Chapter 144: Only The Names Have Been Changed (To Protect The Guilty)

The sun rose, the birds came out, and I awoke to the not-so-distant sounds of the river. And the rather pressing need to urinate. Emerging groggily from my tent, I noted with some relief that both Fredo and my sister were, blessedly, still alive, their heads not caved in by some crazed man's tragically emptied cook-pot. Although Matterhorn had evidently managed to slake his insatiable European bloodlust, at least for the moment, I remained convinced he would seek vengeance for his destroyed dinner at some point, and made a mental note not to be caught alone with him in the future.

Buckeye caught up to us later that morning, before we had yet broken camp. He might have missed us had we not called him over, such was the awesomeness and subtlety of our stealth site. Evidently relieved to see us, Buckeye greeted us with his usual brand of profanity-laced exuberance. It had been almost a week since we had left him in Stratton, and he'd been chasing us ever since. It seemed that, for some reason, he had expected us to do leisurely twelve to fifteen mile days. Probably because we had told him as much, before parting ways. Unfortunately, in his absence we had decided to push harder, and had increased our pace some fifty percent. Buckeye had thus been forced to do multiple thirty-mile days just to catch up, a seemingly superhuman effort at this point of our journey. Of course, he had also been hiking so quickly so as to avoid our collective slack-packing nemesis, the notorious tour hiker Loud Mouth.

Fredo seized the opportunity to fill Buckeye in on our own week's misadventures, which had apparently involved me "stealing" several pounds of candy and trail mix from a group of unsuspecting trail maintainers, brazenly ruining another thru-hiker's dinner, and then definitively making up for all of that—and my myriad other crimes—by writing an all-encompasing mea culpa in the Bald Mountain Lean-to log, the contents of which I won't repeat here. Fredo also warned Buckeye about the Georgia Peaches. We assumed we had left them behind the day before, but Buckeye claimed not to have met them, and it was better not to take a chance...

Swift-flowing but seemingly shallow, the Pleasant River beckoned to us. Departing early with my sister, I made the seemingly prudent, time-saving decision to ford the river without first removing my boots. Ten seconds later, as I made a mad dash splashing through shin-high water, I realized I had probably made a mistake. Two minutes later, my soggy boots strapped uselessly on the outside of my pack, my feet ensconced uncomfortably in wet socks and my nearly-destroyed Tevas, we set off again into the entrancingly titled "Hermitage Preserve."

"The Hermitage" is an area of astonishing tranquility and unparalleled natural beauty that's also pretty much indistinguishable from everywhere else on the trail. However, unlike the rest of the trail, "The Hermitage" has one inviolable rule: absolutely no camping is permitted, anywhere, under any circumstances, by anyone, ever. Naturally, we almost immediately stumbled upon the Georgia Peaches, who had evidently camped right in the middle of the trail.

Damn them and their sinuous, seductive charms! How I hated them. Who could be so stupid as to attempt the Wilderness with only six packets of ramen and a handful of candy? With no tent, no cook pot, and no warm clothing. I honestly could not understand how they hadn't starved or frozen to death, or been hit by a meteorite, or mauled by rabid beavers, or otherwise struck down by a merciful God. How had they even made it this far? Neither I nor anyone else, to my knowledge, had ever even seen them actually walking; they were usually seen taking rest breaks, snacking, or while sun bathing, half-naked, on a boulder. A quick laugh, an intoxicating smile, an ingratiating politeness, feigned innocence, and an unconscionable, unforgivable amount of natural beauty, intelligence, and charisma appeared to have taken them a long way. But they weren't getting to me. Yet.

My sister, on the other hand, was far more easily deterred, and made the seemingly fatal mistake of stopping to talk with them. I stood there, impatient, wanting badly to move on for what seemed like half an hour. Probably because it was. We had left early with the sole purpose of getting a good head start, yet here we were, bogged down with Sodium Chloride and Calypso, or whatever their names were. They proceeded to ask my sister a series of at first innocent but then increasingly invasive questions.

"You're hiking with your brother? That's so sweet!" said Sodium Chloride, or the other one.

"I know," said my sister, Hot Sauce. "I'm awesome."

I hate everybody, I thought, glaring at them in what I hoped was an unsubtle way.

"Unfortunately, we've had to hike faster than either of us would like, because I have to get off-trail on the twenty third to go down to North Carolina to start work," explained my sister, unnecessarily. "Because I'm an outdoor educator."

"No kidding! I'm an outdoor educator too," exclaimed Calypso, maybe half-believably. "Where do you work?"

"At a company called Adventure Trek. It's a totally awesome company, sort of like Google only way better, and the compensation is highly lucrative. I'd strongly recommend working for them, or, failing that, being me." said my sister, helpfully.

"I was thinking that exact same thing!" cried Calypso. "Can I have your e-mail? Maybe we can meet up later, when we're both back in the South. Because you know we're from Georgia."

"Yes. We know," I said, trying to hurry things up. "Because you call yourself the Georgia Peaches."

The three girls shot me a hurt look, as if to say butt out, but in a really polite, passive-aggressive way.

"So, what's the name of your supervisor at Adventure Treks? Because I'd love to have a name or a reference I can call," Calypso asked, hastily combing her bangs to approximate my sister's appearance. "Also, what's your social security number? And do you have any relevant personal history I should be aware of?"

I want to die, I thought, over and over again. Then I remembered my purpose... That glorious sign—signaling the northern terminus of the Trail, that existed as yet only in my imagination—and maybe some other things, that could be waiting for me on top of Katahdin... It steeled my resolve, and I tore my sister out of there before the evil cousins had a chance to memorize her vocal inflections.

We were seventy two miles away. Just five more days. I had to make it.

Chapter 143: The 100-Mile Wilderness (Take 2)

On a fateful day that presumably fell sometime during the week, Fredo, Hot Sauce and I finally set out into the infamous hundred mile wilderness. Spirits were low, despite the exhilaration we all felt from being so close to the end of our adventure. Though it took considerable effort, I heroically did my part to motivate and encourage my friends by walking slower than them, falling down and hurting myself a lot, and ceaslessly complaining about everything and everybody.

We soon happened upon a sign, weathered and stoic, belatedly advising all comers that attempting the “wilderness” with anything less than ten days of supplies was egregiously foolhardy and would surely result in our inevitable, gruesome deaths. We were already at least five minutes fifty yards feet from the road. We had come too far to turn back.

For a brief moment, I warmly remembered all the haters, mostly in the South, who had so often predicted our premature demise. There had been those who repeatedly warned us that if we didn't buy their $200 rain gear, for example, we were gonna die. Or that if we attempted to hike the Smokies with thermals that were even 20% cotton, we were gonna die. And that if we continued to hike naked, even for just one more day, under that blistering sun, we were definitely gonna get eaten by dragons and die. Rest assured, dear reader, we were well inured to these idle threats by now, and we were not about let this latest proclamation deter us. Besides, we had at least two and a half days of food. How bad could it be?

Very bad, as it turned out, though not on the first day, the proceedings of which, besides the spotting of the aforementioned sign, were not particularly memorable. Yes, it was on our second day out that the trouble really started, our lives irrevocably changed, and our hike forever ruined.

It was on the second day that we met them. The Georgia Peaches. I had fallen behind that morning, as I frequently did, taking long breaks to sob quietly into the underbrush. Cresting yet another of the innumerable boulder-strewn, granite slabbed ridges that merrily dot the New Hampshire and Maine sections of the trail, I spotted them. Their long, languid bodies lying lackadaisically across the trail, luxuriating in the sun and the attentions of a delirious, weak-minded fool. Fredo.

I knew immediately that he was in trouble, his three-mile-an-hour pace shot, the contents of his pack strewn about the ground, his food bag open. Curiously, the Peaches seemed not to be carrying any food or equipment themselves, and were so clean and cheerful in appearance and demeanor that I began to suspect that they hadn't hiked there at all, but had simply appeared at that very spot, emerging from the deepest depths of Hell that very morning.

They were sirens or succubi, I was sure of it, and were clearly intent on devouring my friend alive, leeching his life's spirit, or at the very least mooching his food. And they were good at what they did. But my attentions were elsewhere, my mind preoccupied with dreams of Katahdin, with long-nurtured secret plans of fantastic design and foolish ambition. I alone appeared immune to their "charms." Clearly, it was up to me to rescue my friend. But I didn't. I promptly left in disgust, and then mercilessly made fun of him for it later.

That night the three of us found a sweet stealth site by the west branch of the Pleasant River. We camped there with the frequently-naked Austrian, Matterhorn. Or was he Swiss? No matter. Any way, yes, Materhorn, the same man whose dinner I had accidentally destroyed not two nights earlier. I feared for my safety that night, and was plagued by nightmares in which I was repeatedly and viciously attacked by a very angry, very nude European wielding a terrifying pot of cold macaroni.

The next morning I awoke, unfortunately still alive, for little did I know what new terrors this day would bring...

Chapter 141: Pancakes

On the morning of August 17th, 2010, I awoke to a strange, unearthly grumble. Sitting up, I eyed my sister suspiciously, but—somehow—it wasn't her surprisingly sonorous snoring. Emerging from my Tarptent into a thick, soupy fog, I quickly deduced that it wasn't Fredo, either, as his hammock was strung up a conscientious and considerate twenty yards away. Nor was it the spectacularly reverberating apneas of all those snotty, southbound section hikers who had so courteously occupied all the space in the nearby Pierce Pond Lean-to the night before. The family of loons bobbing along serenely through the mist on the adjacent lake were similarly guiltless.

Who—or what—was causing this ungodly noise?

...

Okay, so I could continue on in that vein, explaining in my typically florid way that the "strange, unearthly grumble" was just my stomach growling. (Ha ha, what a funny joke!) And how Hot Sauce, Fredo and I eventually enjoyed a "lumberjack breakfast" at the Harrison Camps that morning, to satiate my growing hunger. But I won't. Because who—except possibly food fetishists and hipsters with internet cooking shows—really cares about that sort of thing, or wants to hear about it in such exhaustive detail? (FYI, the lumberjack breakfast was a stack of twelve gigantic pancakes with blueberries, strawberries, and whipped butter, smothered in maple syrup, with a side of fried eggs and more coffee than any of us could ever drink. Not that we didn't try.)

I could also tell you about our momentous crossing of the Kennebec River, which involved getting a canoe ride from an obese mountain man in tattered sweat pants who seemed to have an entire family of birds nesting in his beard, and may have been a serial killer. Or at least a not-so-distant relative of one. But I won't do that either.

I could tell you about the trail magic we encountered later, just south of US201. Actually, I will: we found a cooler beside the trail containing an assortment of candy bars and soda and even a couple cans of Keystone Light®. For whatever reason—but probably because he's a selfish bastard—Fredo took all the beers, then giggled sadistically when we ran into a couple of SOBOs later on who were looking forward to getting some. Naturally, we didn't tell them there weren't any left, but cruelly sent them on towards their inevitable disappointment.

I could tell you how I may or may not have accidentally stolen some trail maintainer's gorp at the Pleasant Pond Lean-to. (I mean, who leaves a giant stuff-sack full of delicious, delicious trail mix unattended and expects it not to get stolen?) But I certainly won't do that. (Too unbelievable. Like I would ever do such a thing.)

I could even tell you how Fredo, Hot Sauce and I first met Matterhorn—an annoyingly spry and well-equipped section hiker from Switzerland—and stayed with him at the Bald Mountain Brook Lean-to after hiking up in the dark singing John Legend songs.

But my heart just isn't in it.

Instead, I'll leave you with excerpt from Rutledge Sandybottom's excessively, er, florid, probably pretty bad Repressed Desire:

It's late, and we're on a long drive to nowhere in the dark. Your headlights sweep past eerily familiar street signs, long rows of seemingly empty houses, bereft of any signs of life. The silence between us fills with bittersweet reminiscence, regret, and longing—both for past glory, and for a future that might never be.

I catch you glancing at me from across the car. You look away quickly, abashed. But I'm the one who should be ashamed. I'm the one who's staring.

Before, I might have felt the warmth of your breath on my cheek, your hand tugging on my shirt, and the brush of your lips against mine, as I leaned into you, pushing you back into the door of your car.

But no, I lacked the courage. To touch you. Instead, I just stood back and watched as you searched through your purse for your keys. Admiring your figure in the soft glow of the streetlamp overhead. Alone together in the parking lot, intoxicated by your closeness, by the way the your dress clung to your body from the sweat.

The sweat of the dance, the drinks, the laughter... The furtive looks, shared in secret, across the table, through the crowd.

And my memory of all else fades, crushing into a swirling vortex of you. The twinkle in your eyes, the crooked curve of your smile. And suddenly I'm back in the car, short of breath, pulse pounding in my neck.

Meeting your eyes, seeing your breasts heave with every breath, I wonder if you've felt the same.

Ew. Best leave that there.

Tomorrow, a special treat, and back to the business at hand...