An Appalachian Trail Tale
Day 39: Thursday, May 2nd, 2013
The Partnership Shelter to just past Davis Cemetery = 14 miles
Miles to date: 545
There were fifteen of us in or around the shelter last night. And before someone incinerated them, there were nineteen pizza boxes, all picked clean, and each with a mini plastic table in it. Upon waking, everybody had a smile. Nothing beats a bulging belly. And pizza is a holy thing. Parenthetically, pineapple has as much right to be on pizza as cheese. Equal rights, man.
Day 39: Thursday, May 2nd, 2013
The Partnership Shelter to just past Davis Cemetery = 14 miles
Miles to date: 545
In Bad Taste
There were fifteen of us in or around the shelter last night. And before someone incinerated them, there were nineteen pizza boxes, all picked clean, and each with a mini plastic table in it. Upon waking, everybody had a smile. Nothing beats a bulging belly. And pizza is a holy thing. Parenthetically, pineapple has as much right to be on pizza as cheese. Equal rights, man.
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| Backstreet backing everyone from his pies |
As for what constitutes calories, that’s up to you, the individual. I eat whatever, so long as it packs a punch and can be transported for days, if it’ll make it that long. It needs calories; it needs to keep. Food should also be inexpensive, nutritious, and lightweight. Inexpensive, so I can afford future hikes; nutritious, so I’m alive enough to do them; and lightweight for obvious reasons. (Dried foods can be drown or followed by water-chasers.) What’s more, meals shouldn’t require lots of prep; a hiker’s energy needs to go into walking, not into formulating fanciful feasts. Boil water, throw noodles in, add a few delectables--and voilà!--pray for a restaurant soon.
Even when it’s easy, cooking is a pain. There’s the time it takes, the fire risk (one of California’s largest fires was inadvertently set by a PCTer), and the blandness of anything I make (= an Unhappy Meal). Worst of all is the obligatory clean-up. I don’t backpack to do dishes. Thus, everything is kept simple.
A typical grocery haul might include the following. In fact, this was today’s receipt from Ingles Supermarket in Marion:
1 x 8-ounce brick of mozzarella cheese
1 x 8-ounce summer sausage (I know: it’s not summer yet)
1 x 12-ounce box of raisins
12 x granola bars (Nature Valley)
3 x bananas (PLU Code #4011; I know it well)
1 x 16-ounce bag of baby carrots (they’re out of the diaper stage, thankfully)
1 x bag of jerky
5 x Mounds bars
2 x Hershey’s bars
1 x 16-ounce bag of peanuts
1 x 15-ounce jar of peanut butter
1 x 12-ounce jar of generic Nutella (found in the cake frosting aisle)
1 x 16-ounce pack of fig bars
3 x ramen packets
1 x box generic Pop Tarts
…and a few boxes of Honey Buns (i.e., glorified donuts--hole grains!)
Replace Mounds with Snickers and this is de rigueur--the industry standard--for a three or four day stretch. But many stretches between resupply points don’t take three to four days. Eleven miles after today’s tour of Marion, we’d pass a freeway-side store in Atkins. The distinctly-named Bland, near the distinctly-named town of Hicksville, lies two days beyond. Trent’s Grocery is just eighteen miles onward. Pearisburg, a day after that. And so on.
The AT is unquestionably undoubtedly undeniably physically challenging, especially for a physically-challenged blogger. But it is a logistical no-brainer, even for a mentally-challenged blogger. This is big benefit for a No-Plan-Man.
On past hikes I’ve toyed with carrying less food than needed, intentionally going hungry between resupplies. This way, I figured I’d travel lighter, thus more comfortably, and maybe more quickly. I also wanted to see what it’s like to do without--to learn how to be more comfortable feeling hungry, and to better understand what many humans [and most animals] contend with on a nightly basis on this wonderful, messed up globe. Food is also tastiest with hunger. In towns I’d reverse course and gorge, trying to gain what’d been lost.
On past hikes I’ve toyed with carrying less food than needed, intentionally going hungry between resupplies. This way, I figured I’d travel lighter, thus more comfortably, and maybe more quickly. I also wanted to see what it’s like to do without--to learn how to be more comfortable feeling hungry, and to better understand what many humans [and most animals] contend with on a nightly basis on this wonderful, messed up globe. Food is also tastiest with hunger. In towns I’d reverse course and gorge, trying to gain what’d been lost.
But this method didn’t take hold; it held me back. It left me groveling more than normal, despite the lean load. If food’s available, it’s best to down it when hungry, and it is best to scoot when little’s left. Or when nothing’s left. Of course, it’s hard to hurry when you’ve had nothing to eat. The problems of privilege.
Grocery lists aren’t always the same. Now that I’ve written one and have given it a second thought--after clearly neglecting a first thought--I find it appalling. Nutrition? NO-trition! There’s high hazard when shopping hungry. A pal suggested not using a cart when resupplying: “You’ll buy too much. Use a basket.” But amount isn’t the only issue; content can also be a killer.
My diet when I’m housed is (mostly) healthy; I make. the. better. choice. I tell myself to eat as though my life depends upon it, because it does. I rarely ingest things with more than four ingredients, opting instead for food that was recently alive, or still is. I graze in lieu of having big, hard-to-digest meals. I shun ingredients I cannot pronounce. I avoid hydrogenated oils; white flours; gluten; Frankenfarm-raised feces; and refined sugars. (I’m refined enough.) I’m a total teetotaler (unless fornication feasibility exists). I eat kale. In a nutshell (or out), I try. Out here, healthy habits be damned.
Take Honey Buns. Despite being against the grain, I eat an obscene amount of the sickly sweet pastry. (You can bet your sweet ass.) It is an eating disorder no grown boy should ever admit to. When they slice me open they’ll find perfectly intact Honey Buns.
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| Beware: these can turn on you without warning |
Depending on town or store size, substitutes are usually found. There are thousands of packaged foods with the three main ingredients: high-fructose corn syrup; partially hydrogenated oil; bleached, enriched flour. Each product boasts a shelf life of a million years. (“Do not work for food that spoils.” ~John 6:27) What manufacturers inject into the matter after that matters not, be it natural flavors or coloring, or ground-up toenails. It’ll taste good to the thru-hiker. (This assumes he or she takes the time to taste it.)
There are bland Honey Buns and frosted Honey Buns, even a chocolatey one. But thru-hikers are unbiased. We aim for calories, low weight, and room in our packs; a box of Honey Buns can be squished into a fist-sized stone. The largest Bun I’ve seen--and I like big Buns, hun--had nearly a thousand calories. (Little Debbie wouldn’t be little if she made a habit of these.) I gormandized--vaporized--three in one sitting. Flour power, man. We know to avoid meals consisting entirely of Honey Buns, but we convince ourselves if the furnace burns hot enough, it’ll incinerate anything. Lies can be tasty.
After decoupling from the Partnership Shelter, a cluster of us (Goat, Gator, Klutz, Backstreet) hopped a bus down the snaking Route 16 to Marion. We shopped, ate, and washed down our food with generous tubs of high-octane java from a designer coffee shop. You know the place: Ubiquitous. Uniform. Up-priced. Table service prices, cafeteria style service. Griping aside, the coffee was as good as ten moms and came with sediment. It was so vigorous it woke my ancestors. It didn’t even change color after I added double-shots of goat milk, emu milk, and breast milk. And it was hot--as hot as the sunny side of Planet Mercury. “Your name?” asked the barista/cashier, the same one who slid the tip jar a little closer to her when we walked in. “Satan,” I said. No one laughed. The name on my cup said Santa. You have to be careful not to annoy employees at these shops or they could serve you decaf, a form of death.
We procured the ride owing to the phone at the Mount Rogers Visitor Center, just beyond the shelter. The ride ran four bits apiece; the call was free. Our driver was a riotous codger. He delivered line after line before delivering us to our destination. We spent two hours in the settlement (pop: 6,000) before returning on the same dinky bus, with the same comedic captain, to the visitor’s center. We enjoyed a walk-through (and a weigh-in) at the center prior to hitting the hills. It’s the only visitors center I’ve seen with a scale front center.
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| For a good time call |
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| Goat and Backstreet |
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The slopes were congenial, allowing each of us to settle into his or her preferred pace without the usual struggle. Goat’s preferred pace is everyone else’s maltreatment--he walks in a tireless vacuum--and we were soon scattered in a long line. TK (Tiny Klutz) and I contended for the back. The coffee couldn’t counteract the ill effects the fresh load of provisions brought. Gravity gravitates gravely.
Before long I was free-soloing somewhere behind TK. I had to moisten the forest every few minutes. The coffee entered my system all right, but this was all I had to show for it. Well, not all. A cup of brown steamy liquid always helps me create a bowl of brown steamy liquid. (Or brown steamy solid.) Only out here there are no bowel bowls. Defeatist as ever, I mulled dawdling the day away at Forest Service Road 86 but 86’d the idea. There still were miles to go before I slept, to echo the frosted poet. I’d managed only four miles to that point and would’ve likely debated ordering another pizza.
Good thing. Right when I uprooted myself a tree uprooted itself, crash-landing feet from my seat. Of all fears out here, tumbling trees have taken the list’s lead. Sorry, Lyme Disease and you mulleted Earthlings. A new fear’s in town. Unlike the coffee, the tree-fall induced enough of a rush that I’d soon catch the others. We spoke of crashing trees; each of us had seen or heard at least one come down since our journeys started. It was my sixth tumbler, and today’s cool, misty weather wasn’t helping to keep the ground (or their stance) firm. Nor was my bladder.
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| A standing Gator, a seated Bulldog, and a writing Backstreet |
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| The Lindamood Schoolhouse |
The desks were built to remind students life wasn’t meant to be comfortable. A clock on the wall stood at a standstill. Clock hands never move when you’re in a classroom. On another wall a framed picture grabbed our attention. It had a list of comeuppances for various infractions. The costliest violations were for playing cards(!) and “misbehaving to girls.” Most disciplinary action was directed at the boys; it didn’t mention the punishment for girl-to-girl misbehavior, the stuff I enjoy watching. The punishment? Lashings!
I felt for the lads and recalled being punished in school a lot, often for things I didn’t even do (like my homework). The school closed its doors (er, door) in 1937--the year the Appalachian Trail came into being. It is now preserved for future generations of lesser-schooled children, like us. Bulldog mentioned the school’s students “are all likely dead now. Their schooling couldn’t save ‘em.”
We carried on after class, screaming like children when a freight train crossed our path--or when we crossed its. We even went so far as to try to touch it as it rumbled past. Unwise, guys. Play dumb games, win dumb prizes.
We carried on after class, screaming like children when a freight train crossed our path--or when we crossed its. We even went so far as to try to touch it as it rumbled past. Unwise, guys. Play dumb games, win dumb prizes.
A while later our band of misfits reached Atkins, a freeway stop that no one in his or her right mind would consider a town. But it played host to The Barn Restaurant, where we inhaled burgers, fries, sweet tea and dessert before deserting the joint. Bulldog settled on getting a hotel room nearby; the rest of us settled on getting in our tents. First we’d take flight from the raucous corridor.
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| Boys being boys |
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| Dead cow #1 |
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I moseyed a half-mile to camp with the other time travelers, just beyond a cow corpse. We had to rearrange hardened cow pies for places to pitch our teepees. We’re in a sloping meadow a few miles clear of the railway and Interstate 81, both still making noise. Man makes for a sonorous world. Unless he’s buried.
The interstate’s our third so far. The cow’s a first. I joked that she’d been hoofing the AT, but thought better of it, opting for the easy way out--suicide. My bovine punch-line flat-lined. A deafening thud. Maybe no one herd me!
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| Dead cow #2 |
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| Home on the range |
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