A Limp in the Woods (Day 112)

An Appalachian Trail Tale
Day 112: Sunday, July 14th, 2013
Kay Wood Shelter to Dalton = 3 miles
Miles to date: 1,566

Living Off the Land?

Of the questions thru-hikers hear, there’s one I’ve forgotten--how we feed ourselves. It happens a lot. “Do you forage?” an inquisitor asks. The intrigued are left disappointed, after being told that survival via foraging, as it pertains to thru-hiking, is a no-go. It’s too labor-intensive; the pickings are slim. “So you’re not really living off the land, then?” (Living off the land?! I’m a hovercraft! My feet don’t touch the ground! One can dream, no?)

Foraging and thru-hiking do not merge. Hunt for food enough to subsist, and the trail will never end. (A pleasing thought!) Could you supplement a thru-hike? Sure. We’ve all done it to a degree. I’ve gathered mushrooms, wild leeks, ginseng (which was unlawful to pluck, I learned later), and lots of berries--raspberries, mulberries, blackberries, blueberries, Asian wineberries, and dingleberries. (I kid about those; no one would go near dingleberries.) All fresh additions to the processed stuff a thru-hike necessitates.

Foraging might present a pastime, and a fun way to pass the time. It could even forestall death for a few minutes. At best. At worst, foraging could lead to a fatal outcome, and not just for the plants. Think Alexander Supertramp. And in most cases, and most places, our predecessors have picked the land clean. The bottom line(1): gallivanting around in search of food is fun. I’ve done it and will continue to do so. But a thru-hike’s continuance depends on one thing and one thing only: adhering to the goal. Walking. By.

Doing just that, Bearbell and I left the Kay Wood Shelter (most shelters are wood) and directed our feet north--Mush, you poor saps! Mush!--soon walking by more edible plants. Okay, we didn’t so much walk by as we had stopped by. Weaklings! Only when we had started to feel the unmistakable, unshakable onset of the trots did we trot on.

What a battle. You. Me. Anyone. Pitted against berries. You know you should stop eating and get a move on, but each mouthful is so tantalizingly delectable. Finding the fruit is rewarding in its own right--a primordial impulse hardwired into us--but nothing beats the eats. Mightily delish. (We joke we are light eaters: if it’s light out, we’re eating.) Hours can pass if discretion isn’t observed, and if someone within your charges doesn’t take charge.

I am not that guy. Only when another pair of people-like creatures showed, dodgy looking dudes who we hadn’t seen before, did we depart. A weekend, I realized. The long, leather machete sheath promised they weren’t professional thru-hikers, and that we’d come to the proper conclusion to get going posthaste. Prehaste.

In spite of the bacciferous bushes bestowment, I felt depleted. It was going to be a difficult day, no matter what came my way. Even on flat grounds, I’d incur ups and downs. And operating on fumes left me fuming. The internal arguments started. This is the trouble with being born! Hang in there, dude. You’ve got no rope, so you’re nowhere near its end!

“When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on.”

~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

“When you reach the end of your rope, tie a noose and hang in there.”

~Franklin D. Funnybone

Into either ether. The Green Tunnel vs. The Black Abyss. Should I stay or should I go? To be or not to be?

Stare not too long into the abyss, lest the abyss stare back at thee.

Bearbell pulled ahead and then away from us--me and my whiny demons--somewhere beyond the northern horizon. We’d reassemble in what few clearings there were, for berries and a bug break. But each time we started back up, he’d vanish again. This lasted what seemed like hours. It was scarcely an hour. (The clock strikes sluggishly when you’re sluggish.) By then we’d dragged into Dalton (pop: 7,000-ish). There I promptly pitched my tent in Thomas Levardi’s tight backyard, then face-planted into it. Tight, because others had already amassed. A mass of gaseous ass atop the grass, alas. Hikers and their hubbub. Keep off the grass, kids.

Tom is another of the inestimable AT angels. He opens his heart, his home, and his backyard to passerbyers, or those afoot anyway, offering us the chance to regroup--in more ways than one. I’d found, if only for a night, a much needed home.

What does one do when home? Well, after the intermission, one looks after the two Es--errands and eating. Frenchie and Coolie McJetPack and I thumbed it to nearby Pittsfield. (Pop: 44,000; city motto: Welcome to the Pits!) We celebrated Bastille Day at the Old Country Buffet, the hiker’s preferred all-you-can-eat (and-then-some) venue wherein everyone else was thickset and smiling (us--thin and grinning).

We ate in silence, our stomachs bigger than our mouths. Afterward we waddled over to the neighboring Wal-Mart. We restocked on salty, protein-laden poison, as tradition and future hunger tells us. I then departed for the Berkshire Anthenaeum, Pittsfield’s public library, which looked to double its duties as a homeless shelter.

I fit right in.

There, I sat in front of one of the communal computers--after having carefully wiped down the keys with the provided hand sanitizer--catching up on editing this journal, email and nothing, perusing some of the trail journals from others currently thru-hiking the AT. Squinting excessively since I’d forgotten my reading glasses, I can’t say I enjoyed most entries, though this wasn’t solely due to my aging eyes. Most were as difficult to read as Finnegans Wake, but for a different reason. Pithy, poor, painful.

Here’s an illustrative example, misspellings mended, from a peripheral acquaintance I’ve met up with a few times along the trail but one who shall, out of deference, remain unidentified. This carefully crafted vignette is up to date. The lines are spaced apart, as if to allow a cool breeze between them. Though sloppily sentimental, it is also thrilling, evocative stuff, so be forewarned:

Walked a bunch.

Mosquitoes galore.

Rain late.

Took care of usual chores.

Proof here that once you’ve read one trail journal, you’ve read them all (in that you don’t care to view any others). He could’ve tweeted as much and still have had room for sixty-eight additional characters. At least loved ones know he was still (somewhat) alive to that point.

"Foot"note 1: Actually, this is the bottom line.