A Limp in the Woods (Day 91)

An Appalachian Trail Tale
Day 91: Sunday, June 23rd, 2013
Near Rattlesnake Mountain to the Mashipacong Shelter = 15 miles
Miles to date: 1,326 (or 2,134 kilometers, which sounds farther)

Coffee before Cogitation 

No one knows the recommended daily allowance of walking, but it’s certain thru-hikers exceed it. We’ve gone fifty-three miles in the past three days--an overdose in the works--and it’s time for a rest. Only it isn’t. Good things, as said before, don’t come to those who wait; they come to those who sweat. And so that’s what we did. Earth below, sky above, fire within.

The terrain has been amiable for some time, though the trail saw to it that the walking wasn’t. Rocks, ruts, roots...rinse, repeat. Today, I’ve got to admit, things got a little better. Maybe those Liverpool lads were right. It began with a bucket of the only first aid I carry--instant coffee--which wasn’t all that instant, what with my modest alcohol burner. The stove’s a homemade jobber, constructed from a hole-punched Vienna sausage can. The wiener container is half the diameter of my old tuna can stove and a fraction of the weight, but fails to impress just the same. It uses denatured(1) alcohol, but I’m convinced the wieners would burn better.

Still, I’m not grumbling. The hot bean juice is one of the few perks, as one might say, of my mornings, the emergence of which I always mourn. I like coffee; it gives the illusion I might be alive. Drinking it each morning also helps those around me live longer. But now that summer’s here, I’m less inclined to drink something hot. It’s time for a caffeinated slushy or coffee on the rocks.

Sitting and sipping, I pondered why humans are the only creature to require stimulants. The Earth and sun and wind don’t seem to. Nor does the rivers, plants or animals. And they function flawlessly. We humans are overly reliant on cheap fixes. (Never mind coffee is no longer cheap!) Once I found my fix, and the java had seeped into the vascular network, I didn’t linger. The woods were waiting. First for fertilization, then for perambulation. Number two always supersedes, and ideally precedes, the hiker’s number one task.

The others were already doing their groundwork and had nudged ahead. This was expected, given my definition of morning(2). But the pick-me-up and the lighter exit pipe allowed me to catch back up after just an hour. We were somewhere near the Brink Road Shelter junction. If it weren’t for coff-medicine, my bowelogical clock would not run, and I would not walk.

The shelter was not at all on the brink. It had wandered a quarter-mile off the AT, so we wandered off without visiting it, directing our attention to the next landmark at Culvers Gap. Blueberries slowed our advance. The fibrous fruit forced the others to tend to their intestines, but in time we descended to the gap. Poison ivy and bugs teemed, and teamed up against us.

For the most part we’ve been on ridges in New Jersey, where the wind keeps the bugs at bay. The difference in altitude from ridge-top to the nadir of these so-called gaps is negligible, usually around five hundred feet. Still, with the notable exception of those toothy ursine death threats, most other threats keep to the lowlands.

Another fire tower greeted us on the climb out of the gap. It was our second in two days. We climbed its many stairs, which then gave way to our own many stares. The landscape was fecund and lush but open and without a horizon. There were no fires visible, just chalky smog. The big cities are slithering closer and the effect, the effluvia, is visible, even if they are not. Space aliens might suppose that cities produce smog to protect themselves from visibility. Camouflage from laser bombardment.

A little later we took the short side-trip to the Gren Anderson Shelter, careful to avoid trodding on a slumbering mouse halfway there. We relaxed and consumed a light repast, despite the place’s shabbiness. We’re versed in dilapidated shelters by now, but this one was next level. There were cigarette butts and broken glass and discarded condoms. (In other words, a road’s nearby.) Our books insisted the joint could sleep eight, but I’m not sure anyone would be able to sleep. The floor also slanted like an A-frame’s roof. The schmuck stuck on the low end would get the short end, waking to everyone piled atop. We moved on, on guard for any glass shard.

Sleeping heavily (coffee could help)

In the stone pavilion atop Sunrise Mountain an hour on, we sat and ate again. We eat via the drip-feed method: lots of food often. Keeping blood sugar up keeps spirits up. While we were enjoying the expansive views, a magisterial bald eagle did a flyby, directly in front of us. It was close enough to touch. A wingspan wider than any of ours. We weren’t prepared for such a cinematic scene, and the huge bird drifted away, without so much as a wing beat. I scurried for my camera in hopes for a sequel, but it wasn’t to be.

“Damn,” I sighed to TK. “We missed our moment.”

“No we didn’t,” she replied, looking me straight in the eye. “That was it.”

She was right. We needn’t document everything we experience or do(3). It is better to have lived it. And we had. The moment may have been gone, but it was not lost. And, as I’ve scribbled before, if you’re in it, you’re precisely where you’re supposed to be.

The five of us left the pavilion and moseyed toward the evening’s lodging at the one-star Mashipacong Shelter. The raptor continued to effortlessly patrol the lonely sky, far above the silken valleys the pavilion overlooked--far below us. We watched her back; she watched us back. Nature’s cinema on full display.

A large bear plodded beside us for a spell, before booking into the aegis of the understory. One minute the bruin looked to be lumbering and in need of a weight loss program; the next it resembled a furry motorcycle. We realized at that moment--and yes, we were fully submerged within it--it’d be impossible to outrun a bear, especially with the load on our backs. And the load in our shorts. Of course, as the joke goes, you needn’t outrun the bear; you only need to outrun your friends.

When darkness descended we’d all placed our sleeping bags tightly together. And we were all grateful for the moon’s perfect timing. Effulgent and full, it’d certainly scare the bear and enable a full night’s sleep. Surely though, if a werewolf were to show, we’d only mistake him as another hairy hiker. Tough telling ‘em apart anymore.

"Foot"note 1: I ponder: is something "denatured" unnatural? And what, exactly, do we mean when we say 'unnatural'? Or, for that matter, 'natural'? Isn't man and all his plastic (and his denatured alcohol) natural, since man is part of Nature? Nature can be so confusing!

"Foot"note 2: Known to most as 'noon.'

"Foot"note 3: Says the obsessive journal keeper!