An Introduction (or: What I Know of Me so Far)

The name matters not, but I’m what they call Funnybone. (If they call at all.) A willing prisoner of an insatiable appetite for escapism, I’m a man (he/him/they/she/her/tree) out of step with his time, an analog relic in a digital world, living a vow of voluntary minimalism and simplicity in an unduly complex, human-centric Orwellian landscape--whatever all that means. Always on the go, but slow. A drifter. (This is what happens when your family tree is made of driftwood.)

I’m half Czech (the top half) and 100% ugly. A remorsefully divorced soloist. (I wasn’t the man I vowed to be.) I’m terminally and reluctantly single, forever decathecting from others. A tri-polar anomic, living out of a backpack. (It’s tight inside one.) I sleep where I can, hoping to see what I can before my shell’s expiration date. An only child…with four siblings. Damaged goods, thanks to damaged parents. A proud underachiever/idler and prouder tax evader/conscientious objector. A washed up athlete who now rarely washes up. A poor elitist.  An aspiring rock star. An off-duty Americano, with no formal education. An incurable overthinker with no OFF switch. A lost soul, and maybe a lost cause. Never been counted in a census; I’m a nobody and nobody cares.

This dusty corner of the World Wide Cobweb shall be my log crossing the Appalachian Trail, a sort-of adventure scrapbook. Pabulum, mental masturbation, brain flatulence. Oh, yeah: I’ve decided to exchange society’s serious nonsense for a lighter-hearted nonsense; I’ve decided to have a go at the AT. I have a sock drawer full of bad ideas.

Having survived abortion, I was handed down the recycled, real-world name of Charles, free man. It’s a lame name, but it was forced upon me by people much bigger than me at the time. I was dubbed Funnybone in the early aughts, on the Best Crest. That was my maiden long-haul hike, my first semester at PCT University, a decade before Wild pummeled the path; it pays to be early. I loved trail life--there’s time enough to observe the details--and I’ve been nature drunk and high ever since. (Your first thru-hike lasts the rest of your life. And one great hike deserves another. Everything in moderation, except walking.) I tolerated the moniker enough to keep it. If it matters, THIS is how ‘twas bestowed.

If it continues to matter, I’ve kept online accounts of prior travel adventures. Two can be found here:

• HERE’s about my boggy slog along the Pennine Way, in late ‘12. (I’m an incurable Anglophile. As an American I’m proud to be British.)
• HERE’s my journal from my second thru-hike of the 2,650-mile Pacific Crest Trail. (I’ll try anything twice.) It is the most read account on the now crap-site trailjournals.com, which never ceases to surprise me. The ‘06 trip stays fresh in mind, making me realize just how rapidly the years roll by.

One aim on the AT, besides extracting as much life as possible and not merely checking the trail off--failure’s a fine option--is to record the journey. And keep it all under one roof. This’ll be that roof, holes and all. Some ancient philosopher once said, “to record something in words is to experience life a second time.” The writing gives the experience an additional layer of depth and meaning, I hope.

The Eeyore within assures me no one gives a donkey’s ass about what I’ve to say--just as I don’t--that blogs are prosaic and technologically primitive compared to that yearbook for life, that noisy, irksome social experience called Facebook. But ultimately I write and roam for one jackass, to (ideally) get to know him better. It is here I can look back, when, or if, the time comes.

Funnybone / Chuckie V Veylupek

Currently Colorado-confined (living at a friend’s, because it’s super free)

Divided States of Americuh

Pi Day (a shout out to E.A.!), 2013

PS: I’m not the final authority on anything I write during this trip. Nor am I responsible for it.

A Bit About This Blog (A Warning for Wimps)

In years past I have earned much criticism for my writing. This makes me all warm and fuzzy inside. But in reading old censure, and in ending my introductory entry with a word of caution, I’ve decided to spell out further warnings for those requiring them. Sally forth, intrepid traveler.

A Bit About This Blog…

1: May be unsuitable for some (or all) viewers. May be unsuitable to any (or all) listeners, in the event Funnybone posts any audio or music he writes en route. Enter at your own risk. Wear your big kid pants. Ask your doctor if Funnybone is right for you.

2: Except in the instance above Funnybone mostly never refers to himself in the third person.

3: Don’t take anything I say seriously, nor what my alter-egos express; we don’t. (We’re merely nearly sincerely.) Mileage may differ, timing may differ, I may differ. I have strong, semi-educated opinions and express them often, but I do not necessarily agree with ‘em.

4: This is not a tale of personal growth, except when I make mention of my boner.

5: Since we all despise salespeople, there are no pitches or purveyors or ads or affiliate links here. I’m not trying to sell squat.

6: Blogger does not yet offer their services in Braille, so I’d like to apologize in advance to any blind readers. Again, I may post an audio entry or two, if I don’t become nauseated hearing my recorded voice.

6.2 (10K) Since this is to be a blog about a slog, I will likely employ the use of many "foot"notes (note the bottom of this post). I tend also to post relevant and irrelevant links along the way.

7: I had written some pre-hike entries, only to remove all but one or two; they added nothing to the narrative, or what I hope becomes the narrative. Although I almost believe in nothing--a part-time nihilist; note the license plate--it’s best to have something to write.

8: You’ll learn I suffer from authoritis. I fire loads of ammo. Blanks, mostly. I expect to on this walk as well, if the legs last. Last, legs.

9: Note: this is a Kardashian-free website. I will not accept their family name into this blog. If you are a Kartrashycan, I am truly sorry.

10: Past journals taught me; I no longer post reader comments(1). I generally don’t like what people have to say, particularly unkind or uneducated folk, of whom Earth knows no dearth. I apologize to kind commenters (if any) who deem it an inconvenience, but be assured: it’s nothing like the inconvenience these long trails are. 

Thank you. Does anybody have any questions?

My spud-boy plates and soon-to-expire registration

"Foot"note 1: If you’d like to reach me, to express, for example, your outrage, I’m afraid (but not that afraid) you will have to do so by smoke signal.

The AT's Many States

2,186 miles of what now?

The Appalachian Trail slices through fourteen states, along with a few others I currently know of:

• State of Deep Fatigue
• State of Confusion
• State of Awe

I hope to go through each of these states; I have the maps. (Incidentally, these places are all capitalized not for effect--capitalization is generally a no-no when in bullet form--but because they are indeed places, not emotions.)  

The State of Fatigue is expected; no long backpacking trip can transpire without it. And although I was once an endurance athlete, paid to do really dumb things--money for nothing--it’s been during these long treks I’ve reached the deepest fatigue canyons I have ever experienced. Maybe it’s because sleep is never all that deep--think cold, bumpy ground, with big, sharp-toothed animals lurking under the umbrage of darkness--or maybe it’s because of the lousy diet. Or maybe it’s because of the behemoth upon thy back. In any case, the hiker befriends fatigue, or the state will likely be the last one the hiker reaches, prior to ending the hike. Or his life.

Confusion is also figured upon; no one in his or her right mind would choose to wear a backpack for twenty-two hundred miles. These are confused individuals to begin.

States the AT incurs...

Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine.

Other states the trail will incur (and/or induce)...

• Contempt
• Suffering
• Paranoia
• Flux
• Hostility
• Doubt
• Anger
• Grief
• Disgust
• Sadness
• Homesickness
• Loneliness
• Anxiety/Fear
• Boredom
• Hunger (this is a guarantee)
• Hysteria
• Depression
• Aggression
• Horror
• Embarrassment
• Frustration
• Mindlessness

Of course, they’re not all negative states; there will likely be states of...

• Ecstasy
• Surprise
• Affection
• Love (Lust)
• Pleasure
• Hope
• Compassion
• Euphoria
• Gratitude
• Interest
• Forgiveness
• Pride
• Sympathy

One thing’s for sure. I will try my best not to go through the following states...

• Hatred
• Guilt
• Regret
• Remorse
• Shame
• Pity
• Envy
• Ambivalence

The AT is a metaphor for life itself; I suspect I’ll experience all these states and more, shoehorning more life, more emotion, into the next handful of months than some folks do during their lifetimes. The Appalachian Trail: Hallowed Be Thy Name. Time for a long walk.

A Limp in the Woods (Day 1)

An Appalachian Trail Tale
Day 1: Monday, March 25th (or January 84th) 2013
The Approach Trail = 8-ish miles
(AT) Miles to Date: .25

The Approach (the Pre-Amble) / Two Feet per Mile

“Hello spare time!” ~Funnybone

The Grand Départ of a long (I hope!) journey

Seldom do I find myself apprehensive when I think of going for a walk, but this was no ordinary walk. This was the famed Appalachian Trail, a two thousand-plus mile test-tube filled with self-inflicted torture and, as I’d soon come to discover, learning. Developmental learning. No other hike I’d done--and I’d done a few--had me prepared for such a Herculean task.

“Hail to the trail!” I muttered through trembling lips. And so it begins. The walk finally supersedes the talk.

Whereabouts positioned me and my friend Ruth at 34°37’36”N 84°11’37”W, in Amicalola Falls State Park atop the 3,782-foot summit of Springer Mountain, thirty or forty miles north of the megalopolis that is Atlanta. Georgia. The state, not the country.

For us, it’s an alien land. For Ruth, backpacking is a novel affair; her pedestrian credentials are nonexistent. “I normally walk by car,” she jokes. A month ago she found herself in the presence of a terrible idea. “Accompany you on the Appalachian Trail?” she repeated. “Sounds stupid. Sign me up!” 

It’s in the realm of abuse to take someone along on the AT, someone not normally a hiker, but Ruth has learned--every grown-up who hikes is happier, no matter how hard the hiking. A high-functioning cuddler, recovering academic and world-class nymphomaniac,* she’s signed up for a week of commute-by-boot. 

* She doesn’t even mind me saying so, proving the point.

Me? I’ve registered to remain trail-tied for the next half-year, a continuous form of backpack bondage. Well, I hope. (Hope, here, is a form of mental illness.) We answer this booty boot call this by choice; we are not mentally ill. Not entirely.

We made it to this most mundane of woodsy places (even on a clear day Springer Mountain ain’t postcard property) in one piece apiece, though the effort in doing so was anything but a cakewalk. We walked the eight-mile Approach Trail, as it’s called, and I now know: the forecast calls for the probability of pain. For the next five or six months. Gulp.

Springer!

My shoe of choice (two, in fact): Wal-Mart specials

The approach to the indistinct summit is not required to earn thru-hiker accolades; it’s not officially part of the Appalachian Trail. It’s purely preamble. Most hiker hopefuls are escorted up by gas guzzler, to a short distance from Springer. We didn’t do this. It wasn’t because we preferred to avoid polluting or paying. We walked because it doesn’t matter what a strip of dirt is named; if it exists, I want to be on it. If it provides sublimity and serenity, as the approach trail does, it’s all the better. You frequently hear about the last hurrah, but you seldom hear about the first hurrah. This was it.

Our strip of dirt was a strip of snow. Creaking snow. The frozen stuff had blown in all day; the higher we went, the more things began to take it up, flake it up, a notch. It felt as though it was January 84th, not March 25th, like were inside a violently-shaken snow globe. Because of the muddiness, the steepness, and the tripping wind, every step was an ordeal. The Appalachian Trail ought to come with a warning. (“If I go, there will be trouble.”) Not a word was heard, but Ruth and I wondered what we got ourselves into, despite the sublimity and serenity. If there was supposed to be a sense of belonging going on, it didn’t belong to us.

But we’re here now, at the start of the world’s grandest footpath, as excited as we are cold. Ready to join the classless society known as thru-hikers. Through with society, thru-hiking. Beat by beat, verse by verse.

The wind is scything. With windchill, it’s subzero. It’s kicking up additional snow, so picture-time and journal-keeping are ephemeral affairs. It’s cold enough to crack teeth; ours chatter out of control. Subzero can be sublime, but we need to get to shelter. The trail’s first of many three-sided shelters is just a quarter-mile up-trail. If there’s room, we’ll make it our digs for the night. 

Ruth moved on. I stood still, immobilized by the vastness of the task ahead. Long is the way. Take a step, I told my legs.

~~~~~

Turns out there wasn’t any space in the shelter. A gaggle of college-aged kids were jammed together in a heap of humanity so tight and tangled it appeared they’d been stitched together. They were farting, smoking and joking. For us this was no joking matter. The howling wind hacked through our clothes like an invisible ice axe. We asked, despite our inherent aversion to crowdedness, if they’d make some room.

Appalachian Trail shelters operate on a first-come, first-serve basis; we already knew the answer. But we had to try. It was funny to be in such a situation; I’d originally avowed to avoid shelters; I’m a germaphobe, a claustrophobe, a sociophobe, and a mouse-o-phobe. But given the realities of storms, it was not a wise (pre)decision. In a resounding manner the kids replied, “HELL YEAH MAN! THE MORE, THE MERRIER!” If that’s what marijuana does to kids’ brains, I’m all for it. Ruth and I were soon claustrophobically content, adding to the aroma.

As the others had, we eschewed etiquette and pitched our sarcophagus in the shelter. Tent time is the right time. Ours is the size of a refrigerator (though oftentimes colder). We settled into our sleeping bags--along with our electronic devices and the water filter, so they wouldn’t freeze and be damaged; the damage will come when we roll over atop them. We ate dinner and, once our digits were operative, wrote in our journals. “Hello spare time!” I scribbled. “Here goes nothing. Boot camp begins.”

🥾 The next five or six months would allow me all the time in the world to do nothing. I smiled at the thought and continued to jot…

“It’s 2,186 miles to trail’s end @ two feet per mile! All that separated us from today’s frozen tundra was our half-inch soles. Ruth has boots worthy of the job, while I don my typical el-cheap-o Wally-World shoes. I hope to get four hundred miles out of the pair, but at sixteen bucks, the task might be a bit of an ask.”

“We’ll see. It’s one foot after the other, each taking me two feet closer to trail’s end. I shouldn’t be thinking that far in advance; there’re millions of strides between here and trail’s end. Millions! Millions I hope to take, millions I hope to make. Each step is a small victory of sorts. Some are gonna come harder than others...”

I paused. “I wonder how today’s’ll compare...”

I paused again.

Relentless forward progress! Let the good times stroll...

“The world reveals itself to those who travel on foot.”

~Werner Herzog

“My feet is my only carriage...”

~Bob Marley

A Limp in the Woods (Day 2)

An Appalachian Trail Tale
Day 2: Tuesday, March 26th, 2013
Springer Mountain Shelter to a mile Past Hawk Mountain Shelter = 9 miles

The Appalachian Trail? “It’ll be fun,” they said.

Today is the first day of the rest of my hike. I hope each of those that follow, if they follow, continue to be. Upon waking, I wasn’t so sure of the rest of my hike. The notion implies an amount of time or distance. Both seem dubious. The rest of my hike might just mean reaching the next road. Plenty of prospective thru-hikers have been traumatized by trail already. They’ve abandoned their hikes for a later start date. I cannot blame them. I can, however, blame the trail. And I do.

The address and direction for the next half year

I’m stiff as a fossil and sore to the touch. Ergo, no go; I refuse to touch myself. Nor will I let anyone else, though that depends on what she looks like. And where she touches. The usual delayed onset muscle soreness--aka: DOMS--didn’t get the memo that it was supposed to be delayed. (Muscular damage has a way of procrastinating before showing up; late to the party, but the life of it upon arrival.) My body feels like one unanimous knot, all muscles in accord, in a cord. The muscles aren’t alone; other bodily parts are equally as afflicted. These include, but aren’t limited to: skin, organs, fingernails and eyebrows. This, after just one day of hiking. I’m currently on an all-painkiller diet. All for knot!

Before stepping on it, it’s easy to romanticize and idealize the AT. After stepping on it, it’s easy not to.

And so it was well nigh midday when Ruth and I hit the ground crawling. The thought-shots and the mental warm-up ended; it was time to mosey toward South Canada (i.e., Maine). Destination Elsewhere. “Are you ready?” I asked Ruth. “I’m not even ready for yesterday,” she replied.

Bailout shelter

We had been awakened by our breath, but not in the presumed sense. There was no snoring or noise whatsoever. Nor was there any rancidity, since we both flossed, brushed, and gargled last night, as we’d long ago been conditioned to do, through mental-parental-dental control. What had happened was the condensation crystallized inside our tent, forming frozen slivers. These mini daggers fell onto our faces and back into our mouths each time one of our shelter mates bumped into our sagging nylon refuge. Recycled respiration! Another first for Ruth. Old news for me I fear, and not the most welcoming way to wake. 

I remember sometime in the early hours, shivering to no end, I’d thought of unwrapping my toilet paper roll. I was going to wrap myself in the stuff, mummified style, for the added warmth (with the obvious benefit of absorbing any bodily leaks I might incur). But no. I just struggled and snuggled. Some nights are longer than others.

It snowed throughout the night. There is no deeper silence than snow falling. It was falling intermittently as we slipped away (in the literal sense) from the shelter. Neither of us are graceful skiers or skaters. We knew we didn’t have to climb as much as yesterday, but I knew: fatigue only snowballs when backpacking. Injury impends where snow or ice or fatigue are found.

I had ‘nose-cicles’ as long as these

But the day wasn’t too bad! The snow fell as it had yesterday, but usually only in a half-hearted manner. It felt as though the storm was going to lose its grip before we were. I smiled when Ruth tried catching snowflakes with her tongue. We’re all just kids, only most adults seem to have forgotten it.

Shoulders slumping under the weight of our packs, we each settled into our rhythm, regrouping every half-mile. Ruth worried that because she’s out of shape I might be bent out of shape. “I don’t want to be a Baby Ruth.” 

I assured her the only thing bending me out of shape was the backpack. The evidence shows.

Neither of us are in a rush, but because I have an easier time on the hills than she does, I pull ahead every time the trail starts upward. So far the trail has largely slanted upward.

I don’t mind the stop-n-go, but at thirty degrees, the temperature dictated how long I could stay still. I’d start to shiver with each stop, and within seconds. Ruth is unindoctrinated to long-distance backpacking in any kind of weather, and although I wasn’t in any hurry, I required constant effort to stay warm. I wasn’t born with ice in my veins. Or maybe I was.

     Enter the push-up!

Push-ups are not a strength of mine, since they require strength and, well, strength isn’t my strength. But that’s why they kept me warm, despite the decreasing quantity each time I dropped to the ground, from four in a row to none in a row. I lost count how many I’d done in all, but it was at least six or seven. I hoped my sweat glands might freeze and clog, trapping that much more heat.

The first week or two of a long-distance hike is a hardening period of sorts and I figured the extra exercise would only do some good. Unused muscles begin to atrophy during a long hike and I’m only going to get thinner and thinner as time rolls on. So, regardless of the conditions, it’s worth the extra work. Of course, history shows I only ever perform the extra exercise when chilled and waiting.

Walking on I was forced to alternate between using hiking poles and going without, tucking them under my armpits. Even with mittens and plastic dog poo bags inside the mittens, my hands were too cold to be exposed. (I’d’ve welcomed warm dog poo.) Inborn Raynaud’s added to the effect. Relief arrived only when I’d tuck my hands down my pants while walking. I did this a lot, letting my nose run like a watercolor in the rain. Right down my lips and chin. Hiking in winter is pretty, and not so pretty.

When we neared the Hawk Mountain Shelter we’d hoped there’d be room for our type. Nope; there wasn’t room for any type. We moseyed a mile past, pitching the tent on a bed of dead leaves, after we’d cleared the snow. It’s not perfect, but it’ll do. It’ll do is a common camping term.

A Limp in the Woods (Day 3)

An Appalachian Trail Tale

Day 3: Wednesday, March 27th, 2013
A mile past Hawk Mountain Shelter to Justus Creek = 6 miles

(AT) Miles to date: 15

Trial Trail by Flamethrower

Upon waking Ruth and I decided to go back to sleep. Words weren’t involved; it just happened. This conscious/unconscious process repeated itself till we altered our tactics and woke up for good. Good is relative, but on the AT, nearly every day means waking up for good. Or so we’ve been told. I could just as easily become the first to thru-sleep the Appalachian Trail.

As we tore down camp and settled into the new day, I tried to get my brain back into this writing ritual. It’d been a a few months since I’d observed or listened or recorded; the writer’s bump on my middle finger had atrophied. Although writing about walking a long trail isn’t all that exciting, since walking a long trail isn’t all that exciting, I want to make it a habit. (Reading about walking is less exciting yet.) Writing is the best means I have to metabolize my life.

Despite striving for style and laughs, I don’t write for an audience. But I like to have something to write about when placing this foot-print, that way, when I pick up ye olde trail journals, I have something to read when reading. It’s those journals containing stories and terrible attempts at humor I enjoy most. And so I try to create a life full of stories. Unfortunately, life seems to do whatever it wants. Even when hiking.

And that’s the intriguing thing, or intriguing to me, anyhow. Why does someone set out to walk all day, every day? If there’s no excitement, and little potential for a story, well then, what’s the point? I’ll get to that in the next five or six months, I suppose.

Excitement may be too strong a word. No one in his or her right mind, assuming they have one, would walk all day for excitement. I’m not sure we’d walk all day even to seek excitement. So why should reading about the act be any more thrilling? It’s hard to hike vicariously. I know myself well enough now that I do live vicariously through my past. Aging does that to many of us.

I could try to describe the rocks or the trees or the trail itself, but few authors could make these things captivate, and I ain’t one of them. What kind of person reads about a rock and gets their rocks off? (My apologies to all you geologists. Geology rocks, but geography is where it’s at.)

Just as it is with living it, we sometimes keep track of the story with no idea of its conclusion or even the direction it’s headed. And that, to me, is precisely the point. And how I found myself here.

Verbal hogwash aside, it’s time for a rundown of today’s walk, or a walkdown of it.

As this entry suggests from the start, wind, snow and frigid temperatures assured me sleep would not come in its hoped form, but rather in a series of short naps surrounded by lots of tossing and turning--rotisserie sleeping. Plus, Ruth snores. Ceaselessly. A complete snorchestra.

But all was good when we awoke for the final time, to an undisturbed azure sky, gloriously free from clouds. As it seems, when the clouds lift, so too does our spirits. The problem was we were dehydrated and in need of replenishment. Ruth was suffering a meltdown much of the morning and I too, though to a lesser degree. (The temperature was also a lesser degree, but never mind that.)

Another downed sapling; we left it where we found it

Our usual upbeat-ness was downtrodden and our pace was anemic, if not lifeless. The climb from Horse Gap up Sassafras Mountain was the steepest stretch yet, almost laughably so (“We’re starting to get you, AT.”), and there was no water to be found. The white rain had melted into the mud and our spit wasn’t enough. A stupid, stupid mistake.

We were spared our agony at Cooper Gap, where a fellow named Captain Guts of Peoria, IL met us and a few other hikers with cans of soda and hotdogs, the latter of which we passed on, the former of which we gladly took part in. Root beer is a slice of heaven when you’re thirsty, even in winter.

Captain Guts (on the left)

Captain Guts was born with a distortion pedal in his vocal cords. And his voice was unnecessarily loud. He had taken a crack at thru-hiking the AT, twice in the past two years, but the trail got the better of him both times. There’s a lot of better of him, as you can see above. This year he chose to play trail angel, providing others with trail magic(1). We were the beneficiaries. Our timing could not have been bested. Predictably, our moods followed our blood sugar levels.

After the pause, Ruth and I groveled along valiantly. I was proud of her; the girl can rally. By six p.m. we’d walked six miles. We made it to Justus Creek, where six of us have dropped anchor. (“It’s Justus six,” someone joked.) There’s a rangy guy named Chris, from my birth nation of Minnesota; a comely Canadian triathlete named Jenna; an ex-Marine mountaineer named Justin, from Chicago; and a thirty-something year-old fellow named Scott, from Carolina’s northern half, Tar Heel heaven. It’s dirt heel heaven here, although bear tracks dot the area. (“I guess it’s not Justus six!”) Most the imprints are the size of a human hand, but with claws. Untrimmed claws. We’d socialize till clawing temperatures forced us to take cover under covers.

"Foot"note 1: Trail magic is an act or acts of kindness, often in the form of drinks or food. It can be a load of laundry done for the hiker, or a home-stay, or a ride down from the mountains. The term was conceived by long-distance hikers to describe an unexpected occurrence that lifts a hiker's spirits (or blood sugar) and inspires awe or gratitude. The real magic, however, is found on the trail. Not in a drink cooler. You wouldn't always know this though; so many young hikers consider the trail an inconvenient truth, strung between places to party or take advantage of others. Thru-hiking is the only form of magic I believe in.

A Walk in the Woods (Day 4)

An Appalachian Trail Tale
Day 4: Thursday, March 28th, 2013
Justus Creek to Henry Gap = 9 miles
(AT) Miles to date: 24

An Appalachian a Day Keeps the Doctor Away

I must have slept swimmingly last night; this morning I awoke in a pool of drool. I think it was my drool, but I can’t be sure. 

Sleeping can be difficult when camping. The ground is rarely the right texture--too hard or too soft. Lumpy and lopsided. Jagged and gelid. Wet and gooey. There are also threats in the woods that might not just disrupt sleep, but life--threats that may or may not exist, but keep you from deep sleep all the same. When camping far from the societal safety net, senses convince you everything is a grizzly bear. I’ve yelled WHO GOES THERE?! (in a deep, manly voice) because a pine cone once fell near my tent.

So each time I’m afforded the opportunity to face another day (and give the day my some), I’m relieved. It means I wasn’t maimed. It means no trees (or pine cones) fell atop the tent. It means I didn’t drown in drool, mine or anyone else’s.

Despite my drooling slumber, no rejuvenation was had. Just as it’s been for three days, today’s hiking tended toward the difficult. There was one hilly obstacle after the other: Ramrock Mountain, Woody Gap, Big Cedar Mountain and eventually, though barely eventually, Henry Gap. It was a fine day to be afield, but I might’ve been better off not sleeping and instead just have chipped away throughout the night. And sometimes night-hiking is more stimulating than the daytime stuff.

Ruth at our first paved road!

Chipping away is not why I’m hiking this trail. (Although I couldn’t help noticing that, barring catastrophe, we’d pass the twenty-two mile mark today, denoting the AT’s one-percent point. It’s good to occupy the mind out here, if even with lowly numbers.) I don’t care if I hike the trail in its entirety, so long as I enjoy what hiking I do. Making mileage or making good time is not the aim; having a good time is. So far, with Ruth’s companionship, I’ve accomplished just that. Hedonism at its hardest.

The thru-hiking life isn’t free from strife, but the pluses outweigh the minuses. Although it feel like our backpacks outweigh both the pluses and the minuses, Ruth and I are happy knowing that, to this point, the pluses have more than offset the minuses. It furnishes hope that no matter the challenges ahead, it’ll all be worth it. We shall see.

~~~~~~~~~~

We were the first to leave our group camp spot. This was unexpected, because we both value and appreciate sleep and were in no rush to disrupt comfort. The trail’s been anything except comfortable so far, so you take luxury when you can get it, or Ruth and I do anyway. Yet here we were, walking earlier than anyone in our group.

Yesterday was a shorter day, but we felt its effects and the effects of days leading to it. For the first time we’d see gaggles of hikers and soon fell into step with Alex, a young thru-hike hopeful. “Can I work in with you?” he asked, as though we were working out. (I suppose we were.)

Al seems a bright kid, but he hikes barefooted, shoes dangling from his pack like Christmas ornaments. We figured he ran out of toilet paper and was forced to donate his socks to the cause. But just as we were about to ask, he said he had some bad blisters. “My feet are FUBAR, and my shoes are only helpin’ to aggravate.” We’d leapfrog one another a few times, passing him in the rougher rockier stretches as he tip-toed along, before he’d pass during our repose.

One of the rest spots, atop an exposed ridge overlooking the world on Ramrock Mountain, was as beautiful as they come. We could just about make out the curvature of the planet.

There were three others there, each as mesmerized by the vastness of it all as we were. We’d been socked in by tenebrific trees for three days, with just a keyhole view of the world. This was a reminder why the AT is known as the Green Tunnel. (Appalachia: Land of the Smothered Sun. Even radar cannot locate the AT.) No one was going to pass on this. One guy joked it was a chance for our bodies to manufacture some all-important vitamin D. You know you’re on the Appalachian Trail when you worry about vitamin D deficiency.

When darkness dropped, we built our home near Henry Gap. Alex was entrenched nearby. We were on official wilderness land, as designated by that magnanimous act of Congress, but we were just feet from private land, as designated by two rusty signs. The signs were draped on a rusty barbed-wire fence, which I’d accidentally walked into. ‘TRESPASSERS WILL BE SHOT; SURVIVORS WILL BE SHOT AGAIN,’ one sign read. The other stated that ‘PRAYER IS THE BEST WAY TO MEET GOD; TRESPASSING IS THE FASTEST.’ I now know where to go if a Code Brown* rears its steamy head. (*When Number Two becomes priority number one.) Revenge, after all, is a dish best served brown.

A Limp in the Woods (Day 5)

An Appalachian Trail Tale

Day 5: Friday, March 29th, 2013
Henry Gap to just past Wold Laurel Top = 11 miles
Miles to date: 35

A Mean Mien

Hiking the Appalachian Trail is a serious undertaking. Not the type of undertaking where undertakers take note, but serious nonetheless. When I think of walking two thousand plus miles, it overwhelms. Here’s a fun fact: the AT is longer than this year’s Tour de France.

But rather than view the trail as an endeavor that’s to be accomplished in one fell swoop, or one swell foop, I figure it’s best to think of it as a series of shorter hikes all joined together, one after the other. Stages, not unlike those in Le Tour de Dope.

Each stage may be a mountain stage, but each entails only a day’s amble, and that’s not altogether daunting. Every few stages, there’s a place where resupply and civilized rest is attainable. In essence, the AT is just a bunch of walking strung in back-to-back-to-back fashion, from one form of replenishment to the next. The end goal isn’t for the hiking to end, or to reach trail’s end, but to enjoy the means to that end, no matter how mean or meaningless those means may seem.

What else? The AT has a mean mien. It is NOT a side-winding snake; it knows no circumvolving.

To illustrate this point, I’ve already done more hiking on my toes than ever before. It’s not that I’m tip-toeing ala Alex the Unshod--just that the act is unavoidable because of the vertical gradient nearly all the climbs play host to. It is impossible to touch your heels to the ground when scaling yet another preposterously steep slope. (They’re preposterously steep, but dammit, they’re not over-the-top.) 

The Appalachian Trail goes to great lengths to avoid going to great lengths; there are few switchbacks or hairpin turns; there is no beating around the bush(es). It’s straight up and straight down the most direct line possible, this much is straightforward.

With a backpack on, each upward step is an upheaval.

I can stand the climbs. (I’d rather stand on them.) What I loathe are the bruising descents. (The AT is hilly in either direction, like those barefooted walks to school through the snow when we were kids.) The feet, knees, hips and spine remind you of their presence every step downhill; in the event they forget to, other hikers will remind you how much theirs hurt, reminding you yours will. Plus, there’s farther to fall. Plus, it’s hard to generate warmth downhill. Point me upward and I shan’t complain. Much.

And here’s another consideration when heading downhill: the ATer still cannot touch his or her heels to the ground, since there’s often loose scree on the trail (where mud doesn’t drown it). At times it’s like walking on ball-bearings. One is forced to walk cat-like, with the toes landing before the heels, or slipping is assured. Falls follow slips. Impact follows falls. Pain follows impact. And, in my case, crying follows pain. 

Here’s something to cry about: they say the vertical gain over the entire AT is comparable to climbing eighteen Mount Everests(1), from sea level to summit. The AT is not a level playing field. Had it been around during the dark ages, when nearly everyone presumed the world was flat, they’d have known better had they stepped foot on it. (The AT remains in the dark ages, what with all the trees.)

~~~~~~~~~~

Our day commenced when we had had enough of being tent-bound; cramped quarters overrode our concerns of the cold conditions outside. We had to pick our poison and even though it was still quite early, we’d had enough of the first form.

The first obstacle was Blood Mountain, presumably named for the number of hikers who take their lives at this point of the trail. (All it requires is a spork to the neck, so long as the utensil is metal and not plastic; I’ve been rehearsing.) In truth, no one knows why the ominous moniker(2), but the peak was as unforgiving as anything we’d been up yet. At 4,458-feet, it’s Georgia’s highest point along the AT. But unlike most the trail thus far, we were rewarded with incredible views up top. I was literally taken aback (but thankfully not taken a-back down the mountain) with the sheer vastness of it all. Georgia, no question, is striking.

The stone shelter atop Blood Mountain

Striking too were our legs, so we made it a point to sit at the summit for a lengthy while. A stone shelter adorned the peak, as did quite a few needled trees, but we moseyed on just beyond, where a rocky outcropping provided a 360-degree diorama to everything below. It was hazy and even a bit cloudy, but only above.

Ruth atop Blood Mountain

After a hair-raising descent, we made our way to US Highway 19 at Neel Gap, the first resupply point on the trail. I was excited to see others, particularly a French-braided auburn-ish brunette who’d caught and passed us atop the bloody mountain. I’d come to learn her name was Kalamity, but there then I only wished I knew her. I could see that she was proof that not everyone who hikes the Appalachian Trail has a beard (though there’s still plenty of time for her to grow one).

The shop at Neel Gap, Mountain Crossings, catered to thru-hikers and only thru-hikers, that is unless motorists required freeze-dried foods or a new pair of hiking poles during their drive. Prices were unrealistic, expectedly so. Neel Gap is where many hikers realize:

A: A heavy pack cannot be taken lightly

B: What they’d hauled here was too much

3: Owning too much is never enough

Gone with the new and heavy, in with the new lighter-weight stuff. 

Prepared accordingly, Ruth and I only needed a treat. We didn’t care about its weight, or, for that matter, its cost. Hunger trumps budgetary concerns.

A storage shed at Neel Gap

We killed hours beside the store, chatting with others and ridding wrappers. While recharging our bodies we recharged our electronic garb. We were discovering just how social the AT is. Still, it amazed us how much alone time we’d found on the trail to this point, thirty two miles in. The AT is not overcrowded! Then again, the weather has sent a lot of backpackers packing; perhaps the numbers aren’t indicative of a normal year. One thing’s assured: the attrition rate will escalate--a good thing for those misanthropes too hard-headed to stop what they start. When all was charged we charged on, straight up Levelland Mountain. Level-land, my ass. Luckily, the trail remained sane the remainder of the day. No handrails required. 

We’d end up camping beside a bunch of log furniture. We were with Chris the Minnesotan, who waddles like an Emperor Penguin when he walks, and two others: Caboose, a ganja-toking gal from Los Angeles’s eastern most suburb (Denver), and a scraggly, happy-go-lucky kid named The Dogfather. He was hiking with his doghter (dä-ter; the g is silent), who called herself Bella (and who’s not silent). I tried flirting with the pup-tart--I pet all the dogs--but like all females everywhere, she rejected my advances. The user-friendly pooch would guard us from bears throughout the night, what with her snoring.

The evening's digs

Bella the backpacker

(1) This is a two-part "foot"note...

Uno: if you have hiked the entire AT, you've hiked the entire AT; you've climbed approximately NO Mount Everests.

Ocho: even with today's fancy GPS units, there is no accurate way to measure elevation loss or gain and therefore no definitive answer to just how much climbing the the AT truly entails. This is because between measurements taken at each data-point there may be numerous ups and downs that are not captured. For instance, if you descend three hundred feet but regain it before the next data-point, the tally will display zero loss or gain. Think of it this way: if an ant were to thru-hike the AT he'd have to account for all the ups and downs that a human would simply step over. That "stepping over" is what the data-points do: they step over all unmeasured terrain between each one taken. This is the fractal nature of Nature.

"Fate"note 3: One of the saddest stories along the AT is that of twenty-four year-old Meredith Emerson. Emerson was murdered on Blood Mountain in ‘08. She and her dog were on a New Year’s Day hike when they came across the perpetrator, a drifter named Gary Hilton, who’d confess to the killing and ultimately be charged with three other such crimes in North Carolina and Florida.

Meredith Emerson

A Limp in the Woods (Day 6)

An Appalachian Trail Tale

Day 6: Saturday, March 30th, 2013
Just past Wolf Laurel Top to Red Clay Gap = 13 miles
Miles to date: 48

Shell Shocked

Some days you feel like the toilet; other days you feel like shit. This is the Appalachian Trail--sorry for the inconvenience.

Upon waking, research showed that Ruth and I felt 83% better than we did yesterday morn. We felt 21% okay yesterday (and okay isn’t all that great, since 100% is considered the acme on the official ‘How Do You Feel? Thru-Hiker Scale’), but this morning we felt an additional 83% better, or 38.4% overall. (100% better of 21% is 42%, naturally.) (Please keep in mind that math is not my forte; idleness is.)

The Official “How Do You Feel? Thru-Hiker Scale”
Dead = 0% or less
Egregious = 10% or less (e.g., unmotivated, injured, depressed, irate, etc)
Lousy = 11 to 20% (e.g., grumpy, exhausted, selfish, etc)
Okay = 21 to 30% (e.g., “my feet hurt; my pack weighs too much”)
Not all that bad = 31 to 40% (e.g., “my feet still hurt; the pack is almost tolerable”)
Pretty good = 41 to 50% (e.g., “my feet continue to ache, but I’m loving life!”)
Good = 51 to 60% (e.g., “this rain ain’t all that bad...”)
Really good = 61 to 70% (e.g., no foot pain, buckets of sunshine, contentment, etc)
Great = 71 to 80% (e.g., “there’s nowhere else I’d rather be right now...”)
Friggin’ incredible = 81 to 90% (e.g., “I wonder what the poor people are doin’ right now...”)
Orgasmic = 91% or more (e.g., “OH YEAH!!!”)

We were satisfied, almost content, near pleased, though true contentment would’ve been too drastic a jump on the scale. Still, there was no complaining for either of us, or none to one another. There was certainly no complaining about one another. Maybe Ruth just buried it beneath breaths.

Emotions run amok when toil is undertaken. The trail is only part of the test; anchoring the emotions can be just as challenging. Most the time backpacking is robotic, devoid of commotion or emotion--slow-motion locomotion. If a thru-hiker’s thoughts could be monitored on an EKG type of device, he or she would appear dead--impassively passing through. But there are moments when all hell breaks loose. 

Emotion-commotion is related to the trail’s many challenges, but the relationship is often conflicting and anything but direct. If, for example, the trail heads upward--and it does--moods tend to head downward, at least until a peak is reached, at which point emotions peak. True colors, ever evolving.

~~~~~~~~~~

Apropos the preceding monologue, the path began agreeably enough before turning downright nefarious. Downright nefarious on the AT means downright upright, but the nefariousness is that much more wicked when the up part is upon treacherous footing, as it was this morning. The AT is completely insensitive to the needs of the pedestrian. It rarely sits on anything but treacherous footing. Footpath...yeah, right.

Much of the time when we walk--which is much of the time--we aren’t even afforded any views. This isn’t only because the trail is smothered by trees. It’s because it’s so damn technical. The hiker is forced to keep her eyes aimed directly downward at all times. Take your attention off the ground, if even for a single stride, and it’ll spell trubble, spelled incorrectly or not. There is no walk-n-gawk. This is chaos walking.

So far there’ve been rocks, roots, ruts, divots, drainages, sticks, snow, ice, mud, moss, and litter, to name a few stumbling blocks. Landmines, all. Each is capable of halting a hiker’s hike. Forget Maine; focus has to be Here Now, always. The Appalachian Trail is the world’s longest obstacle course. A long, narrow mosh pit. The path of most resistance. Of course, the biggest obstacle we face is ourselves, but never mind that. “Maybe the AT is another planet’s hell,” Ruth joked.

Mid-morning and we had floundered enough. We were primed for a siesta. We’d climbed from Hogpen Gap in the Raven Cliff Wilderness and were only a sloth’s handful of miles into the day, but the invite for respite was simply too tantalizing. The AT fight song would wait; we were more in tune with The Eye of the Three-Toed Sloth. Muzak to our ears. And as far as our aching legs were concerned, it was pretty much obligatory. The legs may feed the wolf, but they could just as easily starve the hiker.

Ruth down with dirt

Outdoor siestas are a revered activity. That’s assuming inactivity can be considered an activity--which is how we loafers see it; our predilection is to each be a human being and not just a human doing. Doing nothing is doing enough.

But siestas depend greatly on the surrounding environment. Here now that environment carried too much nip to allow us to unwind and relax. Direct sunlight is imperative, but direct sunlight is seldom seen--or felt--on the southern end of the AT. (The woodland has sufficient sunlight for its needs.) We enjoyed what rest we could, but soldiered on before we lost the battle entirely. Being cold is getting old.

Continuing northward, we reached the Low Gap Shelter, where thirty hikers had congregated. By now the sky was the same general shade as motor oil and rain looked imminent, and I guess everyone felt it necessary to sleep under a roof. The lean-to might’ve been able to house eight hikers, so we weren’t sure what the other twenty-two were hoping for. I suggested they start fabricating an ark.

Ruth and I decided to carry on and set up shop farther up trail, knowing all too well that sleeping near others means, well, not sleeping. And we’d already done enough of that during our siesta.

A Limp in the Woods (Day 7)

An Appalachian Trail Tale
Day 7: Sunday, March 31st, 2013
Red Clay Gap to the Old Cheese Factory Site = 8 miles
Miles to date: 56

Common Ground

“Wandering re-establishes the original harmony which once existed between man and the universe.” ~Anatole France

“Thru-hiking ain’t wandering.” ~Funnybone

~~~~~~~~~~

Last night Ruth and I pulled out some headlamp material, but we were too red-eyed to read and nodded off soon after. Our lights continued to illuminate our nylon chateau. This is normal behavior for the beaten backpacker, but that’s not the worst of it. Sometimes the thru-hiker forgets to wake up altogether, sleepwalking for hours on end.

I was doing just that most the day, an auto-pilot pedestrian. This isn’t to imply the miles flew by. I slept, they crept. It’d rained all night and the nights are long, so the trail was submerged. Worse yet, the tent we’ve brung--The North Face Rain Magnet--sprung leaks. Ruth joked that its roof has more holes than Swiss cheese. I could not laugh; it was a nonfiction depiction. Most our stuff wasn’t damp. It was saturated.

Wet wear is revolting. It is also decidedly heavy. What may have weighed three pounds dry now tilts the scales at six or seven. Thankfully, in just a couple days, when Ruth heads home, I’ll be swapping this el-junk-o enclosure for a lighter, less absorbent get-up. Tent Sweet Tent. I’ll also be replacing other items, including headlamp batteries. A pack-transplant.

The svelter shelter is made by Tarp-Tent, an ultra-small company rightly credited as the prime movers of the ultralight movement--my kind of movement, along with the bowel movement. That tent can withstand--and continue to stand in--the rain. The Jaws of Life are required to extricate yourself, but the shelter keeps anyone inside free from Nature’s fury. Inconceivable! It weighs a quarter of what the Rain Magnet does, even when wet. I call it Rancho Costa Plenty--affordable housing it is not--but the porta-shed sheds water and weight. It even comes with a cup-holder--me. I can’t wait.

One of the many rocky stretches

Clouds foretold of more chaos--Ma Nature was licking Her chops--but the early going was almost comfortable. At Unicoi Gap, we met another trail angel, a chatterbox named Crystal from the upper Carolina. Other neoplasm had gathered, and everyone looked pleased. We found out why when Crystal handed us handfuls of chocolate Easter treats. It wasn’t till yesterday we realized today was a holiday (every day is a holiday on a long trail). We joked that the rain scared off the Easter Bunny; harebrains disdain rain. We’ve not seen any of the creatures yet, just some leporine hikers as they race Maine-ward.

We thanked Crystal and wished her well. She seemed forlorn. Her children were spending this human holiday with their father, whom Crystal divorced after he kept committing adultery. Committed to noncommittal--I know it well. It was the first time the kids had been away on a holiday, she’d mentioned, her voice faltering. We didn’t know what to say, so we hugged her. Her graciousness was not lost on us. If everyone in the world was as kind, it’d be a world I’d want to live in.

Crystal (in bright pink) and hiker crowd

We pried open another can of worms after Unicoi Gap, in the form of another climb. This has been the case at almost every road crossing so far. It’s testament that WHAT GOES DOWN…MUST COME UP. It’s easy enough to despise roads, but the hatred is that much easier on the AT; the trail isn’t so much steep as it is vertical. Such is the way when you leave a road.

Still, because the highway at the gap was so raucous, we were happy to get back into the woods, where stillness reigns. Spring hasn’t hit yet and so silence is the order du jour; the calm before the warm. Not a complete absence of sound necessarily, but a deep quiet that simply doesn’t exist where humans congregate. In addition to the dearth of bunnies, we’ve yet to lay eyes on any deer or birds (or even any worms). The only wildlife wandering about has been those weird two-legged creatures migrating north.

An Eastern Easter

After negotiating a peak called Rocky Mountain--which brought thought of John Denver’s tune--a wide-eyed teenager caught us. A boy among men (and women) (and others), Wombat was twelve pounds of cool in a three-pound backpack. The home-skooled kid from Vermont was homeward bound. He started his hike just two days ago, already averaging some twenty-odd miles a day. (It gives new meaning to the phrase whizkid). This is substantial mileage in AT terms (or in any other). He seemed unfazed by the gravity of the undertaking that he was, um, undertaking.

I asked about the home-skooling. “Did ye gradgeeate near da top of yer class?”

He didn’t laugh.

In spite of his ostensible rush the seventeen year-old stopped to share more conversation. He wasn’t afraid of eye contact, a rarity for those his age. Then again, he’d already proven himself unique for attempting the trail in his teens, and solo no less. It was not likely I’d run into him again, so we wished him well and bade sayonara.

“How cool is that?” I said to Ruth. “Homeschooling on the AT! He clearly ain’t helicopter-mommed.”

It was peculiar: I kept thinking how smart it was of Wombat for being out here, yet how dumb I was for it. He’d manage fine, I figured. I wasn’t so sure about my chances. I walked on, thinking about chance and choice. We were just two percent into the trail and my body felt like a wrecked wrecking ball. I felt I was impersonating a thru-hiker. A poser, a pretender, an impostor. Wombat was the real deal.

But the analytics tell us the odds are against us both. Dreams die daily in this cold, dark world. A huge percentile of hikers who attempt the whole shebang don’t make it, vanishing without a whimper. Unfulfilled aspirations. A ruptured rapture. Failure isn’t an option…it’s a given; we’re boxing way above our weight class. Mission Improbable. (This is crazy, because my granddad tells me he used to walk the entire Appalachian Trail each morning just to get to school. “It weren’t always so easy in the dead of winter.”) My guess is that most hikers quit the AT because there is no intermission or halftime or commercial break.

Having subjected themselves to an immediate primordial manifestation of rigorous natural selection, many of the uninitiated don’t even get out of Georgia, accepting defeat with a disturbing readiness. <Ctrl><alt><defeat>. The trail didn’t even have the chance to defeat them; they defeated themselves. If this turns out to be an especially tough weather year, as it’s been so far, the number of failed attempts will escalate. In Nature the weak are the first to go. (In Her nondiscriminatory system of checks and balances, the strong die too.)

If this proves true--and knock on Appalachian hardwood it doesn’t--of the four or five thousand hoping to navigate the totality of this common ground, fewer than a thousand will do so. End ga-me. The path is rated E for everyone; there are no background checks; we all belong. But not all last long. There’s risk at every turn. In time, the AT chooses its thru-hikers. I shall observe a moment of silence for those who fail to make the cut, so long as I’m not one of them. You had one job, Funnybone. The hungry dog gets the bone.

Again, none of it concerns me. It’s one step at a time, for the time being and the time to be. Let it be! The poor prognosis is precisely the path’s appeal. Uncertainty is the adventure. And the nice thing about hiking the Appalachian Trail is that you don’t have to.

By late day we reached the old cheese factory site. Here in the mid-1800s an eccentric New Englander built a dairy. It was fifteen miles from the nearest farmhouse. Other Georgians, who received parcels in the mountains after a government survey of former Indian lands in the 1830s, opted to sell their land to speculators rather than attempt to tame the untamable. For several years, the man ran his dairy successfully. He produced a superior cheese that won several awards at state agricultural fairs. So said our guidebook, anyhow.

Little evidence of the place (or the cheese) remains today. The spot is now a designated campsite, replete with spring. We couldn’t find either. We searched for a suitable sleep spot, but a torrential rain put an end to patience and perfection. I panicked, knowing I’d freeze in minutes if we didn’t get the tent up. The temperature was in the low forties. Rain at forty degrees is colder than snow at half as high. My hands were quickly inoperative; the effects of cold were closing in. Like a lariat.

“It always rains on tents. Rainstorms will travel thousands of miles, against prevailing winds for the opportunity to rain on a tent.”

~Dave Barry

I barked at Ruth--Georgia can be rearranged into I-Go-Rage. She took my pugnaciousness in stride (hikers always take things in stride), even though she too was suffering. We got the Rain Magnet up and proceeded to dry the inside with bread and toilet paper, two items we’d hoped to use for other purposes.

A Limp in the Woods (Day 8)

An Appalachian Trail Tale
Day 8: Monday, April Fools’ Day, 2013
The Old Cheese Factory Site to Hiawassee = 13 miles
Miles to date: 69

Fool’s Day

Ruth

As is the AT norm, scenery has been only at a microcosm level, down in the dirt or in the few perennial plants. Scenery < greenery. Every twist in the trail has been like the one before it: indistinguishable. During many of these twists--and the rare straight stretch between--leaves, mushrooms, insects and rocks are all that offer any view. It’s a novel experience. I’m programmed for panoramas, having spent my life snacking in the American west, from its great watery edge to its majestic mountains and deserts. All desserts.

Even if there were huge vistas--I’ve said this before--you’d see them only when stopped. Immobile, stationary, still. The path demands not just physical effort, but total mental involvement. Concentration tramp. I don’t mind big bouts of physical toil, but I’m as indolent as they come when it comes to mental strain. My brain is adjusted to refrain from pain. It’s good at this.

Regardless, I was enjoying myself. So was Ruth and everyone we’d met. Many hikers, restless and impassioned, were racing up the trail--THRU-HIKERS: TAKE YOUR MARK!--but they too seemed to be loving life. (This is just a guess; few took the time to smile or say hi.) And why wouldn’t we be loving life? We were all where we wanted to be, sucking the marrow from life.

Ruth and I were also sucking wind. The path is hillier than we’d imagined, and what we’d imagined wasn’t pleasant. (We knew a skosh about what we were getting ourselves into, having read hiker accounts.) Progress was slow, and closer to regress. My guess is we’ve walked about five daily hours so far, stopping to catch a second wind at least as long. It’s hard to catch your second wind when you’ve never caught your first. 

Unlike it was for some of the others, there was no hurry. We sought life in each stride and, unless the skies menaced or threatened to, we never concerned ourselves with the miles ahead. What are miles anyway?

~~~~~~~~~~

The day started with the realization I’ve yet to make it through a single night without having to free my bladder of its contents. After the usual lengthy internal debate--to pee or not to pee--this has meant extricating myself from the plush penetralia of the sleeping bag (plush when it remains dry, that is). Then I slip into wet shoes, tip the doorman, step out into the arctic gales, and beeline for the nearest tree, hoping it’s enough of a wind-block.

All the heat this happy camper had worked so hard to create goes missing the instant the sleeping bag is unzipped. Unzipping the woodshed assures I won’t be warm again for hours. This is one of the worst parts of camping. There are others.

A pee bottle would do the trick, but I don’t like peeing in bottles. Nor do I like peeing before a dissolute voluptuary who’s forever in heat. Or in front of anyone else. (And drug testing in sport was a weekly occurrence--fun.) Plus, once you’ve chugged urine, you’d never consciously choose to piss into a bottle again. Trust me on this. Pee tastes like shit.

The sky was on full exhibition when I stepped out. The clouds had retreated. I stood there thunderstruck, gawking at a gazillion sparklers, nearly peeing on myself. I could name just one asterism--the Big Dipstick. But there were dozens on display, including that one shaped like an albino orangutan holding a raised bowling pin in one hand and a mirror in the other. Stunned by it all, I wondered for a second: if the constellations had been named in recent centuries there’d probably be fewer animals up there, just as there are here on Earth. Shoot ‘em down, shooting star.

I was up again an hour later, an hour before the sun, ready to ramble. Ruth was sound asleep--that sound being SNORING--but I prompted and prodded her to accompany me on a walk on this April Fool’s Day. It’s a day, I whispered her way, held in my honor. It’s not every day you’re honored.

The Tray Mountain Wilderness and its namesake peak were first on our to-do list. Starting the day with a steep incline, when we’d been recline, was, well, dumb. It was too early to be sweating. “I’d like the Appalachian Trail more if it wasn’t always trying to kill us,” Ruth said.

It was easy to replenish any sweat lost, since there were many springs lining the trail. Already, we’d passed more water gushing out of the ground than I’d ever seen out west. The water was pure and potable, but much too frosty to ingest without incurring an ice headache. We’d sip throughout the day, to avoid those or any other headache. Speaking of fools, I’ve already had one dehydration-caused migraine back on Day 3, and it was severe enough to lead me to puke.

The Five-Star Deep Gap Shelter

At Deep Gap we hopped off the hamster wheel and took a side-trip to a posh shelter of the same name. It was ideal territory for a siesta. We hung everything out to dry and laid back to unwind. That’s when Boy Scout Troop 566 stumbled onto the scene. A platoon of rambunctious ramblers. Siesta de negativo. R & R was adjourned. We were subdued; they were unglued. I said to Ruth, “Like our clothes, Scouts oughta also be strung up and hung to dry.” The twerps were as obnoxious as kids get, and their parents/leaders utterly incompetent. Incompetent was the only tent they knew anything about. Ruth the one-time rookie even laughed, watching the troop leaders argue over how best to pitch a tent.

Our wits were on the fritz, so made like a banana and scrambled. We did not thank the lads for their service. Children are like farts; you don’t mind them when they’re your own. They’re little whiffs of poop when they’re someone else’s.

By late afternoon we negotiated a long descent to US Highway 76 and Dick Gap, or Dick’s Creek Gap. Fortune met us there, in the form of an Indianan named Oscar. Oscar proposed driving us to Hiawassee in his older-model pick-up, but not before offering us and a hiker named Jungle Juice some trail magic. Sandwiches, cookies, candy, heaven. Hoosier hospitality. The middle-aged triathlete had been parked at the trail junction for an hour, hoping to meet some thru-hikers. That’s when we three breezed in. We tried to smile in appreciation, but it was difficult with our mouths so full. We eat candy while millions go hungry.

Jungle Juice kept north while Oscar shuttled Ruth and me to Hiawassee. Heeding a call to inaction, she and I checked into a classy hotel. Classy in that it had a roof that didn’t look to leak if the skies were to. We cleaned up and promptly did nothing. Slacktion! Oh to do jack squat and find it enough! Tomorrow we move only to eat. In the evening Ruth will head to a heated home, and I...back to the wet, wintry woods. Dark and damp, a place to camp.