A Limp in the Woods (Day 48)

An Appalachian Trail Tale
Day 48: Saturday, May 11th, 2013
Bailey Gap Shelter to Sarver Hollow Shelter = 21 miles
Miles to date: 675

Shit Creek

In sticking with our peculiar, pervasive societal theme of busyness and self-promotion, I kept busy all day today and now boast about it here, after having plugged into the electronic ether.

It’s remarkable how much of our culture, our time, now exists online, in that strangely addictive virtual world. Stranger yet is our netiquette: what we share online; what we’ve done; what we’re feeling; what we’ve made for dinner; how cute and exceptional and inspiring our children or pets are (they aren’t); and so on. And often to complete strangers.

(Sudden sidetrack #1: Suffice it to say the Internet is a poor place for developing social skills.)

It seems we’re in search of acceptance and praise, no matter the provenance, no matter how faint, no matter how feigned. Through this microscope is how we view our world. I share therefore I am. Of course without proof, in the form of pictures or, better yet, video, it cannot be verified. And so we aim to not only live the experience, but to capture it. Preserve it forever. Make the moment last. And how do you share it if you don’t upload or post it? How do you prove it?

“It’s not lost on me that I’m so busy recording life, I don’t have time to really live it.” 

~David Sedaris, Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls

A writer can write, and lie, later (e.g., moi). A photographer cannot, Photoshop notwithstanding. She has to capture it as it happens, and then place herself in that picture, usually ruining what might’ve been a good shot. Here a selfie, there a selfie, everywhere a selfie. An asteroid could wipe away the world and there’d be people taking selfies as it happened.

(Sudden Sidetrack #2: along with ‘cardio’ and ‘carbs’ and  ‘epic’ and ‘LOL’ and ‘bucket list’ and ‘factoid’ and ‘life coach’ and ‘situational’ and ‘your’ instead of ‘you’re’ and ‘your call is very important to us’ {“…please stay on the line until your call is no longer important to you…”} and ‘eco-tourism’ and ‘sustainable,’ and ‘van-lifer,’ I LOATHE the term ‘selfie.’ I shall eviscerate anyone who uses it in my presence, especially if I’m interrupted while taking an epic selfie. LOL! Oh, and don’t get me going on ‘ironical’ or ‘broke the Internet’ or ‘died laughing,’ and…)

Back to taking these LONELYS. In doing so, we risk affecting and altering the moment. We disrupt discussion for documentation; we miss moments for amassing their memory. We can see that technology doesn’t just do things for us, but to us. It changes who we are. The parents filming their child’s first recital not only neglect the moment as it is happening, they also fail to see it again on film, since it’s not the same moment, the same experience. And really, how many parents watch that video later?

As with snowflakes, no two moments are alike. Even if they were, like say during a recorded, played-back experience, we change. Life is characterized by change, no matter how much we endeavor to keep things the same: which, in most people’s case means comfortable. Comfort at any cost! I execrate change as much as anyone, but just the same, I detest life when it remains firmly centered within the safety lines of the ever-expanding comfort zone. The AT, as we know by now, is nowhere near one’s comfort zone. It is an In-Your-Face trail, and so we each try to capture our faces while facing it, while it defaces what we thought we knew of ourselves. The pictures serve as a reminder to think twice (if not many more times) before ever stepping foot on it again.

Verbose detour aside, dawn broke like a hammer to the head. The others were readying themselves for the day when I rolled over onto my food bag, popping one of the baggies inside it. They must’ve assumed it a muffled fart, thus thought nothing of it, but it woke me for good…or, as it were, for worse. Had the crew slept in like I’d prodded them to last night, I might’ve remained bed-bound for another few hours, but shelters force you to adapt to other people’s schedules, earplugs or no.

“Guys!” I pleaded, “Socrates would remind us all to beware the barrenness of a busy life!”

“And look where the ass-crack is now,” Mr. Gigglesfit wisecracked. “Wishin’ he was busy.”

Favoring fad, Mediocrates here was last to leave the lean-to. I was listing toward holding fort, but, just as it had held down its job, it was time now to perform mine. Stiff person syndrome and all. The weather was superior to yesterday’s--cloudy, but free from electrical hazard. A well-mannered day for walking. Walking, the original eco-tourism.

From the onset I was out-and-out listless. I reviewed--tried rationalizing--the reasons for prolonging this sad slog. Socrates would have told me I need not rationalize, for man is not a rational animal, but I clasped for something deeper than just seeing the Appalachians and scratching a few more states off my list. By now I’d had my fill; the desire cannot run on empty.

So why persevere? (Note the severe in persevere?) This is what fatigue does to the thru-hiker. It makes cowards of us all, to quote the playwright or general or football coach. I knew I needed to catch up to the others, to break the self-indulgent cycle, for a different type of self-indulgence. I switched on the pedestrian afterburners.

As hoped, when I’d rejoined my fellow wags, the mirth kept on. The in-house qualms receded to the back burner. Vigor continued to lag but was now an afterthought.

What we thought as funny, though, could just as easily been attributed to inanition or depleted brain sugar. I kept trying to make a joke out of the word Armageddon and apply it to us. “Legageddon,” I’d repeat ad nauseam. I think the others were just laughing at me.

We were spared further silliness thanks to some trail magic in the middle of the woods, in the form of generic sodas. A lone, intensely red cooler had been placed for path people to plunder. A decal on it said, “Don’t hate me ‘cause I’m a little cooler.” There were just enough sodas for each of us to enjoy our own. I decided to save my Mountain Mist for as long as I could stomach it, which put me seventy-five feet closer to Maine. The bubbles were blissful and the sugar put to immediate use. With energy to burn I doubled back, so I wouldn’t have to carry the can.

Subsequent miles would occur in a blur. With the exception of a brief bite at the War Spur Shelter/fixer-upper and a bowel break at mile 666, that Mephistophelian mile marker, I led the charges. Okay, okay, I only did so while the others brown blazed (that is: took care of their own primal functions). But I made sure they knew the race toward Maine waited for no one. Each time someone squatted--or squirted--I skirted.

Crapping outside is an outlandish affair, often an ordeal of the highest order, depending on the shit-uation. No circumstance is as dire as running out of trail money--toilet paper--but sore muscles, biting insects, poisonous plants, rain and tough terra firma all make the deed unenviable. It’s wholly advantageous that there’s no plumbing to clog, but there is a whole host of troubles that lay in wait. Shit happens, whether or not your shit happens. I dread the day the mosquitoes show up en masse. For now they too lay in wait.

According to the World Health Organization the average person generates a pound of poop every day(1). The thru-hiker isn’t your average person(2) and certainly tops that. The greater the intake, the greater the outflow. (Greater might not be the best terminology here.)

The ATC beseeches backpackers to use privies when possible--they say it’s their civic dooty. But bowels aren’t always privy to this. Catholes become necessary, at least when the land permits the poo-er to plow through its surface. Frequently the pooper finds himself in a bit of an imposition. His bowel-logical clock is hastily counting down toward blast-off and there is nothing but rock-strewn surroundings enveloping him. No sand, no soil, and not a trace of vegetation.

In such instances he’s forced to make do before making do. Making do means doing the do wherever fate dictates. (When ya gotta go, ya gotta go: plop, plop, wizz, wizz, oh what a relief it is!) I’ve seen an enormous number of poops paralleling the path, likely laid to rest by those in crisis mode or too apathetic to give a shit.

When no outhouse is at one’s disposal (so to say), I adhere to principles laid out by Leave No Trace, for I am outdoor potty trained. I do my best to reduce the chance that a critter might come into contact with my waste; I travel far from the trail and, after a small prayer, give my poo the proper burial service, like an individual deserves.

This also helps avoid the visual implications--no one cares to spot another person’s dietary remains. I head far from water (Shit Creek included) to forestall befouling it, and I promote decomposition by covering it with any available soil or plant matter. If none is available, a small absorbent animal will do. Then, when all is said and done--and this is one of those rare moments when more is actually done--I set fire to the TP (where safe to do so) and scrub my hands as though I was heading into the operating room.

It’s a buttload of work, but one thing’s certain: I shan’t ever pack out fecal matter, no matter what dogma demands. There are too many potential perils, the primary being defecation transportation decimation--a punctured poo bag. I reek enough as it is. Plus--getting back to the weight thing--my mounds shoulder some serious pounds, and my back doesn’t care to carry more crap than it already has to. Especially useless crap.

Women have that many more corporeal concerns, but I don’t dare touch those here. Or anywhere. Thankfully, aside from the first two weeks, I’ve not seen any second-hand feminine hygiene products. Most female hikers, it seems, are of the responsible ilk. I’m assuming they carry or bury their ‘gash trash,’ as one guy called it. Or perhaps they cremate it in campfires when no one’s looking. For reasons all too obvious I haven’t asked any of the women I’ve hiked with about it.

By the time afternoon snuck up on us, another electrical storm had swept in--no shocker there--forcing our ensemble--TK, Goat, Backstreet and me--to suddenly and sullenly retreat into an abandoned barn. We weren’t sure if our combined body odor could peel the paint off the barn since the passage of time, or the passage of previous hikers, had long since done so. The hay stunk of old but proffered insulation lest the lightning land locally. The storm had inched ever closer till finally it raged right atop us, at which point we all crouched down on our toes, overjoyed to be under another roof, but frightened all the same. I might’ve crapped my shorts had I not previously evacuated the innards.

The fireworks moved on as quickly as they’d moved in. We saddled up and blithely continued the northward migration, our Legageddon. The trail beyond the barn played host to a blend of tall grasses and cloying muck. Vivacious birds reappeared both overhead and at ground level, as did the insects they feast upon. Clouds suspended themselves in huge cotton ball formations and a bright, broad rainbow augmented the scene. The sky was mostly blue. We were anything but.

Bucolic hikeoholics

Before long we reached the Keffer Oak. “There are giants amongst us!” said someone, maybe me. Our tattered guidebooks told us the Keffer is the second largest oak tree along the AT. A set of crackling power lines in the adjacent clearing dwarfed it. The tree is three-hundred years old; the powerlines, somewhat younger. With daylight seeping from the sky we snapped photos (selfies) next to the sapling. We spoke of all that’s occurred in its lifetime. There’s been a revolutionary war and a civil war--both skirmishes back in the days of horse-drawn carriages. (Who who knew horses could draw?) It’s also seen a war on drugs, and hordes battling to finish a point-to-point, yet pointless, long trail. The AT is placed far too close to it, if a thing can be far too close. Old-growth trees ought to be left alone.

I’m the small elongated black dot to the right of the tree

A thousand-foot climb led us from the oak to Bruisers Knob (presumably named after the bruised knobs we hikers once knew as ‘feet’), but not before skirting another set of noisy powerlines. Forming our own strident powerline, we’d stride into darkness, attempting to escape the wind-prone, rocky ridge we’d found ourselves on. Our headlamps did little to help identify a suitable site for sleeping, so we kept the convoy rolling, first past some bizarre rock mounds, each about four feet high and aged enough to be covered in decaying leaves and a reflective moss, and finally to the Sarver Hollow Shelter junction.

It was nearly a half-mile down to the bungalow, which is bordering on criminal, but we figured few others would have taken such a lengthy side trip, despite its cozy loft, covered patio and overall capaciousness. We were correct in our reasoning. Only Wiki and a very hairy-legged gal were in attendance. It was too late for anything except journal-keeping and sleep, but we were all sure to congratulate Wiki on turning twenty-three. I told him I wished I’d had the wisdom to have hiked the AT at his age, which is half what mine is.

“That way,” I continued, “I’d might be recovered by now.”

“At least physically.”

"Feces"note 1: According to the WHO, (not this WHO) the average life expectancy of a human is seventy-one years. That's roughly 25,932 days, leap years and all. At a pound of poo per day, each of Earth's denizens leave TEN AND A HALF TONS of feces upon our planet before perishing. With more than SEVEN BILLION of us cancerous human cells, the poop is piling high.

"Foot"note 2: But in many cases he or she at least appears human.