A Limp in the Woods (Day 115)

An Appalachian Trail Tale
Day 115: Wednesday, July 17th, 2013
Sherman Brook to Melville Nauheim Shelter (VT) = 18 miles
Miles to date: 1,609

When I was a kid my biggest ambition--and I blame this on the above book cover--was to shirk work. To run from responsibility. To scrimshank it, as a slack Welshmen would say. So far, so good.

The thing is I easily bore. So I work at journaling and composing some musical masterpieces. (Note: I say masterpiece; you might use a different piece.) I’m also channeling my inner Steinbeck and slaving away on a novel while trekking this godforsaken trail. (Reality can be tiring.) I’d tell you what it’s called, but then I’d have to kill you, the reader. My audience. And since I don’t know where you live, or whether you exist at all, I’ll instead leave you (assuming you exist) with its opening lines. They go like this:

~~~~~~~~~~

The following is based on a true story...
but is completely false.

“Ever since my grand scheme of an inflatable submarine fell flat I have given up inventing, or investing in, anything,” Jose sighed to his friend, Hose B.

“What about your toilet disposable unit?” Hose B returned, scratching his chin thoughtfully.

~~~~~~~~~~

Note: the average reader doesn’t want to read the average story. Also note the odd-sized E to start. Very literary-like. That’s how to get your book to meet the criteria of a classic. Utterly unputdownable. I’d share the remainder of the novel--I plan to kill off the main protagonist; unfortunately the book is autobiographical--but I first want to pitch it to The Publishers Clearing House or other publishers. And I’d like to finish writing the rest. Two lines does not a book make.

Regardless, I’m sure it’ll sell, because I will have already published my Pulitzer-winning suicide note, the first of its kind, as brought to light (at the end of the tunnel) sometime between Day 107 and Day 109. Winning a Pulitzer seals deals, guaranteeing every book of yours to follow, even if named something like Wally the Wacky Wombat Wunderkind, will sell. Sales are important when selling a story, or there’s no point in telling the story. An insider once told me that. I told that insider that since the pen is mightier than the sword, and we live and die by the sword, the pen is thus eminently dangerous. He nodded: “Until its ink runs out; writing is a tough way to live.” He never set foot on the Appalachian Trail.

     Anyway. First things second…

Now that all that’s been clarified--all what I’m not sure--we can move on to the next order of the day. Entering Vermont! It all went down as Bearbell and I went up. We were caught by a sturdy thru-hiker named Pom, a capable multilingual who communicated both in my lingo and Bearbell’s. The three of us celebrated the occasion by--get this--walking! The makings of a bad joke: a Brit, a Frog, a Yank walk into Vermont... 

My favorite state flag of the fourteen along the AT

We’d departed Massachusetts and entered our twelfth state (Bearbell’s eighth) just two miles into the day. The border sat a thousand feet higher than where we’d slept. Like yesterday, an abrupt start to the day, but in reverse. Up, not down.

Contrary to popular belief, Vermont is not in Canada, and Ben & Jerry’s ice cream is not “all-natural.” (It’s scarcely half-natural; true connoisseurs recognize Breyer’s as the better national brand, though both are owned by the same parent company and Breyer’s will thus become poison, albeit profitable poison.) Also, Vermont--or ‘Green Mountain’ in that freaky French phraseology, so says Bearbell--has no roadside billboards. It’s easy to see, however, that there are plenty of trailside signs, at least to this point. Then there’s the maple syrup. A half-million gallons annually. It is, indubitably, a sticky sweet state. We were elated for a taste.

The otherwise obscured state line also signified the southern terminus of the Long Trail, an abridged AT and the first long-distance hiking path in the US. It’s somewhat of a Reader’s Digest version of the AT, but the Long Trail is fittingly named. It runs the length of Vermont--the full Vermonty--from where we slouched, all the way to Canada, two hundred and seventy miles. Even longer in kilometers. Construction on the trail began more than a century ago, near the time Halley’s Comet skimmed by Earth in 1910 (preceding the holy John Muir Trail by five years). For the next hundred miles we’d be on both it and the AT, as the paths merge. Two trails in one! Twice the struggle!

But for most the day the walking was meanderingly mellow. We were atop a series of ridges that afforded us easy striding and moving vistas both. The going was so mild-mannered that Bearbell’s tinny bear bell hardly jangled at all, making the splendo…splendid. Behind us Mount Greylock stood commandingly, tree-swathed to its top. To the fore: an angled horizon and league upon league of mountains. We were finally leaving the butt of the joke and getting to the goods.

There’s little debate where the heart of the Appalachian Trail’s loveliness lies. Sure, there’s a sprinkling of splendor here and there throughout its habitually-heartless span. But the bulk of the beating beauty is found in its northern three states. To add to the bargain, there are no metropolises in Vermont, New Hampshire or Maine. The most crowded city is Manchester, NH (pop: 110,000), which is nowhere near the trail. The ATer can easily evade the compelled cataclysm we call mankind, that pesky, pervasive, invasive species. Few hikers hike to be hemmed in with the hordes. Personal space and legroom are at the top of the priority list when mapping the ideal route.

Pom would leave us for dead and ebb ahead. The thirty-five year-old had to rush his walkies; his visitor’s visa lasts just ninety days. Before vanishing he said he hoped to run into us in the next town...

“We’ll hit up a pub, where I’ll shout. In fact, I’ll buy every man there a beer!”

He turned back and smiled, before adding, “if there are any.”

“Any men, or any beer?” we asked in unison, before he shot out of earshot.

Bearbell quickly added, “Oh, and I doubtz there’ll be a need tu shout, unless ze bar iz noisy.”

...Standard Trail Humour 101.

Ninety days is punishing way to enjoy the full AT. On a 2,200-mile walk it’s best to leave ample time. But Pom had a plan. He figured, if he had to, he’d rent a car and head into Canada. There he’d get the necessary passport stamp, and then re-enter the US at one of the border checks. This way he could secure an extended expiration date on his paperwork and subsequently enjoy those beers.

The Germans I’d met earlier--Agent Orange, Engineer, NBC, Ice T, and others--all had similar schemes. Not one of them cared to race or cut his voyage short, especially now that the scenic stuff’s here. Frenchie felt grateful he wasn’t on such a time crunch (so that he might avoid crunch time). “I’ve paid my taxes in ziss country for yearz. Time tu enjoy it some.”(1)

Footsore and famished, Bearbell and I sat for lunch atop a nameless prominence. We spoke of Pom and having to hike in a hurry. “It defeatz ze ‘ole point,” said my French friend. I nodded as I delved into my peanut butter-honey-cream cheese-tuna-potato chip tortilla concoction. Culinary nirvana. (There’s only one secret to eating during a thru-hike: not caring how it tastes.) The AT squashes you without being pressed.

A ninety-day visitors visa means an eighty-eight day thru-hike, since at least one day at each end of the venture is required for getting to or from the trail. That means having to average twenty-five daily miles for those eighty-eight days. Count ~> Me ~> Out. This leaves me, if for no other reason, satisfied I’m a denizen of the United States. The only visa I need here has a capital V.

A few hours after eating we one-stepped into the Congdon Shelter, an infirm, defaced structure suitable only for mice and a snack break. “Looks like King Kong done did the Congdon in,” I joked to Frenchie. He did not laugh. An overabundance of wonderful scenery(2) had slowed us in reaching the lean-to, and so we remained ravenous. Slow doesn’t slow the appetite; it just means being hungry longer. Bearbell socialized with three Long Trail attempters, all high-schoolers who had set off this morning. They were already complaining about the cruel nature of Nature. Just wait kids, just you wait.

Although it’s getting hotter later each morning, today was turning out to be another toaster. That and the bugs were frightening these poor kids into thinking they’d chosen the wrong summer vacation. “Itta been much nicer ta go ta da beach fuh a month straight,” one of the more astute ones blurbed. We left them to fend for themselves.

The route remained pretty pain-free all the way until a rocky, sharp plunge toward VT Highway 9 (note to future hiking self, as formerly noted: downhills are more damaging than the ups). Hiking poles were a must, but almost too much. It would have been easier to shimmy and scrape our butts on the way down. We sat those butts down when we reached bottom, so to speak, and conferred with our dog-eared guidebooks, too tired to eat or drink or think. Above us, the typical canopy of trees. Beside us, a Forest Service kiosk/bulletin board telling us what we could and could not do. Not far enough away, a moldering (smoldering!) privy.

It was decision time--as always when late afternoon crawls in, which it had. The Green Hour, the French call it. L’Heure Verte. (On the AT every hour is the green hour.) The decision du jour: where to deactivate and bed our heads. We could call an audible and hope for the best (or something close), like we’d each done to this point in our hikes. Location independence! (I’ve planned where to sleep about ten percent of the time.) Or we could plot all viable plots. Bucking trend, we chose the latter, setting our sights on the Melville Nauheim Shelter. Largely because it was only a mile and a half on and didn’t involve much planning.

We’d make it to the shelter as per strategy, not even an hour later. It was empty and we were depleted--a match made in heaven. Or, as locals know it: Vermont. A match made in Vermont. If only the Long Trail were the Super Long Trail! As for the shelter, well, it’s nothing to write home about. Can a homeless person write home?

"Foot the bill"note: Unlike Bearbell, I’ve not paid my taxes in this (or any other) country, but only because I’ve never worked. No, really.

"Foot"note 2: Please note: there's no such thing as an overabundance of wonderful scenery, except perhaps in Patagonia, Alaska, and deep outer space.