A Limp in the Woods (Day 86)

An Appalachian Trail Tale
Day 86: Tuesday, June 18th, 2013
Allentown Shelter area to Palmerton = 18 miles
Miles to date: 1,254

Dear Diary,

I’d share all that took place today, but what happens on the AT stays on the AT. AT Confidential, man.

Love, Funnybone

PS: I’m pulling your leg. Besides, on the AT, rarely does anything happen. And so it is I scribe…

~~~~~~~~~~

Soon after our quirky quintet quit our quietude and began the balancing act atop Pennsylvania’s rocky road, we happened upon two teens. (Full disclosure: they happened upon us.) The boys’ summer vacation had just embarked and they wanted to enjoy it to the fullest, by heading to the hills for some days. 

Teenagers aren’t the brightest of things. Their packs were the largest we’d seen. Sleeping bags like huge rolled-up hay bales were strapped atop. The bags might proffer protection in the event of a fall, if they were to tip over backwards, which didn’t look implausible. But because of their youthanized years they were HOPPING from rock to rock, with no trouble whatsoever, and with no regard for the anguish we were dealing with. It was disgusting. Rock bottom.

It’s a timeworn recollection, but I remember being their age once, back when I still stood a chance at changing. (I remember more than once; what I mean is I was their age once and still remember it as though it was just thirty odd years ago.) This was long before the future got ahead of itself, before electronic gadgetry became the centerpiece of our lives, and before I began suffering from a dreaded case of TMB(1).

My pal, Jon Sadler, a professor who once professed he didn’t deserve to be a professor (he did: he worked), invited me to his cabin in the High Sierra. We got there by way of my non-operational, chain-smoking mom and work-averse* stepdad, in the back of their beat up pick up, a hour after leaving the Low Sierra. Jon and I were immortal, but too young to drive. In those days, the era of moon boots, we relied heavily on people who could drive, or people who thought they could. Our drivers continued to Stateline’s casinos, where they perfected their everlasting losing streak.

(* This was his one redeeming quality.)

Jon’s lineage has owned the cabin on Echo Lake since dinosaurs roamed. It was Jon, who can ID every bird ever, who introduced me to long-distance backpacking. Or what we considered long-distance. Our packs then rivaled these teens’ this morning. In spite of the bulk, I knew then I was addicted to the freedom of the hills. (I’m taking steps to overcome my hiking addiction, but I’m not out of the woods yet.) Hills help hatch happiness. In my case, a new nightly home, one exclusive of abuse, anxiety or cigarette smoke. I stared into the cosmos each night and knew I’d found my home. I learned: there is no such thing as homeless. And there’s no place like home. I was home free.

Here I am, eons on, still sleeping under that same leaky roof. I was delighted to see these boys discovering what Jon and I had learned long ago. I hoped they’d learn to pare down their packs, for their sake. Still, they disappeared before us, handicap and all.

I remember being their age. It was more fun being young. Up yours, clock! (My best childhood memory is my back not aching.)

Mountain Goat, who’s got fine motoring skills, could’ve kept pace with the squirts, but what for? If he wants immaturity he’s got us! As per routine, he led the charges--each of us uncharged--down the trail. If there’s a more fitting trailname for the spry guy, we can’t think of it. His strides aren’t quick, but they eat up this realest of real estate in chunks. A long lope, with toes pointed outward as much as forward. At six feet and some odd inches, we’re the same height. I don’t get it.

In real life Goat goes by Steffan North. Those of us who know him (we insiders outside) would petition his parents to rename him, Steppin’ North, if we knew them. When I suggested he try to set an AT speed record, he gave me a blank look. “Why would I do that?” That’s another reason I love him.

About these (track) records. Each year there’s a swelling sum of hikers aiming to cover a set distance faster than those before them. A prescribed burn, in hopes of leaving a mark. It’s odd behavior if you ask me; it’s odd behavior if you don’t. Why? Because it reeks of a need for attention and approbation. These runner-hikers require external positive validation, because their parents, it seems, failed to bequeath enough love. And they’ve been craving attention ever since, lured by the prospect of applause, if even just the virtual variety. Just look at their social media presence.

I suppose long trails are a sensible setting for such exploits. They have clear-cut start and finish lines (sometimes in more ways than one) and we humans love to test and measure ourselves. And again, there are online forums full of fans, cyber hikers--couch coaches--who seem to do nothing but sit in the bleachers under artificial lighting, blabbling about such matters. (Along with other critical stuff, like whether to leave the baskets on their hiking poles.) Who doesn’t want followers? Even the son of gawd needed them.

But trails have no entry fees, no official waivers to sign and no competitor list (nor any competitors, except maybe for those who’ve previously achieved the feat). No official anything, including officials (as in: it’s no trouble to cheat and avoid trouble). There’s no prize money either. Just a personal challenge and a lot of sounding your blow-hole, to whomever will listen. The thing is you can be the fastest walker in the world, maybe even the most well-known, but you’ll never be as cool as the third-string quarterback.

These speed records are also known by their more accurate name, Fastest ‘Known’ Time, since, again, there are many opportunities to pull a Rosie Ruiz (catching rides; taking more direct routes; using performance enhancing drugs; etc.). The only certainty is that no record is certain. Ours is a world full of frauds; this much is certain.

As a washed-up athlete once paid the big bucks to be painted in loud logos from head-to-toe, I’m all too familiar with cheating types. Thus I prefer to call any such performance a fastest presumed time. But I certainly don’t presume to believe. Or care. I’m more concerned about the baskets on my hiking poles. Should they stay or should they go? Anyway--here comes a horrifying crack at humor--aren’t all hiking records a bit pedestrian?!

Records I’d like to set are the Funnnest Known Time and to have spent more time in the mountains, forests, prairies, and deserts than I could’ve ever dreamed of. So far, so very good. After all, anything worth walking is worth walking slowly, and everything is worth walking.

However! I’m all for challenges and can relate. (I’d’ve never made it as an endurance athlete had my parents bequeathed enough love; there was a reason, of the twelve of us on the US National Cycling Team, eleven came from failed families, including the famed drug pedaler goon. Incidentally, we may have come from broken homes, but we were not housebroken!)

What I can’t identify with is how anyone could assert to love the doing, only to race to be done. If I loved something--or someone--I’d want the feeling, the praxis, to last. By finishing sooner, they’re not collecting a bigger payday; they’re gathering a smaller one. The first one to Katahdin is the biggest loser! (The experience is what we’re after, not its completion.) But since I don’t care much about others, minus my friends--past, present and future--I’ll leave the seething at that. You can’t recant a rant.

As our day uncoiled here in Rocksylvania, we set our tastebuds on Palmerton, an unloved, post-industrial pit. One you can smell before seeing. That smell is of ever-present depression; this is Appalachia after all. Still, we trusted its sidewalks weren’t made of jagged stones marked with blood and blazes. If so, Palmerton would be our interpretation of a palm-tree paradise: Cloud Eight. Even Cloud One would be superior to PA’s foot-killing footpath. (Repeat Reality: no one can hike this trail without his or her arms! The AT is not a footpath; it is a full-body path. Hands-free, no siree.)

It was rumored Palmerton opened its palms to hikers, letting us stay in an old jail below City Hall. The jail had been transfigured into a hostel. But hikers could only do dungeon time after police processing. ID was required; fingerprints, mugshots and delousing were not.

Awesome! My most memorable stopover on previous adventures was a night in the slammer in Houston. The other Houston, in Missouri. It was during a trans-USA bike trip, the same one photoed on my Day 34-35 write-up. 8’ x 10’ cell; concrete bed; stainless steel shitter (which I stained); barred window; solitary confinement. I’d been detained voluntarily. Deputies didn’t want me camping in the city park, after they’d found me there. (“For your own protection.”) I was fed a feast that’d top everything I ate that entire trip.

Who can predict memories? And who doesn’t love ‘em? (They allow you to never do anything new.)

Despite the land’s ludicrous layout, we moved expeditiously. There were trips to terra firma, but no appreciable debacles. I had been reunited with my hiking poles, having wrapped bushels of duct tape around the broken tip. I felt stable. Duct tape is an essential in my frugal life; and it is damn near compulsory during a thru-hike. Because, as they say…

“If it ain’t broke, don’t get yourself in a fix; the AT will break it.” 

And duct tape will fix everything but a broken heart. Maybe even that, but I haven’t tried; the stuff I buy is expensive! Plus, just as I love the open road, so do I love the open wound. Raw, real, ripping…and all part of being a fragile individual, all part of being human.

By midafternoon, thunderclouds began building, reminding us of our frailty. It may have been what kept us moving, more even than the allure of town. Fear motivates in ways comfort can’t.

As the storm metastasized, pellets started to fall. Then missiles. Luckily we reached the Bake Oven Knob, one of the trail’s oldest shelters. Built in 1937, around the time the trail became a trail--an otherwise bleak era when full-feature films were shot in black and white and sometimes came without sounds--the shelter stood squatty.

“People musta been short in ‘37,” said Backstreet. “Never mind that I’m still short in 2013. I’m glad this place doesn’t have a urinal; someone would hafta pick me up so I could use it.” We stopped in--stooped in--to ride out the storm. It’d pass before our eyes (and the rest of our bodies). Before this slog I couldn’t embrace the idea of shelters. Now I swear by them. Then again, I swear whether I’m near a shelter or not. The AT does that to a person.

When it was time to vanish, I strode beside the largest reptile I’d seen yet, an eastern indigo snake, commonly called a black snake. It could’ve been a black mamba for all I knew. It was slithering right up the side of the shelter. We nearly rubbed shoulders, or whatever it is snakes have. I shrieked like a pre-teen girl, rousing a round of laughter and ridicule. All well deserved.

The shelter’s register indicated there were “NO MICE HERE.” We now knew why. I doubt there are animals of any type in the area: porcupines, wild boar, hyenas, elephants. At seven feet, this sucker couldn’t have been surviving on half-ounce rodents alone.

After descending to Lehigh Gap and crossing the languid, coffee-colored Lehigh River, we reached Palmerton (pop: 5,300-ish but shrinking). This was thanks to a lift by a local trail angel named Lothar (meaning: famed warrior). Lothar’s birth name was Rochelle (yes, a female, both when she was born and still, though by that I don’t mean stillborn).

Lothar pulled over on the bridge spanning the waterway as we walked along its protected pedestrian portion. With no escape route, due to oncoming traffic, cars began backing up behind her. She wasn’t bothered. We were--horns do that to hikers--so told her we’d meet at bridge’s end. The momentarily-postponed motorists flashed us death stares and middle fingers. We smiled and waved, jogging toward a sooner end to it all.

In town--our first true mining town (legacy left: abandoned factories; economic depression; toxic waste; unemployment; missing vegetation; and so forth)--we thanked Lothar. We then checked into the City Hall dungeon, via the PIG department. Pride, Integrity, Guns-a-blazin.’ I’ve seen worse jail cells. Been in worse. Rights waived, we jaywalked across the street to eat.

Our choice was a place called Bert’s, where bacon grease is considered an essential oil. I fell in love with our waitress, a natural-looking, shy, young blond. No warpaint; no bolt-on boobs; no collagen lips; no liposuctioned hips; no bleached hair; no fake lashes or brows; no chemicals; no attitude; and, as far as I could tell, no piercings. This was real love--that timeless agony--not faithless hollow lust. Normal conduct for me. The prettier and more natural they are, the more I squander on tips. In this case, more than my meal’s cost. What a sucker. A satisfied one.

"Foot"note 1: Too Many Birthdays. Heck, I'm still suffering from birthdaze.