A Limp in the Woods (Day 148)

An Appalachian Trail Tale

Day 148: Monday, August 19th, 2013
Shy of Hwy 27 to Horns Pond Lean-tos = 7 miles

Miles to date: 2,003

Yesterday’s report is brought to you today by Funnybone, Inc. (LLC), who reminds you: when broken, take a break! That’s why I elected not to doodle in this dictatorial diary on Day 147. Because writing’s wearisome work and word nerd was worn. 

Here’s the short end of the shtick: I walked more in one day than most Americans do in a month, though that’s not saying much. (‘Tis certainly not bragging: one look-see at the average American--read: Fat Fart, with two capital Fs, largely deformed and largely uninformed--and you can see his or her walking habits.)

The striding I managed was over rugged and at times harrowing terrain, not manicured walkways, which, incidentally, equate to less than one percent of the AT. Some of these latest stretches educe no choice but to be FULLY PRESENT. Otherwise, one small slip(1) for man (or woman) and, well, presence may be no more. The AT can be Death Row. It is littered with I Could Die Here sections.

The image below shows one of the safer stretches of slope, replete with sympathetic ladder rungs embedded into granite. Most gradients have no such rungs in place, nor any ropes or elevators. For what it’s worth, as pictures are known to, this one does nothing to illustrate the true steepness of the slope.

The itinerary included both awe and ow. I passed the AT’s final completed stretch and a trilogy of considerable chunks: Lone Mountain, Spaulding Mountain, and Crocker Mountain. I revered and reveled atop all three, but the floundering left me bushed to the bone. Not so much a case of writer’s cramp or brain cramp as full-body cramp. Self-preservation outweighed any deadline, so all systems were properly shut down upon day’s end. My tent-house penthouse was less the writing studio and more the nursing home. Fort Knocks.

For what it’s worth (nothing), here’s the mileage math through yesterday, confirmed by my burner phone’s calculator:

1,996 miles ÷ 147 days = 13-point-whatever

A tittle more than half a marathon a day. This includes zeroes and neroes. Not bad. Or maybe it is bad, because here’s another problem. At such a rate, just two more weeks remain in this romancer’s quest. Final summation: Must. Apply. Brakes. Immediately. 

It’s been hard loving this leafy trail; it’ll be harder leaving it. A path is right when it is challenging.

That’s how it was yesterday.

~~~~~~~~~~

Today’s report is also brought to you by Funnybone, INC (LLC), who reminds you to seriously consider your own Appalachian Trail adventure. If you’re an adventure buff and you’ve read everything in this report to this point, there’s little question you should spring into action and find yourself at Springer Mountain next spring.

     Anyhoo. That’s ample preamble. Now onto the amble...

It all began earlier than usual. Earlier than what I’m comfortable with. I’m comfortable with a noontime start, given ample amp. I’m not comfortable with anything earlier than that. Besides the grounds in my peanut butter, my coffee supply had run dry. I neglected to replenish it in Rangeley. This was due strictly to a deep-seated forgetfulness, the plague of my life (along with snowballing Erectile Dysfunction, but we needn’t touch on that right now; of course nothing would happen if we were to touch on it). My life is full of plagues. 

Morning crisis mode. Run out of coffee = run out of energy. No energy = no enthusiasm. No enthusiasm = no effort. No effort = no exploits. I was alone and tired but couldn’t sleep anymore, so today’s hike began at 8:18am local time. Loco time. A near record given the temperature: mid-thirties Fahrvergnügen.

Coffee or no, most thru-hikers rise early and vamoose (as noted on Day 100). They need to make miles. “Out in the morning!” exhorted Whitman. These timely types will tell you, “there’s more wildlife to be seen” at such an impious hour. But any such wildlife pales when compared to the wildlife within my dreams. A true wild life, unfettered by the callous shackles of reality. I confess that before sleep, I try to persuade these dreams to travel in the direction I prefer. I think the more we think of something, the more likely it’ll come to us when we’re not thinking. Drool on, Mister Bone, drool on…

With the mantra bouncing in my brain--Must. Apply. Brakes.--I set off at a gentle gait. My feet were bloated and bulbous, and more sadistic landscape lay ahead. But with no aspiration or agenda, it hardly mattered. I might not have had caffeine enough, but I had copious calories, so speed was no concern; I needn’t hurry anywhere. Even in timberland Maine, AT resupply is plentiful. At least until the closing ceremonies, once ingress into the 100-mile Wilder-mess has commenced, that hundred-mile-long pig pen, that forgettable fen, that Field of Streams. As previously pronounced, if it weren’t for all the walking, the AT would be a cakewalk. Child’s play.

Conditions were again mild-mannered. I can’t recall for sure, but I believe outside of some spit atop Crocker, it’s been almost a week since I was last wet. This is a record dry spell in 2013. Last week’s clouds, sinister and wroth, have gone wispy and weak. With their vermilion underbellies they act only as art, augmenting the blue abyss overhead, offering some contrast and scope. And awe.

I was appreciative for sunglasses, an item not normally needed on the AT. Not needed nearly enough, that’s for sure. But as kismet would have it, the pair resolved to renounce me sometime soon after starting.

Suspect 1: A low-lying limb that grazed my skull near Highway 27.
Suspect 2: A robust gust in the same vicinity.

Either could be the perpetrator. I hoped someone behind might be so kind as to deliver the goods back to me, but everyone I knew was ahead. It was safe to assume I’d never see the shades again...

1) Hikers don’t like carrying more weight than necessary.

B) Finders keepers, losers weepers.

3) They’d be stepped on, destroyed, and left to decay.

They were scratched-up cheapies, as I am a scratched-up cheapy, but I was furious for storing them on my head. I’d already equipped them with a lanyard, so they could stay put around my neck, out of harm’s wide way. It was a lesson learned long ago, but one that obviously hasn’t sunken in. My pace quickened. Anger abets. Ire impels.

Ah well. With any luck, I joked to myself, it’ll rain from here till Katahdin and I won’t need ‘em.

I reached the highway (a liberal term when used in central Maine; few cars were rolling around), where the others were kicking back. Mountain Goat, TK, and a new arrival on the scene: an energetic gingery guy named Sinner. They’d had little luck in hitching since Hangman wasn’t with them. “You gotta dance!” I yawped, breaking into my (patented/trademarked/signature) moves...

“Shouldn’t you wait ‘til you see a car?” asked TK.

“Nah, no way man! You gotta put out the vibe, so the universe recognizes your needs!” (Coolie McJetPack learned me this on Day 67.)

Goat joined in. Sinner stared on, unsure of his new mates.

And then, just like that, a car appeared, a Volkswagen wagon. The decades-old heap was made of rust and bumper stickers. The decals weren’t confined to bumpers and presumably held the whole thing together. Its driver, a young hippie chick smoking a blunt, stopped and loaded us in, letting all the pot smoke out. Within minutes we were seated inside the understaffed Looney Moose Café in Stratton, grooming ourselves for another forgettable feast. The food didn’t matter--they’re all bonus calories no matter how unsavory. Restaurant food forever defeats trail fare. 

Except maybe the Looney Moose Café’s. Hard to say. Thankfully the joe kept coming and helped wash down any acrid aftertaste. I think I have found my caffeine limit.

After brunch we moseyed around town and took in the sights. Both of them: one facing one direction; the other facing the other. Even at a walking pace it’s a case of ‘blink and you’ll miss Stratton.’ 

At Fotter’s Market I replenished my coffee and had a cappuccino from their Al Pacino maker. I also added a few tasty treats--turkey jerky, cashews, cheese, crackers, gum. I then swung by the library, to scribble a few dishonest postcards and write all this feculence, this shite I may never again read--along with everyone else, who’ve never read it the first time.

Goat being Goat, Sinner, Starchild and TK

By late day we caught another easy hitch back to our first place, the trail, this time with a California writer guy who owns a cabin in these parts. He heads to it whenever he needs isolation and ideas. “Sometimes,” he sighed, “ideas don’t arrive, so I head to the AT and hike ‘til they do.” 

“So I take it you’ve hiked the whole trail?” I joked, knowing how hard it is to excavate an idea.

“Thankfully, no,” he laughed.

As it was when we left Rangeley, it was late when we hit the trail. The vacuum of civilization persists (though it’s arguable if Rangeley and Stratton meet this designation). Lately, trail escapes have been recurrent, and rather easy. When I voiced this to the others, each of them homegrown in the Northeast, they assured me this’ll change soon. 

“Maine gets remote,” said Goat. “So remote that the north land is known more by numerical tract than by county.”

“Planes go down and’r never found,” added Sinner. “Hikers get eaten.”

“Good,” I joked. “This trail’s gettin’ too damn cushy.”

I didn’t really mean it; the forecast on the AT is always uphill and hard.

After passing and rejoicing in the trail’s 2000-mile mark--“two-thirds to an oil change,” someone joked--we’d start up a hill of no lasting value or memory. “Another pointless point along tha AT!” screamed Sinner, his character beginning to show. A rough draft of a human. A likeable character.

Eventually we’d reach the Horns Pond Lean-tos (dagnabit, there’s that plural of ‘Lean-to’! Where’s Hangman?!). We’d hole up there and laugh at the privies. Yep, a pair of privies for a pair of lean-tos, side-by-side, within smelling distance of one another (especially if I’m occupying one or the other). Both with--here’s the laughable part--HANDICAP RAMPS! You know, in the event someone in a wheelchair were choppered in and dropped off. Or in the event a wheelchair-bound skydiver landed nearby. Or in the event a hiker--e.g., me--could no longer lift his legs.  

“WHAT’N THA HELL?!” blurted an impassioned Sinner. “Maybe this trail is gettin’ too cush! Guess ya gotta meet them federal accessibility standards(2), since tha AT’s controlled by tha fuck’n feds. But tha day this fuck’n trail is accessible to tha disabled or tha un-fuck’n-abled is tha day I torch these fuck’n forests, startin’ with these fuck’n privies! ECO FUCK’N TERRORISM!” 

Hallelujah, Sinner, Hallelujah.

Anyhow. It is now late, much past bedtime, but I can see by his red reading light that Goat is still up. An avid reader, he. Kierkegaard or some shit. No sooner than I notice, he whispers my way. “Ya must like writing, Funnyboner.”

“I do,” I replied.

“Why?”

“I wish I knew.” 

Pause.

“I suppose I like writing for the same reason I love walking--I can go my own pace.”

“Ya scribblin’ in your journal? The Work of a Madman?”
“Nah,” I respond.
“Then what’r ya writing?”
“I’m working on a list of things that’ve never occurred to me.” (A chuckle for once.)
“Like what?”
“Don’t know yet. But if nothing comes, I’ll add to my will, the one I started writing 148 days ago.”

"Foot"note 1: In concentration or of the feet.

"Foot"note 2: As mentioned on Day 95 the Americans With Disabilities Act was enacted to ensure that all Americans will have access to public facilities; that no American would be denied access to public places due to poor design. It is now federally mandated that all public facilities will by design be open to all Americans.