A Limp in the Woods (Day 45)

An Appalachian Trail Tale
Day 45: Wednesday, May 8th, 2013
The Woods to Pearisburg = 10 miles
Miles to date: 631

Gear Gab
(aka Price Hike)
(aka I’m Not Buying It)

Last night’s wild black yonder was dicey. I dare not roll the dice, so I pitched my low-rent tent an hour after lying and shutting down. Different neck of the woods, same old dirty digs. Long-distance backpacking is the original tiny house movement.

Not surprisingly, I awoke late. Not behind schedule; there is no schedule. Just late in the day. The dilatory ways drag on. The liquid crystal face on my free Lost-n-Found watch read 10:14am. Big mileage days always seem to lead to little-mileage ones. It all averages out.

Thru-hikers love talking mileage, especially early during their thru-hikes, when nearly everyone harbors a competitive spirit. That’s the spirit! I find competitive backpacking to be a lot like competitive meditation or ambitious apathy. But luckily, by now, more than a month in, most those still going are easygoing. I haven’t been asked for weeks when my “starting date was.” Nobody cares; they ask to see how they measure up. They do this to gauge their chances of completing their hike, comparing themselves to those they don’t know. I don’t know, and I don’t care. When it comes to humans, I’ve got enough to worry about just focusing inward, into the wild within; this fellow’s flawed. I succeed at nothing, which is saying something.

For even when I dream

I’ve got no self-esteem

I’m a born loser

On a losing team

It’s me, myself and I

Each, a scarred guy

But plugging away

Through another day

(Hee, hee. He said “Butt-plugging”...)

More than talk of mileage, more than talking trash, thru-hikers love talk of gear. (SEE today’s bonus entry!)

Upon my awakenings, two middle-aged guys blew in from the north. Each was equipped with an elephantine paunch. I’d soon learn each was worried about all weight but his own. They were clean-cut and kitted-out in boutique brands and REI regalia: designer-label zip-off pants; Patagucci micro-fleece shirts; Oakley shades atop their heads (looked like sunglasses weren’t needed again today); Solomon trail shoes; $400 backpacks; carbon-fiber Leki poles; and so on. When, I wondered, did we decide that going outside should cost so much? It lends credence to the expression price hike. (Me, I’m not buying it.) I don’t want a tent I have to refinance.

Without so much as a “hi,” one of them hoisted a fat index finger, pointed it at my tent/tenement, and started gathering intelligence. “That a TarpTent Virga ya got there?”

I swore I witnessed his orgasm face. To him, technology wasn’t a tool, but a way of life. I immediately found myself longing for the days when little thought was dedicated to the gear a backpacker carried.

Yesterday, I hadn’t crossed a creature. Already, I was wishing I hadn’t today. These were ultra ultralight nerds, the type who drill holes in their air mattresses just to shed grams. Overweight gram weenies!

“No,” I replied. “It’s the Viagra. Their most recent offering.”

“Hmmm,” he mumbled. “I haven’t heard of that model--”
“It’s not recommended for women or children,” I interrupted. “Yet it’s made in Asian sweatshops by women and children.”
“Is it lighter?”

“Oh yeah, by at least a few grams,” I replied. “Mostly though, it stands a lot more erect.”

“Hmmm,” he mumbled once more. “More headroom, huh?”

“No,” I answered. “Just more head.”

He paused. “What kind of hiking poles are those? I’ve never seen ‘em before.”

“They’re not poles,” I responded. “They’re lances. I use them to spear annoyances en route.”

He didn’t get the hint. And so it went...

The other guy never opened his trap. Nor did he smile. There was no humoring the two. I offered some horrifying instant coffee, the last of my stash, but they took a rain check and moseyed on, leaving my life for good. Really good.

It was optimal timing on the rain check. The seasons began colliding overhead. Rain commenced right then, after what had been a relatively innocuous evening. With great haste and no time to waste, I shoved everything in my pack before shoving off, doing my usual double take to make sure I hadn’t forgotten anything.

Minutes later I stopped to remove my last garbage bag. It was a huge, heavy-duty jobber normally used for collecting fallen fall foliage or concealing a body. I poked three holes in it--one for my neck and one for each of the strings I call arms. It is the perfect poor person’s parka. Fashion and function both! Rain gear by Glad. To the backpacker, garbage bags aren’t garbage.

So long as I don’t forget or disable any of it, gear is not one of my great concerns when backpacking. (Unless it’s heavy, then it’s always a concern.) Gear does not get one to Maine. I value resourcefulness over resources.

But it seems so many hikers can’t get beyond the thought of it(1). They’re brainwashed by the greenwashing, mistaking the map for the territory.

Whilst I desire things cheap, light and hard to kill (typically in that order, irrespective of appearance), and things that ideally incorporate two or more functions (e.g., a lighter that doubles as a beer bottle opener; a water filter that doubles as a sex toy; a spork that doubles as a shit shovel), so many others seem to have to have it all. They’re particularly enamored with the latest, greatest appurtenances, like Dyneema® fabrics and such. They’ll spend an additional $400 on a tent, to subtract an ounce from their load, when they are twenty pounds overweight.

Sometimes I’m glad to be financially-challenged.* It allows me to spend more time thinking about what I don’t want to bring on these long hikes. Assumptions. Expectations. Electronica (irony, I know). A beer belly. Heavy artillery. Plans. Curriculum vitae. And so on.

(*I suffer from buyer’s remorse with every purchase except food.)

My entire get-up was micro-budgeted; it set me back six hundred and fifty-six bucks. And I’ve been recycling (er, re~hiking) most of it since my first long hike sometime around Y2-Nay. (This ain’t the Load Less Traveled.) 

Most the stuff was purchased from Salvation Army. (Slogan: “We’ve never won a war, but we offer fine, affordable clothing!”) (Incidentally, one must ponder who’d win in a war: the Swiss Army and their little red pocket knives, or the Salvation Army and their little annoying bells...)

Anyway. Low drag, low upkeep, low cost. My motto: You get what you pay for and you get to work to pay for it. Work away or walk away.

A Poor Man’s Thru-Hiking Gear List
The best piece of gear is the one between your ears.

The Big Needs ($418)…

TarpTent Virga: $120 / used / bottomless (bottomless does not imply roomy!) (7,000 miles and counting!)

Tyvek groundsheet: free / construction site

ÜLA CDT backpack: $140 / a recent acquisition / online (a gift to myself for this trip)

Mountain Hardwear Phantom sleeping bag: $129 / a friend’s EMS employee discount

Fleece sleeping bag liner: free / hiker box

Foam sleep pad: hiker box / five-finger discount

Cascade Mountain Tech hiking poles: $29 / Costco
Earplugs: free / hiker box (they were new; I still have some standards)

The Garb (Funnybone: putting the ‘garbage’ in ‘garb’ since 2002) ($100+/-)…

Starter brand running shoes: $7-16 / Wal-Mart

Synthetic socks: $1 / thrift store

Leggings/tights: $2 / thrift store

Wind pants: $2 / thrift store

Shorts: $1 / thrift store

Fleece long-sleeve shirt: free / hand-me-down

Synthetic tee-shirt: $1 / thrift

Fleece vest: $3 / Gebraucht: garage sale

Fleece jacket (gluten-free): $6 / thrift store score

2 x bandannas: free / found

Peruvian-style hat: $4 / used / Boulder gear shop

Visor: gratis / roadside score!

Windbreaker: $2 / used / outdoor gear shop

Fanny pack: $3 / thrift store (with PCT patch: $3)

Fleece gloves: free / dumpster diving

Cycling gloves: $1 / thrift store (unused: no sun!)

MontBell down jacket: $60 / industry deal requiring a down payment!

Washcloth: acquired from a housekeeping cart

Kitchen / Water Needs ($35)…

Sawyer Squeeze filter: $25 / new (the shiznit; if I suffer loyalty to any brand, it’s Sawyer; love at first sip)

Bent alloy spork: free / hiker box! (now unbent)

Snow Peak titanium pot: gift from a cousin (“friends don’t let friends pay retail!”)

Wiener can stove: free / neighbor’s garbage can

Water bottles: free / city recycle bins

2-liter soda bottle: free / dumpster diving (temporarily removed from the waste stream!)

Fuel bottle (plastic vodka flask): free / city recycle bins (it even had vodka in it!)

Lighter: free / roadside score

Other stuff: P-38 can opener; Zip-Locs; tin foil; garbage bags galore; duct tape; pot scrubber; etc: $9 / Safeway and hiker boxes

Oh. And my Made-in-China “Swiss” Army knife (a ‘Classic SD’ copycat, heavily modified to be less heavy): $1 / ski swap. TSA seizes these jobbers, ‘cause they’re The BOMB. They’re also bomb-proof, which is ironic. I’ve removed the nail file/screwdriver, the unhygienic plastic toothpick, the scales, and the tweezers*.

*Now for a bad joke: the tweezers work, in a pinch.

(Incidentally, it was US soldiers who named the ‘Swiss Army knife.’) (The French Army knife, comprised only of corkscrew wine bottle openers, is unsafe for thru-hikers.)

Heavily modded to be less heavy; nail file removed

Electronica / Navigation / Communication / Finances ($96)…

‘Lenser’ headlamp: $12 / Sierra Trading Post closeout 

Watch: courtesy of Rec Center Lost-n-Found

Nikon point & shoot (& miss) camera: $49 / online

Reading glasses: $1 / The Dollar Shrub

ZZ Top cheap sunglasses: $3 / gas station

AWOL’s Guidebook: $13 / Amazon Empire

Road maps: free / chambers of commerce, etc.

Notepad: $1 for 2 / The 99¢ Store

Pen: bank-borrowed (I removed its weighty chain)
Pencil, lest I lose my pen or its ink freezes (ala the morning of Day 11)

ID, Visa, cash (Marauders and murderers, take note: I rarely carry more than $30 in notes; hopefully I’m not worth $30. Wait, what?!)

Electronic tablet w/ WiFi, voice recorder, .05 “mega”-pixel camera, etc: free / hand-me-down

Phone (TracFone): $10 / pay-as-you-go/no contract/burner

PocketMail device for further note-taking (I type faster than I scribble, especially on raised keys): $7 shipped / Ebay

One outstandingly bad book (Peace Pilgrim) (torn into sections and burned when read, or when not read): free / hiker box

Toiletries ($7)…

TP, toothbrush (doubles as a tent stake!), paste, floss, ibuprofen, etc. $7 in all / Wally World, et al. (TP borrowed from various sources)

Specialty Items (priceless)...
One monkey wrench (the tool doesn’t matter; it’s the tooling that matters)
Two turntables and a microphone

~~~~~~~~~~

It looks like a ship-load, but it’s quite nominal, scrunching down to the size of a beer belly (European, not American).

There are no camp shoes; no gaiters; no camp chair; no shit shovel (except the spork); no compass (“your an idiot!” squawk the compass-ionate keyboard cowards); no GPS unit; no PC disguised as a “smart”phone; no Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon; no machete or hatchet or serrated buck knife or tank-like Swiss Army knife. There’s no handsaw; no slingshot; no binoculars; no Sierra cup; no dangling carabiners (or modifiers); no Nalgene bottle made to withstand direct thermonuclear impact; no hammock; no field guides; and no Dr. Bronner’s biodegradable soap. (Ask fish how biodegradable Dr. Bronner’s is when it’s in their eyes.)

There’s no hand sanitizer; no bear spray or bear bag or bear canister or bear bell (nor Teddy bear); no dog; no god; no snake-bite kit; no tick tweezers; no pack cover; no paracord; no lantern; no flint; no firearm; no Go-Pro; no SLR; no tripod; no selfie stick; no solar charger; no Bluetooth speaker; no cot; no pillow; no inflatable mattress; no guitar or harmonica (or tuba); no rescue mirror; no umbrella; no marshmallow roasting fork; no titanium French press (yet I’m ti-curious); no Jetboil; no ice axe; and no glow-in-the-dark emergency whistle. I don’t even carry first aid. Nor second aid. I accept the responsibility to act as my own first responder, dead or alive.

I refuse to label myself a Luddite--I loathe isms, ites and ists; they’re stickers intended for us to categorize one another--but I’ve found that less is more, more or less. These things are all just condiments! They’re not needed. And there’s always room for less. Long trails long ago taught me to simplify. After all, to know you’ve got enough is to be rich; to do without helps the delving within.

Per the Pond Poet, I went to the woods to do without. I wanted to streamline my existence to the essentials, to live with deliberate intent, to flee a society I don’t--and don’t care to--see eye-to-eye with. To avoid sleepwalking through life! To escape materialism, consumerism, and endless propaganda and advertising. To eschew “the news,” be it good news or the regular programming. To leave the noise and clutter of civilization. To thrive, cleanly and freely. TO GO CAVEMAN!

The lighter and cheaper the load, the more freedom to do all this. And the more I own, the more there is to go wrong. Stuffocation! The only gear to fear is gear itself! You give yourself a better chance at experiencing more by having less. Addition through subtraction.

“Boy, you’re gonna carry that weight, carry that weight, a long time...”

~A Beatles proverb

“He who buys what he does not need steals from himself.”
~Swedish proverb

“For the hiker who has everything: 

you ain’t completin’ no thru-hike!”

~Funnybone proverb

“The less I needed, the better I felt.”

~Charles Bukowski

Once the weather improves, a substantial portion of this crap will be donated back to thrift stores and/or hiker boxes and/or shelters or their fire rings. I just lease the stuff. (We all lease “our” stuff.) I’ve learned that to have half a fighting chance on these trails, I’ve got to go as light as possible whenever possible, or I won’t be going long. And like an overburdened airplane, I deep-six cargo and/or fuel mid-flight, whenever necessary, before it’s necessary. 

Most long-distance hikers come to learn that trails are not pipes. We don’t hike far (enough, some would say) from the social apparatus; modifications can be made. I’ve always been willing to let the hike determine its needs. I’m just along for the ride.

My existing get-up weighs seventeen pounds, without food and water. This includes shoes and the clothes I wear (skin-out weight, we call it). Most this mass is the fleece jacket, which weighs two and a half pounds and twice as much when saturated. It’s been saturated much of this trip. This skin-out base weight (that is everything except expendables: food, fuel, water, boy butter) will be a stiver under eight pounds, once I jettison the cold-weather gear and the redundant electronic nonsense. Barebones, Funnybone. There’ll be nearly nothing in my pack, just possibilities. I can hardly wait. Be gone, by God!

The thing is, I’ll probably need the clothing again, if New Hampshire and Maine are as slow-going as purported. I could very well be out here till winter’s broom, Christmas, that sick season of materialism, sweeps in. That wouldn’t be very merry. But then that’s nothing new. “Now is the winter of our discontent,” wrote Shakespeare (another good writer). “Every winter is the winter of my discontent,” wrote Funnybone. I’d rather shoo snow than snowshoe.

The rain soon upped it. My inner caveman caved in; I decided I’d splurge for a cavernous room at the Rendezvous Hotel in Pearisburg, no matter the cost. Faithfully pursuing the white paint that has guided my trip to this point, I caught back up to Gator, Goat, TK, and Backstreet. Conditions had us craving creature comforts.

We’d come to learn the hotel had recently burned to the ground--its roof caved in. We presumed the fire was caused by tenants and their illegal meth operation, or so we laughed. We’d also learn that Pearisburg is a shit-stain. The putrescent crotch of trail towns. A social scab. No wonder it bred the likes of Randall Lee Smith. The guy didn’t stand a chance.

(Image pilfered from the world wide spiderweb)

We were all business as we scurried up Business Highway 460 to the next inn, in hopes there wasn’t a backlog of hikers wishing to cede to the luxuriousness of civilization. If that’s what you’d call Pearisburg. 

It turns out Holiday Motor Lodge was hardly fit for human habitation, let alone hiker habitation. Gator joked, “this place puts the hospital in hospitality.” There wasn’t even a gym! Nor was there a continental breky. But there were rooms available and, at least on the bottom floor, a roof. The skies were now open full-throttle; anything overhead was satisfactory.

The Lodge’s tenants were, um, noteworthy. Within minutes of entering my cigarette-scented, ground-level room there was a knock at the window. Not the door. The window. The walls were thin enough to hear everything in adjacent rooms, so I wasn’t sure it was my window, but I checked anyway.

There before me stood a scrawny AIDS patient-looker. Stitches, spots, scabs, scars, and sinew. He offered some crack at a “cutthroat price.” “Thanks man,” I replied, troubled by his use of cutthroat…

“I’m good.”

“Ya sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Totally?”

“Yep. Totally.”

“How about a woman?”

“How about her?” I asked.

“Are ya in need of one? Or two?”

“No,” I fibbed, for safety sake. “I’m good.”

“Good without a woman? Gotta be lonesome on trail.”

I lied once more. “Nah man, you’d be surprised. I get laid lots.”

He must’ve figured me for a homo, gauging by the guy-to-girl ratio of the trail. (“Gay is as gay does,” I’d’ve replied.) He kept making offers until before sharing his personal shenanigans, once he figured out he wasn’t going to profit from me. (“…then I awoke in silver bracelets--” he sighed, referring to handcuffs.)

I closed the curtains mid-sentence, more concerned with bathing and regaining some misplaced body heat. As it goes with opportunity, he never knocked again, window or door. What’s more, the soak didn’t disappoint. I scrubbed myself spotless, then washed everything I owned--including shoes, tent, and backpack--in the tub, after the nuisance of wiping the slick oil ring from its sides, the same one I’d created during the bath.

"Fund"note 1: Some thru-hikers go so far as to seek sponsorship and/or supplies, a tactic I quit when I retired from sport. Thrift store goods are sponsorship enough. My trailname ought to be Frugalbone, really. The frugal bon vivant.