An Appalachian Trail Tale
Day 88: Thursday, June 20th, 2013
Metallica Creek to Kirkridge Shelter = 25 miles
Miles to date: 1,283
For reasons unknown, Gator, Backstreet and I woke early. We were walking not long after the sun crawled from its black hole. Not a word was spoken; we just seemed to be hardwired for hurt, or were following orders from a darker force within, a Black Dog. I gotta roll, can’t stand still, got a flaming heart, can’t get my fill... “You must walk,” ordered The Demonic Dog of the Dirt, “or you shall perish.” Like the infant turtle, who somehow knows to scurry to the sea seconds after abandoning its sandy lair, we knew to do what we were told. Oh, the power of instinct!
Hours passed before anyone burped more than a few syllables. By then we were too exhausted to talk about anything but our exhaustion. “Now for our featureless film, A Walk To Forget,” I joked, “starring Gator, Backstreet and Funny-dead-to-the-Bone.”
Day 88: Thursday, June 20th, 2013
Metallica Creek to Kirkridge Shelter = 25 miles
Miles to date: 1,283
The Demon of the Dirt
For reasons unknown, Gator, Backstreet and I woke early. We were walking not long after the sun crawled from its black hole. Not a word was spoken; we just seemed to be hardwired for hurt, or were following orders from a darker force within, a Black Dog. I gotta roll, can’t stand still, got a flaming heart, can’t get my fill... “You must walk,” ordered The Demonic Dog of the Dirt, “or you shall perish.” Like the infant turtle, who somehow knows to scurry to the sea seconds after abandoning its sandy lair, we knew to do what we were told. Oh, the power of instinct!
“Trust instinct to the end, even though you can give no reason.”
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
 |
| Following the Arrow |
Vigor, vim, vitality--vanished.
“I’m wiped,” I sighed, in hopes I might slay the beast. The aforementioned instinct, however, was not of the killer ilk. “I might as well be traveling in a body bag.”
“I hear ya,” replied Backstreet. “I feel like walking pneumonia.”
“Same here,” Gator added in italics. “Put a spork in me.”
The Ballad of the Beaten!
“I’m wiped,” I sighed, in hopes I might slay the beast. The aforementioned instinct, however, was not of the killer ilk. “I might as well be traveling in a body bag.”
“I hear ya,” replied Backstreet. “I feel like walking pneumonia.”
“Same here,” Gator added in italics. “Put a spork in me.”
The Ballad of the Beaten!
We carried on, killing only the time. It is better to waste time than do nothing with it.
When a warm drizzle began to drop, it silenced us further. Hiking in rain does that. Focus turns inward. If a tree were to fall, we would not likely hear it. But a tree doesn’t fall. The forest grows silent; we should too. Besides, we know one another well enough now that there’s often a shorthand to our interactions, an understanding not reliant upon mere words. (On the AT, long breaths are best spent inhaling and exhaling, not on wasted words.) Only our feet and the unstable rocks they’re atop make noise. Well, them and the metallic tips of our hiking poles.
The poles seem out of place in Nature--noisy, unwieldy, ready to surrender or snap at any time---but they are so incredibly beneficial. My theory goes that if you really want to see more wildlife, ditch the poles, after ditching your hiking partners. On the AT, such a trade-off would not be worth it.
Thoughts began to drift. I continued working on an invention I’d been dreaming up ever since the Susquehanna River: a portable rock pulverizer, one hikers could carry on their way through the northern half of Pennsylvania. Little by little the state’s AT would become a bona-fide walkway and not the rock bottom purgatory it is. I got so lost in thought (unfamiliar territory, indeed) that I drifted well behind the others and began playing sweep, though that in itself was nothing new.
This was clearly turning out to be one of those days where doing miles was the sole goal(1), that way there would be fewer of them ahead of us. If they happened to be worth slowing down for, we’d cross that bridge then. For the nonce, we just wanted to bridge the gap between then and now. We slow down for the sublime. We speed up for the sublime. The future is then.
And so that’s how it went. (The past is also then.) We couldn’t take many pictures, at least not with the little Fisher Price and Cracker Jack’s cameras we carry, for fear the rain would penetrate--then extirpate--them. Cheap though they may be, they are absolutely invaluable, especially with such a porous memory like mine, which I may have already alluded to, though I cannot recall. I need all the mnemonic forget-me-nots I can pic...ture. And so, as far as photographs go, I’m afraid due to the conditions, this is the best I can do today...
...I’m the guy wearing a backpack on my back, in back. The bizarre belly bulge is the all-important fanny pack. I am not pregnant.
By dark (or by darker, anyway) we’d end up at the rudimentary but adequate Kirkridge Shelter, near the intersection of Dead and Dying--both one-way, dead-end avenues. That put us about seven miles shy of the Delaware Water Gap, which is just this side of the Pennsylvania/New Jersey border.
When a warm drizzle began to drop, it silenced us further. Hiking in rain does that. Focus turns inward. If a tree were to fall, we would not likely hear it. But a tree doesn’t fall. The forest grows silent; we should too. Besides, we know one another well enough now that there’s often a shorthand to our interactions, an understanding not reliant upon mere words. (On the AT, long breaths are best spent inhaling and exhaling, not on wasted words.) Only our feet and the unstable rocks they’re atop make noise. Well, them and the metallic tips of our hiking poles.
The poles seem out of place in Nature--noisy, unwieldy, ready to surrender or snap at any time---but they are so incredibly beneficial. My theory goes that if you really want to see more wildlife, ditch the poles, after ditching your hiking partners. On the AT, such a trade-off would not be worth it.
Thoughts began to drift. I continued working on an invention I’d been dreaming up ever since the Susquehanna River: a portable rock pulverizer, one hikers could carry on their way through the northern half of Pennsylvania. Little by little the state’s AT would become a bona-fide walkway and not the rock bottom purgatory it is. I got so lost in thought (unfamiliar territory, indeed) that I drifted well behind the others and began playing sweep, though that in itself was nothing new.
This was clearly turning out to be one of those days where doing miles was the sole goal(1), that way there would be fewer of them ahead of us. If they happened to be worth slowing down for, we’d cross that bridge then. For the nonce, we just wanted to bridge the gap between then and now. We slow down for the sublime. We speed up for the sublime. The future is then.
And so that’s how it went. (The past is also then.) We couldn’t take many pictures, at least not with the little Fisher Price and Cracker Jack’s cameras we carry, for fear the rain would penetrate--then extirpate--them. Cheap though they may be, they are absolutely invaluable, especially with such a porous memory like mine, which I may have already alluded to, though I cannot recall. I need all the mnemonic forget-me-nots I can pic...ture. And so, as far as photographs go, I’m afraid due to the conditions, this is the best I can do today...
...I’m the guy wearing a backpack on my back, in back. The bizarre belly bulge is the all-important fanny pack. I am not pregnant.
By dark (or by darker, anyway) we’d end up at the rudimentary but adequate Kirkridge Shelter, near the intersection of Dead and Dying--both one-way, dead-end avenues. That put us about seven miles shy of the Delaware Water Gap, which is just this side of the Pennsylvania/New Jersey border.
There at the shelter, we were survived by mice, as they were awaiting our (dead on) arrival. “Every form of refuge has its price,” sang The Eagles; we were learning it firsthand. The next shelter is thirty miles north, one of the longest shelter-less stretches on this entire dirt alley.
I know little about New Jersey--The Boss; Bon Jovi; the Smithereens; the Misfits; Debbie Harry; Jersey Shore; most densely populated state; named after Old Jersey; and other important stuff--but I look forward to it. I look forward to anything but Pennsylvania. Seven bottles of beer on the wall, seven bottles of beer...
PS: Today is Day 88, a very round day. Tomorrow begins The Lazy Days of Summer, though the term doesn’t quite apply to those who walk ten to twenty (or twenty-five) daily miles. (The name’s Funnybones!, not Lazybones!) There’s little time to gather ye rosebuds, or to master our handstands, or to climb trees. My guess is we’ll just walk. And, as alluded to a couple paragraphs ago, I’ll likely forget most of what we will have walked by. The Hazy Days of Summer.
"Foot"note 1: 'The Sole Goal.' Now there's an apt title for a thru-hiking book!
"Foot"note 1: 'The Sole Goal.' Now there's an apt title for a thru-hiking book!
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