An Appalachian Trail Tale
Day 128: Tuesday, July 30th, 2013
Moose Mtn Shelter to Fire Warden’s Cabin = 12 miles
Miles to date: 1,767.1 (or 80.840843588453268676517681504186% of the way done!)
Deracinate \dee-RAS-uh-nayt\, transitive verb:
1: To pluck up by the roots; to uproot.
2: To displace from one’s environment.
And so the saga goes. We wake up, suit up, eat up, pack up, pluck up. (And frequently fuck up.)
We stir, we snack, we stow, we stroll. On. Ever on.
Mercifully, yesterday’s rain receded some time during the night, and despite being nailed atop Moose Mountain Shelter’s wooden planks we slept like babies. In my case: a screaming, sobbing baby. But pay no heed to that, for I seldom behave in any other manner, asleep or awake, or anytime between. After a breakfast of fillet of (boot) sole and sautéed sponge (or so it appeared and tasted), we were energized and equipped to contend with whatever came our way.
What came our way were more clouds. Professional, pregnant ones, scores of which looked ready to give birth. Bearbell and I departed the protection of the shelter, our one-night stand, our little hobbitat in desperate need of renovation, and confronted them, only to lose. On the mad and convoluted AT expectant clouds should always be expected. Every silver lining has a dark underbelly. With a fist inside.
We sloshed and slid along, covered in cloudy afterbirth, into that meager manor: Upson Downs. PUDs, as AT hikers know ‘em--pointless ups and downs. The Appalachian Trail is made entirely of PUDs--up a hill that provides nothing but a workout (no views, no point), then straight down and back up to a neighboring knob. We knobs ponder the point, yet repeat the cycle endlessly. It would be all but impossible to avoid such undulation along the AT. By the same broken token, much of it could be averted, had the trail designers only refused to sign that pact with the devil.
Day 128: Tuesday, July 30th, 2013
Moose Mtn Shelter to Fire Warden’s Cabin = 12 miles
Miles to date: 1,767.1 (or 80.840843588453268676517681504186% of the way done!)
Over-the-top Topography
Deracinate \dee-RAS-uh-nayt\, transitive verb:
1: To pluck up by the roots; to uproot.
2: To displace from one’s environment.
And so the saga goes. We wake up, suit up, eat up, pack up, pluck up. (And frequently fuck up.)
We stir, we snack, we stow, we stroll. On. Ever on.
Mercifully, yesterday’s rain receded some time during the night, and despite being nailed atop Moose Mountain Shelter’s wooden planks we slept like babies. In my case: a screaming, sobbing baby. But pay no heed to that, for I seldom behave in any other manner, asleep or awake, or anytime between. After a breakfast of fillet of (boot) sole and sautéed sponge (or so it appeared and tasted), we were energized and equipped to contend with whatever came our way.
What came our way were more clouds. Professional, pregnant ones, scores of which looked ready to give birth. Bearbell and I departed the protection of the shelter, our one-night stand, our little hobbitat in desperate need of renovation, and confronted them, only to lose. On the mad and convoluted AT expectant clouds should always be expected. Every silver lining has a dark underbelly. With a fist inside.
We sloshed and slid along, covered in cloudy afterbirth, into that meager manor: Upson Downs. PUDs, as AT hikers know ‘em--pointless ups and downs. The Appalachian Trail is made entirely of PUDs--up a hill that provides nothing but a workout (no views, no point), then straight down and back up to a neighboring knob. We knobs ponder the point, yet repeat the cycle endlessly. It would be all but impossible to avoid such undulation along the AT. By the same broken token, much of it could be averted, had the trail designers only refused to sign that pact with the devil.
Oh, the salivating tongue of the trail! Eating hikers up, spitting hikers out.
Our first order of the day: a steep descent to the flat, smooth surface of Goose Pond Road. Then a thousand-foot climb to Holts Ledge, before a thousand-foot downhill. Then another thousand-foot climb. And then another. And then, well…you get the picture.
“It’s never straight up or down.”
~Devo (who clearly never stepped foot on the Appalachian Trail)
Throughout all this undulation, protruding roots, each as slippery as snotty banana peels, cross the path every step or two. In effort to keep the glass half-full we mentioned that they at least kept us buoyant and out of the mud. The dirge of the deluge and the delusional! “I mizz my comfert zone,” Bearbell joked, as we stumbled and slalomed along. “I zink I remember it being nize there.”
In time, though hardly on time, the killjoy clouds slid away, eager to do damage elsewhere on this blue watery world. And then, just like that, it was an absolute dream of a day! This was made more evident by the fact we reached a sign advertising that FREE ICE CREAM was available to anyone who wanted some, if they were willing to make a short side trip (‘twas but a few yards!). FREE ICE CREAM is worth even the longest of side-trips (‘Tis true: men have scaled mountains and have swum oceans for the stuff), and so without a hint of hesitation or even an utterance, Bearbell and I sashayed over.
Ice cream is proof that life is worthwhile and has meaning; could there be three more beautiful words strung together in the English language?! ‘I love you’ doesn’t even come close! Birds sang, grasses swayed, leaves glistened, the ground began to dry, but the house was empty and silent, as no one was near. That didn’t stop us, of course. We snuck around and found the ice cream in a screened-in patio around the side of the place, then sat back on the front porch, watching the grass change shades, enjoying ourselves immensely, tacitly. Quiet contemplation, lick after lick. Few things can muzzle Bearbell or me like ice cream.
Eventually the house’s owner, an eighty year-old retired physician named Bill Ackerly, showed up and the three of us would play a few rounds of croquet on his roughly-mowed lawn. In the case of moi, beginner’s luck struck. And with a vengeance. Bill, sharp and mobile and better known as The Ice Cream Man, told us of the thousands of hikers to pass through and take some swings of the wooden mallets--men, women, children, dogs--no one had ever scored as low as I just had.
“No one.”
“I score low in most things in life,” I joked. (I wasn’t really joking.)
“He doezn’t score at all with ze laydeez,” Bearbell quipped.
“You must play often,” Bill said.
“Never.”
The Frenchman, admirably ambitious but lacking the hard-earned luck I worked so hard for, began to seethe. I shot a furtive smile his way, tossing my green-striped mallet up so that it looped itself before landing back in my hand. Even that went perfectly. He itched his nose with his middle breeze-checker, whispering a few frothy French phrases. It is better to be lucky than good. It is even better to be lucky then good, but I’ll take whatever comes my way. I have a laissez-faire attitude, as the French say.
After some deep discussion about health and the decline of the US and the average American, we thanked Bill and carried on with our other game, that rough-and-tumble ground game (GA-ME), worshiping an old, dirty sun. Heliolatry.
Let’s hear from George Carlin once more, our favorite dissident:
“I’ve begun worshiping the sun for a number of reasons. First of all, unlike some other gods I could mention, I can see the sun. It’s there for me every day. And the things it brings me are quite apparent all the time: heat, light, food, and a lovely day. There’s no mystery, no one asks for money, I don’t have to dress up, and there’s no boring pageantry. And interestingly enough, I have found that the prayers I offer to the sun and the prayers I formerly offered to ‘God’ are all answered at about the same 50% rate.”
God is the sun. Without it…
Fatigued from the earlier weather-related fight (or from both the fight and flight), my fellow barbarian and I soon caved in and stopped at the vacant Fire Warden’s Cabin, near the top of Smarts Mountain. There, the Frenchman and I went Dutch on some more indigestible food.
“I score low in most things in life,” I joked. (I wasn’t really joking.)
“He doezn’t score at all with ze laydeez,” Bearbell quipped.
“You must play often,” Bill said.
“Never.”
The Frenchman, admirably ambitious but lacking the hard-earned luck I worked so hard for, began to seethe. I shot a furtive smile his way, tossing my green-striped mallet up so that it looped itself before landing back in my hand. Even that went perfectly. He itched his nose with his middle breeze-checker, whispering a few frothy French phrases. It is better to be lucky than good. It is even better to be lucky then good, but I’ll take whatever comes my way. I have a laissez-faire attitude, as the French say.
 |
| The clown clowning around |
Let’s hear from George Carlin once more, our favorite dissident:
“I’ve begun worshiping the sun for a number of reasons. First of all, unlike some other gods I could mention, I can see the sun. It’s there for me every day. And the things it brings me are quite apparent all the time: heat, light, food, and a lovely day. There’s no mystery, no one asks for money, I don’t have to dress up, and there’s no boring pageantry. And interestingly enough, I have found that the prayers I offer to the sun and the prayers I formerly offered to ‘God’ are all answered at about the same 50% rate.”
God is the sun. Without it…
...no us, no plants, no warmth, no life, no thoughts, no worship.
Bearbell and I walk with respect (we even wore sunscreen) and praise the giant orb as it plummets. Its dark side fast approaches. God’s second act.
Fatigued from the earlier weather-related fight (or from both the fight and flight), my fellow barbarian and I soon caved in and stopped at the vacant Fire Warden’s Cabin, near the top of Smarts Mountain. There, the Frenchman and I went Dutch on some more indigestible food.
“‘Zis izn’t half-bad,” Bearbell joked, while gnawing on some jerky-looking vegan byproduct.
“It’z all bad.”
It was strange that just a little while earlier we had been drenched to the marrow and about as sad and sad-looking as can be. Here now we couldn’t be any happier. Oh, how the AT is a metaphor for life itself! PUDs: pointless ups and downs.
...I’d scribbled earlier as we trudged seemingly without reason:
Might as well be nearer to finished, before the trail is finished with us, before it finishes us.
At the time we were stripped down to the soul, sodden and downtrodden, wondering why it was that we loved what we were doing, or whether we loved it.
“It is with great labor,” penned the great explorer John Wesley Powell, “that we make progress, meeting with many obstructions…” And the AT wasn’t even around in his day! Of course, anyone in his or her right mind (assuming they have one) would opt to float downstream rather than continually struggle upstream, no matter what lay ahead.
But then, here we are, mellifluously rewarded. Just when you think you’ve had enough: new beginnings, always. It is important not to worry whether the glass is half full or half empty, but to drink what’s in it, after swishing it around.
PS: If you have never backpacked long distances, be of good cheer: you’ve only missed out on half of life.
It was strange that just a little while earlier we had been drenched to the marrow and about as sad and sad-looking as can be. Here now we couldn’t be any happier. Oh, how the AT is a metaphor for life itself! PUDs: pointless ups and downs.
...I’d scribbled earlier as we trudged seemingly without reason:
Might as well be nearer to finished, before the trail is finished with us, before it finishes us.
At the time we were stripped down to the soul, sodden and downtrodden, wondering why it was that we loved what we were doing, or whether we loved it.
“It is with great labor,” penned the great explorer John Wesley Powell, “that we make progress, meeting with many obstructions…” And the AT wasn’t even around in his day! Of course, anyone in his or her right mind (assuming they have one) would opt to float downstream rather than continually struggle upstream, no matter what lay ahead.
But then, here we are, mellifluously rewarded. Just when you think you’ve had enough: new beginnings, always. It is important not to worry whether the glass is half full or half empty, but to drink what’s in it, after swishing it around.
PS: If you have never backpacked long distances, be of good cheer: you’ve only missed out on half of life.
No comments:
Post a Comment