An Appalachian Trail Tale
Day 119: Sunday, July 21st, 2013
Bromley Mtn to Big Branch Shelter Area = 13 miles
Miles to date: 1,664
Day 119: Sunday, July 21st, 2013
Bromley Mtn to Big Branch Shelter Area = 13 miles
Miles to date: 1,664
The Ten Essentials
(Know more, Carry Less)
Of all the amenities the modern world offers, or what we dub the modern world(1), I do not long for many. Don’t even care for ‘em. I don’t require a bed. (My sleep mat is rice-paper-thin, but I prefer it over any bed.) A stale atmosphere--i.e., air-conditioning--holds no interest, despite this epidemic of toasty days. I’d never desire a rolling recliner--aka automobile--when my feet, pulverized though they are, open up this (modern) world to far greater environments. Nor do I want artificial lighting (especially during daytime) or an electronic book reader or a flushable (i.e., cloggable) toilet or a microwave oven or, for reasons all too clear, a mirror. Definitely not a television. I’ve never even used an ATM and have no idea what the letters stand for: Access To Money? Ass To Mouth?
No. My hi-tech lures are simpler. A seat for my weary bones. (Bones don’t tire; only mind and muscle do; oh, and any old rock or stump will do.) A lighter. A soggy bandana, to wipe away the layers of grime and smegma. The occasional ice cube in my drink. Earplugs to drown out the gale from Bearbell’s nasal passage, which, by the by, drowns out the tornado from my backside. That’s about it. Nothing sumptuous. Footwear, a sack to carry the nitty-gritty, a book, reading glasses. Boy butter. A passing taco truck.
It’s peculiar, but outdoorsy magazines and lore tells us we should never go backpacking without the “ten essentials,” the preponderance of which have nil to do with survival. Yet we’re assured we need them to visit the woods, or the possibility of perishing increases dramatically. When news of a hiker found dead circulates, people are quick to proclaim he’d have lived to tell the tale had he only been prepared. It’s never mentioned whether he was prepared to die, or that driving to the woods is more parlous than being in them.
The TEN ESSENTIALS (devised to get you to spend)
According to REI…
Updated Ten Essential “Systems”
Navigation (map and compass or GPS/phone)
Sun protection (sunglasses and sunscreen)
Insulation (extra clothing)
Illumination (headlamp/flashlight)
First-aid supplies
Fire (waterproof matches/lighter/candles)
Repair kit and tools
Nutrition (extra food)
Hydration (extra water)
Emergency shelter
Classic Ten Essentials
Map
Compass
Sunglasses and sunscreen
Extra clothing
Headlamp/flashlight
First-aid supplies
Fire-starter
Matches
Knife
Extra food
Extra food
Modern-Day Ten Essentials
“Smart”phone (camera, video camera, MP3 player, etc.) with 911 on speed-dial (to reach SAR ASAP)
Back-up battery/batteries
Solar charger
Cell service/WiFi/Internet access (for Facebook, YouTube and shitty blogs like this)
A Go-Pro (etc) (video“tape”...not duct tape!)
A SPOT device
Self-defense (mace, gun, knife, light saber)
Inflatable mattress
Inflatable pillow
Fully inflated ego
I’ve never carried a buck knife or matches or first aid (excluding coffee), and I often go without compass or night-light on week-long off-trail backpacking trips. Don’t even get me started on sunscreen as an essential! (It does assist with the onanism jism.) The ten essentials I value are more practical, but much harder to acquire. They cannot be purchased. They do not fit inside a pack. But they are of more benefit to the hiker than some material goods. This list, a true apocalypse survival kit, is part of my own personal Tao Te Dingaling. It is comprised of the following:
1) WISDOM (I’m not there yet--more wizdumb than wisdom)
2) KNOWLEDGE OF THYSELF (strengths, weaknesses, limits, lies, truths, etc)
3) Knowledge of the goal and what it requires (EXPERIENCE!) (e.g., experience teaches you it is easier to trim your thick toenails after a sopping wet day. I use my teeth; it keeps me limber and saves weight.)
4) KNOWLEDGE OF MA NATURE (terrain, weather, potential weather, edible plants, etc)
5) FITNESS (structural, aerobic, metabolic) (see today’s bonus entry!)
6) EGO (confidence in your ABILITIES, not your capacities*) (The AT has a way of dealing with overconfidence.)
7) LACK OF EGO (i.e., a willingness to “fail” by retreating when necessary, etc. Ego ain’t your amigo!)
8) TOLERANCE** (of struggle, of conditions, of others, of bugs, of hard ground, etc)
8) TOLERANCE** (of struggle, of conditions, of others, of bugs, of hard ground, etc)
9) WATER ACCESS/FOOD ACCESS (regardless of metabolic fitness)
10) KNOWLEDGE OF EQUIPMENT (primarily of Nature’s equipment(2))
11) GEAR (toilet paper, clothing, fire starter, shelter, space blanket, compass, map, boy butter, monkey wrenches, etc)
12) COFFEE
*Ability is measurable; capacity is a condition.
**Tolerance is closely related to stubbornness, a trait all accomplished thru-hikers possess.
**Tolerance is closely related to stubbornness, a trait all accomplished thru-hikers possess.
I don’t deem hiking a dicey proposition (risks run remote when one is remote), though there’s obviously some risk involved. Trees fall. Storms move in. Humans err. (Or you do.) But history’s taught me that there’s an inverse relationship: that risk decreases as the acumen, wisdom, knowledge, and fitness increase.
Fitness is my preferred protection. It alone has got me out of more binds than any other consideration. (Even when it was responsible for getting me into them!) And I’ve long learned that gear or “choosing the right equipment” is not a panacea like manufacturers want you to believe(3); gear isn’t the solution to every challenge, and happiness comes from the hiking, not from the crap we carry. “I don’t hike to buy gear,” says an old neighbor Paul Magnanti, “I buy gear to hike.”
And it don’t take much. Thru-hiking is the act of knowing what not to bring.
Natives--Indians--were hiking and camping (as we now define them) long before we wimps, long before REI told them what they required. They didn’t own compasses or flashlights or duct tape or Swiss Army knives or sunscreen or sunglasses or first-aid, yet somehow they managed. They even had time enough to relax and doodle on rocks. Imagine that! Modern mutants are growing softer--and dumber--with each generation. Devolving. De-evolving. “Are we not men?” asked Devo. D-E-V-O. The Old Peoples would’ve worried about Devo. In Devo I trust.
Natives--Indians--were hiking and camping (as we now define them) long before we wimps, long before REI told them what they required. They didn’t own compasses or flashlights or duct tape or Swiss Army knives or sunscreen or sunglasses or first-aid, yet somehow they managed. They even had time enough to relax and doodle on rocks. Imagine that! Modern mutants are growing softer--and dumber--with each generation. Devolving. De-evolving. “Are we not men?” asked Devo. D-E-V-O. The Old Peoples would’ve worried about Devo. In Devo I trust.
Protracted introductory excursion aside, as soon as the daily soapless soap opera commenced, The Blaze of Our Lives, my feet started pulsating. Pleading uncle. (If AT shelters came equipped with fire alarms, my flaming feet would set them off.) This isn’t just because of the usual suspects--the trail and the burden on back--but also because of the indignity that is AGING. I’ve aged ever since birth and my feet hate it. I do too. I’ve always hated it. Well, except up to the time of my thirtieth year, when, once in a blue moon, women actually smiled back. It wasn’t so bad then (B30).
After then (A30), it’s been akin to a disease--a chronic disorder I can’t seem to shake. (AD30?) Worse yet, this “aging process” is rapidly getting worse with each passing mile, and each pass of the sun. “Aging is the price we pay for living,” a doctor buddy once told me. “Besides, it beats the alternative.” I’m not really sure he knows, despite the extensive--expensive--medical training. I’m slowly sinking into the landscape, and it starts with the twenty-six bones in each of my feet. Nature is rough on the feet. I suppose there’s little I can do but trudge on, ever on, steadily digging my grave with my toes. Head out, feet first.
After then (A30), it’s been akin to a disease--a chronic disorder I can’t seem to shake. (AD30?) Worse yet, this “aging process” is rapidly getting worse with each passing mile, and each pass of the sun. “Aging is the price we pay for living,” a doctor buddy once told me. “Besides, it beats the alternative.” I’m not really sure he knows, despite the extensive--expensive--medical training. I’m slowly sinking into the landscape, and it starts with the twenty-six bones in each of my feet. Nature is rough on the feet. I suppose there’s little I can do but trudge on, ever on, steadily digging my grave with my toes. Head out, feet first.
By the time I headed out Tugboat and Chickadee were long gone. Early risers. Early movers. Early goners. Gone like a fart in the wind. Try as I might, or try as I might not, I was only gone in another sense. Deep into the Land of Nod. The mountains may have been calling, but I’d cut the line. A mosquito-free environment allowed for an uninterrupted slumber. No defective zippers to fret over. No wind (aside from mine). No snorers in the vicinity. No reason not to relax. The trail would beat me (back) down soon enough.
When the sun was perpendicular to the Earth, guilt rang and told me I should also be. Lacking anything better to do, I hoisted the cruel joke that is my backpack and began to toe the line. The butt of the joke. The punch line. Fortuitously, the early going (or the not-so-early-going, as it were) was trouble-free. Trouble-free, as in mostly downhill. But I favor the uphills at this stage--I’d rather strain the motor than the chassis--and the morning’s quad pounding soon had me limping along as slow as ever. Sir Limpsalot. Two hours later, at Mad Tom Notch, the climbing resumed. Almost immediately I joined Tom in his mad behavior, wishing to continue downward.
The AT. Always Taxing.
Hydra \HAHY-druh\ noun:
1. a persistent or many-sided problem that presents new obstacles as soon as one aspect is solved.
1. a persistent or many-sided problem that presents new obstacles as soon as one aspect is solved.
Legs akimbo, body listless, mind vacant, I’d eventually reach Styles Peak and then Peru Peak before descending back to the Peru Peak Shelter (mile 1657.9), a pay-to-stay shelter. I did not stay and instead opted to salt away the six bucks for a future burrito. Beans, rice, chicken, cheese, sour cream, peppers, guacamole…the works. Anyway, it was there where I’d caught back up with Chickadee and Tugboat once more. Chickadee’s foot was still bothering her, and now I was too. Tugboat, ever the silent soul, tugged not, so the bother was all mine.
The going would be good for the next few hours (even Chickadee was of the same opinion, in spite of her feet and toes and all their woes), and all three of us would end up camping just past the Big Branch Shelter, after passing a flurry of shelters: the Lost Pond Shelter (mile 1662.6), the Old Job Shelter (mile 1664.1) and then the Big Branch itself (mile 1664.3), a three miles shy of the Little Rock Pond Shelter (mile 1667.6). That’s five shelters in under ten miles! And there’s another one in five miles, at mile 1672.4. They ought to just put a roof on the AT in these parts. We humans are devolving!
 |
| Easy walking atop THE BOG |
Anyway, it was a comparatively short day, and blissfully so. We were just outside the Big Branch Wilderness Area near the Big Branch River and the Big Branch Bridge spanning the branching river, but we could find no big branch. Lots of little ones overhead though.
"Future"note 1: Today's world won't be so modern in the future.
"Foot"note 2: Nature's equipment is the equipment provided by your surroundings: flammable birch bark, overhangs, caves, water from streams, edible plants, etc.
"Foot"note 3: An interesting thing about gear and its ostensible need is that skill-set can be, and usually is, correlated accordingly. In other words, possessing more experience, more fitness, more knowledge, more wisdom, a higher capacity of tolerance (etc.) helps override this so-called need for additional gear. It's why experienced backpackers migrate toward lighter loads. They don't do so only because of a desire in hiking comfort, or the need to make mileage, but because they've fined-tuned their requirements over time, often for a wider range of conditions, and those requirements account for their experience/fitness/knowledge/wisdom/tolerance level.
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