A Limp in the Woods (Day 135)

An Appalachian Trail Tale
Day 135: Tuesday, August 6th, 2013
Crawford Notch to near Mt Jefferson Loop Trail = 14-ish miles
Miles to date: 1,855

Mount Washington
(Disneyland with Rocks)

Late afternoon. The day is done, left to dwindle into relic, swallowed by the ravages of time, irretrievable except in mind. The gloaming game has begun. Alpenglow ignites faraway mountainsides. The sky is beginning to be split between black and blue, not unlike the bottom of my feet or my ego. At twenty-five knots, the wind is lacerating, but the gods have gifted us a spectacular setting. A fair trade, tradewinds. 

Landscape and heavens have paired. We’ve been clobbered by beauty. The sun has begun to bury itself beyond the horizon, teetering beneath a wispy flotilla of pink and purple and orange clouds, all of which look to have caught fire. The hues transcend vocabulary, as ever. Not even photographs will do; true grandeur cannot be seen on a screen(1).

I’m homesteaded in a rocky alcove, on an exposed ridge. Life, elevated. The land around the cranny, where my keister has been put to work, overlooks the world. It will soon overlook a sizable chunk of the chocolate Milky Way. Overlooks, not as in fails to notice, but as in looks out upon. Within earshot is Captain Planet, my newfound two-footed friend. He’s using the AT as a detour, he tells me, till he learns his life’s path. Perhaps the detour is the path, I respond. He says he’d accept that.

The more I interact with the sinewy guy, the more I yearn to. He’s only twenty-two but possesses all the calm, wisdom and wit of someone three times his age, without having lost the curiosity. I’d say he has the calm, wisdom and wit of someone twice his age, but then that’s around my range, and I don’t have such qualities.

“Nothing’s sorrier,” Cactus Ed said, “than an old man who has nothing to say, nothing to tell us, no advice or wisdom to offer.” I’ll continue to hold out hope. No need for Captain to do so; he’s already there. An un-aged sage.

Our day began early. Too early, as early often is. Fancy Pants wanted to get a move on. We dependents--moochers--couldn’t do a thing about it. Not true--we could’ve slept in at Doc and Llama’s, then thumbed our way from town. The couple wouldn’t have minded. Neither would’ve their restive, video-game-playing (slaying) twerp. But both Captain and I abhor hitching. Most levelheaded anthropoids do. It was easier to pull ourselves from the floor than it would’ve been to pull out our thumbs.

On the trail, sleeping standing up, we’d lapse into a succession of conversations, covering a series of topics. (Unlike the majority, neither of us distract or placate ourselves with earphones.) Some of our conversations were meaningless, others more meaningless.

But at one point he shared how he’d saved for his hike; like me, he’s chronically limited of funds. He worked in a restaurant kitchen alongside an immigrant who couldn’t understand why Bryan--Captain’s birth name--would choose to walk thousands of miles. For fun. The guy had covered a comparable distance so he could survive, covertly breaching the US border and walking into a new life.

(When I think to my PCT hikes, I recall two types on the sector just north of the Mexican border--cheeky thru-hiker hopefuls and sneaky immigrant hopefuls. Each chased a dream; one was chased.)

No matter how many times Bryan told his coworker why he was walking so far--for entertainment--it just didn’t make sense.

“It doesn’t make sense,” I replied. “It’s beautifully pointless! How unthinkably rich we must be to live so simply and extravagantly! That’s why we gringos oughta be thankful we’ve got the freedom and the landscape and sufficient wealth to do stupid things like this!” Stupid isn’t stupid if it’s fun.

“We’re graced beyond measure. I’m appreciative beyond measure. Some people are never even born. God bless Satan for our good fortune.”

Perspective. If there was another photo it’d show someone in need of a wheelchair

We are the lucky ones. It’d’ve been unimaginable not to feel gratitude. It was a glorious day--calm, clear, cool--and we were headed to the Oval Office of the Presidential Range, the grandest peak in the entire Northeast: Mount Washington.

Named after the rich kid who assaulted that innocent cherry tree with his hatchet (note: myth), the 6,288-foot massif towers above tree line. It is majestic in (nearly) every sense--height, governance of the skyline, sheer bulkiness, and views afforded. (Note: no myth.) But, just as it had been atop Clingmans Dome in the Great Smoky Mountains, the peak is made less regal because of easy access. Specifically pavement and railway.

We tried to imagine the decision makers’ logic: “This is pristine! Absolutely sublime! Let’s bring in the bulldozers, throw down some tar, and build a road! Why waste all this natural beauty?! After all, what is nature for?! It’s all useless until it’s used!”

In America, it seems we have two options for wilderness. Choose wisely:

1: Private Enterprise (logging, drilling, mining, paving…)

B: Amusement Park

Environmental assassination and/or Disneyfication, one parcel at a time. Cherry tree or mountain--let’s mow ‘em down, make ‘em accessible. Open ‘em up! Let the Paving Project continue! Human expansion at all costs! We must accept the forces destined to diminish wilderness, those degrading each of us to the status of subjects, to the level of slaves and mere statistics!

Some folks become possessed by wilderness, others want to possess it. Planet For Sale, used. Since selling the site wasn’t allowed, they settled on selling the sights. Mount Washington is scenery-selling at its finest. Wilderne$$. Tourism is as much a violation of the wild as is development. Wreckreation. We are all false to the mother who sustains us. (We aren’t each part of the problem; we’re ALL the problem.) To man, Mother Nature is nothing more than a MILF (though not a sexy enough one, apparently). No matter, he’ll eventually leave Her a widow.

“We’ve got a lot to see, and a lot to lose.”

~an old journal entry

Why is it humans desire and even demand trouble-free right of entry everywhere? Must we tinker with everything? Why must we tinker with everything? Does anything lay untouched, in situ? I know not, but our deeds and the speed of greed have demolished Mount Washington’s once-supreme summit. It’s now just a huge pile of junk complete with gift shop, packed with spenders eager to outfit future garage sales. The peak’s prime quality is no longer wildness; it is crowdedness.

We elitists felt they didn’t belong on such hallowed ground. But the place was awash with humanoids--waddling, heavy-breathing, morbidly obese shlubs. One Large Marge yelled across the parking lot to her man, “FIND THE VENDING MACHINE!” Despite our interest in finding that very thing, we had to laugh. 

There were also the nervous, uptight smokers (who’d thrust their cigarette butts aside without a second--or first--thought); the self-styled rebels aboard their obnoxious Harley’s (which, like those on the bikes, were both fat and smoking); the pudgy, bad-mannered(2) children; the infirm geriatrics; and other non-appreciative, unnatural sorts. Everybody atop the mountain was entirely dependent on the motorized wheeled-chairs that got them there, each vehicle spewing twenty pounds of carbon dioxide per gallon.

Only Captain and I arrived under our own power. It seems there’s no sense in having legs anymore. I mean, for most humans, what good are they? Dead weight. A mechanism for pegging the accelerator.

A line awaits the summit sign; this was my turn

It was a depressing spectacle, a horror movie, and I hated it. Hate, present and future tense. Hate is a robust word, but sometimes it’s not robust enough. And to think I didn’t even pack my hatred! Humans will never cherish or respect that which comes easy (we value what we work toward), that which they do not even remotely relate to or understand. They will never fight to defend wild lands, not when they’d rather pave them so that they might see more of them from the safety and comfort of their cars. (Native “Americans” fought to defend the wildlands and look how they ended up.) Depressing indeed.

And this is the thing. A car doesn’t deliver us to our environment; it removes us from it. Its pace isn’t at all natural, and its noise, its radio (or TV!), its navigation system, its fumigation and its occupants all destroy our connection to the environment. Get to a summit any other way than under your own power and the essence of your surroundings is lost. A railway? I mean, really? Trains of meaty, lazy, littering rubberneckers! Those who wouldn’t know the difference between a rucksack and a ballsack!

I prefer tranquility; to hell with Mount Washington. (I do hope to pedal my bike up to its bustling summit someday. At seven-point-six miles, with an average gradient of twelve percent, the tortuous, torturous road is a challenge like few others. And oh to rip down that sucker! Unfortunately, bicycles are not permitted on the road save for two days a year, during races. More proof that in Ameri-go, motorized scrap metal runs the show.)

Captain Planet and I left the three-ring circus and its windshield tourists behind--those poor incapable saps who view the world through a glass filter: tempered, tinted, tainted. Tourists, not travelers. But before we departed the mad fray for our natural habitat we used the pissoir and toured the museum on top (wishing, of course, neither were there).

A notable display--the DEATH LOG, it was called--told of the many who’ve died on the mountain. I harbored hope many more would; it might frighten others from coming. Unfortunately, it’s typically the foot travelers who expire. (Nearly one hundred and fifty souls have perished on the mound so far.) Unlike the road and the rail, the trails are open year-round, be they snow-smothered or no. Erratic weather is usually the root, along with the old historically reliable standby: human stupidity. Poor planners, the deceased.

As per tradition we dropped our drawers and mooned the encapsulated multitudes on the cog railway a short ways after the summit. The brisk, clean air felt invigorating as it swept across my not-so-brisk-or-clean ass. The self-induced slapping added to the effect. AT thru-hikers have been participating in the eye-popping act for eons. It was unconditionally inane, imbecilic and childish--and unlawful--but we rose to the occasion. Weary though I was, I reminded myself that it was time to live a little, for life, like the AT, is a dead-end road. And a short one at that. One must always aspire and strive to keep the kid inside alive, no matter how dead he is. To live uninhibited! To be un~encapsulated! Take THIS you piteous passengers!

"Foot"note 1: Though some great porn()graphic images can.

"Foot"note 2: That is when they're not in their usual state of hypnotic, electronic rapture.