A Limp in the Woods (Day 72)

An Appalachian Trail Tale
Day 72: Tuesday, June 4th, 2013
Near the Garvey Shelter to the Dahlgren Backpack Campground = 13 miles
Miles to date: 1,036

Of Monsters and Caballo Loco

Maryland is known to backcountry bipeds for one main reason. It has little to do with its forty-one miles of Appalachian Trail. It’s to do with a certain mythical monster, a fuzzy killer lurking in the state’s backwoods.

The Blair Witch Project was released in the second-to-last year of the twentieth century--known also as 1999. It chronicles the investigation for said witch by three film students, two guys and a girl, who end up going missing, perhaps because they didn’t want to have to film a sequel. The mock-doc is filmed through the vantage of their trembling video cameras and the black-and-white 16mm film they captured, which is found a year after their disappearance, inexplicably buried beneath an old abandoned house. The house is quite serviceable by hiker standards, not even a fixer-upper in my mind, but never mind my mind. Anyway, the material becomes the subject matter for the movie itself, documenting their adventures leading up to their final minutes, when…

...well, you’ll have to see for yourself. I’m a spoiled AT hiker, as all AT hikers are, but I ain’t no spoiler.

Wigging out; how I look most nights on the AT

It’s quality entertainment, especially if you’re fond of fear and/or enjoy sleeping solo in the woods, as I am and as I do. Made on an initial budget of just twenty-five thousand dollars, it didn’t gross viewers so much as gross megabucks. Two hundred and fifty million bucks. In terms of return on investment it is the highest grossing film ever. (Theatres sell the whole seat, but you only need the edge.) There’s no gore, like with many horror flicks, just a sense of awe as to how imbecilic university students can be. Still, it’s worth watching, whether you believe in the boondocks or witches or pretas or directionally-challenged college kids.

As the four of us slightly less directionally-discombobulated kids strode through the backcountry, I constructed little stick figurines to pay homage to Ms. Blair Witch, and to mess with the others. Alas, my artistic, ahem, skills are atrocious. Most of what I came up with were piles of sticks tied together with perfectly usable dental floss. Waxed fire starter, and not much more. No one noticed them, nor my mini Stonehenge, as they paced past. Blair Witch herself would’ve been outraged at my litter, but I wasn’t worried about her; it was doubtful she’d ever put up with the noise of that other terrorizing creature: the cicada.

Anyway, as the old man in the group--i.e., the weakest, not the patriarch--I was better off focusing on footing it. There’d be opportunities to mess about and build things later. A thru-hiker must hike. Thankfully, the terrain in Maryland makes for merry moseying. It’s no wonder witches call the area home. Indeed, after yesterday’s Weverton Challenge, today’s topography was almost placid. The trail remained woeful--rocks, roots, ruts, ridges, remains of college kids--but this much was expected. It must be dreamy to be a witch and hover over all these obstacles! Footpath, yeah right.

After a brief back-up breakfast at the Ed Garvey Shelter we walked on and soon realized we were but a mile from Burkittsville, site of some Blair Witch filming. Opting not to take the side-trip, we made our way toward Gathland State Park, where we lounged on the grass and swung through its Civil War Correspondents Museum. The museum covered those intrepid souls who covered the war, but I wasn’t interested. Neither were the others. I lasted the longest inside, mostly out of courtesy toward the shrinking silver-haired lady running the place; she was so endearing. Why do I feel shame for not finding interest in what others do?

Once outside, we idled away a solid few hours basking beneath a lambent, hellbent sun, taking full advantage the park’s lush lawn, restrooms, spigots, vending machines, and garbage bins. It was apparent not one of us could think of a better way to use our afternoon. Without a word, without a check of the time, without a single display of impatience, we just were. I posed aloud: “Isn’t it splendid to be a human being and not a human doing?” As goes the joke: Veni, vidi, Velcro. We came, we saw, we stuck around. It was the perfect moment in life; we lazed there wishing we could stay in it forever.

When it was time to peel the skin back from our eyes, we pulled the rug out from our picnic and carried on north. It was, after all, an ideal day for a hike. No sooner than we’d departed the park did Mountain Goat put half a football field on us. Escape Goat. We joked that the dude can walk like Forrest Gump runs. But within seconds he stopped and crouched down, as though he had seen a bear. “Get down, shut up!” he joked, doing his best Lieutenant Dan; he must’ve heard us. We tiptoed toward him. “What’s up?”

“Check it out,” he said, pointing to a Corolla parked in the lot across the park. It was black and in poor health: rusted, scratched, dented, faded, balding tires.

“What?” Backstreet and I asked in unison. “What is it? Funnybone’s dream car?”

“No, it’s that gonzo mofo Crazy Horse!”

We started giggling like school children. It was him all right, living in his car and feigning to be a thru-hiker. We had him pegged perfectly back in Waynesboro, as any legitimate thru-hiker would’ve; counterfeits ain’t fit! Mountain Goat continued his crouching tiger and slowly approached, as if he were leading troops into a potential skirmish. I nearly soaked my shorts.

A Crazy Goat sneaking up on a Crazy Horse

Loco Horse wished not to be seen. He tucked into his passenger seat and pretended to be shuffling through stuff. The busiest man in the world with nothing to do, and nowhere but his car in which to do it. His Tennessee tags were long since démodé, the poor dude.

“Wayne’s World!” Backstreet roared as we drew near, but Crazy Horse did not hear, or pretended not to. I nearly soiled my shorts.

For the next ten minutes we spoke of the oily-haired, pasty guy, wondering why he felt the need to play the part of a hiker. No one gave a damn, least of all us. We reasoned that it was done simply to survive, what with all the handouts a hiker receives. The guy had landed upon tough times, a life of strife. Whether he brought them on himself mattered not. They were his and only his, and he sought fit to do whatever it took to survive them, as any sane person would. Still, the four of us were obligated to poke fun in his direction, not because of the safe distance between us or even because of his deceitfulness, but because of the ridiculous appearance. We judge harshly, we homely, homeless-looking folk.

“If I were going to pretend to be someone I wasn’t,” said Backstreet, “I’d at least look the part of whoever I wasn’t.”

When we reached the suspiciously-named Crampton Gap Shelter, talk turned to more serious matter--whether we should rest again. We opted not to. Rest is hardly rejuvenating when it’s all you’ve done all day. It’s not even juvenating. We shuffled on, deciding to squat at either the Rocky Run Shelter or the Dahlgren Backpack Campground, both but a handful of miles away. It would be a Hike Day Lite--though not at all a low-calorie one--but we’d still carry out a half-marathon. It takes the fastest runners less than an hour to cover such a distance; it took us all day. But, like Crazy Horse, those runners don’t wear packs. And they don’t laugh when doing it.

PS: We’d end up at the Dahlgren Campground which, it must be noted, has HOT FRICKIN’ SHOWERS! Once we saw this tidbit in our guidebooks, we had no other choice. There are six of us settled on site, each unsullied: we four, Coolie, and an oddity of a guy, a thirty-somethinger bedecked in drab fatigues, as if he’s fighting some sort of war. Maybe he is. Maybe we all are. Maybe we’re all fatigued. In any case, mysterious sounds abound around the grounds, and there are strange stick figures littering the landscape.