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 grave undertaking. Not the type of undertaking where undertakers take note, but grave 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 almost simultaneously with the heels, or slipping is assured. Falls follow slips. Impact follows falls. Pain follows impact. And crying follows pain, at least in my case.

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 barrier was Blood Mountain, named for the hordes 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 scaled yet. At 4,458-feet, it is Georgia’s AT apex. And unlike most the mess behind us, we were rewarded with views. I was taken aback (but thankfully not taken a-back down the mountain) with the vastness of it all. Georgia is striking.

The 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 tenting 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, from Toad Suck, Arkansas. I kid not: Toad Suck. 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 females worldwide, 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; the focus must always be Be Where Your Feet Are. 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.

We had floundered enough and 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 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 are subject to the immediate environment. Here now that environment carried too much nip to allow us to unwind. 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. I hate being solar powered. 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 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 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 were too red-eyed to read. We nodded off, lights continuing to illuminate our flappy chateau. This is standard 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, a small company rightly credited as one of the prime movers of the ultralight movement--my kind of movement, along with a good 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. 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. Bunnies and other bogeymen. It wasn’t till yesterday we realized today was a holiday (every day’s 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 opened another can of gummy worms after Unicoi Gap, in the form of a climb. This has been the case at almost every road crossing so far. Another climb. It’s testament that what goes down must come up. It’s not difficult to resent roads, but the animus is that much easier on the AT; the path 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 return to the sticks, where stillness presides. Spring hasn’t yet hit, 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--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-schooled Vermonster was homeward bound. His hike started two days ago. He’s averaging twenty-odd miles a day. (It gives new meaning to the phrase whizkid). In AT terms, this is serious mileage. He was unfazed by the gravity of the undertaking 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 apparent rush the seventeen year-old stopped to converse. 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.”

I kept thinking how wise it was of Wombat being out here, yet how ill-advised I was for it. He’d manage fine, I figured. I wasn’t sure about my chances. The AT is a glorious mess of uncertainty. I walked on, thinking about chance and choice. We were just two percent into the trail and I felt like a wrecked wrecking ball, like I was impersonating a thru-hiker. A poser, a pretender, an impostor. Wombat was the real deal.

But the analytics say the odds are against us both. Dreams die daily in this cold, dark world.

A huge share of hikers who attempt the whole shebang vanish without a whimper. Unfulfilled aspirations. A ruptured rapture. Failure isn’t an option, it’s a given; we are boxing above our weight class. Bowling with marbles. Mission Improbable. (This is all so crazy, ‘cause my grandpa tells me he used to walk the entire Appalachian Trail each morning just to get to school. “It weren’t so easy in the dead of winter barefooted.”) My guess is that most hikers quit the AT because there’s 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. Reality is quick to intrude on reverie.

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. Doubt is a passenger; 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. In the mid-1800s an eccentric New Englander built a dairy here, 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.

No evidence of the creamery remains today. The spot is now a designated campsite, replete with spring. So said our guidebook; there was also no trace of these. We searched for a suitable sleep spot, but a torrential rain put an end to patience and perfection. I panicked, knowing I’d soon freeze if we didn’t get the tent up. The temperature was in the low forties. To me, rain at forty degrees is colder than snow at half as high. My fingers were immediately inoperative; the effects of the frigidity was 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 having a good time. 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?

~~~~~~~~~~

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 worked to attain 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 fulfill requirements, but I don’t prefer to pee in bottles. Nor do I prefer to pee in front of a dissolute voluptuary who’s forever in heat. Or before anyone else. (And drug testing in sport was a weekly occurrence--fun!) Plus, once you’ve chugged urine, you’d never again choose to piss into a vessel. 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 fiendish 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.

A Limp in the Woods...or not (Day 9)

An Appalachian Trail Tale
Day 9: Tuesday, April 2nd, 2013
Hiawassee Zero Day = 0 miles (I’m unsure what this is metrically; kilometers are shorter than miles)
Miles to date: 69 (hee-hee)

Ruthless

And God said(1), “Let there be a day of rest.” 

And I, a god-fearing atheist, took it to heart. 

Elseways the passage becomes a passing.

After a Cereal Kamikaze* Ruth and I took a Ferris Bueller day. Shopping, eating, relaxing. I shopped for food for the next stretch of war--anything but cereal--whilst she, a church-attending astrophysicist, helped me relax. Today, relaxing was not my forte. I’m fearful of future hardships.

(* Not a Serial Kamikaze; there can be no such thing. A Cereal Kamikaze is a dozen different cereals, all thrown in a bucket, drowned in milk--or milky matter--then boldly eaten. Three of them must be bland; three are to be children’s cereals; three must be muesli; and three are chosen by someone else, ideally an unsuspecting fellow shopper.)

Gaming at the grocer; I lost

Anyway, such a hiatus is known in hiking circles as a zero day. It’s a holding pattern of sorts, a vacation for the feet, since there is zero (on trail) hiking done. Sometimes, nothing is the best thing you can do. But zero days are frequently more stressful than a day spent hiking and can offer little rehabilitation. A relax tax.

This is because the hiker has much to tend to in town. There’s resupplying, e-mailing, Internetting, hobnobbing, laundering, choreographing future resupplies, showering (this one takes time), Scrabble-ing, eating, and other important considerations, like unclogging the toilet you just plugged. This last task serves reminder why some of us prefer pooing in the woods.

By evening it was back to the real, back to the arboreal. Into the thick of things. I thanked Ruth for putting up with me. Her friend Jill had driven from her home in Cumming (a name I just adore) to whisk her away. Jill drove us to Amicalola Falls when our journey commenced; it was good to see her again. I told Ruth I’d have the phone on and to call when they made it back. “If you guys don’t make it back, don’t bother.”

Prior to this Ruth had never backpacked or camped, not for consecutive days. Her hobbies are reading, sex, and genealogy. (I studied my family tree once, but was stumped. And yes, it’s a nut tree, though it contains one fruit.) Backpacking means being comfortable with being uncomfortable, and Ruth dealt with everything with great grace. I have to hand it to her. Not many people can hack a week on the AT; fewer can handle me that long.

This is my maiden voyage with cellphone. (I preferred when phones had handles and didn’t come with cameras and were wired to walls. “Have you seen my phone?” asked NO ONE EVER in the 1970s.) I don’t care to use it daily, but I am stoked to reach out to Ruth randomly. She’ll be easy to find on my contact list, since all others in it are friends’ dogs. It was hard watching her and Jill drive off, not just because it was getting dark.

I started up trail, but opted to stop. (“I live among the creatures of the night; I haven’t got the will to try and fight,” said a woman I adore.) I’d been swallowed by a tangled mess that looked like trees. Night hiking--black blazing--would take some getting used to in woods so thick. I’ll save the exploration of the dark side (of this tunnel, of night, of mind) for another day. Or for another night, as it is.

Later still. The sky is as black as a bad bruise, as dark as death. Thoughts churn. You can learn a lot about yourself sleeping alone in the woods. In just one brooding hour I’ve learned I still believe in the Boogeyman. And in Blair Witch. Definitely in Bigfoot. Of course it doesn’t matter if I believe in Bigfoot; what matters is that he believes in himself. Right now I wish I had his confidence, like that rodent who thinks himself a meteorologist.

"Faith"note 1: And no one has heard from him since.

Looking onward...

A Limp in the Woods (Day 10)

An Appalachian Trail Tale
Day 10: Wednesday, April 3rd, 2013
Dick’s Creek Gap to near Beech Gap, North Carolina = 21 miles
Miles to date: 90

Georgia Carolina on my Mind

Morning. Birdsong. Decaying foliage infiltrates the nostrils. Grasses sway. Though land-laid, leaves rustle. The sun is rising, but the mercury is tanking. I’ve no idea where I am. Not even sure I know where I’m going. But I’m going. Or shall be soon, if limbs comply.

As has been the latest trend, I was up early today, Wednesday, Hump Day. Hoist it, hump it, heave it, haul it, hate it. “Time to get amongst Nature,” I told myself, yawning uncontrollably. “The legs feed the wolf.” In trying times never quit trying.

I don’t sleep deep in these woods. It might be because Georgia has a certain feel to it. Or it’s because I’m a wuss. Whatever the reason, I hope the insomnia doesn’t last the length of the trail. This feel has to do, of course, with what outsiders think of when they think of the Georgia backcountry:

Deliverance

If you haven’t read the book or seen the movie or recognize Dueling Banjos, I’ll brief you. (Not as in underwear brief.) [You’ll have to see the film to get that.] The storyline centers on four urbanites who’ve decided to paddle a rugged backcountry Georgia river before an environmental injustice, a dam project, is to ruin the region. 

After given ominous warnings from the yokels of Weirdsville, the men embark on their odyssey, unfazed. But trouble’s soon a-brewin.’ They find themselves separated into two groups of two. Two of the men are then accosted by some country mongoloids, who rape one of them. “Squeal like a pig,” the victim is ordered, while a gun is pointed at him and his friend. Yee haw!

Now, unless you’re a highly-paid thespian, this is not the sort of scene you hope you ever find yourself in, the kind that keeps you up at night. Or the kind that keeps me up at night. Laugh if you want, but you wouldn’t be laughing if you were sleeping alone in the woods. I’ve only met three locals on the trail so far, but their cumulative tooth count was half a dozen. Maybe.

Time for an intermission and an age-old Georgia joke...

~~~~~~~~~~

After a long day’s walk a hiker reaches a shelter and asks if anyone there wants to hear a good Georgia joke. One of the occupants responds, “Sure, but before ya tell it, ya otta know I’m six-two and weigh two-twenty, and I’m Georgian. And see them-there feller returnin’ from the shitter? He’s six-four, weighs two-fifty, and he’s Georgian. And that guy gatherin’ sticks fer the fire--he’s six-foot-six and weighs two-eighty. He’s also from Georgia. So...ya’ll still wanna tell yer Georgia joke?”

The hiker responds with a resounding no.
The occupant says, “Why not? Ya afraid?”
“Not at all,” the hiker replies. “I just don’t want to have to explain it three times.”

~~~~~~~~~~

The day looked to be glorious--it was too early to tell, but it felt suitable--so I wrangled the ice from my shoe laces and decided to stretch the legs. I’ve averaged some seven daily miles so far and that’s not going to cut it. A math-check shows such a pace would have me finishing the AT next year. That’s not a bad a thing, but it’s not good, either. No offense to you Maine-iacs, but Maine’s arctic blasts aren’t my idea of having a blast.

The problem’s the behemoth on my back. I’m hauling a whole new set of victuals, along with warmer, heavier clothing, the stuff Jill delivered. Food and clothing are essential, but my spine already wants to jettison the junk. I’ll eat as much as I can, as soon as I can, before hitting the can. I’ll also quit carrying water.

This last task is doable this year. All springs mentioned in the guidebook are charged, flowing like hydrants. This lightens the load tremendously, and I hike from source to source. When you carry your own water, you know the value--and the weight--of every drop. 

Luckily, the lengthiest waterless stretch so far has been two hours, tops. And as cold as it’s been I’ve rarely wanted more than a two liters of liquid each day. My life’s mantra has always been--why work any harder than needed? Hard work never killed anyone, but why chance it? All the hard workers I know are miserable.

The filter I use is a new-fangled contraption made by a company called Sawyer. It--ADVERT ALERT!--is the most prized possession in my pack, proving itself a complete warhorse. (I’ll give you my filter when you pry it from my cold, wet hands!)

The liquid asset weighs just two ounces and filtrates the smallest of infiltrators, squeezing the bejesus out of cryptosporidium, giardia, fishhooks, minnows, micro-plastics, toenail trimmings, etc. There’s no pumping and nothing to break*. (* Its guts could explode if any water inside were to freeze and expand, which is why the filter sleeps beside me--whether I do.) I just dip a bottle in the source, screw the Sawyer back on, and drink to my belly’s delight, free from fear of microbial mayhem. Dip-n-sip. I never have to work or wait for innocuous water. Although all springs have all been issuing safe water--holy water--I like knowing I could drink from even the rankest, unholiest pools and still linger on, as I have to this point.

In the past I courted catastrophe by playing Giardia Roulette, filtering fibrous water with only my teeth, only to endure cavities, gingivitis, and some distressing waterborne illnesses. After the last episode, not long enough ago, I vowed never again to play the odds. My sphincter was discharging fluid as fast as I could replace it--literally squirting hazel Gatorade--and I’d lost what little strength I’d had. Strength is crucial on a long trail. Strength of body, strength of mind.

Once, on the PCT near Etna, California, I was cemented to a stranger’s toilet for an entire week, recuperating from slurping some contaminated H2O. I had been poleaxed by a blend of dizziness, diarrhea, fever, chills, sweats, itching, nausea, and vomiting. I also didn’t feel very good. I continually thanked my hosts for saving my life, all the while apologizing for the toilet paper consumption and for running up their water bill, what with all the flushing. I heard they had to bathe their bathroom in bleach after I’d left, before burning it.

My body’s playing host

To a number of germs

I’ve got amoebas and parasites

I’ve even got worms

Bad bacteria

Invading my gut

I’ve got constant diarrhea

And a rash on my butt…

So here now the extra ounces were worth the risk reduction. Anyone still using chemicals in this day and age is a buffoon(1), as intellectually malnourished as the gut flora they’re attempting to kill.

Continuing onward, alone and somewhat forlorn, feeling an awkward blend of loneliness and eagerness, I realized I missed Ruth’s companionship. Adventures are best when shared, and not just with gut flora. Each time I stopped to rest my aching feet (and my aching back and my aching knees and my aching shoulders and my aching hips), I sat there hoping she’d appear around a bend and surprise me.

“I decided to quit my job and go for a walk.”

I grinned at the thought, but knew that that’s all it was.

Hiking with others is a peculiar proposition. No two persons keep the same pace throughout the day, and no two persons need to stop at the same time all the time. There’s some concession. But the companionship is (usually) worth the compromise. Solitude is easy enough to find in pairs, but companionship is difficult to find alone. I was already too versed in conversations with myself. I guess I just missed my friend.

I passed others all day, but all we’d do is exchange pleasant banalities--weather talk, the hardships of the trail, and details of our gear. I cringe when I engage in synthetic discussion, but I know not how to avoid it, except to avoid others. Interaction creates anxiety in me, but head-down hiking is not my preferred mode, and I prefer to hear the sui generis sounds of Nature over the companionship of an iPod.

It was surprising how many others were wearing headphones and avoiding interaction--with me or with the world around them--but I expected as much. The trail was still and silent, many species long since extinct and winter still firmly in charge; the native music was mute anyhow. Plus, the trail was pretty damn humdrum, so why not transport yourself elsewhere?

By midday I’d crossed into North Carolina without knowing. I’ll blame the world around me--I was immersed. The Tar Heel State is the second of fourteen states for the northbound hiker--NOBOs, as we’re known--and it signaled progress. Progress isn’t my sole aim (see what I did there?), but it’s nice knowing I’m still going. On the AT the going is often all there is to look to.

A tree with a story to tell; near Bly Gap

Soon after the border the trail pitched upward at an angle so laughably steep--a final Fuck You! from Georgia--that I had to stop to make sure I was still on the right course.

Of course I was--the serpentine path obediently pursues the most challenging layout possible. If the trek turns tranquil, that’s when to worry. Soon after the steep bit, before the other steep bit and those that followed, I sat down to soak in the views, and to soak my sweat up with a bandana. The inclines were becoming nastier and rests were becoming more frequent, even though none offered rejuvenation.

Others were at the Muskrat Creek Shelter, near the Chunky Gal Trail. In holding to theme, each of them wore an electronic blindfold. Me, myself, and iPhone. Room and bored. I thought I’d entered a silent retreat. Or a mime convention. Or a school for the deaf, dumb and blind. Or the Twilight Zone. The place looked like a run-down Internet café. Even when a pair of stately eagles hovered just overhead, these pixelated mutants just sat there, fixed to, and fixated on, their screens. It was bizarre behavior to an anachronism like me, and it’d last the entire time I was there--almost an hour. I’ve always been existentially-challenged, but here my nonexistence was profound. Not a word!

Everyone had a brick-like battery backup, so as not to run out of electrical juice. It was imperative they remain connected. The eagles landed, then disbanded. Only I noticed.

Sorry Johnny, the mountains are no longer where you let your cares fall away like autumn leaves. Gotta keep tethered to the Cultural Apparatus! The AT’s purpose is no longer to get away from it all. It’s to bring it all.

They say, “dance like no one is watching.” Well, no one is. Everyone’s got the whole world in his or her hands, dopamine scrolling.

I wrote in my scrap papers while eating scraps. “These androids aren’t just missing the trees for the forest, nor the forest for the trees; they’re missing it ALL. It’s all mixed up, a sickness of sorts. I’m so saddened by it. It makes me feel alone in this world, as lonely as a pin on a map. (Headline: Feeling lonely? You’re not alone.) To think I’ve criticized trail cliques in past journals! At least they’re comprised of humans...” I left. None of the Internet Tribe noticed. They scroll, I stroll.

Maybe I’m the mixed-up one, but theirs is a habit I don’t--and probably shouldn’t try to--comprehend. Why even come to the woods? It frustrates, and this frustration gnaws at my core, changing who I am, and who I wish to be. There’s nothing I can do about it, and nothing I can do about others, be they human or cyborg. And for that matter, there’s nothing I even want to do about it. Only complain.

But I wrestle with it over and over, especially out here, where it seems, at least to some degree, we’re supposed to fuse with Nature, the place we latter-day apes were forged from. Nature isn’t a vacation spot; it’s home. We should be building our understanding of it, our appreciation for it, our love of it, and our defense of it. But no. We tie in to elsewhere, thinking of elsewhere, looking elsewhere.

I find it intrusive, a crime against all things sensible and natural. “Smart”phones are the new cigarettes. We simply cannot ignore the call of the phone, even when called to the wild.

A thru-hiking neighbor, self-anointed hiking guru and all-round tolerable guy--despite Italian extraction--Paul Magnanti once told me, “ya gotta accept the trail and all that it brings for what it is, not what ya want it to be. Otherwise, it’s only gonna discourage ya. Trust me, it’s gonna anyway.”

That was back in the winter of ‘01-‘02, before we’d even heard of phone use in the outback, just before my first crack at a thru-hike. No one needed portable phones, mostly because the technology still lagged. There was but a fraction of today’s cellular towers on the grid and the phones were tanks. Expensive and unreliable too. Dorky, even. And payphones did the job fine--they hadn’t yet gone the way of the dinosaur. It seemed a weekly call to friends or family counterbalanced the time away from the phone perfectly. You only seldom missed having access to it.

Little of that applies now, in these advanced times. Today’s phones are sleek, light, reliable, relatively cheap and can do more than the enormous desktop computers of 2001 ever could. Cell towers are everywhere now (often camouflaged as trees, to better suit Nature!), just as cell phone users are.

“Between every two pines is a doorway to a new world.” ~John Muir, 1913

“Between every two pines is a cell tower.” ~Funnybone, 2013

It could be argued that these magic boxes are less obtrusive than the older-styled mobile phones, since so many hikers sit and share with one another the silent treatment--texting, sending emojis (five thousand years and humanity is back to using hieroglyphics), reading, watching videos, or listening to music through headphones. The only real obtrusion is the frustration I experience simply witnessing them. Ultimately it’s my problem, not theirs.

But I fear that it’ll lead to fewer people relating to or respecting Nature, which will do us all no good; the fewer who cherish Nature, the tougher the struggle to save (some of) it. Evidence shows it’s happening already, but this societal change, this slow decay of the world we live in, seems too slow to fret over. Whatever will be, will be.

In any case, it appears the experiences on these large-scale trails have changed in just a short time-frame, as have the hikers. I’m delighted I was fortunate enough--and created the opportunities--to experience thru-hiking before the change took hold. There are few authentic escapes from the civilized world anymore--the AT ain’t one of ‘em. My guess is that with each new generation it will become less of one.

Ah, well. What good’s griping? Am I searching for like-minded souls who agree? What then? We’ll sit in a circle and complain?

Onwards. Physically, anyway.

I stayed stuck on the matter: Would I be the same clown I am today had I grown up with all this technology? The handheld computer, GPS, video games, the Internet? I don’t believe so.

When I was a kid, about the time I outgrew God, I read books--I had an attention span then. I played outside--I had energy then. I slept outside. I wrote a bunch. (Shocker!) I played chess and participated in sports. I wrote (horrifying) songs and made noise with various instruments. I studied maps. God how I studied maps! I used a compass to find my way in to and out of trouble. I stared up at the night sky and asked the big, unanswerable questions. I made mistake after mistake after mistake. Real ones, not the virtual type.

All of which added to my growth, which all added up to who I am now. (If I only knew who who was!) There are no easy answers, but I suppose the questions shouldn’t be avoided. I don’t know.

After leap-frogging Chris one last time near the Standing Indian Shelter, I beached myself at Beech Gap. Twenty-one miles. It felt good to go my own pace. But as soon as I set the tent up and crawled in, I felt extra homeless. The absence of Ruth struck. I miss her and our nightly games of Scrabble. Life’s better when you’re part of a team. This, even though she’d started beating me more regularly.

“Hyte isn’t a word!” I’d cry, as she laid down the H on another triple-letter score. “And plaint sure ain’t!”

I ponder: should I text her on my LG flip-phone? 

LG: Lonely Guy.

"Foot"note 1: Some quick math (warning: not even slow math is my specialty):
...Let's presume the average thru-hiker's H2O consumption is two gallons per day during a thru-hike.
...Let's also presume that that hike lasts 130 days, which is an ordinary timeframe for the AT. That's 260 gallons (2 gallons x 130 days).
...It takes a minimum of 4-6 drops to safely treat a gallon of water, though this depends on the water source.
...That's 10 drops of bleach per day for 130 days, or roughly 65ml in all. (It's about 20 drops per ml.)
...That's two ounces--enough to fill two old 35mm film canisters--of a known carcinogen you're putting in you, a chemical designed to kill (and more frighteningly, designed to clean even a thru-hiker's clothing)!

But here's the thing. Bleach doesn't kill everything! It is ineffective against cryptosporidium, one of the most common water-borne parasites.

Anyway, I ingest plenty of other crap, so I probably shouldn't fret; we all die sooner or later. It just seems cancer is such a terrible way to go; why increase the odds?

A Limp in the Woods (Day 11)

An Appalachian Trail Tale

Day 11: Thursday, April 4th, 2013
Beech Gap area to Long Branch Shelter = 12 miles

Miles to date: 102

Beware of Falling Ice

It’s not possible to walk in two directions at once, but there are two hikes happening here. I’m walking another* long trail, and I am walking away from work. (* The AT is not merely another long trail; it is the granddaddy of ‘em all and knows no twin(1).) The worst part about walking from work is that I had a job that afforded me all the passion trails do, plus an actual cash income. Those who know me contend I’m running from responsibility. Wrong! I’m walking.

I’m poor, but money is of no concern. (I don’t keep count; we all die with the same amount.) I don’t need work. I require only the basics. As such, I walk away knowing it’s a step in the right direction. Anytime you’re on a National Scenic Trail, you’re stepping in the right direction, regardless which way the needle points. The right place at the right time, all the time. A serene form of serendipity.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t apprehensive. And though duplicity isn’t difficult, apprehension is. I’m apprehensive of getting my job back. I’m apprehensive of wanting it back. I’m equally as apprehensive that I’ll toil onward, even if the passion no longer exists, slogging for the sake of an arbitrary goal called Katahdin, in the middle of Maine, near the middle of nowhere. (I’m told you can see the middle of nowhere from Katahdin’s summit.)

Worse yet, I’m nervous of a propensity to compare past trails and experiences. On the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT), the trail I’ve got the hots for (my mantra: do what’s best), where nearly every scene can be made into a postcard or screensaver, where awe is experienced daily, I crossed paths with AT hikers who did just this. It’s a filthy inclination I share. For us, the Promised Land is always somewhere else, somewhere we’re not. Here is just a gateway drug for there.

These trail comparisons are pointless, like comparing Appalachians to oranges. But my PCT experience was one of life’s defining episodes. I think back to it often. (Things that were can still be! It’s never too late to live in the past!)

I know I shouldn’t live there--one trail at a time, please!--and some of the time I don’t. (A lousy memory helps; I recognize too that the past is the only dead thing that smells sweet.) But because I’ve forgotten all the pain; because hindsight is not 20/20; because memory is cunningly creative, I look back to my first thru-hike as the one they should all live up to. 

I hope history repeats itself. 

The past in my case is a poison; regret begets me. They say the future is the antidote; there’s a reason the windshield is larger than the rear-view mirror. Like a thru-hike, life is about headway, not about being lodged in your head, lodged in reverse.

I’d feel lodged in reverse, emotionally and physically, all day today, this anniversary of Martin Luther King’s murder. Emotions affect physical well-being, and physical well-being affects emotions. The catalyst in my case was emotion. My thoughts were elsewhere (the past and the future, as is typical) and not on the trail. This might have worked to my advantage (since the trail works hard to remind you of its presence with every step), if it weren’t for the physical result--fatigue.

The AT is tough enough without this ongoing head injury, this internal/infernal turmoil. Curse words flitted in all directions for much of the day, only to land on deaf ears. My own. The bulky winter hat helps smother those ears, as does the wax museum inside ‘em.

It’s a choice to tackle strenuous miles like those here in Appalachia; a life of self-imposed strife. With choice there can be no such thing as suffering. No one chooses to suffer. Suicidal types chose death because they wanted to end their suffering. They saw existence as abject(2). But just as it is with suicide, ending the AT struggle also ends the joys, and the potential for more.

Today was the first time I wanted to give this path the boot. Fold like a camp chair, like many others have. (Where there’s no will, there’s no way.) Yet, verklempt thought I was, I knew it wasn’t an option. Ending it would end it all, and good things require effort. Some bad things do too.

What a day for effort. A contemptible rain had pelted all night. It fell as liquid and stuck to the ground as a solid. Before walking, I sat in my portable shanty with cold feet. (And cold everything else.) I debated whether to weather the weather; it was that objectionable. It was so bad the ink in my ballpoint pen froze, which is why I bring a back-up pencil, like those Russian cosmonauts.

But boredom set in. I decided to quit arranging words and depart the constricting confines. Sometimes you wait for the storm to pass, sometimes you boogie in the rain. I opted out, into the brave old world. After all--no risk-it, no biscuit. Before I could reverse my mind, I gulped some invigorating propellent, packed, and began to tear down the Bore-dome, only to find it unnecessarily fused to the ground. Had it been sewn down it would’ve been less secure. Not yet, yeti. False start! When igloo becomes prison.

It’s casual dress day at work today

I set the setup up, did the contortionist thing, and went turtle. I didn’t know what to do, but was too cold to do nothing. Between bouts of push-ups I tried thawing the earth beneath the tent’s fabric floor. It seemed the only option. Me as de-icer. I’d lie there shivering under house arrest, pondering my degree of Appalachian appreciation. The degrees were few in every sense. I ate some unsalted Saltines and slowly peeled the flooring, hoping not to rend asunder, like I do with my eyelids each morning.

Well damn if it didn’t work! Cabin fever no more! After fifteen minutes this inmate was unpretzeled and free. I wondered if homeowner’s insurance is obtainable for tents. I’d soon pass an abandoned tent, also adhered to the ground. It was a pricey Six Moon Designs model and had a poorly writ note attached. Trembling fingers had scribed: “PleeeAse doNt steAl this tEnt; wE’rE n0t dOne uSing It.”

The trail is here somewhere

Temperatures weren’t regular cold; they were penguins-in-parkas cold. It was as though winter and spring were in the throes of a custody battle. Winter was winning. Visibility was mostly invisible. Ten feet, tops. Blinded by the shite. (Wrecked off like a douche-uh in the middle of the night?)

Finding white blazes in a whiteout was nigh impossible, and there were no discernible footsteps ahead. (For a map to be of any help in such weather, its scale would need to be one inch to the inch.) Petrified water stuck to everything. Its weight bent every rhododendron branch, onto the path. I had to crawl more than I have since the time I was a baby--a little baby, not the cry baby I was today. My hands and knees began to freeze; my pack-plastered back remained sweaty. It was some of the toughest walking I’ve ever done, despite the topography’s benignity. I was alive! Storms are unparalleled champions of reminding you you exist. And that you don’t mean shit.

The gut punch came near a mountain called Albert. (“Uncle!” I pleaded.) The trail tilted upward sharply enough to force the use of hands and buttocks and knees, or whatever else would help keep a purchase on the earth. An ice-axe and pitons would’ve been reassuring, as would’ve a steaming mug of split-pea soup. Roots were ice-slickened, and handholds, especially vital, were few. My hands were inoperative anyhow, even after they’d been burrowing in my crotch. I swung my arms around like crazed windmill blades, hoping to get blood to them. I abominate April winters.

I made it up--I make a lot of things up--and reached the tower on top. Not today, Satan. Besides a split-second break of the split pea soup, all I could detect were four posts fading into the fog above; there was no sense in climbing to see the views. I carried on past the hundred-mile mark to a brand spankin’ new shelter, the Long Branch. The structure was so well designed it looked like a kit. All it needed was a mirrored disco ball and it’d’ve been perfection. Well, maybe. Humans don’t make improvements to Nature. Perfection only exists outside humankind, outside. I had the inside to myself. 

I hate using the word epic to depict events--thru-hiking involves no bold or harrowing feats--but this day was epic. Had I stopped at any point prior I may not have been around to write this.

The glimpse of the Albert Mountain Fire Tower

One by one, others pulled up and pulled in. They’re all hardcore types, including an Army sniper whose “first time hunting was for humans” in Afghanistan. The dude had been discharged less than honorably (“thankfully”) and had a slew of things to say. My favorites:

“I thought I’d found a home in the Army. I was wrong.”

     And…

“They told me during the White Phase of basic training I was a sharp shooter. But if I was that sharp, why’d I need basic training? And really, if I was sharp, would I have joined the military?”

     And...

“I truly believe most young guys who join [the military] do so not to defend this mosh pit nation, or its freedoms, which is BS anyway, but don’t get me goin’ on that. They do so ‘cause there’re few other jobs they can get. Their options are limited. A life of minimum wage slavery or a life of risk. Risk at least provides a way out, whether it’s riskin’ your life in the army or riskin’ it pushin’ drugs.”

Heavy shit from someone who’s been there. He said he’s walking the AT to deal with “all my issues,” before joking that the trail was now one of them. “Drugs would be a simpler solution.”

I joked to him I tried to join the military once. “They told me they didn’t need to win that bad.” We were fast friends, although I can’t remember his trailname.

Jason, the climber laying the groundwork for Denali, who Ruth and I camped with on night three, also showed. The guy is NAILS. He’s hauling a nine-pound four-season tent, “for practice.” (Here’s to hoping they come up with a five-season tent, for days like today.) His total load? SEVENTY-FIVE POUNDS! That’s three hundred Quarter Pounder patties (before cooking), and four times the weight of my pack. Then again, I’m wearing everything that had been in it, including the titanium cook pot atop my head.

"Foot"note 1: Though it does have a few steps.
"Foot"note 2: If you're depressed and suicidal you might as well be brave.