A Limp in the Woods (Day 73)

An Appalachian Trail Tale
Day 73: Wednesday, June 5th, 2013
Dahlgren Campground to Falls Creek Site = 24 miles
Miles to date: 1,060

 Pepé Le Pew

Lately, there’s been a whole lotta tooking goin’ on--I took a shower last night; I took one seventeen miles ago; I took another this morning. Soap, washcloth, rubber ducky and all. For an alleged thru-hiker I am criminally clean. Spoiled, not soiled. I feel so...domesticated.

The showers at Dahlgren Campground are free. Unlike other free showers, these ones are hot. Hot water isn’t just a nicety; it’s required, like the soap, to peel the layers of filth the ATer (aka the Grime Reaper) accrues. Even so, to get to the grime’s fountainhead, it takes multiple dousings, an abrasive washcloth, and some elbow grease. Big time grime. My guess is that much of the dirtiness isn’t caused exclusively by the trail, but by the hiker diet. We feel grungy from the inside out. Rot occurs at the gut level and permeates outward. Trail dirt is just icing on the decaying cake.

Anyway, I awoke early before awaking late. A skulking skunk caused the premature rousing. I laid there doggo, stiff as the boards I slept atop, deeply cocooned in my feathery bag. I prayed no one would agitate the striped sprayer. I’d taken up residence atop a wooden table, and was presumably out of harm’s way, but the critter’s tail was raised and at the ready, locked and loaded, aiming directly between my crusted eyes. My heart pounded feverishly, until the point of its--the skunk’s--departure.

Upon the subsequent wake-up call, the others were gone.(1) Only Coolie McJetPack and the camouflage guy visiting from another planet remained. The two were jawing, as they had deep into last night. It turns out Camo Guy was also attempting a thru-hike. He’d started just three days ago, in Harpers. With the tardy start, he decided to first go halfsies--that is attempt to make it to Maine, before somehow (he didn’t know) returning to Harpers to continue southward toward Springer. A sort of Thru-in-Two approach. I call it seasoning: a wise use of the seasons.

But Camo Man appeared otherwise. The more the G.I. Joe pretender spoke, the more I realized: the Appalachian Trail is the World’s Longest Freak Show. Here was definitive proof the gene pool could use a better filtration system, or maybe fewer lifeguards, or maybe stronger chlorine. The guy asked Coolie to help him dissect his pack, to prune it to only the essentials. (Ah, only the essentials! Behold! Everyone’s ‘essentials’ differ, essentially.) Coolie’s pack was the heaviest I’d lifted, so I began eavesdropping, for entertainment purposes.

When Camo Man pulled out a machete a mile long, I cocked my flappy ears and tuned in more. This is good stuff, I thought to myself, concealing a grin. A modern day swashbuckler!

I didn’t fault Army Surplus Guy or Coolie for being greenhorns. We were all there once. But of all the hikers he could’ve asked help from, Coolie was not it. Backstreet and I both strove to help him shed some weight back in Harpers, to no avail. The guy’s pack had reached a tipping point--literally--yet he was reluctant to let anything go, including his Martin guitar. I’d prefer packing an air guitar, but I get toting the Martin, naturally. Life without music would be death. But Backstreet and I estimated his load weighed three times ours. Where we saw challenge in taking less, Coolie saw it in taking more.

As their powwow continued, I gathered my gear, air guitar and all, and walked over. Camo Man not only sounded unprepared; he looked the part. He was thin but with pronounced belly, his skin weathered (not from sunshine so much as from acne scars and what had to have been long-haul drug use), and his muscles soft and flabby. He wore demon-black combat boots laced to mid-shin and carried more weaponry than some armies: the machete, a switchblade, a pair of nunchakus, a large buck knife and, I kid not, throwing stars. I didn’t see any, but he might’ve had incendiary devices.

Throwing stars, aka shuriken, are mini circular saw-blades. They’re about two-thirds the diameter of a compact disc and designed to be launched at an enemy, like, for example, a band of ambushing ninjas. They could also be tossed, as I’d soon see, at a less antagonistic entity. They’re heavy and highly dangerous and absolutely and utterly impractical to the long-distance backpacker. (I’ve seen but few ninjas on the AT, and they’re usually too tired to fight anyone.)

“What’re these for?” I asked, somewhat facetiously.

“Self-duh-fense,” the stranger replied. (Stranger as in six kinds of strange--not unfamiliar, unfortunately.)

Coolie stood and barged over to the bathroom, leaving me on my own, leaving me nervous. Camo Man was a skittish sort, a loose cannon, the kind of guy who could never quite make eye contact, the kind that might jump or pull out a knife if you were to sneeze, the kind who’s clearly done some time behind bars, or will.

“From what?” I asked. Blair Witch?

“Frum any-wun who might n’ try n’ attack me.”

“Why not just use one of your knives? Or a chainsaw? Or a gun?” I asked, skirting the more pressing matter as to why anyone would choose him to assail. He had nothing I wanted.

“Ize unable tuh getta gun permit.”

No surprises there, I thought. I’d surmised he had a troubled past and was attempting to run from it here in the sticks; this is not uncommon on these trails.

“But don’t you think these might weigh too much?”

“Might?” he replied, in the form of a question.

“Do,” I replied, in the form of an answer. “Don’t you think these do weigh too much?”

I lifted them and estimated each deadly disc at eight ounces of dead weight.

“Nah, not cunsiderin’ what they could do tuh somewun,” he replied.

“And do you think you’d have time to pull one out and throw it at an attacker? I mean, what if he were standing close enough to wrestle it from you? Or what if he had a gun?”

Rambo ignored my rationale. “Let me show ya sumpthin.’” 

He was growing agitated by my line of reasoning. A volatile one, this one.

He grabbed one of the throwing stars. It had eight jagged points, each sharpened to a razor-like blade. A yin-yang symbol was embossed in its center, perhaps for balance. It shined like a mirror, despite the drab day.

“See that there tree?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I answered, “that one?”

“Yeah, that wun.”

The hardwood would be hard not to see. It stood eight feet away. Somewhat of an expert botanist, I determined it to be an oak or ash or hemlock or maple or chestnut or beech or birch. Maybe a sequoia, maybe a Joshua. It had large green leaves that looked like road-flattened frogs. Its trunk was two and a half feet in diameter, four feet above where it pierced the sloppy earth, where I guessed he was about to take aim. All told, about the girth of a plump hewman. Or a thin American.

“Watch this,” he commanded.

I stood ready. I also stood back, if only for reasons of personal safety and longevity. He drew his right arm rearward and hurled the star toward the tree in a blur of sorts. A true firearm.

Only he misfired.

The eight-edged circle went whizzing past the tree into the verdant backdrop, and for the next few minutes I got to watch Camo Man throw something else: a tantrum of heroic magnitude.

After the worst of the fury, he got on all fours and began scraping leaves away from the muddy ground, in search of his shuriken. I decided to make myself scarce, if only for reasons of personal safety and longevity. As I fled I started scribing, ending with: I’d hate to live in a world where I thot weapons were necessary to go backpacking, and I meant it. I will always mean it.

When hiking you run the risk of bumping into others you don’t want to be near. This is not normally a big deal in the safety net of society, where easy escape routes exist. We’ve all sidestepped mendicants, or designed detours around the jingling Salvation Army solicitor. (When Christmas comes, always enter a store via its exit; yule be glad you did.) But in the woods, with only a single common thread around, dodging, ducking and disappearing aren’t so easy.

I hiked hard for hours, in case Camo Clown could cruise. I knew it was improbable, given the superfluous garb, but the guy made me jumpy. Fidgety types do that, like a contagion of sorts. It was best to put some real estate between us. I fretted for Coolie and his filthy guitar, but figured he could fend for himself. Or die.

Eventually I’d cross a frantic Interstate 70 on a fenced-in pedestrian bridge, waving to cars as I went. The overpass is just up the road from the rest stop where the beltway snipers were caught. Although I was alone, it was important to keep with hiker trend. I dropped my shorts, bent over and crouched there thinking about life for a minute: was it nothing more than a bunch of honking and yelling? It sure seemed that way. With shorts back up I strolled on, happy to leave the raucous corridor.

I was still on my own when I reached the Pine Knob Shelter. I hoped my people might be there, but no. Just a scribbled note in the register. It was left by Backstreet, who rarely signs anything. He asked where I was. Here, I thought. He must know that. The pressing question was: where were they?

I had a headache brewing and had been unable to put forth any considerable effort; each step led to additional pounding in my noggin, more than the usual amount the AT inspires. I was dehydrated and it was turning out to be another sticky scorcher, so I took in some caffeinated Headache Helper and some boiled broth. 

The salty soup originated in cube form--bullion cubes are a perspiring hiker’s best friend--so I added a couple liters of spring water and sucked down the stuff, a deserving customer. That and a nap made all the difference. Before long I was back to my normal slow-moving self. Re-energized, life seemed a possibility once more.

By early evening, with gloaming roaming, I’d crossed the Mason-Dixon Line. I was now in my seventh state, this one known as Pennsylvania, where Dracula is from. I was now also officially in the Northeast. Be gone Confederates! It was now on to those slave-abolishing Unionizers. More my type, though I seldom pick sides.

The woods were identical on either side, a biogenic carbon-y copy. It’s been this way on either side of every fabricated line so far. I celebrated the non-occasion by taking a pee on each side. My insides had been sloshing for the past few hours, but it beat a pounding head. I reminded myself that, despite the hassle of having to stop to douse the plants every twenty minutes, food and fluids were always more useful in the belly than on the back.

I pitched my tent in a deep, dark ravine next to a trickling Falls Creek. Or I tried to. Immediately I was forced to relocate. The ground I’d chosen was plenty conducive to a comfortable night, but two of my three tent stakes were bent awry while driving them home. A thin layer of dirt concealed the hard Pennsylvanian truth beneath. A few paces this way or that and all was well.

The creek is lined with the anthropomorphic logo. A beer can here, a motor oil container there, a tampon applicator keeping ‘em separated. I’m sandwiched between two roads. Each is higher than my whereabouts and each is busy. But it’s hushed down here. A couple of women are camped fifty yards away. Unless they come say hi we’ll keep our distance; it’s got to be unnerving enough just seeing some stranger’s headlamp skittering about. For all they know I could be another Camo Man. Just not camo enough.

"Flee"note 1: We only wake each other when asked. The trail requires recovery, which requires the prudent hiker to do as his or her body asks.