A Limp in the Woods (Day 151)

An Appalachian Trail Tale
Day 151: Thursday, August 22nd, 2013
Pierce Pond Lean-to to Bald Mountain Brook Lean-to = 18 miles
Miles to date: 2,049

A Ferry Tale

It is early, but warming quickly, unexpectedly, welcomingly. As I reflect and genuflect beneath a one-tone sky, pure azure, I realize my eyes aren’t fixed or fixated on the ending of this journey. They’re fixed on the feeling of that finale. I’m close to closing in on closure. There are times I can hardly wait for the sensation; in those times I hike too quickly. When I recognize the behavior I slow down. I loiter and reconnoiter. To slurp it all in, and slurp it all up. Why hurry anywhere, especially from here? I may never be this way again. What will land’s end provide that the trail cannot? What will society provide?

“Piano, piano!” an Italian cycling coach of mine used to yell. Relax, slow down! Literally: step-by-step. Perfect for the AT. Luigi himself wasn’t so relaxed, especially when he caught me using a Sharpie to write GEN in front of the ITALIA bumper sticker on his Fiat.

I’d wake raring to hike once more. It seems all bad patches are behind us now. And it appears I might actually be able to handle those ahead, no matter how imposing or pernicious. We may have passed this Right of Passage. Or, as Sinner has said: “We might beat this bitch!” (In truth, it’s a Privilege of Passage, not a right. Nor a rite. And one must EARN the right, in step-by-step manner, millions of times over. Naturally, the trail is indifferent.)

But before attempting to find out if we would continue to do so, I should proffer at least a compendious rendering of yesterday…not so much to tell a story that doesn’t exist--there are days like this on the trail and yesterday was another--but to partially record it, continue to commit these syns, commit to these sins, so I can reread it to my sad lonesome self someday, when I am living under that railroad bridge where the swallows make their mud huts.

We covered fifteen miles here in the place of worship that is Maine. We being TK, Goat and Sinner (who measures his mileage in Maui Wowie smoked, and whose unedited fervor I had by now grown rather fond of). Although Sinner looks built more for comfort than for speed--more laugh than lope, more jocular than jock--the Massachusetts inhabitant hiked ahead most the day. We wouldn’t see much of him. Before pulling ahead he told us of his upcoming move to Bakersfield, post-hike. Just as Goat and TK were hoping to move west, so too was Sinner.

“Bakersfield, huh?” I replied. “Sorry about that.” 

Bakersfield ain’t Bend, where Goat and TK long to relocate. It’s known as the Colon of California, the state with an hunted-to-extinction animal on its flag. The town is anything but stately; it’s in dire need of a colonoscopy and possible surgical removal. Even the skies there are a mess--it rains dung and toxicity. I know this because I resided close to it. Too close for comfort, at about three hundred miles north. In the soul of the state, the Sierra.

“But,” I assured him, “an escape hatch from the bowels ain’t far. Ranges, rivers, redwoods, the PCT…” He’d be fine even without the getaway, I assured him, lying through my coffee-stained teeth. No one’s fine in Bakersfield. But I suppose it beats Massachusetts.

Mountain Goat and I were engaged in our usual silliness as we stamped our mark on the day, or, more appropriately, while it stamped its mark on us. When Goat sped off to the fore, pedal to the floor, TK and I kicked thoughts around like garbage. “I mean, think about it,” I mused. “Spoons are just tiny bowls with handles.” 

“And about that term shit-eating grin: would’ya really be grinning if you were eating shit?!” 

“And’ja ever notice that those who share your point of view are smarter than others?”

TK asked if I ever worried I might be someone else’s imaginary friend.

Weighty philosophical discussion, usually only accessible to those with too much time on their hands…and feet.

Beneath those feet miles passed, and we never even noticed their effect, if they had one. The terrain was comparatively horizontal, and we’d pierce a ton of incredible scenery (if scenery can be measured in mass), ending near the Pierce Pond Lean-to, where we leaned into our sleep positions.

It was at Pierce Pond where thru-hiker Paul Bernhardt (trail cognomen: Parkside) crossed over the rainbow bridge last year. He’d hiked twenty miles, then cramped and drowned in the pond’s icy water. He was just twenty. His mom wrote a wonderful précis of his life here. Looking out at the big, dark pond last night, I thought about him and about Inchworm and wiped away a tear. Rugged Maine.

Paul Bernhardt, aka Parkside, during last year's thru-hike

Back to today. It began after the nightly stupor. We traded said stupor for the daily doze, soporific striding the mountains of America. Eager though my mind was, it was tough convincing the body to follow suit. But just a stroll from where we slept breakfast awaited, at the Harrison Camp Cabin. I grinded into gear. Pancakes, eggs, sausage, juice, and coffee enough to power the space shuttle. I offered extra so that I might rinse at the cabin, but the proprietor declined my riches. He forced me to shower. It was my first since Gorham, NH, a sybaritic experience to be savored. The hot water was indescribably magnificent. The waste water, toxic.

Other thru-hikers milled about (Crush, Ice T, Jeff the Felon, Goat/TK, et cetera) and by the time we reached the Kennebec River, there was a backpackers’ army waiting to cross. ATers link the trail by traversing the waterway. It’s a relaxed river, but just rapid enough, just deep enough, and just slimy enough on its bumpy bottom to strike alarm. The passage is made with help from a fourteen-foot canoe and its riverman captain, Captain Morgan. The ride is free--two passengers at a time, along for the cruise. Well, somewhat of a cruise--hikers have to help paddle. This is modern America, so a liability waiver must first be signed. (Most Americans think canoes are a form of volcanoes.) Waive the waiver, must wade ‘er. Lawyers lurk even within the woods.

I scribbled with an unpracticed hand, “The undersigned solemnly vows not to sue if he drowns or is masticated by a megalodon.”

The watery white blaze

The captain, Tiny Klutz and Goat

Drowning was a possibility for a bouquet of reasons. For one, it’s happened in the river before; more about that below. It had also been a long time since I tried my hand (and other body parts) at swimming. That was back in Nuclear Lake, in NY. Plus, I had no more personal Personal Floatation Device; I no longer had much body fat. Bones and sinew do not float. Not in stew, not in rivers.

Finally, although I wasn’t concerned with my load, I fretted over sharing the vessel with someone lugging a titanic pack. Boats regularly go down when laden too ponderously; we hear about it in the news all the time. Usually it’s a load of lowly refugees, but sometimes it’s a couple of lowly land-locked hikers. Crush joined me in the skiff, which relaxed me--his pack was more buoyant than mine. We were further pleased because the crossing meant we’d be off our feet for a few minutes. If only the entire AT was as enjoyable.

Sadly, the long-time canoe captain joined the ranks of the deceased in March this year, not via submersion, but in his sleep. Steve Longley, aka the Ferryman, was just fifty-five years old. He had guided a projected nineteen thousand AT hikers across the waterway since 1986. The son of a former Maine Governor, Longley ferried a couple hundred hikers that first year (no waiver required) but more each year, as the trail popularity grew. The Appalachian Trail Conference, as it was known then, offered Longley the job after Alice Ferrence, a prospective thru-er, drowned attempting to cross the river the year prior, in front of her husband.

What’s with these drownings?

Frightening though it could be, the seventy-five yard voyage was the most relaxing stretch of AT I’d encountered. I pray (or my method of it) a footbridge is never built. (While I’m in the wishy mood, I also pray that the AT will one day be entirely accessible by boat. Oh, to float by boat and spare the feet from becoming meat!) It took a half-hour with the waivers and the wait. The canoe, which I hereby propose the ATC call The S.S. STEVE LONGLEY, was equipped with paddles, PFDs and a single white blaze painted on its upward-facing bottom, so the hiker doesn’t get lost. Drug or alcohol consumption is (also) looked down upon, as is walking while on board. Rock the boat and you’ll be tossed overboard, after removal of life vest.

After the crossing, the lot of us disembarked in Caratunk. With sixty-nine residents, it is one of the tiniest towns along the trail. To call it a town is to flatter it. It’s more of a collection of buildings--some well-kept houses, a microscopic post office, and not much else. But it was there, in the outer world, where Jeff the ex-felon and I relaxed on an inviting lawn under the single-minded sere of the sun, beneath the insufficient cover of hats, visors, bandannas and borrowed sunscreen. Jeff doesn’t seem to mind the trailname I’ve given him: Felon.

The sunscreen was borrowed from the PO hiker box, along with some Q-tips. I used those to clean my ear canals, removing a decomposing possum and enough gunk to fill a wax museum. An affable resident with an English accent encouraged hikers to make use of his sod. “Or you can sod off.” Felon and I sodded on. And on. And on.

The others had all disappeared. It was time eventually to tend to our daily devotions. Enough discussing our adventures! Let us live them! No sense courting disaster when you can walk straight into it!

But disaster would not strike. Rather it was a reasonably routine day, over reasonably routine terrain, under, however, reasonably routine-less skies. Blue, hot, heavy, bizarre. Bizarre because Maine has mainly been free from rain. Will we continue to be so lucky? We do not know. We’ll worry about it then, if then arrives. Now is always enough to concern yourself with when on the AT, no matter when you’re on it.

I like Jeff. Another gingery-colored type not unlike Sinner, he walked my pace. Or I walked his. He moves along just as gingerly as his hair color. Light on his feet, with an enlightened mind. When I first met him back in ye ol’ Hampshire, he wasn’t afraid to share his story in a candid, if not blunt, manner. 

He said he’d made mistakes. Many mistakes. (“I abused drugs,” he confided. “Poor things,” I joked, “what’d they ever do to you?”) He told me discovering these long trails saved his life. Last year, he hiked the PCT. This year, the AT. Next, the CDT. An addict, all right. The trails give him purpose. Purpose is what he previously lacked. “I still lack it,” I replied. No joking this time.

“Not now you don’t.”

He was right. Plenty of purpose, one step at a time. The steps don’t just happen. Sure, long trails never seem to serve up an epiphany, an A-ha! moment, but they do act as efficacious psychotherapy. If you’re on the AT, you have business being on the AT.

Eventually the conversation would turn less poignant and spin toward wildlife, and how little we’d seen. “I have yet to see a moose, dammit,” the recidivist sighed. “Have you?”

When I told him I watched one launch, dive, and swim just a week ago, he grew more angered. “Hangman told me about that, you lucky fuckers. What the hell? Seems everyone’s seen one.”

“You’ll get your chance. They say there’re more moose in Maine than there are people.”

Later on, near an agreeably-named Pleasant Pond, a cavalcade of suspicious clouds started crowding in. And then then happened: it began to rain. No pleasantries; just a sudden and lasting downpour. But it cooled things off and rinsed the sticky, smelly sunscreen off, and we were grateful. Jeff stopped to don his raingear and for “a quick piss.” 

Sure enough, as he was taking care of his kidneys, I’d walk within a few feet of the largest moose I’d ever seen, a veritable Moosetadon. I could almost extend my skinny arms and stroke the behemoth as I strode by. Sensing that disaster would strike, I hurried on, tiptoeing as quickly as tiptoeing allows. 

Oddly, the beast didn’t see or hear me. (I’m not sure if it smelled me; odds were favorable.) Moose can sleep standing; it must’ve been the case here. When Jeff caught, I decided not to share the experience. I’d see if he mentioned it. He never did, the unlucky bastard. I clamped down on my tongue.

Late and we separated again. Rain will do that. Our evenly-matched gait was now off-kilter and Jeff pulled ahead. I’m always the slower of the two, it seems. Any two. In time I’d cross paths with a southbound hiker dressed in a one-piece wrestling suit, draped in USA paraphernalia. It wasn’t the flashy, gaudy kind of garment that a pro wrestler might wear, but the kind a real wrestler would, with USA embossed here and there. He looked out of place, to put it kindly. I had to know.

“I’m hiking the AT in part to honor my twin brother who died last year, and to raise awareness of wrestling being pulled from the Olympics,” he responded. His name was Jeffrey Fleming. I was surrounded by Jeffs!

I told him I was aware of the wrestling news ever since it came to light. I found it an abomination, given the sport’s long Olympic history; it was an original competition. And though there are dozens of swimming events (hence Michael Phelp’s amassing of medals), less popular sports are left to dry out, regardless of heritage. When I told him I’d made the ’88 team as an alternate, he just about fainted. The Olympics were his Holy Grail, my Katahdin.

Owing to the showers, we’d go our separate ways prematurely. I’d smile a while, thinking of what others might think of him, dressed as he was. A skin-tight singlet and a loud, proud flag: SAVE OLYMPIC WRESTLING. 

(I plucked the image below from the ‘net. Though Jeff remains flashily dressed, this outfit is tame compared to what he wore when we met. My little Fisher-Price camera was acting up at the time.)

Jeffrey Fleming

Come night I bellyflopped into the Bald Mountain Brook Lean-to. Felon and Sinner were firmly entrenched. They were smiling and reading the shelter register. The rain came in multiple orgasms: came, went, came again. There was no jealously on our part, just supper, sleep and a good deal of gas-passing, if gas-passing can be a good deal. I was doing so much of it it became a raw deal. For both me and the felonious fellers.