A Limp in the Woods (Day 123)

An Appalachian Trail Tale
Day 123: Thursday, July 25th, 2013
Clarendon Gorge to Gifford Woods Park = 20 miles
Miles to date: 1,701

A FOOTPATH FOR THOSE WHO SEEK FELLOWSHIP WITH THE WILDERNESS

So goes the official Appalachian Trail logo, seen on decals and shirts and coffee mugs, or whatever else that can bring in a few bucks to peddlers and pushers.

Allow me, if you wouldn’t otherwise, to scrutinize this silly slogan.

As I’ve asserted before, the AT ain’t a footpath. No one nowhere no how can hike this purported foot-path without his or her arms. Sorry Ernie, there is no farewell to arms! You don’t walk the AT; you scale it. Ladders, stiles, rock scrambles and gates all necessitate the use of the upper extremities(1). Show me an unarmed arm-less individual who’s covered the trail’s entire length and I shall happily eat these words. (I could use more to eat.)

Furthermore, only a modicum of what the AT dissects is wilderness. Sure, the little terraqueous blue-green ball that we call home--and what a terrific domicile it is--is floating through an infinitely unknown wilderness, but it in itself is largely discovered, if not understood. Especially where humans have inhabited for centuries, like the Appalachians. Especially where hundreds of thousands, if not millions, have walked before you.

Most of what this public, publicized path passes is managed--salvaged--landscapes, overseen by agencies run by managing types, like managers and such. (Land, of course, has always managed fine without man. In fact, it does a much better job of it than humans have demonstrated. And thankfully, it will resume its excellence when we leave.)

Anyway, this came to mind this morning, because so many of the cars at trailheads have had decals with this deceptive catchphrase, including the pocket pullout beside Highway 103. It was there I’d been dropped off, ready to resume my safari through Vermud, as hikers brand the state. (Mud is found in beautiful places.) I snicker at the sticker as I skirt by. The two days off were much needed; I felt good about the prospects of feeling good. The hills ahead might portend otherwise, but what could I do about it? Stop? That’s no longer an option, not this far in. We’re in the bowels of this madcap adventure now. The only way ahead is through the shit. I shall continue to limp or crawl to my death.

This hard-headedness served me well as a boy, when my older brothers and younger sister used me as a human punching bag, as they perfected their repertoire of thumps. Damn, could I take a pounding! It helped when I was an athlete and then again on the PCT--both times. Although I struggle with daily life--an incapacity to stop dwelling on heartbreak; a dysfunctional rearing; acute toxic fear; chronic distrust of the ever-present loophole into hope; the Black Wave/the blues; etc--I am now certain I’ll be going toe-to-toe with that looming lodestone--Katahdin--in five or six weeks. Grit is a huge part of thru-hiking, after all. (And during all.) Bang your noggin enough and eventually the walls come down. Or your cranium cracks and you don’t know any better.

And of walls, the barricade north of Clarendon Gorge had me pondering my grit. Beacon Hill, it’s called. Freakin’ Beacon is a clamber equivalent to Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Gap. And, as mentioned in this here journal’s opening, hands were required. Mine. Both. First to hold on to rocks as I ascended, then to wipe the flood flowing from my brow. Then to flip off the trail designers.

Things would mellow out a little in time, and before long I was back to the usual head banging. No tunes to speak of, just a steady herringboning and hemorrhaging of grit, drip by bloody drip. Like most roads obstructing the Appalachian Trail, Highway 103 lays low. Pavement? One must climb away, almost always. Absquatulate, as Twain the Brain might proclaim.

Having done that, I once again fell into step with Chickadee. She was resting on a large, freckled rock, having scaled it as though it were a curb. She’s thinner than ever, and probably fitter than ever. Tugboat also defied gravity; he was long gone, presumably already in New Hampshire or Maine or Canada, if not nearer the 90th parallel. There was ample uphill up front, and Chickadee and I would end up working our way past the Clarendon Shelter (at 1,264 feet), the Governor Clement Shelter (1,920 feet; incidentally, this shelter was built in 1921, making it the AT’s second-oldest) and the Cooper Lodge Shelter (3,928 feet) in a steady, slow succession. None of the huts offered much of a breather. Views from the Cooper Lodge one, near the crown of Killington Peak, even took our breath away.

En route, both with our heads in the clouds (along with the rest of our bodies), we negotiated a Hurricane Irene reroute. The 2011 storm had done considerable (and inconsiderate) damage to parts of the trail, and these were those parts. The reroute was likely no easier than the original path, just a little less dangerous. Against a hurricane, trees don’t stand a chance; against a hurricane, trees don’t stand. There was evidence of it everywhere. We imagined the original route was in really bad shape, since the reroute was in the usual bad shape. In other words, it was one of the nicer stretches of the Appalachian Trail.

The charming Chickadee out standing in her field

More of the reroute

We also passed the five-hundred-miles-to-go mark and then, long after darkness had suffocated our surroundings, a couple more shelters (fully occupied) before galumphing past the unmarked seventeen hundred mile mark. We were exhausted to the point of absurdity, laughing at everything and anything, eyelids half mast, so we crashed shortly thereafter at Gifford Woods State Park, where coin-operated showers likely rake in thousands of dollars annually. Astutely, neither Chickadee nor I were toting any coins, so we each did our usual Spartan wash: spit in our respective bandannas and wipe down any accumulated grime. Or at least what the accumulated grime had accumulated. To get to the surface of that would’ve taken all night.

PS: I found a nice, new Petzl headlamp on Highway 103 this morning. If you lost one, please contact this twit within the soulful depths of Twitter and describe it in detail: its function, what it requires to function, where it’s normally worn, and other information. For what it’s worth, I do not use Twitter--that bathroom wall of humanity--partly because I wouldn’t trust myself on it when lonely and tipsy, but mostly because I have nothing to say. But you knew that by now.

"Arms"note 1: I'd like to thank my arms for sticking by my side to this point.