A Limp in the Woods (Day 134)

An Appalachian Trail Tale

Day 134: Monday, August 5th, 2013
Galehead Hut to Crawford Notch/North Conway = 15 miles

Miles to date: 1,841

The Ultimate Truth Detector

I’m not sure how it happened, but my presentation went so stupendously well last night that Toben, Galehead Hut’s officious croo commander, asked if I’d hold court another night or two. Not only that, but after my little talk, a winsome woman from the audience approached. She told me she wished she could join me on my hike! When I replied, “there’s no need to wish; I’ll make room in my tent,” she began balking. My desperation needs to be kept in check.

I declined Toben’s offer. There were miles to do. Three hundred and sixty of ‘em. A full roundabout. If we average thirty-six miles a day, Captain joked, we’ll be done in ten days. A joke indeed. It’s more likely we’ll complete it, if at all, in a month. A month in which momentum forward progress must be maintained. The trail’s long since tutored us it proffers no guarantees. So stanks a ton Toben, but no. Another night of such celebrity and I might never squeeze my swollen head through the exit.

It’s hard to believe, for me anyway, some hikers can average thirty-six miles a day. At that superhuman, supererogatory rate it’d take two months to complete the AT, leaving time enough to race up another long trail or two that same season. A few have done this. 

Seasoned and would-be record-setters are setting foot on these trails in record numbers. For them, the end of the line is the bottom line. Every few years the Fastest Known Time (as mentioned on Day 86) gets faster. They’re cutting to the chase, you could say. Getting to the point.

Or missing the point. I view thru-hiking as an activity in which the participation trophy always outshines the gold medal. The longer the activity lasts, the bigger the trophy. Slow inefficiency is the point. There’s no better way to enjoy a trail than to spend more time on it.

I don’t hike to hurry. Cutoffs ain’t for me, Daisy Dukes notwithstanding. I head trailside to put waste to haste. To live in an atemporal manner--free from the limitations of time and from time limits. To avoid deadlines and schedules and appointments. And to avoid the clock, prolonging time. Muir may demur, but the very word--hiking--implies leisure, or else it borders on an altogether different definition. (Is it really hiking at that point?(1)) 

Nope. Speed records ain’t my cup o’ leaf water. But I admit: I enjoy watching what these athletes do. And athletes they are. (If thru-hiking is sport, there’s no question it’s a blood sport.)

Jennifer Pharr Davis, who I walked with for a short time on the PCT in ‘06, holds the AT Fastest Known Time. She moved in a manner that can be described as workmanlike, completing the trail in forty-six days. That’s FORTY SEVEN MILES A DAY. (“Supported!” whine the keyboard warriors.) Pack or no pack, superhero cape or no cape, that’s incredible. And laudable. Still, as a quondam professional athlete, one fortunate to have made a living by way of sport--in that I lived through it--I forever hold firm that thru-hiking is not sport, and that head-to-head battles are the ultimate truth detector(2). 

Here, the AT acts as the ultimate truth detector. No polygraph needed. Just geo-graph.

It was the coldest morning we’ve had since the Peach State, borderline unbearable. I sported everything I owned when hightailing it from the hut, including my tent’s groundsheet and the tent itself, draped over my shoulders like a poor man’s poncho. 

As we raced, clouds raced by. Whatever warmth we started with was soon lost to the atmosphere. Come on global warming. I dreamt of environmental dehydration--that desert dessert--and of heat waves. If only Southern Utah were on the Northern AT.

The climb up South Twin Mountain (elev: 4,902-feet) was ridiculous. And treacherous. And hazardous. And precarious. And perilous. And every other ~ous. It’s reputed to be another of the steepest inclines on the entire trail. We didn’t doubt it for a second. Ropes and bolts would have helped. An elevator more so. But, as it always goes for those writing the narrative, we’d somehow make it. (After all, dead writers don’t write, though they do somehow keep publishing. Gotta pay those bills!)

Captain and I rested at the acme, marinating in a mixture of sweat and mist. We were warm, if only momentarily. But then the shivers started sneaking in, so we bolted to the next trial, Mount Guyot. 

That peak, thankfully, sat a few hundred feet below us. It was smooth sailing to the Zealand Falls Hut, another AMC work of art. Zealand is the AMC’s only hut that uses hydropower (along with solar and wind, like the other huts rely upon). It is the only hut to produce more power than it uses.

The route between Guyot and Zealand Falls was mostly downhill and docile, and things would only get better. The clouds began evaporating. By noon, there was nothing above us but blue sky and a few impassioned ravens. It was the nicest day in months; there was nowhere else I’d have rather been.

The measure of true happiness

is when a man can say, 

‘There’s nowhere else I’d rather be

than where I am today...’

This was augmented when we were served lunch at Zealand Falls Hut. For free. No charge. Gratis. Complimentary. On the hut. We didn’t talk much for the next half-hour, but when we did, Captain Planet posed: “Who says there’re no free lunches?!” I had no answer.

The entire day developed as dreamily. When we got to Crawford Notch (elev: 1,277 feet) there was a stash of trail magic in a cooler. Cavity-causing colas and the like. Fancy Pants then pulled in behind us and offer a ride into nearby North Conway, the death place of the great poet e e cummings  (no capitalization, as he’d have it) and the hometown of my pals Mountain Goat and Tiny Klutz. Steffan and Parker. Man, how I miss them.

Fancy Pants, it turns out, wasn’t a thru-hiker. She was doing a northbound LASH (long ass section hike). She was set on going only in a northerly direction, which made matters tricky…

It’s mildly confusing, but she’d offer her keys to northbound thru-hikers who didn’t mind driving north, instead of hiking. She trusts everyone and had asked if I would drive “the car”* to the next road crossing at Pinkham Notch. I’d then walk southbound to Crawford Notch. She’d pick me up there and take me back to Pinkham, thirty-ish trail miles north. I was to pass her the keys en route, as she continued piecing the AT together in that direction. 

(*I noticed and appreciated her wording--the car and not my car. Her choice of words implies she has no obligation to ownership. I had to be sure, so I asked if it was her car. It was. It is.)

The notion intrigued--I’d have the use of a vehicle for a bit. But it sounded like one big hassle. I need less hassle. Less hustle, less hassle. Plus, my inner purist dithered at the idea.

After downing our drinks and gathering the decorative garbage surrounding the area, we wedged in to her dark blue Corolla and made our way to town. There we visited a used outfitters shop where I picked up a fleece long-sleeve shirt and a lightweight nylon rain jacket, each for a song, in hopes of warding off the nightly nip that’s growing more prevalent. Winter gets an early jump in the Whites and the jumper should help.

By evening we’d hooked up with Doc and Llama, a comely couple I’d met on the Pacific Crest Trail in ‘02. They were thru-hiking then, but no longer have the time for lengthy excursions. They host hikers in hopes of seizing the day vicariously. They’ve got a humble house here in North Conway and so we have a place to stay for the night. Doc plays Mr. Mom, and Llama works as a first responder.

The two have a seven year-old boy named John. (It seems everyone but me grows up.) The tyke is a hoot. Doc’s parental skills are equally as entertaining. John’s bedroom is so neglected it’s acquired a kind of wilderness beauty. It’s 11pm and the kid is still wide awake. He’s drinking a Mountain Dew and is tethered to the TV, seated inches from it. He’s playing the most violent video game I’ve ever witnessed--blood, guts, heads being blown off, etc.--while his dad asks if we want to get baked. I might have to with all this violence.

A screen shot of little Johnnie’s shots

Llama and her cargo a handful of years ago, when he was less violent

“Thanks, but I’m a non-responder; pot’s never gotten me high,” I replied. I was hoping the little subhuman a foot away heard me.

“That’s strange,” said dad, “I tried sayin’ no to drugs once, but they wouldn’t listen. Non-responders, I guess! Nah, in all reality, I can see that. When I snorted coke it didn’t do shit.”

Captain Planet and I would laugh hard about this later, wondering what the kid will turn out like. Or if the kid will turn out. 

“Coke doesn’t do shit,” he’ll reassure his buddies. “So we better do a LOT!”

"Fleet Foot"note 1: They have race-walking in the Olympics, so why not competitive hiking?

"Fleet Foot"note 2: Money may bring out the worst in people, but it also brings forth the best people. At least when we're talking athletic competition. I think when the trail sees real world-class athletes attempting it--particularly those under thirty years old, with the capacity to recover day-in and day-out--the supported record will be another five or six days faster, maybe even under 40 days someday. Put a big prize purse on the line and the record will be faster yet.