A Limp in the Woods (Day 114)

An Appalachian Trail Tale
Day 114: Tuesday, July 16th, 2013
Mount Greylock to Sherman Brook Campsite = 7 miles
Miles to date: 1,591

Hiking, Biking, Swimming

At almost thirty-five hundred feet, Mount Greylock is Massachusetts’ high point. It’s made mightier by the monstrosity tacked atop, an iconic lightning lure that disturbs the patterns of things with wings. In retaliation, birds use the war memorial as a place to park their breakfast, and if I could, I would. But, like the mountain itself, the ninety-three foot sentinel is tough to climb. In contrast to the clamber up the mountain--Perspiration Point--it’d probably not be sensible. Just as it isn’t. Another of man’s many eyesores and anything but a sight for sore eyes. I’m not sure where this flag-planting mentality ever began--on moons or mountains or in military--but it’s silly. Been there, done that, beat you to it! Bow now brown cow!

Yesterday I’d marched major miles to the mountain, over some of the AT’s most enticing terrain, alongside its most alluring tarns. Timing has much to do with matters, but grasses swayed, waves lapped, and zephyrs soughed through lively leaves. Songbirds chirped riotously, like they know the score. Like so many prior, it’d been a grand ol’ day for a paseo. The drizzle didn’t dampen the spirit. And it would pass. “Only in Northern Fraunze,” said Bearbell the Northern Fraunzeman, “duz ze drizzle fail tu die.”

I’d attempted to doze atop Greylock in a giant canvas teepee, alongside the young dreamboat Chickadee and the young speedboat Tugboat. But nonstop nocturnal mosquitoes nudged each of us into our own safe havens. The wigwam was anything but impervious to the animal world. It had originally beckoned, because none of us had ever slept in one. We still haven’t. But one must constantly try new things before he or she becomes old! And even after.

Bearbell had treated himself to bed and beer in the adjacent lodge--up a mountain, down a beer. The windbag shared stories with unsoiled sightseers. Of what it means, and what it takes, to hike the AT. The filthy frog even met a bellissimama. While he was busy becoming a celebrity, we were busy being beset into retreat.

I awoke early, groggy and unenthused. I wanted to monitor the spreading sunrise. Drink in the views, as they say, before lighting out for the territory. Chickadee and Tugboat stayed slumberous, while Bearbell was enjoying the amenities in the lodge’s upscale bistro.

An exasperatingly attractive woman stood nearby, then looked my way and landed at my terminal. What the--? She was starting her day by making mine. There had to be a catch; most women don’t give me the time of day. (What good is the time of day for those who live among Nature?) My usually-reliable superpower--I am invisible in front of women--was malfunctioning.

“Hello,” she said.

“Good. Thanks,” I replied. Smooth, Chuck, smooth.

Damn girl, you could be in pornography.

With auburn hair and tawny eyes, she looked like Julia Roberts in that movie where she plays the part of a pretty woman. She wasn’t shining; she was on fire. I tried to act nonchalant, but inside I was chalant as hell. She asked if I was a thru-hiker. I confirmed it, amazed odor alone hadn’t. She told me it was her dream to hike the trail “someday.” Thru-hikers hear this often.

We introduced ourselves. Julie, she said, only to make sure I knew it was two first names in one: Jewel Leigh. While I did a quick wedding band check--none!--Julie asked if I needed anything. It looks like you do, I thought to say. You look low on Vitamin ME. Social graces got the better of (vitamin) me. I explained that, like most thru-hikers, I was semi-self-reliant. Especially in the act of sexual gratification.

The beamish babe got into a fiery clash with her beau last night, she offered unprompted. Hate was in the air. She decided to play relationship-hooky and spend the night atop the mountain. An emotional reset of sorts. I just stood and stared and began to develop a life-threatening crush. If you want to waste all my time, I’d like that. I forgot about the sun’s opening act. 

Julie possessed all the right curves, particularly those that made up her smile--smiling always improves one’s face value--and she looked especially toothsome under the pink glow of dawn. My world had just gotten a little less boring. I felt I’d wasted my life not knowing she existed. I also felt those irrepressible palpitations rising. “I wish I’d known,” I joked, “I’d’ve entertained you!”

There went the smile; she did not smell what I was cooking. She gave me a look that said you need to shut up and see if you survive what’s next. Then came the awkward silence I’m so used to hearing around disgustingly beautiful women that it’s no longer uncomfortable. Still, I hoped I might spontaneously combust, because people sometimes do that. But you never catch a break when you need it most.

When Bearbell arrived, the sun had risen, my phallus fizzled, and my doe-eyed ladylove had initiated her exit strategy. In love, in vain. I sighed inside: You’re such a fool Funnybone. When I told Frenchie of my folly, he declared, “You’re such a fool Funny-bonez.” With three votes in favor, the truth was all too obvious. Oh well, with my lascivious ADD, I’ll soon move on. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Anyway, it doesn’t hurt when I’m not liked by someone, because I have not liked me a lot longer.

Bearbell and I started to descend the unjustly steep trail. (It is, after all, the AT, thus entirely unjust.) We bade bye to the touristy mountaintop parking lot and made for more hushed domain. It wasn’t even 7am and the peak was up to the neck with rubberneckers.

Slugs and snails thrived. As it had been through the tree-frog forest near Salisbury, we tip-toed tenderly. We wished not to flatten anything but the AT itself. At times it was necessary to jump to avert disaster. At one point I skidded down a mossy rock and was about to squash a snail, house and all, but spared life and property by doing the splits. Split-second splits. It wounded my grundle something fierce. But it was more hurtful witnessing the many snails killed by the crushing blow of unwary boots.

So many hikers carry on carelessly, oblivious to the death and damage they do with their fumbling feet. Bearbell is a heavy hitter. He strikes the ground violently enough to alter Earth’s rotation. It’s as though he’s angry at it. (He may be, given the trail’s iniquitous layout.) With some not-so-subtle urging on my part, he’s learning to be a little less maladroit, and more on the lookout. “We can’t take it out on the poor critters,” I summed it while trying to walk with the delicacy of a ballerina. “But if we cross one of the trail’s designers, well then, it’s Game On!” We kept our heads down and pushed ahead.

It seemed a cooler day, maybe because it was so early, or maybe because it was as late in the year as it had been yet. But as we gradually descended, and the sun gradually ascended, the tepid temps resumed. So did the bugs. Hot, sticky, prickly. We festered and festinated. Buddhists proclaim the Dukkha--the dissatisfaction, the suffering, the stress--of this life, of this world, overshadows the happiness in it. They’ve got the AT pegged. It is no temple. But it was quiet, and humans were few, and we were happy.

Both Bearbell and I are sociable souls, but he’s far more tolerant of humans. He’s a devout gadabout. He enjoys crowds. I favor the individual, though this is contingent upon the individual; I often prefer isolation. (If it’s me I’m stuck with I prefer not being alone.) I’m not a misanthrope but a massanthrope. (I can rarely hate any one person at a time, but am capable of hating hundreds each day.) Three’s a party, and I generally despise get-togethers (yet love the idea of a ménage à trois), whereas for Frenchie it’s a case of the more, the merrier. A ménage à mille. A high-watt bulb, he gravitates toward people and they to him, when the odor doesn’t overpower.

It’s tough to believe he’s at one of his life’s low points--still suffering, he tells me, from his split. “I’m suffering too,” I assured him, “from doing the splits.”

The bruin and I hobbled on, past the vacant Wilbur Clearing Shelter, eventually losing almost three thousand feet when we drew near a lethargic Hoosic River in a town-pretend called Williamstown. The Hoosic, my friend pointed out, is also known as the Hoosac, the Hoosick and/or the Hoosuck. Damn Frenchman knows more about my country than I do.

“You know how riverz are clazzified?” Bearbell asked.

“You mean ‘cause of their rapids?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah?”

“Well, wouldn’t it be good if zey could clazzify zegments of ze AT zat way?”

We cogitated, and came up with the following:

Class I: Easy Strolling. No hands required. Eyes can roam. On the AT there’s not much of this placid stuff.

Class II: Challenging Walking. ‘Watch your step!’ sort of stuff. Most of what the AT is.

Class III: Virtual Scrambling, but hiking poles still of some use.

Class IIII: Unavoidable Scrambling; hands absolutely required. Poles are a hindrance, ala Lehigh Gap in PA.

And then there’s Class V. 

Class V entails climbing or descending absurdly steep inclines, often vertical or inverted, on wet, mossy logs or rocks with mosquitoes attacking and gnats circling, through narrow chutes that won’t allow for navigation with backpack on. We’re told this is much of what Maine’s Appalachian Toil involves. Yay!

Because it is hard to relax the head when thinking ahead, we decided it was best not knowing what was coming, or even what degree of difficulty we were atop at any given time. In thru-hiking and thru-climbing, it’s always a case of one step (or handhold) at a time. Sometimes it’s two steps (or handholds) at a time. Other times it’s one face-plant at a time. The point is, as long as we keep going, the going will keep coming. There’s little we can do about it.

After borrowing two ill-mannered department store bikes from a local trail angel, upon which we trundled to a nearby market, we reclined riverside. We required the rest post pedal-palooza. Our bicycles had been unsure of themselves, each listing to the left and wobbling like drunken penguins. Worse yet, they’d often toss their rusty chains, but only when big, frothy-mouthed dogs started to give chase, after they’d hunted and killed wolves all night.

My machine was especially unpleasant in that its seat was permanently adjusted for a rider of four-foot-two. I am a spokes-man of six-foot-two. I like to think of the bicycle as the height of human attainment, along with canned cheese, but I guess it depends on the bike. Some of my best memories in life have been on a bicycle. So have some of my worst.

“At first I wanted to ride ze bike; now I want to rid ze bike.”

~Nicholas Sirot/Bearbell 

Cranky or otherwise, roll-models are not allowed on the Appalachian Trail. That is except where it coincides with certain state gamelands in Pennsylvania, the C&O Canal towpath in Maryland, the Virginia Creeper Trail in Virginia, and on roads in town.

After our time behind bars, we recuperated. Two hikers would appear, a father/daughter duo. Bearbell shared a bottle of purpley plonk with them last night. They struck up conversation and extended an invite to escape the now-unfair heat, at their residence in close-by North Adams. We have a pool was all we needed to hear.

Le Tour de Frenchman, sans training wheels

We’d spend the next five hours scarfing pizza, swigging bubbly soft (and hard) drinks, and playing with Jill’s sprightly niece. They had a few of those high-powered water-rocket-launcher bazookas, so we did what kids do and battled for pool supremacy(1). Game on! The pool became a bloodbath.

The poor little girl, all but five or six, maybe thirteen or fourteen, soon learned that Frenchmen are relentless when defending their ground. Or their water. When the middle-aged spaz trained his water-cannon straight at my groinular region, the same groinular region that’d been split in half earlier, I withdrew. “Concede or bleed,” he said. “Okay Napoleon, la victoire est à toi.” The bairn bravely battled on, refusing to throw in the (beach) towel. In a rare show of sportsmanship, Bearbell offered to shake her hand after he’d made her nose bleed. She gave him a hug, but it was a bearhug, and it made him nervous.

Near day’s demise, Jill--a San Diegoan home for the week--dumped us back at the trail, next to the Hoosic, which, Bearbell would call attention to, is a tributary of the Hudson. Following the river’s lead, we moved lazily--despite the Class I walking. We achieved just over a mile before admitting defeat, my second or third of the day, Bearbell’s first. Apart from the morning’s cumbersome interaction, it’d been a good day. Unscripted, unexpected, and undeniably unforgettable. If only they’d all unfurl as such! Then again, what would we compare them to? The shitty makes the shiny that much shinier.

"Filth"note 1: For reasons all too obvious we were told we had to hose off before entering the pool.