A Limp in the Woods (Day 156)

An Appalachian Trail Tale
Day 156: Tuesday, August 27th, 2013
Chairback Gap Lean-to to Logan Brook Lean-to = 18 miles (58,457 steps)
Miles to date: 2,115

The End is Nigh (and it is high)

As threatened in previous foot-print, I’m going to unload some thoughts about Backpacker Magazine. Where to begin? Should I swear that much?

If you’ve never seen the Panglossian glossy or poked behind its anodyne covers, regard yourself privileged. This, be you a backpacker, a Green Bay Packer, or a fudge packer. It is, like many other periodicals, made mostly of advertisements. Lousy ones, often irrelevant. Over the years these ads have hawked anything from lingerie (no, really) to off-road motorcycles, yacht cruises and gas guzzlers. (“Get a new car for your spouse!” one ad read, to which this joker responds, “What a great trade!”) 

It gets worse: the ads are sometimes broken up by less substantial substance, what the magazine’s editor terms, “articles,” made of “writing.” But you wouldn’t know this by reading. Okay, okay. At times a decent article will appear within its pages, but it’ll likely be years before another good one does. Most articles include over-sized, overhauled photographs, or drawings or cartoons or diagrams done by “artists” from the nearest available preschool.

When non-doctored photos appear, if they appear, they’re usually of models. Paid, pedicured people. Young, good-looking lumbersexual men and women acting the part. It’s obvious they’re not the authentic thing; they’re too sterile and well-dressed and devoid of bodily or facial hair. And of blisters (a tell-tale sign). These models are always togged out in the latest, greatest attire, and equipped with the latest, greatest gear (like, for example, an SUV parked on the beach!), gear which bona-fide backpackers generally don’t fret over. (No, real ‘packers use and abuse their gear to its death, opting for more hiking adventures over the work necessary to constantly buy new schwag.) Having a Jeep full of outdoor gear doesn’t make you a backpacker or an adventurer!

Of the many mass-produced backpackers I’ve met during backcountry excursions, only three have appeared in the magazine. Two-thirds of them were clean and good-looking, with the notable exception of Jennifer Pharr Davis, whose photos were heavily filtered. But I was happy to see her mug in there, even though she’s known mostly for not carrying a backpack.

If the rag were committed to backpackers and not just to advertisers,* it wouldn’t rely on such cleanliness. 

(*Backpacker frequently gives subscriptions out, to inflate the number of subscribers, so its staff can secure more advertisers, since advertisers won’t queue up if readers don’t show up.) 

If it were true to those who do, Backpacker would show backpacking at its worst. At its usual. It would showcase the headcases, the grimy thru-hikers and the obsessed section hikers. It would show mud-caked overnighters learning to launch snot-rockets. It’d cover sunburnt people periodically pissed off, with food stuck in their beards. There’d also be bloody evidence of nipple chafing, and plenty of scars up and down their legs. After all, scars are tattoos with better stories.

For full accuracy it would even include a Scratch-n-Sniff. That way wannabe outdoorsmen and women could catch wind of what it means to be a hiker, one who hasn’t showered for weeks. Scratch-n-Sniff to smell here ➡️ (Scratch at the feet, the pits, the crotch, and the backpack itself, often the most malodorous of elements.)

But what rankles me most about the monthly and so many others like it, those with their sights and sales set on the outdoors, are the blatant cover proclamations:

“Hidden Havens!”
“Unknown Gems!”
“SECRET Getaways!”

“Undisclosed Spots Disclosed!”
“Backcountry Refuges: Plotted, Mapped & GPS’d!”

...and so on.

I’ve touched on this before, but by publicizing these once-pristine places, the tabloid has made them less pristine--they’ve unhidden them. Helped in their eradication. Anyone who gives a damn about protecting a place would either keep his or her trap shut, or lie about its whereabouts, or maybe rename them to something nonexistent and/or fictitious. Mary Austin took such a tactic in The Land of Little Rain, within which she never places names on places: “I am in no mind to direct you to delectable places toward which you will hold yourself less tenderly than I.” 

That was back in 1903.

In this, she was ahead of her time and far wiser than these magazine editors and authors, who are the furthest thing from Nature lovers. I prefer four-wheelers, ATVers and advertisers to magazine editors who advertise and recycle such excrement. You’re not going to find much value or peace in a place if found through a magazine. Maps are a superior means; they encourage you to find your own inspiration.

But I’ve never really given the publication much thought; all its issues are a complete non-issue. I may flip through it at the library or in a shelter--as I had last night--but I’ll more often than not move on to better rags, like, for example, Wart Removal Weekly or Constipation Elation. Indeed, I read to be educated, enlightened, entertained and inspired. Backpacker falls flat on all fronts. I can vow, however, that the namby-pamby magazine does make for good fire-starter, though it’s not nearly as effective as the old standby: oily white birch bark. (Kudos to Mountain Goat for teaching me the latter!)

      Enough ragging on rags.

Onto today’s report, where I hereby open myself up to any and all literary (or non-literary) excoriation...

~~~~~~~~~~

For the longest time Katahdin had played hard to get. But no more! THE END IS NIGH! The end is in sight! The large dangling karrot draws nearer!

My first glimpses of Special K came near the end of the day, above the thigh-high krummholz, near the summit of White Cap Mountain. There are other places I’ve already passed where the hulking flattop could be distinguished, but I knew not which direction to look or what bearing to seize. (I was certainly ceasing bearings, however!) There are a great many great mountains in Maine and it’s not easy to decipher which is which. Until today, anyway.

Though it had been blocked from view by trees, low-lying clouds and other peaks, and though it had been more of a case of If you see K, it was easy now to see that K stands alone. It has no satellite peaks. Above the trail, above all. It is regal and imposing, standing thousands of feet above the surrounding floor, making it the single boldest geological statement of the entire Appalachian range. It faces the hiker like a dare. I broke into an unadulterated dance-like gesticulation. Near rhythmic convulsion. Then I broke dance and walked on.

Prior to that magical moment, I’d slogged along in quiet solitude. Or mostly quiet. At times, even before witnessing the wall, I couldn’t stop myself from shattering the serenity by singing; it was that kind of day. A gay frolic, as they’d say in the olden day. Ye olden day. A totally bitchin’ day, as this hetero would say. Light blue skies, dark blue blueberries, gentle breezes and vistas to holler for. I’d left Pat-agonia early on and Coolie a little later, skylarking at my own hit-or-miss rhythm. And today’s rhythm was a wonderful hit. I almost even felt light on my feet. Almost.

When I moseyed with Coolie, it was easy to see he was anxious to finish. A sense of urgency oozed out his pores. (I understand the urgency; as Yogi Berra used to say, “it gets late early.”) But he was equally worried about whatever life would toss him afterward, if anything. Each time he thought too far ahead, he slowed.

Just prior to his hike he’d completed college with an accounting degree (from a private NYC school I’d predictably never heard of). Then began the grim procedure of applying for various accounting jobs, jobs you can be assured I’d never land, since I’d never apply. The newly-minted grad got respectable grades in college, but failed to make the grade at every interview. That’s when he came upon the Appalachian Trail (though not literally, because that would be sick).

“My life makes sense on the trail,” he says.

Trail life is simple, yet indisputably multifaceted; it is rewarding, yet exceedingly taxing. (Anyone can account for these taxes.) And now that our hikes were approaching conclusion, we were both fearful of facing that which lay beyond. We tried to convince ourselves that the self-styled real world awaited with open arms, but we both knew it was our legs that provided us the greatest joy, as they had for more than five months. We agreed that if we hated the quote-unquote real world, that nutty place so addicted to speed, we could always run right back out of it. Or walk.

The AT would always be there, and our feet could get us to it. (Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?) And though it’s no longer the bastion of tranquility that it had been a couple of decades ago, the path beats smothering our souls in the clamor of culture/the culture of clamor. A necessary escape route, if only for sanity purposes. Untouched open landscape is, after all, our origin, and it possesses a much stronger claim to reality.

“I feel more at home here than anywhere,” said the big city boy.

“Then why the hurry to leave?” I asked. “Impatience is a city emotion. Save it for there.”

“‘Cause I want to see how this hike turns out!”

“Coolie, Coolie, Coolie. When completion’s the goal, myopia’s seated shotgun! You’ll miss the trees for the forest!”

I sang an old song of mine to him...

♫ You can go fast
Or you can make it last
Slow's the way to go
If you enjoy the show... ♫

The song is about steamy, salacious coitus, but can be applied to hiking, as most things can. There is not enough time to be in a hurry.

Despite his being a rich kid, I liked Coolie(1). He’s a bit hardheaded--ala his non pack overhaul back in Harpers Ferry--and equally aloof, but I’ll always remember him as the dude who packed nonstop smiles in his pack. Whenever I think of his duct-taped guitar, with its dings and dents and legions of lesions, I’ll hear him playing and singing, and I know I’ll smile. Even years from now, as these footprints and these backpack diaries--this foot-print--becomes a lifetime ago.

Without knowing it, the Chicagoan has persuaded me to dedicate more of myself toward learning the instrument--and even toward learning to play the instrument--and I look forward to it. It’s hard to carry a piano on trail, although it wouldn’t astound me if some off-key trail dweller attempts it someday; maybe tuba-man can take things up a notch.

Just after midday, after the trail’s unmarked twenty-one hundred mile mark, we neared a side trail to “The Grand Canyon of the East,” the Gulf Hagas--a deep, narrow gorge with impressive waterfalls. Why the AT doesn’t dive into it, who knows. For a trail that doesn’t miss much of anything, this is its biggest neglect. We hikers should sue for negligence! My guess is that the avoidance has to do with the gorge’s potential peril or with the logging companies who own the land, but I really don’t know. I don’t know a lot, so this is nothing knew. Nor is it nothing new.

Normally a waterfall chaser, I stuck to the AT and bypassed the big ditch. I ditched Coolie and worked my way toward the Carl A Newhall Lean-to, presumably named after one Carl A Newhall, a man I only knew by name. At least I assumed he was a man; he may have been a woman with a man’s name. Lunch was another dentist’s nightmare, though I’m certain my dentist will be pleased. (He’s money-hungry: “Do you want your teeth whitened?” “How much does it cost?” “$200,” he replied. “No thanks,” I said, “I’ll just get a tan instead.”) Thankfully, my teeth will all fall out someday, and I won’t need the guy’s help.

Beyond the cramped shelter (cramped in size and by surrounding woodland, but itself empty), I’d scale a steep-steep-steep Gulf Hagas Mountain, followed slowly by West Peak, then Hay Mountain, then, eventually, White Cap Mountain. There I could see Katahdin. The Pay-Per-View price was lofty--my heart had hammered hard all day, a frantic fast-twitch fiber--but the recompense was worth it. From seven hundred and eighteen feet in elevation to three thousand six hundred and fifty feet, leaving my feet dead beat. A gain of nearly three thousand feet; a detriment to two of ‘em.

Near night I had emerged at the Logan Brook Lean-to, named after a guy named Logan Brook, though it may be named after a girl named Brook Logan. One can never be sure. The lean-to was teeming with unknowns. Unknown, not unfriendly. Still, I decided to traipse on, so I could pass gas in peace and not burden the bunch. Bacteria is disassembling my innards. Tear gas, they’d cry. My headlamp is on the blink--figuratively, literally--but a small sign next to the creek where I’m camped warns me to KINDLE NO FIRES. I would not see the sign until my tidy fire illuminated the area. Oh, well, what’s done is done. The blaze should help to burn off these lingering, excess (and excessive) greenhouse gases.

~~~~~~~~~~

PS: A while back I told Ruth, my hike’s Central Command Unit, not to bother shipping the last of the guidebook maps. I’d decided, by hook or by crook, I would welcome whatever the path served. (Trail Rule #1.) I’ve been walking “blind” since and I must say, I prefer it--not knowing precisely what’s ahead. 

Well, besides Katahdin. It’s impossible now to not know it’s there, and I like that.

"Foot"note 1: It is my default setting to hate rich kids. May they take their silver spoons and dig their graves! But I guess I shouldn't knock the silver spooners; I now have a titanium spoon that's every bit as expensive. Functional too, as I continue digging my grave.