A Limp in the Woods (Day 44)

An Appalachian Trail Tale
Day 44: Tuesday, May 7th, 2013
Helveys Mill Shelter to The Woods (Mile 621-ish) = 32 miles
Miles to date: 621

Murder on the Appalachian Trail

The days are beginning to blend. I can’t remember if today was yesterday or if it’s tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow was yesterday. Every thru-hiker reaches this point, when the days start barreling into one. It’s curious, but I leave for the trails to eschew the comfortably monotonous routine that life frequently spawns, often forgetting that thru-hikes are governed by their own singsong routines, the new abnormal. “Same as it ever was,” crooned the head Talking Head. “Same as it ever was!”

I’m sure it was yesterday when I battened the hatches, hunkered down, and spent an eternity in the shotgun shack that is Helveys Mill Shelter. Safe and dead, I was waiting till life got easier. (If it would. Life is why I do not fear death.) A no go. Ergo, I shelved the journaling.

The bludgeoning never let up so it was not exactly a difficult decision, not for a milksop like me. After a delayed departure, the others carried on into the blowing fogbank, eager to reach any roofed building but Helveys Mill. I couldn’t blame them and they found no fault in my choice. They had cabin fever; I had deluge disorder. Both malignant messes. Wretched rain, dismal dreariness.

Daypack joined me for the day. What with the walls pressing in, and the subsequent sensation of claustrophobia/close-to-phobia, we drove each other loco. Batshit crazy, as they say. Oh, the excruciating slowness of time! You ever have those days where you wish you had a big club, because everyone looks like a piñata?

Patience is a virtue, unless it’s forced patience. To be fair to Daypack, he was the one in bad company. My goading got his goat. But his low morale and unshakable style nettled me. Whenever peace persisted he found a way to fracture it. “I don’t know Funnybone,” he’d retort, whenever he felt differently about something. He’d cavil at everything, no matter how silly the subject, like which cook system worked best. He had a bone to pick with Funnybone. And there was a stubborn finality to his judgments. He needed reminding that although it’s hard to win an argument with a smart person, it’s virtually impossible to do so with a stupid one. And I argue with spirit; ask any of my remaining friends.

I don’t want to mudsling or throw shade here--the AT’s muddy and shaded enough. But you’d’ve thought he’d’ve known better. We were each going through man-o-pause, heading straight for man o’ war. It’s testament that misery doesn’t always love company. And that the great outdoors ain’t always great. You mustn’t let others drive you crazy when it’s within walking distance.

It felt as though we survived a plane crash into the ocean, only to sit and stare at one another for too long, in something the size of a raft. Cooler heads might’ve carried the day, had we only had a cooler. One full of alcohol. But no. All we had was water. Everywhere.

We were fortunate The Fanny Pack appeared in the afternoon. It enabled peace to prevail--thanks to the passing of the peace pipe. #hashtag hasheesh! Fatty, Sleeping Beauty, PaddyCakes and Puddin’ all crowded in and spent the night. Spanky came and went.

If only the rain had come and gone, I might’ve been less aggro. Just as Daypack had, it was getting under my skin. Figuratively, though maybe even literally. I looked like a white prune. A Tasmanian-devil-angry white prune. You need cooling, baby I'm not fooling.

This was strange behavior for me; I’m usually only ticked around technological appliances, whether it’s when pinned within a car in immobile traffic, or when figuring out how to set the blinking clock on my circa-1986 VCR, or when in front of a screen being fed information I don’t agree with. (The problem isn’t in the technology or the information, but in the user.)

I did get this song lodged in Daypack’s naddy noggin, so although he may have been victorious in some of our hard-fought battles, I wound up winning the war.

~~~~~

Today, I think, I left the loony bin and took my pent-up rage and put it to use. Anger is an energy, said Johnny Rotten. Energy needs an outlet. I tried telling myself time in Nature restores one’s peaceful nature. Easy, tiger, you’re outside. Pull those claws in. But I couldn’t bring the boil to a simmer. All grrr and no purr. The irascible racing continued. Be kind: unwind! Some days the supply of available curse words is insufficient for the demand.

Normally it’s prudent to extinguish an internal inferno, before it seizes the better of us. Sometimes though you’ve got to fuel the fire, or you risk failing your instincts, your primordial dial. I poured the petrol on in attempt to pour the speed on--the slow and furious. Move the body, still the mind. Walk thee well. Movement is improvement. As the Latin aphorism goes, solvitur ambulando. It is solved by walking. (This matches my CSI axiom: Camping Solves It.)

And what is it, exactly? Why it is everything, anything, all things. The faster you go, the faster you reach solution: resolution. As it’s been said: “The best remedy for a short temper is a long walk.” Movement mollifies. Breathing easy eases nothing! The dankest of buds eases nothing! No question, had I written this before all of today’s movement, thirty-two miles worth, I’d have had to type in ALL CAPS!!! Unlike walking, TYPING WHILE CROSS IS NEVER WISE!

The atmosphere persisted to piss on my parade. It made it easier to walk it off. So did the bowling-alley terrain (as flat; as slippery). I wasn’t happy, so I kept busy. It was nippy and there was little to see or stop for; it only made sense to carry on full steam ahead.

Plus, my gimpy Achilles tendon forgot it was supposed to ache. It would not end my hike; it wouldn’t even upend it. At least not now. Good thing; I carry no spare. It must’ve been a severe cramp I struggled with two days ago, and all the kneading and squeezing yesterday (I think it was yesterday) persuaded it to behave. I was a born again hiker. Incandescent, sure, but light on my feet.

It is a miracle how the body performs, given the neglect and abuse humans engage in (crap food; excessive sitting; poor posture; artificial lighting; an unnatural clock; electronic overload in the form of phones and computers and televisions and their transmission waves; constant hurry and worry; stimulants; heinous sleep habits; chronic dehydration; etc; etc; etc). A buddy of mine, Ron Pasquini, used to say, “Our meat-suit is the one thing--the only thing--we possess for the entirety of our life; you’d think we’d treat it accordingly.” To which I’d respond, after the requisite “amen,” that “we mustn’t neglect our emotional needs either.”

“The Church says: the body is a sin.

Science says: the body is a machine.

Advertising says: the body is a business.

The Body says: I am a fiesta.”

~Eduardo Galeano

I’ve said it before, but thru-hiking is undeniably unhealthy on the body. (I refer to it as burning the candle on all three ends, given the deplorable nutrition and the poor sleep patterns {i.e., unrest}, let alone the nonstop load-bearing.) But it is pure emotional refection. Hiking always brings me out of my worst moments.

I may be crazy--you can ask Daypack--but I’m convinced so many angry young men would benefit from a long walk in the woods; it is hard to be angry when one walks all day. It’s their loss, society’s too, that they haven’t discovered as much. Too many young men turn to crime and violence. “The slow circling of the drain of a one-promising species,” George Carlin called civilization’s descent. I view humankind half-horrified, half-entertained, and no doubt it is good entertainment when you have no attachment to it, though not nearly as good as that provided out here. All senses are gratified.

My momentum over the smooth topography carried me to the Jenny Knob Shelter before lunch. Nonetheless, I sat inside, alone, flipping through the register and devouring a half dozen generic Pop Tarts, one unappealing mouthful after the other. I didn’t care to cook anything, not because of the usual hassles, but because of the time it takes. There was no urgency but to stay warm, which superseded all else. The nip was nipping not only at my heels, but at the sum of me. Hypothermia snacks on those ill-equipped.

My clothing, deficient from the Georgia get-go, was barely up to the task. Only blood-flow or a big damn fire could proffer protection, and firewood doesn’t easily ignite when wet.

No longer a colicky baby! Happy hormones!

After leaving proof I’d reached the lean-to, I set my sights on the next one. Besides a few deer, I wouldn’t see a soul all day. (Has anyone actually ever seen a soul? Can surgery be performed on souls?) Not even a bird. By afternoon the precipitation abated, but it mattered not. Every trailside shrub was soaked and weighted down, draping over the path. For a while I used my poles to clear the way, but there was no use. Only the possessions inside my pack, all safely stowed in plastic garbage bags, remained dry.

A break in the weather at Kimberling Creek

After skipping the detour to Dismal Falls--‘twas a dismal enough day--I walked for another hour-plus when I reached the junction to the Wapiti Shelter. The structure’s just a tenth of a mile off-trail, but I skipped this side-trip too. I could hear through the trees a crowd was already there. A ski swap’s worth of clothing was draped over the picnic table, in adjacent trees, and from the bear-bagging lines strung overhead, and I didn’t recognize any of it. Just as well, I thought, I’d be too nervous there, anyhow.

The Wapiti Shelter is notorious among AT hikers. A horrific event occurred there in 1981. Two backpackers, Robert Mountford and Laura Ramsay, were befriended by Randall Lee Smith(1), then murdered by him. Smith shot a sleeping Mountford in the head, before killing Ramsay after a struggle, stabbing her multiple times.

He dragged their bodies from the shelter and buried them, spreading ashes from the adjacent fire ring inside the structure in attempt to mask the pools of blood. Eventually caught because of a fingerprint left behind in a book Ramsay had been carrying, Smith would only be convicted of two counts of second-degree murder, after a pathetic plea bargain. The account would become the subject of a book, Murder on the Appalachian Trail.

Laura Ramsay and Robert Mountford

After fifteen years of lockup, Smith was paroled. Then, in 2008, only a mile from the site of the original attack, he attempted to kill two fishermen under eerily similar circumstances. This time the pair survived, despite abundant gunshot wounds to their heads, necks, and chests. Smith did not. He crashed his getaway vehicle, which he’d stolen from the fishermen. He survived long enough to be taken to jail before dying from injuries sustained, though there’d been speculation police officers handed him an additional beat-down. In any case, good riddance, scumbag!

Smith in 1973

Smith in 2008, shortly before he died

I don’t believe in haunted houses or haunted shelters, but I know I wouldn’t have been able to catch any shuteye in the place. It didn’t matter that the house of horrors had been relocated from its original digs and had its flooring replaced. My thoughts would’ve spun swift, dark circles all night. About our failed justice system--seven and a half years of incarceration per life!--about our age of violence, and about trail-related crimes. (There have been eleven or twelve slayings(2) along the trail.) But mostly about the victims and their families. It was best to continue to walk it all off.

A fellow trail user

By day’s denouement I’d gone thirty-two miles and as previously revealed, without seeing another individual. No Daypack, no anyone. This is not symbolic of the AT. Nor are the (quick) deaths. (Slow deaths, yes.) I might’ve marveled at the thought of seeing no one, but then it was too eerie an occurrence on this darkened day.

I gave way to gravity near the dun gravel road to Woods Hole Hostel, beyond a burn area. Gravity: on duty full-time. My bed has been deployed atop a small mountain of leaves, one I’ve turned over and scraped squarely into place, after removing the assorted salamanders, snails, and sticks. It isn’t the choicest of camp spots, but it’s isolated. Thereby safe.

Or presumed so.

"Full name"note 1: Maybe serial murderers prefer using three names (e.g., Lee Harvey Oswald, John Wilkes Booth, John Wayne Gacy, Henry David Thoreau, etc), but methinks the media inserts the middle name for effect.

"Fatal"note 2: No doubt there will be more, but the actual number of hikers killed on the trail is a matter of dispute. The Appalachian Trail Conservancy avoids any concrete figure since none really exists, and concrete is fairly unusual on the trail. Here are the known murders along the AT...

• 2011: Scott Lilly, a hiker from South Bend, Indiana, died from "asphyxia by suffocation" on the AT on August 12, 2011, near Cow Head Gap Virginia. His murder remains unsolved.
• 2008: Meredith Emerson, as mentioned in the "fate"notes back on Day 5.
• 2001: Louise Chaput, a fifty-two year-old Canadian, was stabbed to death in the White Mountains, NH. She was found near the Glen Boulder Trailhead, just south of the Appalachian Mountain Club's Pinkham Notch Headquarters. Her murder remains unsolved.
• 1996: Julie Williams and Lollie Winans were both discovered with their throats cut in Shenandoah National Park. Darrell David Rice was indicted for the crime in 2002, while serving time in prison for another attempted abduction.
• 1990: Molly LaRue and Geoff Hood were found murdered in the Thema Marks Shelter just outside Duncannon, PA. Geoff had been shot and killed; Molly had been raped, tortured and killed. Paul David Crews, a troubled, troublesome loner who continued hiking the trail, was tracked down eight days later and arrested while wearing some of Hood's gear. He was convicted and sentenced to death by lethal injection. He's still alive today, alas, but remains in prison. The shelter has been removed, replaced and renamed.
• 1988: Rebecca Wight and Claudia Brenner were making love in the woods in a Pennsylvania State Park while hiking the trail. Stephen Roy Carr shot the women eight times. Brenner was injured but managed to escape. Wright died at the scene. Carr was incarcerated.
• 1981: Robert Mountford Jr. and Laura Susan Ramsay, as mentioned above.
• 1975: Paul Bigley murdered twenty-two year-old Green Bay, WI native Janice Balza with a hatchet at the Vandeventer Shelter in Tennessee, near the Watuga Dam. Balza was hoping the hike the whole enchilada. Bigley wanted the backpack she was carrying. He died in prison.
• 1974: Joel Polson, a twenty-six year-old from South Carolina, was shot and killed at the Low Gap Shelter in Georgia by Michigan fugitive Ralph Fox, who continued to hike while holding Polson's friend, Margaret, hostage. He'd eventually let her go and then catch a bus to Atlanta, where he was arrested. This is the AT's first recorded murder.