A Limp in the Woods (Day 71)

An Appalachian Trail Tale
Day 71: Monday, June 3rd, 2013
Harpers Ferry, West Virginia to Maryland! = 4 miles
Miles to date: 1,023

Unicycling the Universe

Being in a bed was surreal. Unfortunately, results were no different. Probably since I slept, or tried to, on the top bunk. All night I was plagued by thoughts of casually rolling over to my death--a casual casualty. When bedded down on the ground, I never have this worry. Bunkers are better than bunks! I do not sleep on portaledges. Been there, done that, didn’t sleep.

Below me, Backstreet performed his nasal concerto throughout the night. It might’ve disturbed the rest of us had we not been firm on using foam. The earplugs are a recent addition to the gear list, but Backstreet’s beak has proven they’re worth their weight in gold. In fact, for the communal sleeper, gold holds less value than foam.

Both foam and gold remind me of a story. A true story, almost. Once, when I was backpacking with friends in the High Sierra, a world class electrical storm barreled in. We were ridge-bound on the upper slopes of one of the many passes on the John Muir Trail and in grave danger: freezing, exposed, on edge. The noon sky darkened and lightning began landing (and taking off) all around us. The odor of ozone occupied the air. We dropped our poles and our packs, fished for our foam sleeping mats, and sprinted back down the mountain, praying to whoever, whatever, would listen. (They did not listen, but then it was hard to hear.)

When we reached a safer less dangerous elevation we crouched atop our pads, mouths agape. This theoretically decreases internal pressure in the event of a direct strike, improving odds of not dying. (Lightning kills, but it can strike without killing, as one ATer discovered this year, a modest bloke [now] named Lucky Strike, who’d been struck and lived to tell the tale, even though he doesn’t.)

Anyway, while squatting with top holes open and fingers in ears--the thunder was deafening--I noticed my play-pal Kathy wearing all kinds of jewelry: tawdry rings, bracelets, studs, gold-capped teeth, razor-blade earrings, a padlock necklace, a GPS ankle monitor, nipple piercings(1), clitoris piercings(2), a galvanized bolt through her neck, and whatnot. Our hair was on end and I wasn’t confident metal jewelry was such a good idea, even though she maintained they were all amulets.

Without being rude, I suggested she unfasten it all. It was sure to do more damage if we were hit. The lightning was hammering within feet. The tailgating thunder was accompanied by continuous airborne crackling, and I had to use sign language to be heard. It took her far too long to detach all the electrical conductors and by the time she had, the tempest had tempered. Nonetheless, we all learned something important that day, though I don’t recall what it was. E = MC Hammer, I believe.    

Wow, I’ve really gone off-track here. My original point was that foam earplugs can be a windfall--yet muffle the wind. They and the foam mats are in season at any local Wal-Mart, and anymore all Wal-Marts are local. Some are so big, like the one we visited yesterday, that they’re local in two towns, stretching from one city limit to the next.

     Damn, astray yet again.

As for the day’s events, we spent the morning playing sightseer with all the other tourists. It was a Sunday after all, and our choice was that or church or, worse yet, the trail. We chose tourism. Harpers Ferry is of course, a great spot to tour. At least nowadays. Back in mid 1800s, not so much, for this is where the famed abolitionist John Brown essentially kicked off the (not so) Civil War.

The clipped version: Brown gathered some men, both black and white (himself a honky), to storm the federal armory. They were caught with their pants down, and Brown was hanged by a jury not hung. Thus commenced the US’s bloodiest war, when others grew fed up with the feds. And with slavery. (Fortune favors the slave.) That’s what I remember hearing in Mr. Honda’s civics class in high school, when I showed. (Asked during my second senior year why I was always absent, I could only reply it was because I was absent-minded.) In high school, friends and I went down in history. And in civics. And in home Ec. No wonder I was voted Most Likely To Suck. No wonder I live in a tent. At least I’ve still got mad tetherball skills.

My high school daze, before being laid off

Sadly, civics isn’t even taught in high school anymore. (Good luck, America. The nation with no foundation in education heads for damnation.) Anyway, for a solid some hours we visited museums, read plaques and memorials, and furthered our Civil War tutelage. As tourists do, we also ate sugary, salty, unspeakable food. And we gawked at other tourists. We lost Coolie to a local girl. Others had seen him dive, literally, in through her passenger window as she rolled down the road. It was rolled down. And I thought I was desperate. She did have all her teeth, I’m told. So it was just the four of us, alone again naturally.

With nothing better to do, we revisited the AT Conservancy. Daypack was loitering, rummaging through the free box for anything stomachable, but the bin had been scavenged by a previous someone whose name rhymes with Schmunnybone. He told us about his aqua-blaze endeavor--a failed mission from the onset.

Despite the rains of recent, the river was not even shin-deep. “Seems the trail soaked up all the moisture.” He and the Germans had to drag das boot most the way, which made it tough to cart the beer coolers on board. He looked beat, an ad for ad hoc adventuring gone wrong. He knew though: it ain’t adventure until it goes wrong. In any case buoyancy was now restored.

“Are yuh sure yuh pointed the raft downstream?” I asked. “Yuh know, go with the flow?”

When it was time to load up and leave, the four of us met a neighborly young man riding a unicycle. His rig was laden with packs and water bottles. Intrigued to no end, I had to beleaguer the redheaded, round-nosed guy, so we could find out more of his story.

It turns out Peter Hufford (aka: Butterfingers) had completed the AT last year. He was looking for another extraordinary challenge when it dawned on him: “I’ll take a unicycle around the world!” To clarify, by ‘take a unicycle,’ he means ride a unicycle. Around the world. This world, third from the light source, the life source.

Pete Hufford, the Bad-Ass (image courtesy of Pete)

We bowed down to him, we unworthy scum. The fortune-hunter was just three days in, starting from the urban wasteland of Washington DC and taking the C&O Canal Towpath out of civilization and perhaps as far as Pittsburgh, PA(3), eventually hoping to reach San Francisco then Los Angeles before heading into Mexico and onto South America. In no uncertain terms he assured us his ass was already a complete train wreck and that he was “taking it one day at a time,” just as he had on the AT.

“I miss being on my feet.”

“Exsqueeze me?” Goat asked. “It sounded like you said you miss bein’ on your feet.”

“I know. It’s messed up, huh?”

It was something we never thought we’d hear an accomplished thru-hiker say, but such is the drawback of a one-wheeled vehicle. “Imagine never being able to get off your ass,” Butterfingers sighed with a glazed, forlorn look. “Well, at least you’re about one one-hundredth of one percent done,” I joked. He did not look amused.

TK, guitar god Mountain Goat, and me

After exchanging email addresses and snapping a couple of photos, we parted ways with the bad-ass (yes, I know) and soon crossed the Potomac River atop an old train trestle, all the meanwhile breaking and entering the Maryland state line halfway over the murky ribbon. “Our sixth state!” Mountain Goat proclaimed. “Eight more to go.”

We were now officially on the famed Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Trail (the C&O), which runs from “downtown” DC to Cumberland, Maryland, a wonderfully horizontal stretch of one hundred and eighty-five miles. Unfortunately, we only got to enjoy four miles of its silky smooth flatness before abruptly heading back into the hills and up the ‘Weverton Challenge,’ which in reality wasn’t all that challenging, thankfully. The canal may have originally been somewhat of a failed mission, a debacle relegated to the history books by the westward expansion of railroads and roads, but we wished the entire AT was as endearing and inviting. The path was lined with floriferous deliciousness and all sorts of wildlife, including a few turtles, each challenging us to a race as they flew past.

We’re camped in a flat clearing just a few miles beyond Harpers Ferry and a little short of the Ed Garvey Shelter, presumably named after a guy named Ed Garvey, though one can never be certain. We’re hoping the trains below lull us to sleep. It’s not the AT’s most serene spot, but the trains (as well as the endless trains of the faithless) are barely discernible, thanks to the cicadas. Foam, meet ear.

"Nipple"note 1: I don't know this.
"Clit"note 2: Nor do I know this.
"C&O"note 3: The C&O canal ends before Steel City, but is met by the Great Allegheny Passage, which carries on to it. Imagine this: 335 miles from Pittsburgh to Washington DC with no automobile traffic! A must-do, I think...