A Limp in the Woods (Day 14)

An Appalachian Trail Tale

Day 14: Sunday, April 7th, 2013
The NOC to Bushnell Knob = 17 miles

Miles to date: 154

Walk It Off

The scene outside the River's End Restaurant

It’s been a fortnight since I slid onto this muddy obstacle course, this collision course. My body’s beginning to feel it. A meal at the River’s End Restaurant was reward for passing the course to this point. (I dare not grade myself.) I ate like every other thru-hiker in the place--with an urgency and fervency unseen in restaurants not near hiking paths. I don’t think I lifted my head from the plate(s) once, and I may have swallowed a soup spoon. Only the passing of time (and bowel) will tell.

I put the fuel to use. On the climb out of the NOC I overtook thirty hikers. Interstate AT, a socio-path. I wasn’t racing; I was caffeinated and invigorated and happy for a rare gorgeous day on the Appalachian Trail. I startled one gal while she rinsed naked in the water where I’d hoped to collect. Her birthday suit may have been clean--it needed ironing--but the water wasn’t.

Hiker decorum ain’t a given. (There’s more litter lining the path than I’d envisioned; the AT may well be the US’s longest non-road landfill. What’s with the plastic wet wipes? What’s with leaving feminine hygiene products for others to see?) The small pool was now coated in rainbow-colored oil, and the incoming trickle did little to remove it. I walked toward the next source.

The crowds of hikers were a result of the bottle-necking occurring at stops along the way. People enjoy other people, so they stay longer than planned before departing town en masse, as new friends and old finances dictate. Had I left a few hours earlier I’d’ve had the woods to own, but I needed the sleep, and it was entertaining to hobnob with others in a less-stressful setting. I was apprehensive to introduce myself to anyone yesterday, but it felt natural now. Conversation is easier when walking. And it was nice to converse with more than just my lonesome.

By midday I reached a plaque commemorating the life of a firefighter named Wade Sutton, who died here on December 7th, 1968, while trying to protect the Appalachian Trail corridor. More litter encroached the monument. It was sad to see on a couple of levels. I gathered the garbage, bade Wade adieu, and kept on.

  

A while later I was able to remove some of the multiple layers I’d draped myself in and even spent time basking shirtless in a clearing next to another spring, this one clean and forceful. Grasses danced gently back and forth. Insects busily weaved their way through the stalky maze. Cottonball clouds drifted overhead. It felt about seventy degrees, around twice the temperature it’d been earlier. A pushy breeze--winter’s last gasp?--implored me to re-suit myself, so I followed suit, just as the birthday suit gal lumbered by. As I do, the older woman looked better with clothes, ratty though they were.

Later in the day, on the toupeed 5,062-foot Cheoah Bald, lovers spooned while they napped under a blanket of sunshine. I voyeuristically snapped a photo; the scene was tender. I tip-toed from the area, careful not to snap any branches. Love deserves respect. I started down another rugged descent, soon finding myself lost in thought. Being lost isn’t all that unusual, but thought is. With my focus directed elsewhere--I wish I were spooning a loved one; I wish I had a loved one--I walked straight into a forearm-thick, head-high branch. It knocked me backwards and off my feet, nearly knocking me out. My head was in a bad place, you could say. It was a two-hit fight: branch hit head, head hit ground. We hikers do our own stunts.

A venial offense; thru-hikers know thru-hiking is a full-contact sport. Still, I threw out a salvo of inventive curse words and tried to recoup. Con-CUSS-ion. I thought of rolling a joint, but the only joints I know how to roll are my ankle joints. It was best to walk it off. That’s what hikers do: they walk it off. It being pain, pleasure, or every other perception. Out here you take your knocks and knock right back. In Plod we trust.

By nightfall I had--pardon me here--knocked out(1) seventeen miles. I’d reached a treed lump called Bushnell Knob. It was there my feet gave out and where I gave in. (On the AT, you take your lumps.) I’m camped with Jenna, the comely Canadian triathlete feasting on her first far-reaching foray into the forest. We’d fallen into step late in the day. She’s taken on a new trailname: ‘Fatty,’ which makes perfect sense given that she’s as angular as I. Like the Appalachian Trail itself, trailnames don’t often make sense. Things needn’t.

"Foot"note 1: God how I execrate the term 'knocked out' when it refers to mileage; if anyone ever says it in front of me he or she may very well GET knocked out. Or perhaps knocked up, if she's cute and willing.

Home for the night