A Limp in the Woods (Day 100)

An Appalachian Trail Tale
Day 100: Tuesday, July 2nd, 2013
Graymoor Spiritual Center to RPH Shelter = 19 miles
Miles to date: 1,425

The Real Pizza Hut

The road to hell is unpaved with good intentions. Yesterday’s intentions were selfishly harmless--to hike. But conditions got the better of me. If there’s a better of me. All who’d moored in the Graymoor Center hiked farther than I; their intentions were better. Stronger.

Today I set out (late) with improved intentions. The weather in this place of wrath and tears remained abysmal, but I’d’ve gone insane, or more so, had I lounged around a spiritual center all day, contemplating the lint in my navel. My spiritual epicenter is centered in the forest, atop a long, narrow strip of mud. I could do nothing under most circumstances, just not under such moist circumstances. And anyway, time was getting on. Slipping, slipping, slipping. There comes a time when nothingness is too much.

The others were awake before me, a dawn departure. Most thru-hikers (maybe even the majority) are matutinal birds. They’re up before the sun thinks of getting up. Some do this for greater odds of creature cameos; the natural world is more plentiful during those pre-cockcrow hours. (The wild world is full of nocturnal types like me. Many in it are active till the last possible minute, as their hunger drives them. When sunlight spoils their stealthy ways, hunger goes unfulfilled, and so they may linger.) But most hikers are up betimes to MAKE MILES, so they can “quit hiking” that much sooner each day. They’re not seeking wildlife; they’re aiming to attain their primary purpose: to get where they are going. Seeing the world is of secondary importance and, from what I’ve seen, comparatively unimportant. (There goal is their burden.) There’s little emphasis on the precious hours and much placed on collecting miles. It’s as though the trail is a task to be completed, rather than something to be engaged in. The AT is a Type-A highway.

 “Too often I would hear men boast of the miles covered that day, rarely of what they had seen.” 

~Louis L’Amour

“Rise and shine!” enthusiastic hikers have yelled, as they invade my camp and my peace. 

(Good reason not to sleep near the trail.)

I defend my inaction. “Rise, I get. But shine? On the AT? We’re in a tunnel, kids.”

“The early bird gets the worm,” some of these dromomaniacs chirp smugly. Like the industrious businessmen, they’re sickened by slackers. (I think they’re sick with Destination Addiction.) They’ve forgotten there’s more to life than maggots, or miles. They’ve forgotten that every corpse on Mount Everest was once a highly-motivated person. They’ve forgotten the joy of having nowhere to be. They’ve forgotten the delight of doing nothing. “The late worm averts the early bird,” I counter, loftily living life to the least. Of the deadly sins, sloth is in my top seven. I am the Ambassador of Laze. 

Do not seize the day! You might startle it, causing it to turn on you!

Morning is a time not for action or words, but for inaction and serenity. My first waking thought is always: can I sleep more? In life, quality sleep is my main aim. It’s never too late for sleeping in! I came to the AT for lazy mornings, lengthy siestas, and early evenings. Purposefully unproductive, I’ve learned the value of relaxation through dedicated relaxing. The happiest hiker is the one most like himself. To thine own self be true, said some poet.

For whatever reason, taking flight from the civilized world--that mystifying, multiplying cultural mechanism--allows for slumber. This, in spite of the associated pitfalls when al fresco: climatic fluctuations, surface hardness/unevenness, roving wind, bugs, the hankering for a pillow, animal noises, and so forth. In any event, we insomnious owls are seldom seen early. Sneaky and stealthy, but mostly just sleepy. I’m just a traveler hoping to find where I belong, and I belong in bed.

As I conceived to leave, I saw that someone had forgotten his or her jacket. Marmot brand, a jewel I’ll never afford. It was too small, despite my tugging. ‘Twas Tugboat’s. I scrunched it up and socked it away near my soiled socks. I wondered how he overlooked it; shells were needed today, if just to bridle the biting bugs. Intelligent thoughts follow Tugboat, but he’s faster. An hour later the dude appeared, bulldozing southward as though his hair was on fire. He asked if I had seen it. “I had,” I said. “But I left it there.”

“Shit.” He looked like a man who’d just been told the date and manner of his death.

“Nah, I’m kidding. I have it.”

“Thank God.”

“No need. You can thank me.” That he did, before changing direction and charging back up the trail, jumper in hand.

A short time later the season’s first southbound thru-hiker entered the scene. A tall, skeletal form of some importance, he looked like death--the Slim Reaper. But he was barreling down the pike, devouring distance at an obscene rate. It was the fastest I’d seen anyone move without machinery. The Bony Express flew by without a word, despite my efforts to engage him. Scarcely a glance. Gotta make miles. I might’ve liked him, for he seemed socially inept, but as they say with our types, two’s a crowd.

Someone later told me it was “a joyless automation named Matt Kirk.” He was trying to beat a record. Or record a beat, I can’t remember. I laughed heartily at the use of such a phrase: a joyless automation. It describes a few out here. Anyway, we northbounders had caught wind the southbounders were drawing near. We figured we could now expect to cross paths with them each day. First the urgent emergent, then a slow and steady trickling of the slow and steady, before a dying-off of those mostly dying.

Because New Maine and New Hampshire are locked beneath snowpack till late spring, the SOBOer is compelled to leave later. We NOBOs are nearly three-fourths into the trail when the wrong-wayers are just getting underway. I didn’t envy this guy one iota. But then I never envy nerds.

I couldn’t imagine finishing on such an anticlimactic monticule as Springer Mountain, that mere molehill. Cerro Katahdin is the ideal finale, and I continually pray I make it there, even though I haven’t the slightest idea who or what I’m praying to. (Prayer is wishful thinking, only without the thinking.) My two cents tells me that flipping a coin would probably proffer better odds than prayer, but I’m not carrying any coins. Too heavy.

The rain came in spurts all morning. It spurted lightly, then frantically, then the spurting sputtered. The path was a pigpen, but most the sludge had washed away long ago, making its way to lower domains and into the ocean. No wonder the seas are rising; I fault the Appalachian’s. And the rain; the range is being soaked to death. 

Sideways trees occluded the way from time to time, but the obstacle course was nowhere near as bad as it’d been down south. Or maybe we’re just hardened to it all now. The greatest challenge came from the skies. First the moisture, then the mosquitoes and midges. Deer flies, not to be bested, joined the fun. They were bleeding us white--whiter than this tunnel already has us. Shine?

To combat the vehemence, I went head-to-toe in proboscis-impenetrable nylon. (The culturati, the Fashion Police, would’ve cuffed me on the spot.) I then slathered Hikers’ Cologne--DEET--on exposed areas. Hands, head, neck, penis. It rubs the lotion on its skin!

DEET is the deadly insecticide. But the sauce is lethal only to those using it; the molesting pests are unaffected. I’ve developed a sickly rash where I’ve applied the gunk. The 10% solution I’d previously used did nothing but drain my bank account. So now I’ve gone with 100% strength. I bought it when Goober ran us to the outfitters. Full-strength DEET is what led to the extinction of the dinosaurs, but just like weaker versions, it inflicts only mirth for the mosquitoes. They’ll outlast us all.

Worse yet, it was warming throughout the day--sixty-five, seventy-five, eighty-five, until it reached a suffocating ninety-five degrees. My nylon encapsulation was steadily cooking me, as was the cologne--first via the rash, then by way of a string of never-before-experienced hot-flashes. The hiker’s life, rife with strife.

But as the sun broke through, the mossies withdrew. For some reason, the nano assassins detest direct sunlight. UV rays, I’d surmise. They don’t want to get sunburned, increasing the chances of skin cancer. Shrewd critters. To think man figures himself the wisest of the bunch, the king of the jungle! We are food for worms. For mosquitoes. For bacteria. We replenish their realm.

Shiftless though I was, I caught the others at Dennytown Road. Chickadee, Tugboat, Misery, Johnny Walker and Don’s Brother, the kindly, leathery man who I hadn’t seen since Day 82, were in attendance. A small stone pump house sat nearby, along with a few trailhead signs, reminding motorists not to attempt to drive the AT. I wanted to lie down and call an ambulance, but was able to slowly rebound as the minutes unfurled. A thorough rinse underneath the building’s spigot had me feeling double rainbows, feeling anew.

Misery, pack removed

We’d speak only of the mosquitoes. The baleful buzzing, the bothersome bites. Times were tough, we agreed in unanimity; we needed to stay tough ourselves. The other option suggested stepping away from the trail, from our hikes, from what we’d each set out to do. Not an option. “No use in complaining,” said Misery, who, like me, was no stranger to the act. (Ergo, the name.) “But it’s what we do,” I replied.

After the break we broke for the hills, our Walden. Woebegoners. The wind gathered steam and swept the insects elsewhere. Ridges kept us exposed to the breezy conditions; we couldn’t have been happier. “Note to self,” I joked to Don’s Brother, “ridges, wind and sun be our allies; shade, clouds and calm only abet the enemy.” We’d motor through the mosquitoes’ domicile and, when allowed, slow where possible.

At the top of Shenandoah Mountain, somewhere between a rock and a white blaze, Don’s Bro, Misery, Chickadee and I sat and enjoyed the explosive vistas below. Lively whirls of wind accompanied us. An American flag had been painted atop the exposed rock, with a few words for those who lost their lives on that fateful day. “IN MEMORY OF SEPTEMBER 11, ‘01,” read the vandalism. Our thoughts slowed. We invoked the Fifth Amendment; words wouldn’t improve the silence. They rarely do.

“Weird world,” I finally said to Don’s Brother, a retired English teacher (named for his brother Don, who died last August, after an all-too-brief bout with ALS), “where humans choose to fly planes into buildings and where they constantly try to destroy one another. I’m glad I’m not a part of it.” Minus the mosquitoes, the world we’d chosen to be a part of was a much more peaceful place. It was genuinely strange to us that no one else had it all figured out like we did! We’re not the displaced ones!

By late day we’d arrive one-by-one at the RPH Shelter. Most of us loped in; one guy limped in. The shelter’s more house-like than lean-to-like. There’s running water and a lawn. It’s beside other dwellings, those with electricity, phones and air conditioners. Would-be visitors could have pizza delivered; we soon would. At home I don’t eat pizza, but this isn’t home, and I defend my behavior. Six toppings and injection-molded cheese in its crust, thank you. RPH = the Real Pizza Hut.