A Limp in the Woods (Day 129)

An Appalachian Trail Tale
Day 129: Wednesday, July 31st, 2013
Fire Warden’s Cabin to NH 25C = 15-ish miles
Miles to date: 1,783

Why?

Why? it’s been asked. Why the AT?

Knowing no answer’ll do, I retort with my own query: Why not?

That stumbles short, so I lift a line from The Eagles:

Some hike to remember; some hike to forget. Fail.

I scoot along.

~~~~~~~~~~

This scenario has arisen so many times I no longer care to answer. As has been posed: “If you have to ask, no explanation will do.” (Thanks for saving us the trouble, Jerry Lewis!) Paulo Coelho put it, “Don’t waste your time with explanations: people only hear what they want to hear.” The always-useful Emerson said: “We cannot spend the day in explanation.”

A local hiker approached Bearbell and me near the Hexacuba Shelter junction. It was seconds when The Question befell us. I skedaddled, handing the duties to someone not named me. I hinted to that someone he could rely on the tried-and-true It’s a journey of self-discovery. It’s a feeble answer but is 96.7% effective, especially when directed to women, as this hiker happened to be (as far as we could tell). Women love self-discovery! Men would rather not find out who they are.

How does one explain why?(1) It’s a medical condition falls short. So does my passion is visiting the unknown. ‘Cause it’s fun sure ain’t gonna do it. (Fun is a wholesale lie. Hiking the AT is Type II Fun: miserable during, but fun in retrospect, after the truth’s been forgotten.) For most adults any why-answer has to have depth and poignancy and meaning. Fun just isn’t enough.

To play or for play is just as curt. Besides, just look how many definitions the word has!

Play and fun are cause for suspicion; they’re simplistic. By adult law, a reason must be compelling and profound.

So it is I remain a child. Maybe there’s the answer: “to rediscover what I knew as a child.” 

Whatever. I have no reason for a reason. “Modern man,” said Bertrand, “thinks everything ought to be done for the sake of something else, and never for its own sake.”

Nowadays, maybe to assist why, untold regiments of long-distance backpackers hike for one cause or another, a charity of their choosing. They remove their own oxygen mask to assist others. (Or so they say; as an ex-athlete once surrounded by these self-proclaimed do-gooders, I’ve found when people do something to raise awareness for a cause, it’s frequently nothing more than a poorly concealed attempt to draw attention or funds toward themselves.)

     ...Trek for Truth!

     ...Toil for ‘Tards!

     ...Moil for Morons!

     ...End Pet Obesity!

     ...Crawl for Cancer!
     ...Walk for Wombats!

     ...Forge Forth for Forgetfulness!

     ...Forge Forth for Forgetfulness!

Not me. Walking is my why. I’m walking for walking’s sake. Because I can. Reason enough, no?

If only I knew.

From an old PCT journal of mine:

While the precise why of it all isn’t always easy for me to explain--the mysterious achy yearning of wanting something and not even knowing what it is--it would seem that no matter how poignant an explanation I could dish out, those asking would still not understand. To me, the best journeys have no motives; they are capricious affairs made for no other reason than they exist. Fun is as good as any reason I’ve heard. But try telling others that, especially adults. They want a declaration, an objective that gives the journey a plot, a deeper meaning. Sometimes, though, I think it’s okay to hike without a cause. Or without a care in the world.

…I learned not to think too deeply about it the last time around and simply enjoyed what brought me outside when I was a child: a love of all things wild (not including, of course, the mosquito); the quest for adventure; being one with the sun; the mountain vistas; the act of walking; breathing fresh air; and a challenge beyond the norm.

~~~~~~~~~~

Other whys: Because it’s there is too abused, and someone bogarted it already. Why anything? is more dire than the tart retort why not?. I mean, why bother to do anything at all, when life will likely continue no matter what we do, and when ultimately it--life--may be purposeless and meaningless? Is there significance to anything we do?

All of this was why it was best to let Bearbell have at it; I need not think. I shall, I figure, respond from here on out with: “I’m here by mistake,” or, better yet, “the devil made me do it.” Since the hot-head helped design the AT, he sure as hell would want our types atop it, a sort of purgatory for ‘packers. You know, get us ready. (I sold my soul to the devil long ago; he’s been asking for a refund ever since. I expect legal action to come...)

As I strode alone, beneath a whole host of tress I didn’t recognize (except as trees), I noticed another bright orange salamander. Right in the middle of the trail. They’re impossible not to notice, and only the most blind or malicious of foot travelers would step on them. (No offense, Bill Irwin!) The cute critters look magical and mystical; the AT Conservancy ought to adopt them as its official mascot. Alongside the devil, naturally. Both holding blivets/pitchforks and flipping off prospective thru-hikers. I stopped to chat with my fellow slow-mover, on simple notabilia naturally, before helping him from harm’s way.

Bearbell would catch, but before he had, I was dealing with another matter. Close encounters of the bird kind. Angry avians! I couldn’t identify my attackers; they were wise, keeping the sun at their backs, making them hard to see. (The most threatening enemy is the one you cannot see.) Plus, there’re two hundred and fifty bird species in this rounded range--it’s an avian Grand Central Station--and I’m no bird biologist. (A birdbrain, sure.) The only birds I can identify are Big Bird, Larry Bird, and the Thanksgiving Turkey. Oh, and right wing pigeons from outer space. (“My favorite bird is the booby, or maybe the tit,” a pal used to joke. He too couldn’t tell ‘em apart.) Sometimes I think I’m seeing a raven, but I misjudge ravens as crows, and vice-versa. (Be it a murder, a conspiracy, or an unkindnesses, I can’t say.) I once thought I could identify vultures, but then I repeatedly mistake them for pterodactyls. These winged warriors weren’t any of those.

So while I couldn’t name the bird kind, I could name them UNKIND. An unkindness, indeed. Birds are descendants of dinosaurs. They are not our friends. They tolerate us. We should be glad they do not have advanced tool-making capabilities.

These were the kind of birds who’d hit a plane, just to take it down. (Fair reporting: birds do not hit planes; planes hit birds.) Holy hawkeye, for minutes I was under siege, one close shave--one squeaker--after the other. First, it was the male trying to take my hat off, or maybe the female. Then it was the female trying to take my head off, or maybe the male. It could’ve been two females or two males; feathered gender is tricky. Whatever their sexes, they had no manners whatsoever, screeching and shitting as they continued to beleaguer. Thru-hike occupational hazards. It was like a Hitchcock movie with poop.

I’d make it out alive, as most raconteurs seem to. Pushing forth, I couldn’t but think how the poor birdbrains had built their condo too close to the trail. Haunting hikers to hold down their haunts. They’d be forced to be on the lookout nonstop, the bane of both themselves and all noncombatant passerbyers, to say nothing of their needy young. I pondered how many others had been attacked.

When Nicolas caught, I asked him about the flight risk.

“Birdz.” he said, before a long pause...

“Zay love ze French. Zay only attack zoes with no heart or brain. Everyone knowz zis.”

He seemed to be speaking in cursive. The peckerhead hadn’t even seen our feathered foes. No twitter following whatsoever!

Thankfully, things remained docile from there. Even the mosquitoes and their four-inch proboscises were dead to the world. Moreover, my Monkey Butt had mended! We managed some poor navigation at one point--Bearbell was leading us; my devilish defense team tells me to assume no accountability--and I worried aloud that “we might no longer be on the trail.” The Frenchman reminded me all we had to do was find the hardest possible route and that that would assuredly be the AT.

Sensing my concern, he stopped and let me lead. “Lay-deez first,” he insisted, gesturing with his hand. It turned out we were on the AT. There’d been some longer gaps between our trusty white blazes. How sad it is we’ve grown wholly dependent on painted trees to weave our way through the woods! The strips of latex paint might seem benign--sapless--but like so many other forms of technology, they only intensify our acquired helplessness. Connect the dots, be an adventurer.

Smacky the Frog; Mosquito repellent

Atop Mount Cube we were treated to some flavorful expanses. Rounded--cubed--granitic rocks, glacial and glistening, afforded us the opportunity to bask beneath the seamless sky. “This is what it’s all about,” I said. “Or what it should be about.” Bearbell nodded, absorbing the Cube’s views and the sun’s rays.

     Fast forward (only slowly)…

We eventually fell into step with Hufflepuff, a smiley, outgoing female thru-hiker, whom we’d briefly crossed paths with near Bill Ackerly’s place yesterday. I initially thought her trailname was Huff-n-puff, which made more trail sense, but I stood corrected.

Bearbell fancied the thirty year-old teacher. The French Horn and I drifted apart shortly after we met up with her. But before doing so I was able to listen in on some of his attempts. I’ve got to say, unlike peanut butter, he’s simultaneously chunky and smooth.

Later in the day, after we regrouped and pulled ahead of Hufflepuff, I told him he’d have better luck just asking her if she wanted to screw. “Why beat around the bush?”

A rousing silent ovation.

“Bearbell?”

All he heard was bush--and that, come evening, he’d be beating, all right. “But I am out of ze sunz-screen.”

“TMI, my friend, TMI.”

“What iz zis, ‘TMI’?”

“Too much information.”

“Ah, oui.”

As the day wound down, and a memorable one it was, we emerged upon a calm tertiary highway (NH 25C). There we attempted to hitch into nearby Warren (population: ten, including dogs). We needed more food than we had, even though we were to stock up again in just a day or two.

Traffic was scant. In time a rusty van with bald tires stopped. It did so in the middle of the road--not in the middle of the lane, but in the middle of both lanes. Its pilot tried to roll down the window (it fell) and looked to offer a lift. Looked to, because we couldn’t hear a goddamn thing. The music was blasting so loud it registered on the Richter scale. It was the same angry music I use to play for my kitty cat--till it became a tiger. Murder music. Music to slaughter pigs by. Turn it up! The song transported me back to my olden days. Music’s the closest thing we have to a time machine.

The store was close, but the trip offered time enough in which to die in a horrific accident. Our driver, a scratchy-voiced homeless gal living in the vehicle (and surviving by using her chainsaw to carve art-forms from old tree stumps) had a terrorizing tendency of turning back and talking to us as she drove, and for elongated clicks of the clock. In addition to the lift, she’d share with us her life melodrama, or, as Bearbell later pointed out, her account of it. The whole scene was sort of heartrending, but for all the wrong reasons. She didn’t say so, but we could tell she was running from something or someone or somewhere. I felt a kinship.

“I suffer from groundlessness,” she sighed. “No place I can stay without gettin’ tired of it.” 

Amen, I thought.

She looked back again, adding, “But I got no plan.”

Amen again, I thought. Please, please, please keep your eyes on the road!

The two of us were seated atop her musty old mattress in the back, or attempting to stay seated. We bounced around like pinballs, off the sides of the van and off one another, off the chainsaw, off Bearbell’s plus-sized pack. I scooched forward toward the back of the passenger seat, in the event our driver rolled the van (the van-gina, Frenchie called it). Or in case we met another car head-on. Given her driving skills, such events were not just likelihoods; they were lovelyhoods. I figured the seat might offer more padding and protection than even Bearbell. Bearbell followed suit, inching his stinky ass toward the driver seat.

The gal, a once lovely-looking late-forties druggie who’d lost a few teeth since, and who looked to have brushed her long blond hair with an electric egg-beater, kept looking our way. She was oblivious to her horrifying habit. I hated to be a jerk, but I had to say something.

It’s scary enough being in a car after months of moving at two miles-per-hour. It is especially so when your driver is high or suffering from irreparable brain impairment issuing from a chainsaw mishap. My insistence failed. She kept craning her leathery neck. We quit engaging her and somehow made it down to the store alive. Every day henceforth will be a bonus.

Bearbell and I had long ago learned that most adventure during a thru-hike comes when hitching lifts for resupply. This little escapade only served to back the theory. We waved goodbye to our driver before Frenchie turned my way.

“Would you have had sex with her?” For once his English was flawless.

“I mean, I know she looked like a deflated airbag, but would you have?”

“Are you crazy?”
“Well?”
“Hell yes.”

“Me too.”

The Deliverance of the North; a local rube harassing Bearbell

Our return trip to the trail was far more secure (with a great set of great grandparents, who we would not have had sex with...unless they’d asked). We’d sleep where we were dropped, too tired to tackle more trail. It seemed we’d used all our energy worrying whether we’d survive to this point.

Bearbell called my way: “Funny-bonerz.” His English was back to its normal substandard standard. No more Google Translate bastardization.

“Yeah.”

“It wuld have been a pleazure tu have died wiz you todayz.”

“Thanks,” I said, though I wasn’t sure I meant it.

“One other thing,” he said.

“Yeah?”

“Du you have any extra sunz-screen I could uze? I fer-got tu buy some.”

~~~~~~~~~~

"Foot"note 1: For years, researchers have been trying to pin down why, exactly, an individual would set out to hike the Appalachian Trail. Whether understood or not, here are some ways to explain why. (Those in quotation marks are from others…)

...Because I'm part of the privileged, affluent, white, professional class, and I must seek conspicuous leisure and personal validation.

…“Life’s too short not to be involved in something so monumentally stupid.”

...Someone's go to do it. (Many someones, in fact.)

…“The trail looked easy on the map.”

...To get to the truth of who you are; to cultivate embodiment.
...“I couldn't think of anything better to do.”
...Humans with too much time on their hands require projects; why not spend too much time on your feet?!
...Because it beats the alternative--gainful employment.
...“Walking two-thousand miles relaxes me.”
...“For (more) time to think. For introspection and clarity!”

…“Digital detox, dude!” (This assumes the hiker is capable of turning off the phone and associated distractions: Facebook, Spotify, Instagram, Twitter, porn, et al.)
...Because we are dreamers, poring over maps as others do with their holy books.
...“There will be no yesterday to remember if we don’t do something today.”
...It (feels as though it) lends some significance to our existence.
...“Because the voices in my head tell me to.”
...To exorcise--or exercise--the inner demons. An antidote to despair.
...“I hike to burn off the crazy. It’s cheaper than professional help.” (Solvitur ambulando!)
...“Because I like walking,” or “because walking likes me.”
...To climb a tree (if you can find one). To nap under a tree, or in a field of flowers; to soak in a creek; to poke at a fire; to skip stones; to catch snow in your mouth; to build a bed of leaves; to sleep in that bed.
 ...To bolster our egos. Hike the AT? Check. Hike the PCT? Check. Ride the Great Divide Route? Check. (It seems most thru-hikers hike for bragging rights, a consumeristic approach to recreation.) 
...To bolster the libido! 

…“I’m in search of a dragon egg.”

…“To better know my own country.”

…“The closer one gets to Nature, the farther he or she is from idiots.”
...“It’s the most affordable lengthy vacation possible.”
...To go back in time, to a simpler way of being.
...To get in touch with our inner animal.
...Because uncivilized barbarism is writ large on our souls.
...Because Nature nurtures.
...Nature rewards us with daily participation trophies.
...To return to our origins, before we humans took the wrong fork in the road. 
...To rekindle the flame of freedom.
...To seek answers.
...To seek questions: “I hiked the AT for answers, but all I got were more questions.”
...Because beyond every white blaze is a doorway to a new world. (My Muir rip-off.)
...And, as Muir said, “The world is big and I want to have a good look at it before it gets dark.”

...To know the world outside myself; to know the world outside ourselves; to know the world outside.

...To become a naturalized citizen; to enjoy the simple goodness of the natural life.
...To sleep upon the land; to get to know it more intimately.

...To pursue happiness when you can’t always pack it.

...To happily experience one humiliation after the next.
...To face an uphill battle. (The AT is an uphill battle both ways.)
...Because nothing supplants experience.

…“To make my past self jealous.”
...To live differently than you have hitherto.

...To escape the comforting illusion of control.
...To escape materialism, and to appreciate the lack of it.
...To secure a buffer zone against cultural insanity. 
...To unscrew yourself from a screwed society.
...Because you’ve had it with humanity.

...To (attempt to) outrun your worldly troubles; to hide from your life.
...Trails are a safehouse for outlaws! (Grow a beard, lose weight, change your name, etc.)
...Because you’d rather not do something meaningful with your life.
...To curb distractions. 
...To watch a bee and spider fight.
...Because you are a soldier. 

…FOMO (Fear of missing out--the bane of my being)
...To possess a little more self-reliance.
...To forget about portion control.
...To reawaken our inner adventurer.
...To cultivate a sense of wonder.
...To daydream more effectively.
...To accumulate photographs. 
...“To make memories.”
...Because our days are numbered.
...Spiritual sustenance.
...Nature helps health / hiking helps health.
...To cure an addiction.
...To feed an addiction.
...To stave off madness.
...To philosophize.
...“To meet my Maker.”

…“I like it rough.”
...“It keeps me out of prison.” (I'm not at liberty to share who said this.)
...For needed or deserved punishment; comeuppance.
...To decompress.
...To reinvent one’s self.
...An exile from busyness.
...To examine privilege.
...To be in awe.
...To measure yourself.
...To see beauty. (I am especially susceptible to the beautiful.)
...To bide time.
...To cope

...To hide / to be found.
...Curiosity.
...Blueberries.

...To see, to feel, to smell, to taste, to experience, to combat death.

...Most of all: TO LIVE. To be that much closer to being totally alive.