An Appalachian Trail Tale
Day 55: Saturday, May 18th, 2013
Harrison Ground Spring to Punchbowl Shelter = 22 miles
Miles to date: 791
Word of the week:
Day 55: Saturday, May 18th, 2013
Harrison Ground Spring to Punchbowl Shelter = 22 miles
Miles to date: 791
Seventeen Years
Word of the week:
LONGANIMITY [lawng-guh-nim-i-tee]
(noun): patient endurance of hardship.
It’s been said that comfortable experiences seldom lead to worthwhile stories. It’s been so long now that I wouldn’t know. Three days ago it was the gorilla on my back. Two days ago it was the heat. Yesterday the bugs were whooping it up. Today it’s precipitation and a general terrorism of the crotch. Tomorrow I anticipate a hurricane. The day after that, a tidal wave. The day after that, a forest fire. The day after that, an earthquake. On the AT, if it’s not one thing, it’s all things.
But by my standards I’m still alive. Having a convivial group to meld with has made a world of difference. We’ve each met introverted hikers and others seeking an uninterrupted oneness with the organic world, but methinks these types miss out on a big part of what the Appalachian Trail experience can be, which can sometimes resemble a rolling block party.
Our gang isn’t quite the zoo-full of party animals like some of the others, and rather than relying on booze or drugs to help elevate the high, we depend on immaturity and stupidity. And it works! The esprit de corps defeats the bore, and the laughs seldom cease. When they do, it’s usually only for sleep or what little serious topic matter we can think of. No question, tempus fugit when you’re having fun. I just hope the time doesn’t soar by too quickly.
The rain dampened the mood somewhat, but it helped sway the bugs to stay away, and for that we could only be thankful. The lesser of two evils.
Upon waking, I was greeted by a visitor. A Costco-sized frog sat in my tent’s lobby, inquiring about boarding. She appeared engrossed in what I’d been eating. I apprised her she wouldn’t much care for generic Pop-Tarts swathed in Vegemite, but she stayed put, without so much as a blink. Noble and immobile. Only when I passed gas did she jump. As she bounded away, I thanked her for helping to control the bug population. The world could use more frogs, homegrown or imported.
 |
| Gremlins afoot! |
Many thru-hikers you meet serve reminder that it’s much easier to click with Nature. But the right people remind you it’s best when shared, whether it’s Nature or silence or…
The serenity ceased at noon. We emerged at the Matts Creek Shelter and began talking food. We’d descended two and a half thousand feet, in a gradual manner, when the clouds disbanded. Out came the sporks. I wasn’t certain, but surmised I’d shed five pounds since Springer; if I didn’t start shoveling calories in, I was going to whittle away by June. I’ve always been slender, but at this stage I’m verging on emaciated. “Skeletal remains were found covered in dirt along the Appalachian Trail earlier today,” the co-anchor might report. “They were walking north.”
Doing just that, we soon reached the James River. At three hundred and forty miles, it is Virginia’s longest waterway and one of the US’s longest rivers within a single state. Heavily dammed along its course, of course. I’d learned years before on my trans-US bike trip that the languid liquid also played home to the first permanent settlement of the British Empire, near Jamestown, where I’d reached that trip’s turnaround point--after deciding on the spot to pedal back to California. Here an old railroad trestle had been converted into a pedestrian passageway. It took two hundred and fifty two steps to cross the murky channel, and half as many to scrape the mud from my shoes.
On the river’s opposing bank a train rumbled overhead, straight onto the newer trestle. The clamor was too much to bear after such a peaceful morning. A quick highway crossing ensued before we could relax and again enjoy the whisper of the woods.
Without humanity the world would be a quiet, slow-moving place--undammed and undamned--maintaining a perfect balance through its own wonderfully weird workings. I would love that place! No nations, no states, no counties, no governments, no gods, no religion (imagine!), no police, no race, no walls, no unions, no associations, no committees, no pollution, no red tape, and no laws except those dictated by NATURE. But then since I’m part of humankind, I wouldn’t be here to see it, now would I?
As we climbed from all the commotion we realized it wasn’t all that quiet on the northern front. Now that the drizzle had fizzled, a steady high-pitched buzzing filled the air. At first we thought it was just the usual foul-mouthed locust, or maybe our sanity. Soon though, we glimpsed our first cicada and realized the din’s origin.
“Holy shit,” Mountain Goat blurted. “It’s a cicada year!”
Sure enough, the orange-eyed, alien-looking little buggers we were now examining, technically known as Magicicada, had just extricated themselves from their subterranean lairs, the same ones their moms placed them into THIRTEEN TO SEVENTEEN YEARS prior. A decade and a half! Thousands of perfectly circular holes dotted the trail and everything surrounding it, approximately three hundred and fifty of them per square yard. Strangely enough, I’d watched one of those David Attenborough documentaries--Our Screwed Planet or some such--about the critter just prior to my trip’s departure.
“Within six to eight weeks of the bugs’ original emergence the life cycle ends; they’ve laid their eggs and the adult cicadas are gone for another thirteen or seventeen years,” said Sir David, in that smoothly splendid timbre of his. I remembered wondering when the next cicada cycle was; I recalled it had seemed about as long ago.
Well, wouldn’t you know it.
We laughed at the thought. Then pondered it. Backstreet was but six the last time they invaded Earth, and he’d be closer to my age the next time they would. Wombat, the seventeen year-old homeschooled whizkid Ruth and I met a while back (whizkid, because he whizzed by us), was still filling diapers the last time the boisterous critters invaded. And I’ll likely be filling diapers the next time they appear, catastrophically feeble and old (but no doubt no more mature). Or I’ll be a goner, into the beclouded ether. If not during the next cicada cycle (projected year: 2030!), certainly sometime before the following one.
It was a frightening thought and for the next few hours I walked much too quickly, stopping only to survey the sepulcher site of a young lad set atop Bluff Mountain(1). The buzzing outside my head had stopped as night drew near, but only outside it.
The serenity ceased at noon. We emerged at the Matts Creek Shelter and began talking food. We’d descended two and a half thousand feet, in a gradual manner, when the clouds disbanded. Out came the sporks. I wasn’t certain, but surmised I’d shed five pounds since Springer; if I didn’t start shoveling calories in, I was going to whittle away by June. I’ve always been slender, but at this stage I’m verging on emaciated. “Skeletal remains were found covered in dirt along the Appalachian Trail earlier today,” the co-anchor might report. “They were walking north.”
Doing just that, we soon reached the James River. At three hundred and forty miles, it is Virginia’s longest waterway and one of the US’s longest rivers within a single state. Heavily dammed along its course, of course. I’d learned years before on my trans-US bike trip that the languid liquid also played home to the first permanent settlement of the British Empire, near Jamestown, where I’d reached that trip’s turnaround point--after deciding on the spot to pedal back to California. Here an old railroad trestle had been converted into a pedestrian passageway. It took two hundred and fifty two steps to cross the murky channel, and half as many to scrape the mud from my shoes.
On the river’s opposing bank a train rumbled overhead, straight onto the newer trestle. The clamor was too much to bear after such a peaceful morning. A quick highway crossing ensued before we could relax and again enjoy the whisper of the woods.
Without humanity the world would be a quiet, slow-moving place--undammed and undamned--maintaining a perfect balance through its own wonderfully weird workings. I would love that place! No nations, no states, no counties, no governments, no gods, no religion (imagine!), no police, no race, no walls, no unions, no associations, no committees, no pollution, no red tape, and no laws except those dictated by NATURE. But then since I’m part of humankind, I wouldn’t be here to see it, now would I?
As we climbed from all the commotion we realized it wasn’t all that quiet on the northern front. Now that the drizzle had fizzled, a steady high-pitched buzzing filled the air. At first we thought it was just the usual foul-mouthed locust, or maybe our sanity. Soon though, we glimpsed our first cicada and realized the din’s origin.
“Holy shit,” Mountain Goat blurted. “It’s a cicada year!”
 |
| Gremlins afoot! |
“Within six to eight weeks of the bugs’ original emergence the life cycle ends; they’ve laid their eggs and the adult cicadas are gone for another thirteen or seventeen years,” said Sir David, in that smoothly splendid timbre of his. I remembered wondering when the next cicada cycle was; I recalled it had seemed about as long ago.
Well, wouldn’t you know it.
We laughed at the thought. Then pondered it. Backstreet was but six the last time they invaded Earth, and he’d be closer to my age the next time they would. Wombat, the seventeen year-old homeschooled whizkid Ruth and I met a while back (whizkid, because he whizzed by us), was still filling diapers the last time the boisterous critters invaded. And I’ll likely be filling diapers the next time they appear, catastrophically feeble and old (but no doubt no more mature). Or I’ll be a goner, into the beclouded ether. If not during the next cicada cycle (projected year: 2030!), certainly sometime before the following one.
It was a frightening thought and for the next few hours I walked much too quickly, stopping only to survey the sepulcher site of a young lad set atop Bluff Mountain(1). The buzzing outside my head had stopped as night drew near, but only outside it.
"Foot"note 1: The monument was for one Ottie Cline Powell, a four year-old boy who, back in 1890, wandered away from the rest of his school class as they gathered firewood for an impending cold front. His decomposing remains were located by hunters six months later, after countless searches failed in finding him.
No comments:
Post a Comment