A Limp in the Woods (Day 70)

An Appalachian Trail Tale
Day 70: Sunday, June 2nd, 2013
Short stroll to Harpers Ferry, West Virginia = 4 miles
Miles to date: 1,019

What’s in Store

When camping sleeping in isn’t easy. (Ignore the wordplay; I mean sleeping in as in sleeping late, not sleeping inside, which is not what you do when camping.) Wind huffs and puffs like a big, bad wolf. Nylon flaps furiously. Happier campers rouse you, if the wind or terra-too-firm-a hasn’t already. Then there’s sunlight. Even under the trees light doesn’t just filter in--it infiltrates, then bombards. With it, the tent’s temperature skyrockets. Few can snooze in a sauna. Just those freaky pervs at the gym.

When attempting to sleep-in (or sleep at all) without tent, you learn quickly that busy bugs torpedo your every cavity. Or they frenziedly bore for blood. Some creepy-crawlies come in peace, but they still upend and suspend the slumber.

Yet somehow I manage. Somehow we all do. It’s like a low-key superpower, but we are champion sleepers. The breakfast of champions is always better at brunch.

It was 9am when we got our blood pumping. Even then, we were endorsed by coffee; without chemistry there can be no physics. Our start time was three hours tardier than most hikers would assume on such a handsome June day. It’s undeniable you witness more wildlife and fewer humans by getting going early, but you miss out on your dreams, where anything goes. 

Take my dream last night. The dreamweaver had me atop a conveyor belt. I glided by all the sights, sounds and smells of the AT. No blisters, no burden on my back, no bugs (this was a convertible conveyor belt with a retractable roof, air conditioning, a cup holder, and one of those nifty suction cup phone-holding devices enabling me to text while I worked my way up trail). I awoke to a different reality: reality itself. Rock-strewn, sticky and hot. Reality, cruelty.

Luckily, we were to footslog just four miles, straight down to, and then over, the Shenandoah River. From there it was onto Harpers Ferry (pop: 285 and shrinking, surprisingly). We planned to do nothing for the rest of the day--and possibly all day tomorrow. Nothing, we figured, ought to keep us busy enough.

We reached town before we could think. (This happens a lot, regardless of pace or distance.) We entered its central district(1) on a short side path, where we happened upon a bacciferous tree. A mulberry. It was on public property, on one of the US’s first all-black colleges, Storer College, so we publicly raided it, as any responsible, frugivorous thru-hiker or college student would.

If you’ve never eaten ripe mulberries, you have not lived. Nature’s candy, they’re succulent, fat, and full of sweetness--a bit of a blackberry-raspberry-raisin-grapefruit hybrid. Similar to a Peruvian goldenberry, because we all know what those taste like. In a word I hate--heavenly. Particularly if it were finals week, or if you’d just limped a thousand miles to reach them.

Soon a security guard pestered us.

“Are you students?”

“Yes,” I replied (re-pLIED). 

He looked directly at me; you could feel the doubt. 

“What year are you in?” 

“Same as everyone else,” I answered. “2013.”

It was the first time the others laughed at one of my jokes.

Once we were full and the tree was not, we proceeded to the town hub and the Appalachian Trail Conservancy. We were graciously received, as was an irritating haste hiker (for lack of a better term) who bloviated he’d “pulled a forty.” Well, la-de-dah. He was referring to his previous day’s mileage; he didn’t look to be hiking anywhere today. His machismo, his hubris, told him we were supposed to be impressed. I looked over at Backstreet, to see if he was impressed. He was yawning. 

“You may pull ‘em.” Backstreet replied. “But we drink ‘em.”

“Anyone can go slow,” said gung-ho bro, with all the conceit--nay, arrogance--of a Hollywood celebrity. “Me, I’m allergic to mediocrity.”

Wow. It’s your world boss, and we’re just living in it.

“High praises, friendo,” I said. “Not everyone can succeed.”

“Listen, what’s your name? Should we know about you?” 

We were perfectly comfortable ignoring him, but he kept arrowing for attention, a victim of his own excellence. He had to have cared what we thought of him. We thought nothing of him, and would again soon.

“Me? The name’s Laser.”

“Nice to meet you, Lazy. I’m Cal Klein. This is Ken Cole. That’s Tom Hilfiger. That there’s Ralph Lauren. And she’s Coco Chanel.”

“You guys don’t have trailnames?” He missed my efforts entirely. “FYI. That’s dumb.”

Who says FYI?

This dude was a grotesque personality, an environmentally-unfriendly mix of solipsism and self-indulgence. Organisms like him remind us--there’s an appalling shortage of falling anvils in the world today. We kept quiet, but wanted to explain to him that this was a zero sum GA-ME. Thru-hiking is, was, and always will be an individual enterprise; the goal is to improve your life not in relation to others, but in relation to yourself. Laser was missing something in himself, and he was searching for it in others.

The makings of an album cover

There are too many thru-hikers like this, those with low self-esteem who disguise it with a vaunting air of superiority, copping big-time ‘tude. Usually it’s schmucks like this, the fast walkers (an oxymoron, in this slowpoke’s mind). They disrespect and devalue anyone slower. These are ill individuals who view slowness as sickness, and they need help.

Sometimes it’s the ultralight crowd, my peeps, who simply cannot fathom how anyone would carry more than they do. Other times it’s the “I’ve hiked more miles and more trails than you” crowd (whether fast or slow).

Other times it’s those who’ve decided to shun electronica, particularly those who cold-shoulder GPS units or smartphones; these old-schoolers feel a shameless sense of supremacy, because of their reliance on maps and compass, and their masterly skills in using them; they believe this to be closer to self-reliance. These types are a dying breed. They’re seen on trails like the CDT or the Hayduke Trail. (Both routes are near my radar, incidentally; without GPS unit, naturally.)

Of course this preeminence disorder is frequently the very sign of the thru-hiker. He cannot bear the thought of motor tourists clogging vistas that he worked so hard to attain. There’s limited understanding and acceptance for weekend hikers or section hikers. Spoon-fed by trail magic and trail angels, the mindset is that thru-hikers are a high-and-mighty breed, deserving special recognition, as if their choice and their good fortunes in life--to go on any such vacation--warrants it.

And then there are rude boys like me--actually, there aren’t--who feel superior because, well, they are.

Horsefeathers, all. Let’s let go the ego. Can’t we see the Appalachian’s are bigger than us? 

Who cares how you hike? (“Different ways to see you through; all the same in the end,” sang the Cars. “Peculiar star, that’s who you are; do you have to win?”)

“Good walking,” says the Tao Te Ching, “leaves no tracks.”

Feeling inferior, we did the dude-dismissal. Silence scares the screamers. He’d soon leave, eyeing others to prey upon. 

We squandered hours at the Conservancy, eventually getting our pictures taken. The ATC keeps records of the throngs of thru-hikers--if you first sign a release/waiver. This is modern America after all, where we reserve the right to sue anyone, with or without reason. If I could sue anyone associated with overseeing the AT, I would. Undue physical and psychological trauma.

Photos go back to the ‘70s, when hikers weren’t required to sign a waiver to sign their names. Perusing the faces from the past brought ripples of emotion and wonder. Where are these hikers today? Are they still alive? Or, having hiked the AT, are they still dead? Are they as happy now as they were during their hikes? Will we be?

I was the 1001st to start @ Springer, somehow passing 700+; DNFs, presumably

The nonprofit was founded in 1925, four years before the “Great” Depression and twelve years before the AT possessed its T. Back then the organization was known as the Appalachian Trail Conference. It changed its name with changing times. (Times don’t change; we do.) I suppose Conservancy sounds a little less daunting than does Conference, just as dried plum does compared to prune. Their mission... 

...to promote interest in the trail while preserving it and its character. 

Incongruous and pruned, but a snazzy slogan nonetheless.

The Conservancy boasts a constituency of forty-thousand, all who pay to join. Membership is mostly made up of old, white prunes. In a couple of years, when A Walk in the Woods becomes a full-fledged film, the ATC assures us a younger crowd will take interest. And that the trail will benefit. I can assure you it won’t. But the nonprofit will profit.

After the exhaustive tour, we thumbed into nearby Charles Town, to take care of the usual replenishment. Charles Town, not the state capital Charleston. Our driver, a well-groomed guy in his twenties, works for the National Park Service as a cartographer, one of but a few. You know the overview maps they hand you when you drive into a national park? That’s his work! We agreed we loved his maps--I told him I have dozens of his drawings in a shoebox somewhere--before we thanked him for the ride.

He’d dropped us off at Wal-Mart, where smiles must have cost extra. We went our various ways, not necessarily by design, but because the store, like every other Wally World, is overwhelmingly large. If it could float, it’d make the Titanic look like a rowboat. It’s funny but it’s not always easy to become separated on the trail, even though there are times when we want to. If only there were a trailside Wal-Mart every few miles; the others could finally escape me!

As with most Wal-Marts, the place made for prime spectating. Oh, to see what’s in store! Yesterday’s small store experience was no lie; they grow ‘em big in West Virginia. (Plus-sized, to be politically correct.) Most shoppers used electric carts to get around, perhaps a more appropriate use of the word cartography. But who could blame them, given the layout?

My friends and I were also gawked at, not just because of our frowzy façade, our distorted window dressing, our clothes-mindedness, but because we walked. And because we were the only ones not in pajamas. Strangers in a strange land. Backstreet later wondered aloud, “Was that Wal-Mart hosting a slumber party?” Man, did we laugh.

On aisle 337, I bumped into an old man. Old and obese--a uncommon combo. Maybe it was my edgy/dingy silk shirt, but he looked me up and down with a definite air of disgust. Viewed me askance. The ol’ stink-eye. And he couldn’t take his eyes off me. I tried to flee, but his electric cart clogged the aisle.

Look pal, I thought, I know what you’re thinking, ‘cause I think it too. But I know something you don’t. I know what you think of me doesn’t matter, because what you think is wrong. I’ve got no image or reputation to uphold. So go on judging this book as musty or dirty--you’re not wrong there--but don’t judge the rest by its tattered cover. And if you think you hate it that much, quit reading.

Engaging the cart’s green GO button, the glowering guy would pass by, just as I’d pass gas--a form of payback, my own air of disgust. Stink-eye, meet stink-bomb. He never said a word. He didn’t need to. I can tell people are judgmental just by looking at them.

Errands done, we regrouped and hitched back to Harpers. There we slayed the remainder of the day doing the other two E’s: eating and exploring. (Harpers Ferry is minuscule thus wonderful; it’s one of the only towns-slash-national [historical] parks in the US, if not thee only, and it doesn’t cost a dime to visit!) After the sightseeing we checked into a grim B&B. The female proprietor, an older business-like Bohemian-wannabe who wore more makeup than any clown, offered the five of us--Coolie McJetPack included--the entire upstairs, which we promptly made a (more) complete mess of.

"Finite"note 1: Harpers Ferry has no decentralized district, no sprawl, and no suburbs.