A Limp in the Woods (Day 116)

An Appalachian Trail Tale
Day 116: Thursday, July 18th, 2013
Melville Nauheim Shelter to Kid Gore Shelter = 13 miles
Miles to date: 1,622

Once Upon a Lyme
(aka Tick Talk)

Because we’d bucked etiquette and erected our tents inside the Melville Nauheim Shelter, we caught some shuteye. The pests persist. Bearbell seems to slumber no matter what, a full-fledged hibernation. But if I’m to wake with eye-crust each morning I need to attack the act--inaction--with gusto. And a pair of earplugs, a foam sleeping pad, a swig of something spirited, a mosquito-proof tent and a waterproof roof. If I had a pillow and a teddy bear, I’d make use of them too. I do not have a pillow or a teddy bear. There are times I cuddle with a generous wad of fluffy toilet paper. Unused, usually.

Upon rousing I took care of the typical antemeridian tasks. First: drain the bladder contents into a carefully-marked pee bottle. I’ve been using the twenty-ounce bottle to shield myself from the maelstrom of mosquitoes lying in wait. ("URINE! DO NOT INGEST UNLESS ATHIRST!") For safety sake I use a dissimilar container than that of my drink bottles--a wide-mouth one, naturally--and have also marked it with a duct-taped top, so I don’t unwittingly guzzle from it in the dark, a flub I hope I never make. (Again.) One must out-think the mosquitoes if one is to survive them.

After the bladder matter I examined those hard-to-reach places for ticks, a task I’d neglected last night. I’d dodged the chore because of inherent indolence and dread; I’m afraid to grope and find things attached to my person, things I was not born with. Wens, warts, welts, zits, keloids, tumors, cysts, sacs, lumps, bumps, nose-rings, women (or men, for that matter), third testicles, third nipples, bloodsucking arachnids--you name it.

Though we haven’t seen many of the landlocked leeches of late, and certainly nowhere near as many as we had laid eyes upon in Pennsylvania and New Jersey (those who’d laid fingers upon us, or whatever it is they have), there have been a number attempting to cling.

Well, as it was, a big brazen number had found success and had in fact clung. True, that number was just one, but that one had lodged itself into that hideous brain below, not far from the base of the shaft.

The tick had augured-in right down the middle of that leathery sack, on that strange seam where it looks like we males had been sewn together from two halves. (I’d post pics, but you’ll just have to take my word.) I tend to scream at the sight of said area without or without adornments, but here now, it was made far, far worse, what with my new-found, eight-legged tumor. Tumor terror.

The thought of contracting Lyme Disease struck the very core of my being, and I panicked, ripping the little sucker out (from the very core of my being) with nothing more than an instantaneous fit of frenzy and a pair of dirty fingernails (mine).

Despite the heavy breathing and my cries, Bearbell kept snoozing. Just as well, I thought. ‘Twas news I didn’t care--or dare--share. He’d assuredly only spread it like a communicable disease.

The panic left me a bloody wreck. The dangling anatomy is not where a man cares to see himself spraying blood; it had me seeing red. Worse yet, I had to make sure I removed the tick completely. If its head remained embedded, it could infect. 

Then there was the issue of first aid. 

I wasn’t even carrying second or third aid, let alone the first kind. Toilet paper would have to do the job--a poor man’s gauze. I was dangerously low on the stuff, but had no choice; I had to sponge up the mess and quell the flow, before donning my crusty shorts.

Bearbell stirred as I began tearing down my portable emergency room. I’m not sure he would’ve, had I not inadvertently dropped one of my poles on his tent. But he was glad I’d prodded him and was prepared to move on before I. Even with numerous long-distance hikes to my name, I’m still the slowest of them all when it comes to setting up or tearing down camp.

Frenchie patiently awaited my inescapable bowelogical summoning and we were off before too long, but just before it. The terrain and the trail were tolerable, and the scenery absorbing. Vermont was turning out to be just as we’d hoped. The ridge walking and the higher elevations were helping to purge the pests while adding to the number of expansive views. An idyllic ideal. How hiking should be. Even when they choose to be, as they so often do, humans aren’t meant to be hemmed-in. Or pestered.

“You look tu be walking funny tu-day, Funnybonerz.”

“I do?”

“Yeah.”

I wasn’t about to mention the tick near my dick--again, Bearbell would tell everyone, mostly the ladies--and so instead I just lied about being stiff and sore from the trail’s usual demands. He fell for it.

Our first goal, if we lugged one, was to reach the Goddard Shelter, where we were to have lunch. If hunger struck before that, we’d comply with our metabolic demands, but the incentive helped motivate us. Both Bearbell and I played games like this, as the majority of thru-hikers do, rewarding ourselves with additional snacks when we got to our goal. The issue here was that the Goddard Shelter sat more than a thousand feet higher and progress was glacial(1), eating up the morning in chunks.

The peak just beyond the lean-to, Glastenbury Mountain, reached close to four thousand feet, the first time in months I’d been as high, and the first time Bearbell would be his entire trip. Although the landscape wasn’t precisely alpine, it was pine--fresh and fragrant, lively and lovely. We labored on, leaving the hardwood forests briefly behind. Rhythm well established, we decided to push past the shelter after a speedy sign-in in its notepad/register. “Funnybone was here,” I penned. Clipped, but if nothing else an admissible alibi. One never knows when someone (else) might be murdered out here(2).

Our reward came not just in extra M&M’s, but via the views. Climbing, as stupid-difficult as it is with a load, can be wonderfully rewarding. At least when the trees give room. Atop Glastenbury they did not, but a fire tower enabled us to top them and enjoy the fruits of our labors. In Vermont, the AT gives generously in exchange for our efforts.

We stood in silence for a length of time before Bearbell broke it. “What du you suh-ppose ze M in M&M stands for?”

“For profit,” I answer.

“Why didn’t zay just uze a ‘P’?”

“I don’t know. I suppose M&M has a better ring to it, I guess. Maybe it stands for Melted Munchies,” I replied, looking down at the gooey, globular mess in our hands.

Silence resumed as we resumed pounding the one-pound bag. We continued to crane our necks in all directions, including downward. I noticed it was a long ways down; more than enough to do irreparable damage in the event of a fall. I also noticed what appeared to be a bouncy chipmunk attempting to commandeer the rest of my food bag. But I couldn’t be sure of the species from such a height; it might’ve been a ferret. Or a bear.

Anyway, I’d imprudently left the food bag on the ground beside my pack, assuming the pack’s odor would ward off any self-respecting varmints, but alas, I was in error. I hurried down the tower’s many stairs, clamping onto the handrails with a death grip of sorts, lest my feet fail me, as common sense already had. On terra firma once more, I frightened the chirpy thief away with the help of a pinecone. Only a small baggie of salted sunflower seeds had been pillaged.

Frenchie and I carried on back down the mountain, glad the gradient enabled us to remain upright. There is seldom any smooth sailing on the AT and this wasn’t it either. But it allowed, for the most part, a humanly form of locomotion. Something we weren’t used to. The AT requires as much concentration as it does hardiness.

We had unwound at the fire tower for far too long, so just an hour an a half later we’d end up calling it a day at the Kid Gore Shelter, named after a kid who’d been inexplicably gored nearby. (I kid about such gore.) Aside from my testicular tick and the nervous tick that came with it, it had been another run of the mill day, only more walk of the mill. Utterly uneventful. We had covered a trifling thirteen miles, but yet were fine with it. Miles are meaningless, as are most events. Save for those in the footnote below. I’ll be sleeping with my eyelids peeled back, just as I had back in Blair Witch territory.

"Frost"note 1: Never mind that all across the seven continents glaciers are receding at record speeds; the term here is used to mean 'slowly.'

"Foot"note 2: Back in the 1940s and '50s Glastenbury had a reputation for mysterious disappearances. Five persons had vanished in the area, each on their own. Only the remains of one of them, fifty-three year-old Frieda Langer, have ever been found, appearing later in a spot that had already been thoroughly searched. Her body was so badly decomposed authorities couldn't make out what had happened. The rest--eighteen year-old Paula Welden; eight year-old Paul Jepson; seventy-four year-old Middie Rivers; and sixty-five year-old James Tedford were never seen again. Tedford's case differs from the others: he'd been traveling on a bus in the area at the time of his vanishing, leaving all his belongings on board, making them "personal effects."