so destructive. It’s the process of extracting it. “It feels like we’re walking into the apocalypse,” TK sighed. “Progress looks a lot like destruction.”

Toxic heavy metals contaminated eight inches of topsoil, rendering it as sterile as the moon. It looked as though a nuclear warhead had been detonated nearby. Pure ecocide. Humans seem to treat the Earth, the only home we’ll ever know, as if it were a business in liquidation. Rape the land, reap the rewards. “Resources,” we say. And it’s all here for us. What we’re here for, no one can say. Parasites without purpose.

TK working her way up a vertical Lehigh Gap

The milling operation was discontinued in 1980, after running since the 1800s. The area now lays claim to being the largest Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Superfund clean-up site east of the Mississippi, which itself could use some clean-up. Revegetation efforts via modified crop-dusters commenced just a year or two ago, so native grasses, plants and shrubs could stage their comeback. So far, the exposed rocks are winning, but the battle is swaying, as are small clumps of grass.

Footpath my ass!

Some of the eco carnage

After the thousand-foot clamber the trail was nearly enjoyable. A gradual descent led us to grassier fields atop the once-toxic ridge. Sturdier trees reappeared. But so did the ticks. The next half-hour proved almost comical. I had to flick seven of the little shits off; two required pinching--they’d perforated the pelt. Gator also had seven. TK found a twelve pack. Mountain Goat, nine. Backstreet, ever the tick magnet, a whopping SEVENTEEN. It’d become a trail of bloodsuckers. We’d walk a minute, then stop and scan our every inch for a minute. The continual stop-and-go left us wishing the zinc mine was still in operation.

We were just four miles in when we reached the day’s punctuation mark, near a strip of water called Metallica Creek (SWEET!). There are purportedly no poisonous springs or water sources along the AT, but we will not be wagering on this water. But since we drank little of what we carried, it didn’t matter. We pitched our shelters and did one last skin-scan. Only Backstreet discovered another tick. Each of our shelters are (thank)fully enclosed, a stronghold against the trail’s innumerable creepy-crawlies.

How the natives managed in their porous teepees, I shan’t know. Maybe Lyme Disease wasn’t around then, since it was white man who first named the municipality the ailment is named after, Lyme, Connecticut (notable resident: the tick). Or maybe they just had thicker hides.

"Film"note 1: A movie’s in the makes, sure to contain more shooting, explosions, and music than words, likely making it a huge hit at the box office.