A Limp in the Woods (Day 146)

An Appalachian Trail Tale

Day 146: Saturday, August 17th, 2013
Piazza Rock Lean-to to an old logging road near nowhere = 14-ish miles

Miles to date: 1,981

The Trail’s Gone Cold: MIA on the AT

After a duo of undemanding days, terrain-wise and otherwise, it was mauka, as the Hawaiians say. Inland, toward the mountains. The backcountry. Beyond yonder. Uphill.

Full Disclosure: I do not know Hawaiian, nor do I know any Hawaiians who know Hawaiian. Nor too do I know any non-Hawaiians who know Hawaiian; I just heard the word once and employ it here to give the impressive impression I am impressively sagacious. I suppose while I’m fessing up, I should also admit I’ve worn a Hawaiian shirt once, and it wasn’t even Halloween, a fact I’m obviously not proud of. (Trek or treat!) That said, silk Hawaiian shirts make for some good summer thru-hiking apparel, and a few trendsetters out here have gussied themselves up as such.

First on today’s chore list, this labor of love(s), was the long slog up Brokeback Saddleback Mountain, a huge horse of a mountain, one disinclined to being saddled. Or straddled. At 4,120 feet, it’s more than two thousand feet higher than our shelter. En route, I’d be left behind by Hangman and Wanderlust and subsequently caught by Mountain Goat and Tiny Klutz. This was a good trekker trade, since Goat and I seem to click like long-lost stepbrothers. Mentally handicapped stepbrothers, mind you, but stepbrothers nonetheless. Altered egos. And although we click, we refuse to form a clique. 

I’m old enough to be his dad, and he’s young enough to be my hot daughter, but neither situation applies and we are, perhaps for simplicity sake, simply friends. Simpleton friends. One of those bonds that only long trails seem to engender, irrespective of gender. I love that in trails. Relationships often skip the pleasantries and get straight to the crux. And the crud. And the crude. Conversations can run inane and ad absurdum or deep and poignant, and they often do; trail life is life unfiltered. We may be dirty and socially maladjusted, but the façade, the phony lacquer of societal protocol and etiquette, is stripped clean.

If only everything along the trail were stripped as clean. Another ski lift infiltrated the mountain, leaving a deep scar just beneath the summit and on most the mountainside below. From far or near, ski areas are absolute eyesores in summer, with all kinds of garbage no longer concealed by snow. After a short walkabout I could see the same applied here. Old sunglasses crushed by snow-cats, lip balm containers, lift tickets, plastic water-bottles, Kleenex, food wrappers, you name it: it was all there. I learned long ago that hikers tend to litter less than skiers or hunters or others who rely on motorized means of getting out. The easier the access, the less respect a place receives; the greater the struggle to reach it, the more we value it.

Wanderlust on his knees for blueberries

There’d be no real news throughout this splendiferous day except that we reached the Poplar Ridge Lean-to, made known this year because of one Geraldine Largay, aka Inchworm. The sixty-six year-old from Tennessee had been hiking since spring, starting her northbound journey in Harpers Ferry. She went missing on July 22nd. This was the last place she was seen. She hasn’t been seen or heard from since. Search teams have said the trail has gone cold.

I first heard about her disappearance soon after Rutland, VT, not long after it occurred. As mentioned before, news travels fast on the trail, especially nowadays, what with mobile phones and constant Blabosphere access. A pair of female hikers still in the springtime of their lives shared the story with me. I could see they were shaken by the whole thing. That maybe there was a murderer on the trail this year, lurking in Maine, awaiting the arrival of additional isolated individuals. No doubt, we backcountry travelers are vulnerable.

I remember thinking the poor lady likely took a stray-cation into terra incognita. Then she became disoriented--no, there’s a better word: she became bewildered. 

BEWILDERED, 1684, “confused as to direction or situation.” Also, figuratively, “perplexed, puzzled, confused.”

From be- “thoroughly” + archaic wilder...“Lead astray, lure into the wilds,” which is likely a back-formation of the word wilderness

In such a chaotic frame of mind, she continued following her feet (be-wild-er), and thereafter either fell ill or surrendered to injuries or exposure. But here now Goat and I wanted answers. Or at least to seek them. If only the woods would tell.

Under vividly sapphire skies we ferreted the area--the potential crime scene--striding about studiously, sleuthing for morsels that search parties may have missed. Even on this stupendously gorgeous sun-filled day the understory was dark and thick, hard to see into and harder to see through. (And God said(1), “Let there be light, except on the AT.”)

Moreover, the terrain wasn’t merely mountainous; it was terribly mountainous, and if the mountains knew where she was, they weren’t telling. (Neither was God, for that monster’s mute.) Inchworm could lie within a pinecone’s throw of the trail and remain undetected. This is a hell of a place to lose yourself.

“Maybe she did a runner to Canada,” my associate armchair detective offered. “You know, fled with her renegade lover. Or lovers.”

Geraldine is--was--married. Her husband had been driving support for her along the way, helping her achieve her goal of completing the AT. They were in love, he’s repeatedly told reporters and investigators. Are in love.

But who knows? She could have. She could be anywhere. And probably is.

I’m no Columbo, but my uneducated, unworthy supposition is the same as it was when I first learned of events. She’s near here somewhere, having succumbed to injuries or exposure. Wandered aimlessly off course, off the beaten track and into virgin soil, after a mild but latently fatal stroke or aneurysm or heart attack, or perhaps after knocking her noggin after slipping and falling. Lost her marbles, lost herself, lost her life(2).

It was raining nonstop that third week of July--we remember it well; all of New England was getting slammed--and the effect may have made it a brutally different place than it was now. Opacus clouds, a driving downpour, wind, and bitter cold do that. Even on the AT, as in life, the path forward is not always clear. It’s difficile to detect white blazes in white conditions, and easy to hike out of bounds. We’d been taught this in the Southern Appalachians. And the path in these parts is scarcely one at all. Aberrancy is easy. And the woods can imprison.

Add to that that just a few feet off the trail and it completely disappears; if no one happened by, you’d never know it’s there. This area is so primitive, so densely wooded, so remote and figureless, the military uses it for survival and evasion training.

Anyway (any-way), we may never know. The meat-eating critters will dutifully dispose of her. They may already have, eager to have transferred her life-force for her, from her. Thems’s good eatin,’ them hiker types! And of all the places to go, this is not a bad one. Out here, out yonder, out thither. The middle of beyond.

I envy her; may we all be so fortunate. No aseptic rooms, no breathing apparatuses, no tubes, no catheters, no needles, no nurses assistants, no drawn-out death.

Though in death, we do not know. It could have been drawn out. It could be drawing out. It’s been twenty-five days; she could still be clinging on to life, maybe even nearby.

Still. No matter what, we do know it is sad, sad news. Scary news, if it’s discovered that (humanistic, extrinsic) foul play was involved. We could only count on poor ol’ conjecture and continue our cortège. Carefully.

There’s a certain something about unexplained disappearances, something dark and mysterious that turns one’s attention deeply inward. For the remainder of the day we strode in saturnine silence, quiet as a grave, eventually drifting apart--as hikers do--before reconnecting again--as hikers do. We were enjoying ourselves--as hikers do--but most the focus, at least with me, was on Geraldine, on life and death, and the frailty of it all.

Life is a heartless serial killer. But death is what gives life its meaning, even when death itself remains undefined. When will mine occur? When will this uninvited Reaper appear? I do not know. But I know when my life will occur and that time is now. We’re all on borrowed time--it is later than we think--and death isn’t the only way to lose your life. Every moment is precious. And precarious. Tonight I rest in peace. 

Alive or otherwise, may Inchworm do the same.

"Foot"note 1: Although I have a SIGNED FIRST EDITION, I have never quoted the Bible before. Fiction is not my favorite genre.

"Foot"note 2: Incidentally, when someone says, "She lost her life," I always think, "No, she only lost the part she hadn't yet lived." Nobody can steal what she already spent. And, out here, she spent her time well.