A Limp in the Woods (Day 144)

An Appalachian Trail Tale

Day 144: Thursday, August 15th, 2013
Bemis Mountain Lean-to to Little Swift River Pond = 13 miles

Miles to date: 1,961

The Call of the Berries
(aka Trotting to Tend to the Trots)

As I was attempting to roll over early this morning, glued with grime to my paper-thin sleep mat, a thought struck: I ought to do a swimsuit edition to this here wandering travelogue. One entry--thru-hikers in their swimsuits. Include women and men (and those no one’s sure about). But would any of them care to pose in their swimsuits? And would anyone dare look? I went on dreaming(1). 

The temperature was in the low thirties upon fully waking, a distinct opposite of dreamy. Clear and crisp. Almost crunchy. Fall, that magical time of year in these parts and many others, is briskly approaching, briskly. Interestingly, almost every single picture one sees of the Appalachian Trail (on ATC calendars, for example, which also really ought to include a swimsuit edition) are those that have been photographed in fall. The reason of course is simple: the autumnal wardrobe. The monotony of green explodes into a cornucopia of reds and oranges and purples and pinks and every other indescribable color, and it leaves the onlooker rapt with a warm, fuzzy feeling. The Green Tunnel becomes a kaleidoscope. One big Leaf Stroganoff. The legend of the fall. The Rockies can’t compare, don’t compare.

Although it feels like it, it’s not the shoulder season yet. At least not as the calendar claims. There’s still two and a half fortnights of summer (the crotch season) to go. Thankfully, late summer means one color we haven’t seen much on this trail: blue. Not the empyreal azure overhead, but blue berries. Yummy, healthy blueberries, that diarrhea-inducing deliciousness that cannot be ignored. These were fat, juicy ones too, free from pesticides or nasty growth-inducers.

All trailside fatties had been scavenged by those before us. But it only took a few feet off trail and the picking was perfect. And unlimited. Truly inexhaustible (like Captain Planet). Limited was our mileage. By day’s end, we managed a fraction of yesterday’s. All because of the addictive berry (or almost all; the terrain had its usual say). (By the way, don’t trust me with fractions; I’m one of the five-out-of-two persons bad with them.)

Back to the berries. The trick to picking them, we discovered, was to clasp both hands together around a bushel, loosely though, so the fingers could act as a sort of strainer. A net. Leaves and branches all slid through the fingers, while the berries gathered and accrued. Picking berries individually was virtually fruitless; we were pleased to ease the load and increase the payload. Until later, when diarrhea launched.

No matter, we reasoned. A good way to cleanse the pipes of all the HoneyBun residue.

It was nearly impossible to stop eating (the plague of American Society, even here on the AT), but when the shits hit the fan, we knew it was time. Still, every time I passed a ginormous berry, I gave it the attention it deserved. If not me, then who? A bug? That’d bug me! A bear? Unbearable! As it seems it is with humans, the bigger the berry, the more succulent and sweet. New Jersey’s incumbent governor notwithstanding.

Speaking of governors--forgive the sharp turn--there’s one that stands out to the AT hiker. I speak of Mark Sanford, the South Carolina boss who disappeared without notice from his job for a full week. MIA/AWOL. When he returned, he said he needed some time off and had been hiking on the Appalachian Trail, the trail that somehow misses South Carolina.

In fact, ol’ Sanford was pulling one over on everyone, including his wife. He’d gone on a junket to South America for extramarital affairs/affair, with a model-looking Argentinian babe, as so many of them are; I can attest. I recall reading of Sanford a few years ago, thinking how he gave new meaning to the term gubernatorial. Goober-natoral!

Had the guv returned stinking and garnished in gunge and chin hair, we partners in grime might’ve believed him. Maybe vouched for him. But no.

     Anyway. About today.

The blueberries slowed us and might well have stopped us entirely had The Call of Katahdin not kept phoning. And so we collect berries, and collect call. Roaming charges need not apply, thankfully.

We hung together as a two-man band, me and Hangman. A fruitful friendship. Captain continually moseyed ahead. We’d meet with him when The Call of the Berries was too much for him to ignore, but then he’d disappear to the fore once he’d gotten us to stop. 

Hangman and I are weaklings around blueberry patches. The Law of the Berries. Our faces and hands looked--look--like crime scenes. We knew there’d be plenty of fruit ahead, but logic told us we were here now. And it was as complete a presence as ever known.

Between mouthfuls Hangman went on to tell me about his weight: “I used to be a fat dude. I still am, but I used to be, too.”

I laughed. The guy is big, but no longer nearly as big as he’d been when he started his hike. Or so he said. “Back in April I wasn’t sure I’d make it. But eventually I quit worrying about making it and just kept walking every day, in spite of this goddamn trail. I told myself over and over, that ‘thru-hiking the AT is like fighting a gorilla: you don’t stop when you’re tired. You stop when the gorilla is tired.’”

“The berries should help me continue to lose more weight.”

“Yeah,” I responded, “but maybe not the way you should be losing weight. Shitting the pipes clean ain’t your preferred weight loss program. And anyway,” I said, shoveling in more handfuls, “we’re probably not losing any weight, wolfing like we are.”

“I suppose you’re right,” he replied. “And right now I couldn’t give a shit! Then again, maybe I could!”

He’d told me he’s lost close to fifty pounds on the trail. From his body.

“Have you lost any from your pack?” I asked.

“Not as much, but yeah, a few pounds.”

He paused. “It’s funny, but I was like every other hiker, obsessing about the weight of my gear, when in fact I was carrying way too much on me. I fretted over my ‘skin-out’ weight--the weight from the skin outward, the weight of all my shit, clothing and all--but what really needed focus was my ‘skin-in’ weight.” He paused and knelt back down for some berries. “I feel svelte now, but it was brutal for the longest time.”

Indeed, I’d already learned he could bound up the trail as well as anyone else. But, unlike so many other frenetic thru-hikers, so too could he relax and hang back, as he’d proven here. Hang back, Hangman, hang back. I could use the company.

After another few runs to the bushes, not to pick blueberries, but to deal with the runs (trotting to tend to the trots!), and to pick blueberries while doing so (trotting to tend to the treats), we figured we best get a move on. We’d covered just seven miles to that point(2) and assumed the caller making The Call of Katahdin was eventually going to hang up if we didn’t get a move on and try to answer her. Winter follows fall, after all.

By late afternoon, we made it to a blackened but serene Little Swift River Pond, where Hangman and I met up with another hiker, a chap named Wanderlust (room temperature IQ, sweet afro, 19, Long Island NY), and where it was time to stop. Stop walking and definitely STOP EATING BLUEBERRIES. Naturally, concerning the latter, we couldn’t help ourselves. If future paleontologists ever find our scat, they’re going to find a mess.  

"Foot"note 1: Mostly about Tumbleweed in her swimsuit. Or not.

"Foot"note 2: We were near the cool-sounding Sabbath Day Pond, which was indeed cool but really more lake-like than pond-like. This seems to be the case with every so-called pond along the AT. My guess is anything called a 'lake' will be an ocean.