It was our third to last day on the trail.
For eight hours, Buckeye, Fredo and I tried in vain to pull away from the sycophantic, parasitic Peaches. The perky pair of cousins had somehow persisted, display a disturbing, preternatural sense of perseverance, a—
“Hey, M.C.?”
It was Buckeye. His boyish grin, bushy red beard, and blazing blue eyes emerged out of the darkness, bobbing beneath the warm glow of his headlamp.
“What?”
“First of all, my eyes are brown. But never mind that. What are you doing? Do you really think anyone cares about the Peaches, or your cleverness as a writer, this insufferable ‘perverse predilection’ you have for consonance and alliteration?”
Competitive and long-distance runners often talk about hitting the wall. I’d hit the wall before. This wasn’t that. This was more like hitting the fourth wall.
“What are you trying to say, Buckeye?” I asked, my head swimming. I felt like I was losing it.
“You’re not losing it,” Buckeye snorted. “Well, not yet. I mean, you might be. But you definitely will, once you get back to the real world.”
The real world. That gaping maw of doubt and uncertainty waiting to swallow me whole, less than a week away. But I had so much to look forward to.
“Stop!” Buckeye winced.
Getting back to my family…
“No.”
My friends… Megan…
“No!”
And then there was my secret plan, which, admittedly, wasn’t very secret, since I had already told everyone—
Buckeye slapped me in the face, then cursed in pain and shook his hand. “Look, are you quite finished? M.C., you’ve been out here living your dream, having a jolly old time, but you’ve had your head up your ass the entire time!”
“Is that a commentary about my scatological preoccupations?” I asked warily, rubbing my jaw.
“You mean how you’re obsessed with poop?” Buckeye couldn’t keep a straight face. “No, but that is funny. I love poop.
“No, actually, I meant it to be a commentary on how, while you’re physically out here—“ Buckeye gestured around at the enveloping wilderness, at Fredo, who waved, “—your mind is a million miles away, already off dreaming and planning your next hair-brained adventure.
“Meanwhile, Megan is out there living her life. Alone. Did you ever stop to consider what she wants? What her dreams are?”
“I—“
I didn’t know. Have I?
Was I selfish? Am I that selfish?
I always thought we shared the same dreams, just as we shared the same obsessive tastes in food, beer, literature, politics… That our existence was a folie à deux.
You’re telling me that’s not true?
I thought I was being romantic.
“No.”
I thought…
“No,” Buckeye sighed. “Life’s not a game, M.C. You can’t hit the reset button or upend the board when things don’t go your way—“
“Nice metaphor,” I rolled my eyes.
“Actually, it was pretty corny, but— Hey, don’t change the subject! Where was I?”
“Life’s not a game.”
“Right. Or a novel. Or a blog. Or a movie, or any of the stupid things you write. And you’ve got to stop thinking of it as one. You want everything to be perfect, to conform to this arbitrary narrative that only you’ve decided upon, for everybody you meet to play some role you’ve already assigned them in your head.
“Some horribly clichéd, probably misogynistic role, I might add.”
“Hey!”
“You’re a jerk,” Buckeye shrugged.
“I admit, I’ve been an idiot—”
“I’ve? I have? You’re using the past tense?”
“All right, I am an idiot,” I corrected. “And will probably continue to be one.”
“Yes. But you’re also a man. A flawed—deeply flawed—sexy, disgusting, hilarious, shit-obsessed, thoughtful, hateful… wonderful human being. Of a man.”
“With his head up his own ass,” added Fredo momentarily.
We all laughed.
Buckeye. Fredo. My friends. My brothers…
“Don’t get sentimental on me now,” warned Buckeye. “I’m not finished.”
Oh no?
“Let me tell you how this is going to play out.
“Tomorrow, we’re going to walk out of this godforsaken Wilderness, and cross Abol Bridge. We’re going to celebrate, like a bunch of six year olds, by drinking soda and eating candy bars. Then we’re going to hike on to the Katahdin Stream Campground.
“And you’re going to pretend to fall into the stream as a joke, only then you’re really going to fall in, so, really, joke’s on you—“
“Sounds pretty realistic so far.”
“Don’t interrupt. We’re going to hitch a ride outta the park at that point, probably with some crazy old coot with a hook for a hand and half his teeth, whom you’re going to later—and rather unfairly—characterize as an escaped ax murderer.
“And then when we get into town to meet your friends?”
Becca and Megan were coming up. My heart swelled at the thought.
“They’re not going to be there.”
What?
“Because that person you trusted, that you thought had your back through thick and thin? Turns out she’s just as duplicitous, self-absorbed, and inconsiderate as you are.
“That she can’t be trusted. Or counted on.
“And this will irrevocably alter your friendship. If not end it.”
“It also means we won’t have a ride back to the park the next morning,” added Fredo helpfully.
“Yes, Fredo, thank you, I was getting to that.
“Anyway, you’re going to be heartbroken and sullen, and your shitty mood is going to nearly ruin everything for the rest of us.”
“I’m sorry,” I half mumbled, half choked.
“As well you should be. But—I don’t want to be ungracious, apology accepted.
“So we’ll get a room at the Trail’s End Hiker Hostel or whatever it’s called, and, naturally, the first thing you’ll do is complain about the contents of the hiker box, before stealing a pair of camo pants. Oh, and the owner will yell at us for nearly burning the entire building to the ground after we try to make our dinner indoors. And, thus banished from actually cooking anything, like men, with fire, we’ll be forced to eat microwaved eggs for breakfast.”
“How do you microwave eggs?”
“I don't know. You don't. Not really. It's gross.”
“We’ll also challenge each other to drink a gallon of milk in less than an hour,” offers Fredo. “Buckeye and I will drink strawberry milk. Only Buckeye will shit himself.”
“Why don’t you just let me narrate this part?” snapped Buckeye. “I mean, yes, weird stuff starts happening to my intestines, but there are bathrooms at the hostel. Bathrooms that will be totally unoccupied at the time I need them, and for an hour and a half afterwards. Got that?”
Got that?
“Meanwhile, the Peaches will be picked up, randomly, by a passing millionaire,” Buckeye growled, “And will spend the night in coddled luxury at his mansion, sleeping in four-post beds and being waited on hand and foot. Because of course they will.”
Fredo and I both cursed the Peaches under our breath.
I should never have given them my leftover oatmeal.
“Are you ever going to tell me about Katahdin itself?” I asked, growing increasingly uneasy. “About the confusion we’ll feel upon reaching a seemingly impassable boulder, how we’ll spend five minutes trying to figure out a way around before realizing that it has metal rebar poking out of it for a reason, and that, after two thousand, one hundred and seventy odd miles, they actually intend for us to scale a cliff, with naught but an inch of rusting iron between us and certain death, or worse?”
“No.”
“Were you going to tell me about the exhilaration we’ll feel reaching the tableland, of finally seeing the sign marking the end of the trail peeking out through the fog?”
“No, actually, I wasn’t,” said Buckeye. “Haven’t you ever heard of an air of mystery? Can’t we leave anything to the imagination?”
Can we?
“If I told you exactly how it was, how it will be, down to the last stubbed toe and overturned pebble, then what’s the point of actually going? Might as well just pack up and head home now, right?
“Besides, everyone already knows what happens at the end. It goes without saying. Like ‘The Odyssey.’”
“You mean ‘The Illiad.’”
“Shut up.”
“I would have used a more current example,” offered Fredo. “Like the movie ‘Titanic.’”
“Fredo?” Buckeye glared at him, implicitly threatening him with some vague bodily harm.
“So no,” Buckeye continued. “I won’t tell you how this ends… But I will tell you what happens after.
“Fredo’s going to shave his beard.”
Well, duh.
“Hey, it might be hard to tell, now, but underneath all that hair and the two inches of dirt, Fredo is actually an astonishingly good-looking man.”
Fredo blushed. Or at least I assume he did. It was hard to tell, what with all the hair and the two inches of dirt.
“Don’t do that,” interrupted Buckeye. He was talking to me. “You’re ruining it.”
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled.
“Anyway, in a couple of years, Fredo won’t even be Fredo anymore. He’ll be Miguel Alejandro, eminently respectable and upstanding member of society, college grad, working professional, loving husband to a beautiful wife, family man, and part-time underwear model.
“In short, he’ll be everything you aspire to be, only much, much, much better looking. And I couldn’t be prouder.”
“Aww, thanks man,” grinned Fredo.
“Dude,” Buckeye shook his head, impressed. “You’re awesome.”
He and Buckeye hugged. For a long time. It was the manliest of hugs. Then it went on, and became something more. Awkward?
“Okay, that’s enough,” said Buckeye. And they stopped.
“This never happened,” I blurted, uneasy, after coming to the sudden realization that it hadn’t.
“What do you mean?” asked Fredo, untangling himself from Buckeye. “You mean this? How we never really got to say goodbye?”
I wasn’t ready for that.
“What about you, Buckeye?” I asked, trying to delay the inevitable. “Tell me what happens to you.”
“Me? Buckeye? Itinerant ne’er-do-well, bohemian, world-traveler? I bounce around a lot, going from odd-job to odd-job in between the random adventure, always popping up where you’d least expect me, both geographically and on social media.
“If I cared about fame and fortune, like certain other unnamed egomaniacs with raging inferiority complexes,” Buckeye said while looking straight at me for some indiscernible reason, “Or had the desire to do it, or any talent, uh, for it, I would write my autobiography, ‘Shitting Around the World’ by Jimmy Lambert.
“Basically I’m like you, your Id run rampant, unbound by any sense of familial obligation, social propriety, or ethical… Whatever it is ethics has.”
“I can’t believe you haven’t figured this out already,” interjected Fredo. “We’re foils, Buckeye and I. We’re real people, yes, but we also represent the dual or dueling nature of man, and of yourself.”
“Stop!” Buckeye cried. “Didn’t I just finish telling him that life isn’t a story? That he can’t make people assume these pre-assigned roles?”
I drifted away from their argument, and started to wonder how things would turn out for myself. What would I become? What would I learn from all this, if anything? Would I emerge a changed man? Would this truly be the transformative experience I had been promised? Who promised me that anyway? Or had this entire ‘ordeal’ just been a five-month long vacation? Was I setting myself up for a lifetime of success and happiness, like Fredo? Or was I merely deluding myself into thinking that any of it—that anything—had a higher meaning, as Buckeye attested? My thoughts turned to my parents, growing increasingly frail, fragile in their old age. Who would take care of them? I’d have to get a job. My God, how would I get a job?!
I missed my friends. I missed my kitty. Attila. Tortoise-shell calico. Conquerer. Destroyer of worlds. Annoying. Adorable.
I especially missed Megan. Superhero. Philosopher. Alien robot sent to Earth to learn about human emotion. She saw beauty—maybe—and goodness in me when I thought none existed. She told me, once, a long time ago, that she thought I was wonderful. Wonderful. She lifted me up, woke my conscience, opened my eyes to the nearly infinite possibilities, and shortcomings, of the world. All I wanted was to make her happy, to make her proud. But unlike in my dreams, she would not be there the next day, or the day after. Reality was… Reality was cold, and crushing, full of sadness and disappointment.
These past few months had been some of the happiest of my life. And I could always come back to the trail. But there are some places to which you can never return…
“M.C., are you okay?”
It was Fredo, kneeling in front of me, his hand on my shoulder.
“I didn’t want… I don’t want things to end this way,” I croaked.
“It doesn’t have to,” said Fredo, glowering at Buckeye, like it was his fault or something.
“Like this is my fault,” complained Buckeye.
“He’s right, though,” Fredo whispered, ignoring Buckeye once more. “Life is not a game, or a story, or any of those other things, and one day you will have to face a reckoning, and account for all you’ve done, all the mistakes you’ve made.
“But this also isn’t exactly life. I mean, it’s more or less true to life, minus all the—“
“Shitting in public,” I quickly finished for him. Because none of that really happened. “Or all the crying, the nervous breakdowns.”
“Right. And all those times you stole trail magic, and that one time you left that guy a note pretending to be a buddy of his, telling him that his entire family had died, causing him to quit the trail and fly back to Portland—“
“Woah! Fredo, that wasn’t me,” I assured him. I mean, it sounded like something I might have done.
“No, I know, I just made that up,” said Fredo blankly. “Because—and this brings me back to the point I was trying to make—this is also a story.
“And if you don’t want us to leave, we don’t have to.
“If you want the Peaches to be spontaneously carried off by rampaging Pterodactyls…”
A pair of shadows swept past the moon just then, while an eerie screech born on the wind sent shivers down my spine.
“No,” I said quickly. “That’s okay, they can stay.”
The Peaches smiled at me from their log besides the fire.
“You have really pretty eyes,” one of them cooed.
“Don’t make me change my mind,” I warned.
“And if you want to see your friends again,” continued Fredo unabated, “You can.”
“Hey!” shouted Caveman—Caveman!?—“I’ve no idea why I’m here—where’s here?—but I brought Funyuns!”
Caveman dropped his pack by the fire and ran to hug me.
“Look what else I brought, M.C.!”
And Caveman motioned behind him.
Bandito, P-Nut, Redwing, Lil Dipper, Merf, Veggie, Freeman, and Nature were all sitting around the fire. Even Hobbes was there. They all shouted in surprise.
And for a few happy moments it was bedlam. Everyone hugged and chatted, catching up, enjoying eachother’s company once again. Caveman whipped out cans of Steel Reserve, then started surreptitiously slipping a bottle of Southern Comfort back and forth with Fredo. Buckeye sat down to roast marshmallows with the Peaches, his anger quickly fading in the warmth of their renewed attentions.
“M.C.!” squealed Bandito, shaking a vaguely blue and orange box in front of me. “I brought Boggle!”
“What the f— is Boggle?”
And—why not?—my parents were there too, with Hot Sauce, inexplicably drinking tea and beer in a quiet corner by the shelter, probably doing a crossword puzzle.
“I wanted to get that band we both secretly love,” Redwing was saying, “But I didn’t want to risk any potentially dated pop culture references.”
“Plus they do the same thing in that movie,” added P-Nut helpfully.
Finally, Megan arrived, and she had brought Attila—“She likes being outside!”—whom she promptly set free to roam and chase fireflies in the moonlight, and for whatever reason this seemed totally safe, reasonable, and morally acceptable, and not-at-all heinously irresponsible or dangerous, and didn’t freak me or her out in any way.
And then the rest of my friends showed up, bringing pizza and birch beer, fresh rolls of toilet paper, and biodegradable, contractor-sized garbage bags to ensure this great, fictional party strictly adhered to the rules of Leave No Trace.
And I stood by the fire, warmed by the glow of their collective love. Or maybe that was the fire.
“I’m going to wake up soon,” I said to Fredo, my voice quavering. “I need to wake up.”
“It’s okay, M.C.,” said Fredo, wiping an errant drop of SoCo from his chin. “You know where to find us. Still… It's nice here, isn't it? Can't you stay a while longer?
“Why not stay a while?”
Stay a while. Why not?
Showing posts with label P-Nut. Show all posts
Showing posts with label P-Nut. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 25, 2014
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Chapter 135: Serendipity
Journal entry, as I lay in my tent at the Little Swift River Pond Campsite, listening to the rain:
The next morning, Buckeye and I raced off towards ME4, to hitch into Rangeley. We'd heard ominous things about the terrain betwixt the lake and the road, but didn't find anything worse than a couple of waist-deep mud bogs.
Whatever.
Reaching the road, we encountered our first stroke of luck. A familiar looking woman emerged from the woods in front of us, headed towards her car. She asked if we needed a ride. Yes?
"I was thru-hiking with my husband, but I had to get off the trail because of an injury," she explained as we drove towards town, her voice pained. "He's a backcountry guide, plus he's crazy, so he kept going. I've just been doing a couple of sections here and there to keep him company."
"You look awfully familiar," I said. "You wouldn't happen to be Elaine from Maine, would you?"
That shocked her into slence.
"I'm Major Chafage!" I explained. We had met way back when. "The last time I saw you was in Hot Springs, North Carolina. With Nature!"
"Of course! Major Chafage!" Elaine nodded, remembering me now.
"I told you I was legendary," I added to Buckeye.
He rolled his eyes.
Elaine and I chatted amiably, catching up. We reminisced about the time Jason, Bandito and I serenaded (tortured?) her with an off-key rendition of "Sweet Caroline." And that time her husband, Jim, had so magnanimously treated my blisters. By then we were arriving in Rangeley, and she was dropping us off by the public library. I thanked her again, and we said our goodbyes for the final time. The lesson, as always: being friendly pays off.
We had Thai food for lunch. We ate at a restaurant apparently made famous by its chef, who had somehow assisted with freeing hostages during the Iranian Revolution. Sounds like a (bad) movie, right? Except it actually happened. There were pictures of the man shaking hands with a bemused President Reagan and Vice President George H.W. Bush all over the walls. Very surreal. Very funny. (The suits! The glasses! The unabashed ugliness! Eh, it was the 80's. Maybe you had to be there…) Anyway, we did our best to ignore the decor. I introduced Buckeye to the wonders of the Thai Iced Tea. His first sip, his eyes lit up. A convert for life.
And then came our second stroke of luck. While we were eating, I spied Fredo walking past the restaurant window! I quickly excused myself from Buckeye and raced outside to chase him down. He was as surprised to see me as I was to see him. But he was pleased. He explained to me how he had gotten violently ill the previous morning, and had puked all over the shelter.
"I got really ill yesterday morning," Fredo explained tentatively, considerate of the fact that I was still eating lunch. "As soon as you guys left, I puked all over the shelter. It was bad."
It sounded bad.
"So I hitched out from the next road," he continued, "Spent last night at the hostel."
"And now you're going to yellow blaze to keep pace with us, right?" I asked, crossing my fingers.
"Oh," Fredo hesitated. "I mean, when you put it like that--"
"Great!" I didn't let him finish. I could have hugged him.
After lunch, we spent a few hours at the library, checking our e-mail and otherwise finding out what was going on with the world. At some point I received a call from Bandito, who had, in fact, just summited Katahdin. He told me all about it, of course, and filled me in on all the shenanigans I had missed with P-Nut and Caveman and whomever. But then he had to go, because he was already on the road, headed home. And I had to go, too, because I still had 220 miles to go before the end. I envied him. But I think he may have envied me, too…
Buckeye and I agreed to meet up with Fredo before we left, and then went out for dinner. (You may have noticed that our lives in town revolved around food. There's a reason for that.) We had pizza, and then decided it would be a good idea to share a pitcher of beer. Big mistake. By the time Fredo arrived, we were both extremely drunk. Or at least slightly tipsy.
And then our third stroke of luck! We managed to hitch a ride out with Malt Lickher and Ruthless—don't ask, it's that trail name thing again—a lovely couple from Hamden, Connecticut out on vacation. My hometown! We cheerfully reminisced about Modern Apizza and BAR. (If you're ever in the area, go there and try the mashed potato pizza. Trust me.) Anyway, good times.
Before dropping us at the trailhead, Malt Lickher and Ruthless shuttled us to a nearby grocery. We emerged with a substantially better haul than Andover had yielded. Fredo even bought a Joose, which is to the formerly unadulterated Four Loko what primordial sludge is to humanity: one led to the other, it's just not imminently clear how. Or why.
What compelled Fredo to try the Joose? Good question. Especially since he'd spent the previous day vomiting all over himself. And everything else. But I digress. He had a few sips, and it made his stomach hurt. I had a few sips, and my stomach hurt. Then again, I was already, uh, slightly tipsy.
Aug 9,Fredo never arrived that night. Troublesome. Moreover, we failed to see any moose. Plus it rained, so we were unable to take any of the free canoes out on the lake. Worst campsite ever? Not quite. The privy was nice.
Veggie got off the trail yesterday because of an infected bug bite. This morning, Fredo was having stomach cramps and feeling nauseous. My health remains decent, despite what I fear may be bone spurs developing on my heels. It used to be my feet that hurt, but now it's mostly my knees. And my feet.
I see in "lean-to" registries that my old crew was here around three weeks ago. They made it from Hanover to here in two days less time than it took me. I worry, however, seeing them sign a day apart. I hope they stay together. They're all most likely done by now, if they're not summating today. Merf was only two days behind them last I saw, meaning she's still well on track to finish on time. I'm happy for them, and somewhat proud, too. But I also feel a twinge of melancholy, sad that I couldn't be there with them, to congratulate them. To share in the sadness and joy they must feel, now that they're done.
In many ways, this trip feels like school. At first it's intimidating and scary, but always structured around routines and deadlines; then it's so much fun that everything goes by too quickly, and is over before you want it. And right now, I'm suffering from the equivalent of senioritis, just wanting to be finished without doing any more work. Hopefully (maybe) Tricia can light a fire under my ass, get me motivated to do those 13 mile days we have to do to finish on time. I'm not really worried, though.
Lemonade. Chocolate milk. Birch Beer. Bananas. Yogurt. Ice cream. Pizza. An end to the drudgery.
The next morning, Buckeye and I raced off towards ME4, to hitch into Rangeley. We'd heard ominous things about the terrain betwixt the lake and the road, but didn't find anything worse than a couple of waist-deep mud bogs.
Whatever.
Reaching the road, we encountered our first stroke of luck. A familiar looking woman emerged from the woods in front of us, headed towards her car. She asked if we needed a ride. Yes?
"I was thru-hiking with my husband, but I had to get off the trail because of an injury," she explained as we drove towards town, her voice pained. "He's a backcountry guide, plus he's crazy, so he kept going. I've just been doing a couple of sections here and there to keep him company."
"You look awfully familiar," I said. "You wouldn't happen to be Elaine from Maine, would you?"
That shocked her into slence.
"I'm Major Chafage!" I explained. We had met way back when. "The last time I saw you was in Hot Springs, North Carolina. With Nature!"
"Of course! Major Chafage!" Elaine nodded, remembering me now.
"I told you I was legendary," I added to Buckeye.
He rolled his eyes.
Elaine and I chatted amiably, catching up. We reminisced about the time Jason, Bandito and I serenaded (tortured?) her with an off-key rendition of "Sweet Caroline." And that time her husband, Jim, had so magnanimously treated my blisters. By then we were arriving in Rangeley, and she was dropping us off by the public library. I thanked her again, and we said our goodbyes for the final time. The lesson, as always: being friendly pays off.
We had Thai food for lunch. We ate at a restaurant apparently made famous by its chef, who had somehow assisted with freeing hostages during the Iranian Revolution. Sounds like a (bad) movie, right? Except it actually happened. There were pictures of the man shaking hands with a bemused President Reagan and Vice President George H.W. Bush all over the walls. Very surreal. Very funny. (The suits! The glasses! The unabashed ugliness! Eh, it was the 80's. Maybe you had to be there…) Anyway, we did our best to ignore the decor. I introduced Buckeye to the wonders of the Thai Iced Tea. His first sip, his eyes lit up. A convert for life.
And then came our second stroke of luck. While we were eating, I spied Fredo walking past the restaurant window! I quickly excused myself from Buckeye and raced outside to chase him down. He was as surprised to see me as I was to see him. But he was pleased. He explained to me how he had gotten violently ill the previous morning, and had puked all over the shelter.
"I got really ill yesterday morning," Fredo explained tentatively, considerate of the fact that I was still eating lunch. "As soon as you guys left, I puked all over the shelter. It was bad."
It sounded bad.
"So I hitched out from the next road," he continued, "Spent last night at the hostel."
"And now you're going to yellow blaze to keep pace with us, right?" I asked, crossing my fingers.
"Oh," Fredo hesitated. "I mean, when you put it like that--"
"Great!" I didn't let him finish. I could have hugged him.
After lunch, we spent a few hours at the library, checking our e-mail and otherwise finding out what was going on with the world. At some point I received a call from Bandito, who had, in fact, just summited Katahdin. He told me all about it, of course, and filled me in on all the shenanigans I had missed with P-Nut and Caveman and whomever. But then he had to go, because he was already on the road, headed home. And I had to go, too, because I still had 220 miles to go before the end. I envied him. But I think he may have envied me, too…
Buckeye and I agreed to meet up with Fredo before we left, and then went out for dinner. (You may have noticed that our lives in town revolved around food. There's a reason for that.) We had pizza, and then decided it would be a good idea to share a pitcher of beer. Big mistake. By the time Fredo arrived, we were both extremely drunk. Or at least slightly tipsy.
And then our third stroke of luck! We managed to hitch a ride out with Malt Lickher and Ruthless—don't ask, it's that trail name thing again—a lovely couple from Hamden, Connecticut out on vacation. My hometown! We cheerfully reminisced about Modern Apizza and BAR. (If you're ever in the area, go there and try the mashed potato pizza. Trust me.) Anyway, good times.
Before dropping us at the trailhead, Malt Lickher and Ruthless shuttled us to a nearby grocery. We emerged with a substantially better haul than Andover had yielded. Fredo even bought a Joose, which is to the formerly unadulterated Four Loko what primordial sludge is to humanity: one led to the other, it's just not imminently clear how. Or why.
What compelled Fredo to try the Joose? Good question. Especially since he'd spent the previous day vomiting all over himself. And everything else. But I digress. He had a few sips, and it made his stomach hurt. I had a few sips, and my stomach hurt. Then again, I was already, uh, slightly tipsy.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Chapter 102: Blink
I was playing leap frog with a newly resurfaced, resurgent Hobbit. I'm not entirely sure how he caught up with me, or so quickly, but I didn't begrudge him his apparent speed. Especially not with my short-term plans taking me off-trail for much of the coming week.
Still, it was a mildly amusing ballet we orchestrated: every couple of miles one of us would come upon the other sitting beside the trail—taking an unearned break or eating a snack—and we'd nod to each other and exchange grim, knowing smirks. (This tacit, subtle acknowledgement long being the most accepted and universally recognized form of greeting between haggard thru-hikers.) And so, for a few mostly pleasant hours, we more or less marked time with each other.
After slipping ahead for the final time, however, I emerged from the woods out onto a road at the edge of a vast, glassy lake. Stuck by its quiet beauty, or maybe just tired and overcome by the heat of the day, I doffed my pack and sat down on the curb. Where I noticed a note, written on a familiar tie-dyed stationary, taped to the guardrail.
Though days of rain had smudged the ink, her handwriting was unmistakable. It was a letter to Bandito and Caveman, from Redwing, telling them that she, P-Nut, and Lil Dipper were going down to the lake to swim. If the heat radiating off the blacktop wasn't already threatening to melt the soles of my boots, I might've said reading her note—and knowing that, somewhere, my friends were still together—felt like a ray of sunshine. All the same, it made me glad. Although, the fact that neither Caveman nor Bandito had removed said note made me question whether they had seen it in the first place.
As I ripped the note down and stuffed it in my pack, Hobbit emerged from the woods behind me. I pulled my things aside to let him pass, but he waved me off. No sooner had he explained that he was spending the night at a friend's house than someone pulled up in a minivan to pick him up. I saluted him briefly, and that was that. I never saw him again.
I knew my mom would be picking me up almost as soon as I crossed the Connecticut border in the morning. I proposed trying to make it as far as Kent, and coming home in the afternoon, but she suggested picking me up at Route 55 in the morning. Why spend the whole day hiking when you could spend it relaxing and drinking lemonade instead? It was hard to argue with her logic.
Still, knowing her plans did someone diminish my sense of ambition. I knew there was no point to pushing myself harder than I thought necessary. The end result of which was me saying goodbye to Sonic that day, as well. Unlike me, he had a schedule to keep, and needed to keep on making miles. It had always been a struggle to keep up with him, but I was filled with mixed emotions to see him go. Another friend gone, in so little time.
I pulled into the inexplicably named Telephone Pioneers Shelter for the night. It was lonely there for the longest time, until Pixie arrived with some of her coterie, none of whom I had seen since at least Tennessee, or maybe Virginia. It wasn't a jovial reunion. We really hadn't spent that much time together. But it was nice to have company, all the same.
Until I hung my food, and crawled up the hill behind the shelter to where I'd put up my tent. There wasn't a lot of flat ground available nearby, so my position was hardly ideal. Still, I was able to settle in and get comfortable enough, lying awake listening to the creak of the trees and the quiet burble of conversation from the group of friends below.
Tomorrow, I'd be going home. Seeing my friends. Going to bars. Drinking beer. Celebrating the Fourth of July. It was bound to be bittersweet. Yet I felt an undeniable surge of accomplishment. In January, I'd taken a train down to Georgia. And I'd walked home. It was crazy! I wondered if anyone would actually believe me. Probably. Still, I'd come 1456 miles.
Only 733 to go.
Still, it was a mildly amusing ballet we orchestrated: every couple of miles one of us would come upon the other sitting beside the trail—taking an unearned break or eating a snack—and we'd nod to each other and exchange grim, knowing smirks. (This tacit, subtle acknowledgement long being the most accepted and universally recognized form of greeting between haggard thru-hikers.) And so, for a few mostly pleasant hours, we more or less marked time with each other.
After slipping ahead for the final time, however, I emerged from the woods out onto a road at the edge of a vast, glassy lake. Stuck by its quiet beauty, or maybe just tired and overcome by the heat of the day, I doffed my pack and sat down on the curb. Where I noticed a note, written on a familiar tie-dyed stationary, taped to the guardrail.
Though days of rain had smudged the ink, her handwriting was unmistakable. It was a letter to Bandito and Caveman, from Redwing, telling them that she, P-Nut, and Lil Dipper were going down to the lake to swim. If the heat radiating off the blacktop wasn't already threatening to melt the soles of my boots, I might've said reading her note—and knowing that, somewhere, my friends were still together—felt like a ray of sunshine. All the same, it made me glad. Although, the fact that neither Caveman nor Bandito had removed said note made me question whether they had seen it in the first place.
As I ripped the note down and stuffed it in my pack, Hobbit emerged from the woods behind me. I pulled my things aside to let him pass, but he waved me off. No sooner had he explained that he was spending the night at a friend's house than someone pulled up in a minivan to pick him up. I saluted him briefly, and that was that. I never saw him again.
----
I knew my mom would be picking me up almost as soon as I crossed the Connecticut border in the morning. I proposed trying to make it as far as Kent, and coming home in the afternoon, but she suggested picking me up at Route 55 in the morning. Why spend the whole day hiking when you could spend it relaxing and drinking lemonade instead? It was hard to argue with her logic.
Still, knowing her plans did someone diminish my sense of ambition. I knew there was no point to pushing myself harder than I thought necessary. The end result of which was me saying goodbye to Sonic that day, as well. Unlike me, he had a schedule to keep, and needed to keep on making miles. It had always been a struggle to keep up with him, but I was filled with mixed emotions to see him go. Another friend gone, in so little time.
I pulled into the inexplicably named Telephone Pioneers Shelter for the night. It was lonely there for the longest time, until Pixie arrived with some of her coterie, none of whom I had seen since at least Tennessee, or maybe Virginia. It wasn't a jovial reunion. We really hadn't spent that much time together. But it was nice to have company, all the same.
Until I hung my food, and crawled up the hill behind the shelter to where I'd put up my tent. There wasn't a lot of flat ground available nearby, so my position was hardly ideal. Still, I was able to settle in and get comfortable enough, lying awake listening to the creak of the trees and the quiet burble of conversation from the group of friends below.
Tomorrow, I'd be going home. Seeing my friends. Going to bars. Drinking beer. Celebrating the Fourth of July. It was bound to be bittersweet. Yet I felt an undeniable surge of accomplishment. In January, I'd taken a train down to Georgia. And I'd walked home. It was crazy! I wondered if anyone would actually believe me. Probably. Still, I'd come 1456 miles.
Only 733 to go.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Chapter 87: The Perils of Poison Ivy
It had been a rough couple of days, but things were starting to look better. For one thing, Caveman was back! For another, the next town wasn't for 70 miles, severely limiting my opportunities for drunken embarrassment. But then it was raining, and the trail was an absolute mess.
Brief but punishing climbs and descents sandwiched long, flat sections of vine- and pricker-encrusted rocks. To the left and right of the trail, brown earth and green undergrowth stretched out almost as far as the eye could see. Which admittedly wasn't that far on this day, considering the all-enveloping fog and steady drizzle. And the trail itself? Angular, misshapen, irregularly sized boulders jutting from the earth in random directions, like the collected pulled teeth from God's own dentistry office. There was nowhere flat to place your feet; I found myself constantly wedging my boots into the gaps between stones and just hoping that I wouldn't twist an ankle.
Why did the powers that be decide to take the trail over this terrain, when seemingly better ground appeared to surround it? Perhaps Pennsylvanians are strict environmentalists, and don't want even ideologically sympathetic hikers tramping all over their precious green stuff. Or maybe they're just sadists. There didn't appear to be any good reason.
Making matters worse were the apparently deplorable local standards of trail maintenance. Maybe Pennsylvania isn't the most trafficked section of the trail—it certainly has the worst reputation, and it is true that most prospective thru-hikers have quit long before they reach the state line—but there is no excuse for letting poison ivy, wild rose, and satanic raspberry bushes grow unchecked, so that they surround the trail on all sides and continually hound and harass all but the most agile passersby. I found maintaining forward momentum hard enough without all the thorns and pricker bushes grabbing at my pack, my arms, my clothes. My biggest fear, however, was having to stop to dig a cathole, and never making it back.
Caveman and I walked along together, for a variety of reasons. We wanted to give Merf and Dietrich some space, to do whatever it is that long-lost friends are wont to do, and also so as to not overwhelm them, to allow them time to properly catch up. Furthermore, I wanted Caveman to fill me in on all that I'd missed after leaving the trail: how Bandito had flipped out and started cursing and drinking and leaving offensive, gratuitously inflammatory notes in shelter logs and acting wantonly lecherous to random strangers without me around to act as his moral compass; how P-Nut had continued his bizarre descent into some kind of primordial madness, and had taken to boiling his shoelaces for dinner, grunting a lot, and snacking on pieces of bark and twigs and berries; how a talent scout had popped out of the woods to present Hobbes with a lucrative modeling contract; and how Redwing had shockingly revealed that she was actually Helen Mirren, and that Lil Dipper was secretly American. But the main reason I wanted to walk with Caveman was because he hiked too quickly on his own. Someone had to slow him down.
I filled Caveman in on everything that had happened to me since he'd left. How I had gotten trail magic every single day, sometimes twice. How I had met some scary southbounders, but had beaten them to death with their own trekking poles and then buried their bodies in PenMar Park. How I had met only one person trying to do the Four State Challenge—Hobbit—but had heard that he'd punked out just a scant few miles from the Pennsylvania border.
All through this I could hear Caveman struggling behind me.
"Ow."
"Ow!"
Snap!
"OW!"
Intrigued and amused, I just had to stop to find out what had happend.
Caveman rested his hands on his knees and chuckled morosely.
"One of the elastic straps on mah pack cover got caught on a pricker? And ah thought it was a good idea just to pull it free, and it snapped back and hit me—"
At which point he and I disolved into a fit of uncontrollable giggling. The stupidity of it all. The futility. The trail was trying to hurt us, maim us, kill us. It was rightly terrifying. How else were we supposed to react?
We continued laughing about it for the next five minutes, until we realized we were lost. In the middle of a vast boulder field, underneath a tree that had inexplicably grown out of the gaps in the rocks. During a lightning storm. For some reason, we found this new predicament hilarious, and only laughed harder. I may have actually sat down, just to catch my breath.
Eventually we composed ourselves and doubled back. The trail wasn't that hard to find.
And just so you don't think I'm exaggerating about the terrain, here are some of the landmarks, as listed in my Thru-Hiker's Handbook:
Brief but punishing climbs and descents sandwiched long, flat sections of vine- and pricker-encrusted rocks. To the left and right of the trail, brown earth and green undergrowth stretched out almost as far as the eye could see. Which admittedly wasn't that far on this day, considering the all-enveloping fog and steady drizzle. And the trail itself? Angular, misshapen, irregularly sized boulders jutting from the earth in random directions, like the collected pulled teeth from God's own dentistry office. There was nowhere flat to place your feet; I found myself constantly wedging my boots into the gaps between stones and just hoping that I wouldn't twist an ankle.
Why did the powers that be decide to take the trail over this terrain, when seemingly better ground appeared to surround it? Perhaps Pennsylvanians are strict environmentalists, and don't want even ideologically sympathetic hikers tramping all over their precious green stuff. Or maybe they're just sadists. There didn't appear to be any good reason.
Making matters worse were the apparently deplorable local standards of trail maintenance. Maybe Pennsylvania isn't the most trafficked section of the trail—it certainly has the worst reputation, and it is true that most prospective thru-hikers have quit long before they reach the state line—but there is no excuse for letting poison ivy, wild rose, and satanic raspberry bushes grow unchecked, so that they surround the trail on all sides and continually hound and harass all but the most agile passersby. I found maintaining forward momentum hard enough without all the thorns and pricker bushes grabbing at my pack, my arms, my clothes. My biggest fear, however, was having to stop to dig a cathole, and never making it back.
Caveman and I walked along together, for a variety of reasons. We wanted to give Merf and Dietrich some space, to do whatever it is that long-lost friends are wont to do, and also so as to not overwhelm them, to allow them time to properly catch up. Furthermore, I wanted Caveman to fill me in on all that I'd missed after leaving the trail: how Bandito had flipped out and started cursing and drinking and leaving offensive, gratuitously inflammatory notes in shelter logs and acting wantonly lecherous to random strangers without me around to act as his moral compass; how P-Nut had continued his bizarre descent into some kind of primordial madness, and had taken to boiling his shoelaces for dinner, grunting a lot, and snacking on pieces of bark and twigs and berries; how a talent scout had popped out of the woods to present Hobbes with a lucrative modeling contract; and how Redwing had shockingly revealed that she was actually Helen Mirren, and that Lil Dipper was secretly American. But the main reason I wanted to walk with Caveman was because he hiked too quickly on his own. Someone had to slow him down.
I filled Caveman in on everything that had happened to me since he'd left. How I had gotten trail magic every single day, sometimes twice. How I had met some scary southbounders, but had beaten them to death with their own trekking poles and then buried their bodies in PenMar Park. How I had met only one person trying to do the Four State Challenge—Hobbit—but had heard that he'd punked out just a scant few miles from the Pennsylvania border.
All through this I could hear Caveman struggling behind me.
"Ow."
"Ow!"
Snap!
"OW!"
Intrigued and amused, I just had to stop to find out what had happend.
Caveman rested his hands on his knees and chuckled morosely.
"One of the elastic straps on mah pack cover got caught on a pricker? And ah thought it was a good idea just to pull it free, and it snapped back and hit me—"
At which point he and I disolved into a fit of uncontrollable giggling. The stupidity of it all. The futility. The trail was trying to hurt us, maim us, kill us. It was rightly terrifying. How else were we supposed to react?
We continued laughing about it for the next five minutes, until we realized we were lost. In the middle of a vast boulder field, underneath a tree that had inexplicably grown out of the gaps in the rocks. During a lightning storm. For some reason, we found this new predicament hilarious, and only laughed harder. I may have actually sat down, just to catch my breath.
Eventually we composed ourselves and doubled back. The trail wasn't that hard to find.
And just so you don't think I'm exaggerating about the terrain, here are some of the landmarks, as listed in my Thru-Hiker's Handbook:
Fumitory Rocks (1360') ................................. 1147.8Oh, and somehow I got poison ivy on my arm.
Table Rock (1380') ........................................ 1148.0
Shickellimy Rocks (1320') on AT .................. 1152.3
Stony Mtn (1650') .......................................... 1159.0
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Chapter 76: Harpers Ferry
Caveman, Bandito and I arrived at the David Lesser Memorial Shelter to find Nature already there. She was in a typically cheerful mood, and quickly told us her intentions to wake up early in the morning to get breakfast at Keys Gap, some three miles away. Sounded like a plan to me. If we didn't join her there, I at least hoped to get up early enough to see her off.
We wouldn't, and I did't. And we wouldn't see her in Harpers Ferry, either. And so, as with so many others before her, and since, I never got to say goodbye. Which is a shame. We had been hiking together off and on for eight hundred miles. She had been our guide, a clarion voice of wisdom and reason, and a good friend. Plus she had given me pizza. I would miss her.
Also strangely missing that night was Hobbes. I thought I remembered seeing seen him earlier in the day, but where was he now? Was he attempting the Four State Challenge, where you walk the forty-odd miles from the Virginia/West Virginia border through Maryland into Pennsylvania in less that 24 hours? If so, I hadn't heard about it. Although it wouldn't surprise me. Was he simply stealth camping elsewhere, in solitude, as was his wont? Or had he vanished completely, evaporating into the ether?
When I met Hobbes, he had been mercurial if not downright surly, but it hadn't taken me long to appreciate his intelligence, caustic sense of humor, and disturbing handsomeness. And now he was gone, as mysterious as ever. Again, I never got to say goodbye. But he wasn't the sentimental type.
In a brazen act redolent of the callous laziness that would come to define him, Caveman decided not to tent with the Bandito and me, and instead slept up at the shelter. Which was fine. Why would I want to spend any more time with that uncultured neanderthal? Just because this would be, as far as I knew, my last night on the trail with him? No. To be honest, I didn't even like Caveman. I looked forward to never seeing him again. That jerk.
Anyway, there were some lovely tent pads just below the shelter where Bandito and I set up for the night. In fact, the entire shelter area was gorgeous. Even the privy was kind of swanky. The only drawback was the 0.2 mile hike downhill to the water source. Which I deftly avoided, by asking Bandito to collect my water for me. One last bullying act as a surrogate big brother.
Bandito was the same as ever, with his eternally optimistic verve and innocently flamboyant enthusiasm for life. And I was still the same embittered, profanely cantankerous old soul that he had met all those weeks ago, despite his constant cajoling for me to be a better person. I tried to let him think it was working. And maybe it was. I could only that I was as positive an influence on him as he was on me. And that he wouldn't become an insufferable, sanctimonious brat without my steadying influence, without me around to curb his worst, most destructive impulses. Because that's exactly how our relationship worked.
And so Bandito and I settled into our tents, but stayed up perhaps later than we should have talking to each other across the campsite, much like we had almost two months earlier at Beech Gap. Just like it had been in the beginning.
I'd been to Harpers Ferry once before, with my family. I couldn't have been very old at the time. My memories of it are minimal, to say the least. Still, I remembered enough to know when we were getting close.
Our adrenaline, and the anticipation of actually making it into town, kept us at a terrific pace that morning. We hardly slowed when we reached the bridge across the Shenandoah. Okay, so we slowed a little, but only enough to take some celebratory pictures.
We soon started bumping into all sorts of younger kids and families and people out with tour groups. Many of whom glared at us with wrinkled noses, as though to say, "Who are all these homeless people marching through our historical site?" I gleefully ignored them, and led our parade down into the city itself. If I hadn't been so excited, I would have remembered to whistle or sing "John Brown's Body." Alas.
Oddly, we came into the city from the opposite direction as I had expected. At first I was puzzled that everything seemed backwards. I envisioned crossing the bridge and ending up immediately in the city proper, not on the bluffes behind it. But no matter. Once we had descended into the town itself, everything was more or less how I remembered it.
We hadn't been wandering around for too long before we saw some familiar green and blue backpacks propped by the entrance to a cafe. Peering down into the outdoor dining area, whom do we see eating breakfast? Redwing and Lil Dipper! Naturally.
It wouldn't be my last heartfelt reunion with long lost friends on my adventure, but it may have been the warmest and most serendipitous and exciting. None of us had any idea that we would see each other there in town. We had hoped to, but hadn't been foolish enough to outright expect it. Yet there we were.
Caveman, Bandito and I of course pestered Redwing and Lil Dipper for news on their various ailments, and needled them mercilessly for having skipped such a small section of the trail. They told us that they were all better, thanks, and then politely informed us that we could go to hell. C'est la vie.
Our good humor and spirit carried us to the Amtrak station, where I was to catch my train into Washington D.C., and there somehow catch another train into Baltimore, where I'd be meeting Liz, Megan's little sister. By now it was beyond any of them to chide me for or talk me out of abandoning them. They'd had their chance to lobby me to stay, but had let it pass, long ago. And so we were left with only a few short moments to say goodbye and bask in each other's company.
Except the train was late. Invariably. First ten minutes. Then twenty. Then half an hour. The others were not so keen to wait around all day with me, and I understood. Bandito had a package to pick up at the post office. Redwing and Lil Dipper were meeting P-Nut somewhere after he returned from Walmart with knee braces and compression sleeves. Oh, P-Nut. I hadn't a chance to say goodbye to him either.
Bandito mentioned that his mother might have sent him cookies or brownies in his maildrop. Which was an intriguing enough idea for the rest of us to urge him to run to pick it up before my train came. If he could, maybe we could share them. One last treat as a final hurrah. And so Bandito dashed off.
And then a whistle blew in the distance. Before we could see it, we could hear and then feel the telltale rumble of the train approaching. Panicked, I called Bandito, and tried to get him to come back, but it was too late. He was too far away, and my train was pulling into the station.
At least Caveman, Redwing, and Lil Dipper were there. I was torn between the sadness of missing them and the rest of their adventure and my own excitement about getting back into civilization, if ever so briefly. And then the Amtrak conductor was a monumental jerk to me, and almost didn't let me on the train, but I'd rather not dwell on that.
I waved to my friends, got on the train, and was off. Did I wave? Or did I hug them goodbye? Were we hugging friends? If not, why not? Maybe Redwing and Lil Dipper were recently showered, while I still smelled and resembled a rank, festering corpse. So that would explain our certain lack of intimacy. And of course Caveman and I were way too manly for hugs. Or maybe if we had hugged, we never would've escaped each other's arms. I felt confused, disappointed, and melancholy. But no matter. I put it from my mind, looked out the window, and tried only to think of tomorrow, and the next day.
I had come so far in only two months. Who knows where I would be in even the next few hours?
We wouldn't, and I did't. And we wouldn't see her in Harpers Ferry, either. And so, as with so many others before her, and since, I never got to say goodbye. Which is a shame. We had been hiking together off and on for eight hundred miles. She had been our guide, a clarion voice of wisdom and reason, and a good friend. Plus she had given me pizza. I would miss her.
Also strangely missing that night was Hobbes. I thought I remembered seeing seen him earlier in the day, but where was he now? Was he attempting the Four State Challenge, where you walk the forty-odd miles from the Virginia/West Virginia border through Maryland into Pennsylvania in less that 24 hours? If so, I hadn't heard about it. Although it wouldn't surprise me. Was he simply stealth camping elsewhere, in solitude, as was his wont? Or had he vanished completely, evaporating into the ether?
When I met Hobbes, he had been mercurial if not downright surly, but it hadn't taken me long to appreciate his intelligence, caustic sense of humor, and disturbing handsomeness. And now he was gone, as mysterious as ever. Again, I never got to say goodbye. But he wasn't the sentimental type.
In a brazen act redolent of the callous laziness that would come to define him, Caveman decided not to tent with the Bandito and me, and instead slept up at the shelter. Which was fine. Why would I want to spend any more time with that uncultured neanderthal? Just because this would be, as far as I knew, my last night on the trail with him? No. To be honest, I didn't even like Caveman. I looked forward to never seeing him again. That jerk.
Anyway, there were some lovely tent pads just below the shelter where Bandito and I set up for the night. In fact, the entire shelter area was gorgeous. Even the privy was kind of swanky. The only drawback was the 0.2 mile hike downhill to the water source. Which I deftly avoided, by asking Bandito to collect my water for me. One last bullying act as a surrogate big brother.
Bandito was the same as ever, with his eternally optimistic verve and innocently flamboyant enthusiasm for life. And I was still the same embittered, profanely cantankerous old soul that he had met all those weeks ago, despite his constant cajoling for me to be a better person. I tried to let him think it was working. And maybe it was. I could only that I was as positive an influence on him as he was on me. And that he wouldn't become an insufferable, sanctimonious brat without my steadying influence, without me around to curb his worst, most destructive impulses. Because that's exactly how our relationship worked.
And so Bandito and I settled into our tents, but stayed up perhaps later than we should have talking to each other across the campsite, much like we had almost two months earlier at Beech Gap. Just like it had been in the beginning.
----
I'd been to Harpers Ferry once before, with my family. I couldn't have been very old at the time. My memories of it are minimal, to say the least. Still, I remembered enough to know when we were getting close.
Our adrenaline, and the anticipation of actually making it into town, kept us at a terrific pace that morning. We hardly slowed when we reached the bridge across the Shenandoah. Okay, so we slowed a little, but only enough to take some celebratory pictures.
We soon started bumping into all sorts of younger kids and families and people out with tour groups. Many of whom glared at us with wrinkled noses, as though to say, "Who are all these homeless people marching through our historical site?" I gleefully ignored them, and led our parade down into the city itself. If I hadn't been so excited, I would have remembered to whistle or sing "John Brown's Body." Alas.
Oddly, we came into the city from the opposite direction as I had expected. At first I was puzzled that everything seemed backwards. I envisioned crossing the bridge and ending up immediately in the city proper, not on the bluffes behind it. But no matter. Once we had descended into the town itself, everything was more or less how I remembered it.
We hadn't been wandering around for too long before we saw some familiar green and blue backpacks propped by the entrance to a cafe. Peering down into the outdoor dining area, whom do we see eating breakfast? Redwing and Lil Dipper! Naturally.
It wouldn't be my last heartfelt reunion with long lost friends on my adventure, but it may have been the warmest and most serendipitous and exciting. None of us had any idea that we would see each other there in town. We had hoped to, but hadn't been foolish enough to outright expect it. Yet there we were.
Caveman, Bandito and I of course pestered Redwing and Lil Dipper for news on their various ailments, and needled them mercilessly for having skipped such a small section of the trail. They told us that they were all better, thanks, and then politely informed us that we could go to hell. C'est la vie.
Our good humor and spirit carried us to the Amtrak station, where I was to catch my train into Washington D.C., and there somehow catch another train into Baltimore, where I'd be meeting Liz, Megan's little sister. By now it was beyond any of them to chide me for or talk me out of abandoning them. They'd had their chance to lobby me to stay, but had let it pass, long ago. And so we were left with only a few short moments to say goodbye and bask in each other's company.
Except the train was late. Invariably. First ten minutes. Then twenty. Then half an hour. The others were not so keen to wait around all day with me, and I understood. Bandito had a package to pick up at the post office. Redwing and Lil Dipper were meeting P-Nut somewhere after he returned from Walmart with knee braces and compression sleeves. Oh, P-Nut. I hadn't a chance to say goodbye to him either.
Bandito mentioned that his mother might have sent him cookies or brownies in his maildrop. Which was an intriguing enough idea for the rest of us to urge him to run to pick it up before my train came. If he could, maybe we could share them. One last treat as a final hurrah. And so Bandito dashed off.
And then a whistle blew in the distance. Before we could see it, we could hear and then feel the telltale rumble of the train approaching. Panicked, I called Bandito, and tried to get him to come back, but it was too late. He was too far away, and my train was pulling into the station.
At least Caveman, Redwing, and Lil Dipper were there. I was torn between the sadness of missing them and the rest of their adventure and my own excitement about getting back into civilization, if ever so briefly. And then the Amtrak conductor was a monumental jerk to me, and almost didn't let me on the train, but I'd rather not dwell on that.
I waved to my friends, got on the train, and was off. Did I wave? Or did I hug them goodbye? Were we hugging friends? If not, why not? Maybe Redwing and Lil Dipper were recently showered, while I still smelled and resembled a rank, festering corpse. So that would explain our certain lack of intimacy. And of course Caveman and I were way too manly for hugs. Or maybe if we had hugged, we never would've escaped each other's arms. I felt confused, disappointed, and melancholy. But no matter. I put it from my mind, looked out the window, and tried only to think of tomorrow, and the next day.
I had come so far in only two months. Who knows where I would be in even the next few hours?
Monday, March 21, 2011
Chapter 75: 1,000 Miles and Rising
Imagine climbing into your car just outside of City Hall in New York City, driving north along Centre St. to Canal St., turning left, then taking the Holland Tunnel into New Jersey, getting on Interstate 80 and heading west. Seventeen hours and a thousand miles later, you'll find yourself in front of the University of Iowa College of Dentistry in Iowa City, Iowa. At this point – and I sincerely hope that you had the common sense on this hypothetical journey to at least stop a couple times for coffee, donuts, and to use the bathroom – you'll probably be exhausted, dehydrated, hungry, and a smelly, horrific mess.1
The experience of walking a thousand miles is surprisingly similar. True, it takes approximately two months instead of slightly less than a day, but you'll end up in the same place. And you'll still be exhausted, dehydrated, hungry, and a smelly, horrific mess.2
But Caveman, Bandito and I had quite a ways to go – exactly 16.2 miles – before we would figure all of that out. And we still had to contend with the "roller coaster," a sprawling, soggy section of pointless ups and downs that stretched from the Rod Hollow Shelter practically all the way to the West Virginia border. A rather antagonistic warning sign announced our arrival by boastfully declaring, "Beware! You are about to enter the Roller Coaster! Which last saw trail maintenance in 1967! Basically, you're gonna die. So turn back now. No, really."
And yes, it was that complicated a sign, obviously written in very small print. And we all found it hilarious. Nature cautioned us not to take it too lightly, however, and we would have done well to heed her wisdom.
Unnervingly, a large portion of the "roller coaster" had recently been burnt out in a forest fire. Where my handbook advertised "ant mounds along A.T.," we found only the ashen hulks of trees dotting a dusty, gray, almost lunar landscape devoid of vegetation or life. But then we were out of it, and descending another five hundred feet or so down the side of a perilous ravine.
And then we were climbing another six hundred feet, and finally reaching the side trail to the Bears Den Hostel. A magnificent stone building with bunks for twenty-six, a refrigerator with ice cream and soda for sale, and an overflowing hiker's box—basically a garbage bin that hiker's can raid for supplies or leave their unwanted supplies behind in for others to take—the Bears Den was a welcome respite from the morning's drudgery. I bought three sodas for myself, and then two more for Caveman and Bandito. Because I am a nice guy. I also pilfered a plastic trowel from the hiker box. All the better for digging catholes with.
Nature and Hobbes joined us outside, and we all sat around relaxing, eating lunch. I tried not to think about Redwing, Lil Dipper, or P-Nut, and how much more fun we'd all be having if they were there. I especially tried not to think about the fact that I likely wouldn't see any of them again after tomorrow. Of course, that meant I could think of little else. The pain was too great. I tried to stay in the present, to enjoy these last few moments with my remaining trail family, such as it was. Bandito, Nature, Hobbes, and Caveman. And me. Drinking sodas in the sun.
I wished we could have stayed there forever. But we were only seven miles away from the thousand mile marker. We had to move on. And, despite a particularly nasty flare-up of monkey butt3, we made pretty good time, bolstered by Caveman's seemingly bottomless supply of Excedrin and several rousing choruses of The Proclaimer's "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)."
And then we were there! One thousand miles!
Of course, we had no idea we were there, because there weren't any signs, and we were miles from the nearest landmark, but that didn't matter. Oh, and by we I mean me, because I had run ahead of Caveman and Bandito on a blistering caffeine high. But that doesn't matter, either. Anyway, I waited for them roughly around where I thought the thousand mile point was, and we had a raucous celebration.
"Caveman! Bandito!"
"M.C.!"
"One thousand miles!"
"I know!"
"I can't believe it!"
And we whooped for joy and high-fived each other. And then it sank in. And we realized we had five more miles to go.
"The Proclaimers better be giving a surprise concert in Harpers Ferry tomorrow," said Caveman bitterly as we continued on.
I agreed, but kept it to myself.
Only 1,179 miles to go.
1. And, no offense to Iowa, severely depressed. Iowa City is a far cry from the bustling happeningness of the Financial District and Chinatown, after all.4
2. And depressed, too.
3. Chafage.
4. Okay, so that's not strictly true, or fair. There are a number of Chinese, Indian, Thai, and even Vietnamese restaurants in and around Iowa City. And those are the only attractions of the Financial District and Chinatown, right?
The experience of walking a thousand miles is surprisingly similar. True, it takes approximately two months instead of slightly less than a day, but you'll end up in the same place. And you'll still be exhausted, dehydrated, hungry, and a smelly, horrific mess.2
But Caveman, Bandito and I had quite a ways to go – exactly 16.2 miles – before we would figure all of that out. And we still had to contend with the "roller coaster," a sprawling, soggy section of pointless ups and downs that stretched from the Rod Hollow Shelter practically all the way to the West Virginia border. A rather antagonistic warning sign announced our arrival by boastfully declaring, "Beware! You are about to enter the Roller Coaster! Which last saw trail maintenance in 1967! Basically, you're gonna die. So turn back now. No, really."
And yes, it was that complicated a sign, obviously written in very small print. And we all found it hilarious. Nature cautioned us not to take it too lightly, however, and we would have done well to heed her wisdom.
Unnervingly, a large portion of the "roller coaster" had recently been burnt out in a forest fire. Where my handbook advertised "ant mounds along A.T.," we found only the ashen hulks of trees dotting a dusty, gray, almost lunar landscape devoid of vegetation or life. But then we were out of it, and descending another five hundred feet or so down the side of a perilous ravine.
And then we were climbing another six hundred feet, and finally reaching the side trail to the Bears Den Hostel. A magnificent stone building with bunks for twenty-six, a refrigerator with ice cream and soda for sale, and an overflowing hiker's box—basically a garbage bin that hiker's can raid for supplies or leave their unwanted supplies behind in for others to take—the Bears Den was a welcome respite from the morning's drudgery. I bought three sodas for myself, and then two more for Caveman and Bandito. Because I am a nice guy. I also pilfered a plastic trowel from the hiker box. All the better for digging catholes with.
Nature and Hobbes joined us outside, and we all sat around relaxing, eating lunch. I tried not to think about Redwing, Lil Dipper, or P-Nut, and how much more fun we'd all be having if they were there. I especially tried not to think about the fact that I likely wouldn't see any of them again after tomorrow. Of course, that meant I could think of little else. The pain was too great. I tried to stay in the present, to enjoy these last few moments with my remaining trail family, such as it was. Bandito, Nature, Hobbes, and Caveman. And me. Drinking sodas in the sun.
I wished we could have stayed there forever. But we were only seven miles away from the thousand mile marker. We had to move on. And, despite a particularly nasty flare-up of monkey butt3, we made pretty good time, bolstered by Caveman's seemingly bottomless supply of Excedrin and several rousing choruses of The Proclaimer's "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)."
And then we were there! One thousand miles!
Of course, we had no idea we were there, because there weren't any signs, and we were miles from the nearest landmark, but that didn't matter. Oh, and by we I mean me, because I had run ahead of Caveman and Bandito on a blistering caffeine high. But that doesn't matter, either. Anyway, I waited for them roughly around where I thought the thousand mile point was, and we had a raucous celebration.
"Caveman! Bandito!"
"M.C.!"
"One thousand miles!"
"I know!"
"I can't believe it!"
And we whooped for joy and high-fived each other. And then it sank in. And we realized we had five more miles to go.
"The Proclaimers better be giving a surprise concert in Harpers Ferry tomorrow," said Caveman bitterly as we continued on.
I agreed, but kept it to myself.
Only 1,179 miles to go.
1. And, no offense to Iowa, severely depressed. Iowa City is a far cry from the bustling happeningness of the Financial District and Chinatown, after all.4
2. And depressed, too.
3. Chafage.
4. Okay, so that's not strictly true, or fair. There are a number of Chinese, Indian, Thai, and even Vietnamese restaurants in and around Iowa City. And those are the only attractions of the Financial District and Chinatown, right?
Friday, March 11, 2011
Chapter 72: Magic Brownies
We said goodbye to the girls with a minimum of fuss and fanfare the next morning, and promised to see them again in Harpers Ferry.
P-Nut ditched us immediately afterwards, to hitch back to the trail on his own. He said something vaguely justifiable about it being "easier for one person to get a ride than three." He was probably right. Besides, I could hardly begrudge him his ambitions, particularly since my own would be calling me away from the trail in just a few short days.
Caveman and I wandered around Luray for a while, searching in vain for a place to eat breakfast. The trouble was, most of the restaurants in town weren't yet open. We eventually gave up, and started trying to find a ride back to the trail.
There are many strategies involved in hitchhiking, all of which have disadvantages. If you try to be funny or show a little skin, most motorists will probably think you're a crazy rapist or serial killer, and so will avoid you like the plague. On the other hand, if you don't do anything out of the ordinary to distinguish yourself, most motorists will just think you're lazy, and also a serial rapist or murderer. And – unfortunately for everybody involved – a surprisingly high number of those who do pull over to pick up hitchhikers are also rapists and murderers. It's just a bad scene.
We ended up getting a ride back to the trail from the unlikeliest person. A section hiker, as a matter of fact. Driving a classic Mercedes-Benz. An E-Class sedan from the early 70s with 280,000 miles on it. Not exactly the type of car we'd expect to pick us up. Precisely the opposite.
The day passed in a sullen haze. Maybe we were hungover from the previous day's excitement, or maybe we were just missed our friends. However, any melancholia we were feeling was quickly abated by the sudden reappearance of Bandito, Hobbes, Nature, and the entire crew of smelly, burping, farting, snoring section hikers.
We had just settled in at Gravel Spring Hut to watch the rain when Nature arrived.
"Nature!" I waved. "Hi!"
"M.C.!" she cried, "I've been looking for you!"
Although I was overjoyed to see her, I somehow failed to get out of my sleeping bag to welcome her in.
"I brought you something from Trail Days," she said. "A treat!"
I was so taken aback, I forgot to ask her how Trail Days actually had been. "What is it?"
"A brownie," she said, with a mischievous twinkle in her eye. "A special brownie."
"Oh," I said, confused. Then, getting it, "Oh!"
"I thought we'd share it before Bandito got here," she said.
"Good idea!" I nodded. "I love these things."
I do. Brownies are awesome.
"Caveman?" Nature proffered a piece to him.
"I can't," he demurred, amused. "I promised my wife I wouldn't do that without her."
Poor Caveman. Whipped. Nature and I shrugged, then scarfed down the brownie.
Hobbes arrived too late to partake, but was very jealous.
"It was delicious," I told him. "I'm telling you this not to engender envy and resentment, but so you can live vicariously through me."
"Yeah, right," he scoffed, as though he found the mere suggestion offensive.
Caveman had hiked out some cans of Budweiser from town. Come to think of it, so had I. In fact, we may have had a can or two for lunch. We had more then. It was completely necessary.
The shelter was filling up with the obnoxious, farting, burping groaning section hikers with whom we'd been stuck for the past three days. Then Bandito arrived, and slid in next to me. I was extremely intoxicated by this time.
"Are you okay?" he asked me.
"Why? Am I looking at you funny? I'm sorry!" I blurted. "I mean, I'm a little drunk. Caveman had beer and he gave me some and it's all his fault."
"You're acting funny."
"I am not."
I looked over at Nature and giggled. She giggled. Poor Nature, the only woman in the shelter. The obnoxious section hikers – who were all men in case you couldn't tell – were being particularly hard on her. Not that they were bullying her, or teasing her, or even trying to talk to her much. Although they may have been. I just don't think she had the patience for them in the same way Redwing and Lil Dipper apparently had. We were very glad to be, well, whatever it was that we were.
I looked over at Caveman and Hobbes across the shelter and laughed. It was like we were privy to a joke that nobody else understood. They just shook their heads and rolled their eyes.
Bandito filled me in on all that I had missed. How he'd spent the whole day in Waynesboro reading Harry Potter. How something else and this and that. I wanted to listen to him, honest, but I found myself increasingly absorbed by the dancing yellow and blue lights in a rain puddle just outside the shelter.
People were coming and going in the night, their headlamps flashing. The wind and the rain dimpled the puddle's surface, making the reflected lights dance and twinkle, as though to a seductive melody only I could hear. I felt a tingling sensation through my arms and fingertips, down my back, to my toes. I suddenly had the urge to urinate, but found it nearly impossible to stand up straight. So I fell over.
"You're really acting weird," said Bandito, worried.
I smiled at him. "I'm fine."
He was my long lost, incredibly innocent little brother. I had to protect him from the harsh realities of the world, and myself, at least until he was mature enough to handle the— at least until he was older. But who knows how long that would take? Years, probably! And I didn't have that much time, or the patience. It wasn't worth fretting over.
And then I was peeing, and it was glorious.
"I don't believe you," said Hobbes, when I returned and explained to him what was going on. "You're really feeling all that?"
"Uh, yeah," I said, with a self-satisfied smirk.
"I hate you," said Hobbes.
"I'll write about it," I said. "Maybe then you'll believe me?"
"No. That's a stupid idea. Don't do that!"
But I did. In the shelter log. Not that I have any memory of it:
"High?"
"Drunk, Bandito! He meant drunk! I'm drunk! I had too much Budweiser! Never drink, Bandito. Alcohol is a poison that should never be consumed by anyone."
"Hey, I don't plan on it. Not until I turn one hundred."
"... Okay, Bandito."
"M.C.?" Nature grinned up at me. "This was the perfect night to do this."
I knew what she meant.
I never slept better.
Oh, and the secret to special brownies? The recipe, duh! Here it is:
P-Nut ditched us immediately afterwards, to hitch back to the trail on his own. He said something vaguely justifiable about it being "easier for one person to get a ride than three." He was probably right. Besides, I could hardly begrudge him his ambitions, particularly since my own would be calling me away from the trail in just a few short days.
Caveman and I wandered around Luray for a while, searching in vain for a place to eat breakfast. The trouble was, most of the restaurants in town weren't yet open. We eventually gave up, and started trying to find a ride back to the trail.
There are many strategies involved in hitchhiking, all of which have disadvantages. If you try to be funny or show a little skin, most motorists will probably think you're a crazy rapist or serial killer, and so will avoid you like the plague. On the other hand, if you don't do anything out of the ordinary to distinguish yourself, most motorists will just think you're lazy, and also a serial rapist or murderer. And – unfortunately for everybody involved – a surprisingly high number of those who do pull over to pick up hitchhikers are also rapists and murderers. It's just a bad scene.
We ended up getting a ride back to the trail from the unlikeliest person. A section hiker, as a matter of fact. Driving a classic Mercedes-Benz. An E-Class sedan from the early 70s with 280,000 miles on it. Not exactly the type of car we'd expect to pick us up. Precisely the opposite.
The day passed in a sullen haze. Maybe we were hungover from the previous day's excitement, or maybe we were just missed our friends. However, any melancholia we were feeling was quickly abated by the sudden reappearance of Bandito, Hobbes, Nature, and the entire crew of smelly, burping, farting, snoring section hikers.
We had just settled in at Gravel Spring Hut to watch the rain when Nature arrived.
"Nature!" I waved. "Hi!"
"M.C.!" she cried, "I've been looking for you!"
Although I was overjoyed to see her, I somehow failed to get out of my sleeping bag to welcome her in.
"I brought you something from Trail Days," she said. "A treat!"
I was so taken aback, I forgot to ask her how Trail Days actually had been. "What is it?"
"A brownie," she said, with a mischievous twinkle in her eye. "A special brownie."
"Oh," I said, confused. Then, getting it, "Oh!"
"I thought we'd share it before Bandito got here," she said.
"Good idea!" I nodded. "I love these things."
I do. Brownies are awesome.
"Caveman?" Nature proffered a piece to him.
"I can't," he demurred, amused. "I promised my wife I wouldn't do that without her."
Poor Caveman. Whipped. Nature and I shrugged, then scarfed down the brownie.
Hobbes arrived too late to partake, but was very jealous.
"It was delicious," I told him. "I'm telling you this not to engender envy and resentment, but so you can live vicariously through me."
"Yeah, right," he scoffed, as though he found the mere suggestion offensive.
Caveman had hiked out some cans of Budweiser from town. Come to think of it, so had I. In fact, we may have had a can or two for lunch. We had more then. It was completely necessary.
The shelter was filling up with the obnoxious, farting, burping groaning section hikers with whom we'd been stuck for the past three days. Then Bandito arrived, and slid in next to me. I was extremely intoxicated by this time.
"Are you okay?" he asked me.
"Why? Am I looking at you funny? I'm sorry!" I blurted. "I mean, I'm a little drunk. Caveman had beer and he gave me some and it's all his fault."
"You're acting funny."
"I am not."
I looked over at Nature and giggled. She giggled. Poor Nature, the only woman in the shelter. The obnoxious section hikers – who were all men in case you couldn't tell – were being particularly hard on her. Not that they were bullying her, or teasing her, or even trying to talk to her much. Although they may have been. I just don't think she had the patience for them in the same way Redwing and Lil Dipper apparently had. We were very glad to be, well, whatever it was that we were.
I looked over at Caveman and Hobbes across the shelter and laughed. It was like we were privy to a joke that nobody else understood. They just shook their heads and rolled their eyes.
Bandito filled me in on all that I had missed. How he'd spent the whole day in Waynesboro reading Harry Potter. How something else and this and that. I wanted to listen to him, honest, but I found myself increasingly absorbed by the dancing yellow and blue lights in a rain puddle just outside the shelter.
People were coming and going in the night, their headlamps flashing. The wind and the rain dimpled the puddle's surface, making the reflected lights dance and twinkle, as though to a seductive melody only I could hear. I felt a tingling sensation through my arms and fingertips, down my back, to my toes. I suddenly had the urge to urinate, but found it nearly impossible to stand up straight. So I fell over.
"You're really acting weird," said Bandito, worried.
I smiled at him. "I'm fine."
He was my long lost, incredibly innocent little brother. I had to protect him from the harsh realities of the world, and myself, at least until he was mature enough to handle the— at least until he was older. But who knows how long that would take? Years, probably! And I didn't have that much time, or the patience. It wasn't worth fretting over.
And then I was peeing, and it was glorious.
"I don't believe you," said Hobbes, when I returned and explained to him what was going on. "You're really feeling all that?"
"Uh, yeah," I said, with a self-satisfied smirk.
"I hate you," said Hobbes.
"I'll write about it," I said. "Maybe then you'll believe me?"
"No. That's a stupid idea. Don't do that!"
But I did. In the shelter log. Not that I have any memory of it:
I sit here in my sleeping bag, surrounded by bothersome beasts grunting and farting and furrowing their way unwanted into my consciousness. I ignore them, but stay completely absorbed by the dancing blue and orange lights in the rain puddle before me. And then probably something alliterative, poetic, and deep, describing what I already said above. The point of all this being: don't do drugs."Yeah, that makes you sound like you're really high," said Hobbes, reading what I wrote.
-Major Chafage
PS. Thanks for the brownie, Nature!
"High?"
"Drunk, Bandito! He meant drunk! I'm drunk! I had too much Budweiser! Never drink, Bandito. Alcohol is a poison that should never be consumed by anyone."
"Hey, I don't plan on it. Not until I turn one hundred."
"... Okay, Bandito."
"M.C.?" Nature grinned up at me. "This was the perfect night to do this."
I knew what she meant.
I never slept better.
Oh, and the secret to special brownies? The recipe, duh! Here it is:
Major Chafage's Special Brownies
3/4 cup butter
1/3 cup cocoa powder
2 ounces unsweetened chocolate, finely chopped
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups sugar
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 cup bittersweet chocolate chips
Fleur de sel, for sprinkling.
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease a 9-by-13-inch baking pan.
2. Put the butter in a pan. Put the pan on the stove. Light the burner you have the pan on. Melt that butter. Mix in the unsweetened chocolate. Stir that concoction until it's all melted and mixed together.
3. In a large bowl, whisk together the cocoa powder and 2/3 cup water until smooth. Add the butter/unsweetened chocolate mix and whisk. Add the eggs and vanilla, and continue to whisk until combined. Add the sugar, mixing until fully incorporated. Using a spatula, fold in the flour and salt until just combined. Fold in the bittersweet chocolate chips.
4. Pour that delicious batter into the prepared pan and smooth with a spatula. Sprinkle with fleur de sel, then give yourself a smug pat on the back like the pretentious jerk that you are, because not only do you know what fleur de sel is, you own some, and you know how to use it. Which means you're either a professional chef, a self-important jerk, or you read the New York Times. Which probably means you're a self-important jerk. But try not to get too hung up about that.
5. Bake until firm, or about 15 to 30 minutes. Let that pan cool before cutting into squares. Then try not to eat them all at once.
Yield: Murder by Chocolate
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Chapter 71: Revenge of the Chafage
I didn't sleep well. A mouse inside the cabin had gotten into Roughin' It's garbage, and was scurrying around and scratching all night. Plus I had weird, paranoid dreams about the Forest Service discovering us trespassing in one of their vaunted, extra-pricey chalets. They were very, very angry. I kept hearing footsteps outside, the clunk of boots coming up the stairs. And then I awoke with a start.
It was barely past dawn. We were on the western side of the ridge, leaving the sun hidden behind the mountain. Through a sparse canopy of still-leafless branches, I could see the crimson sky above me, fading to indigo and violet towards the horizon, streaked with thin white whiffs of cloud. I collected water and then headed up towards the shelter for breakfast.
Redwing was up, and staring at something behind the shelter.
"M.C.!" she whispered, waving me over. "Come see this!"
Intrigued, I left my pack by the fire pit and joined her. Fifty feet away, through a loose tangle of trees, was an enormous brown bear. It had its back turned, but was looking over its shoulder at us mournfully, almost accusingly. We stared at it. It stared at us. Then it shot a rueful glance towards our food bags and shuffled away into the forest. Maybe I was projecting, but I empathized with the poor bear. I wish I could have fed it some of the section hikers' food. Or some of the section hikers.
Somehow, despite being the first to wake, I was not the first to hike out. P-Nut left before the rest of us, leaving Caveman and myself to hike with Roughin' It. Not that I found this to be an imposition, or his company objectionable or anything. Quite the opposite. Roughin' It was actually rather pleasant and laid-back; he took my incessant teasing of his age and appearance in stride.
Roughin' It claimed to be twenty three – and not a hipster – despite his bushy old-man beard and doofy hat. And I suspected he was probably closer to being in my parents' generation than he was to mine. No matter. He apparently had friends with whom he was trying to catch up, but found Caveman and me so entertaining that he ended up hiking with us most of the day.
Lil Dipper and Redwing, meanwhile – both still feeling the effects of their injuries – were proactively taking it easy, and bringing up the rear. Still worried about their condition, we took a break at the Pinnacles Picnic Area to wait for them. And wait.
Luckily, there were some section hikers – the good kind – having a picnic nearby. Apparently a young woman and her grandfather had just finished a week on the trail, and their entire family had come out to celebrate with them. I politely informed Caveman and Roughin' It that we would be sitting in the pavilion right next to them. I was going to yogi us up some trail magic. And not keep it all for myself.
"Because I am a team player, Caveman," I scolded, still bitter.
Of course the section hikers quickly noticed us. We were pretty hard to ignore, hovering innocently around their table, looking hungry, dehydrated, and forlorn. I soon fell into a conversation with them, telling them that, yes, I was a thru-hiker, yes, we had hiked almost a thousand miles to get there, and that my companions and I were just taking a break to wait for our friends. Two British girls, limping, crying even? Had they seen them? No.
Pretty soon the grandfather made a joke that they could be making a killing by selling us bite-sized candy bar. I laughed good naturedly and said, "Forget about the candy bars. How much for a drink?" The family matriarch gently hushed my suggestion, however, and said we would be more than welcome to just take whatever we liked. Caveman, Roughin' It and I each got funky iced teas with guarana and ginko biloba and candy. I also got a chocolate milk, because I needed the protein. Or so I was told.
But we all got something.
"And that's how you yogi trail magic," I told Caveman later.
We hung out there for almost an hour and a half. Redwing and Lil Dipper never showed up. Worried that they might've gotten hurt, lost, or even passed us unnoticed, we had little choice but to continue on.
From consulting my handbook, I quickly realized that our next task would have us climbing "The Pinnacle," which – at only 3,730 feet – is hardly the pinnacle of anything. It's certainly not the highest mountain in the Shenandoahs. We had climbed to 3,800 feet already earlier in the day. So why was it named "The Pinnacle?"
We saw a southbound day hiker, and decided to ask him.
"Hey, man," I said, catching his attention. "How was the Pinnacle?"
"The w-what?" he stuttered. "I-is that what I'm coming off of?"
We all laughed. Any information a southbounder tells you is bound to be 100% wrong. A southbound day hiker is even less reliable. If anything, a southbound day hiker might be so completely wrong that they might be inadvertently right, but then they're wrong again. They're all just dumb. Forget it.
We continued laughing and continued on, leaving the man confused.
However, his cluelessness led to rampant speculation as to what horrors awaited us.
"Maybe the Pinnacle is so high," offered Caveman, "That there's not enough oxygen on the summit, and you lose consciousness."
Naturally, the next time we crested a hill prompted us to stumble about drunkenly – or as though hit over the head with frying pans – through a chorus of laughter.
"Whoa! I think I just blacked out!" I cried, clutching my head.
"What the hell just happened?" asked Caveman.
And we all laughed. Unfortunately, there was still more mountain in front of us.
"Of course the Pinnacle would have a false summit," said Roughin' It.
"Maybe the view on the Pinnacle is so awesome, it causes you to lose bowel control," suggested Caveman.
Now our hooting and hollering and stumbling about was joined by comedic butt grabs and juvenile, uncontrollable farting noises. It was a blast. And then we found a bottle of Dr. Pepper on the trail.
"I bet it was that southbounder's."
"He probably crapped himself, and it fell out of his pocket."
"The Pinnacle giveth and the Pinnacle taketh away."
"Southbounder's loss is our gain."
"Hey, this has been opened."
"So?"
And then we drank it.
A mile later we arrived at Byrds Nest #3 Shelter. Why is it #3? I have no idea. The other two – actually three, since there are four overall – aren't actually on the trail. But that's not important.
There were two food bags hanging from the bear pole.
"What do you think?" I asked the others. "Someone's garbage? Or trail magic?"
The shelter was empty.
"We should check if there's anyone camped nearby," warned Caveman.
And we did. And there was nobody around. It was a mystery.
"I guess it can't hurt to check, right?"
Roughin' It took the bags down, and we rifled through them.
"If someone left this behind, it's either garbage – in which case we're doing them and the Forest Service a favor by taking it and hiking it out – or it was meant to be found and distributed – in which case it's trail magic – and open season anyway," I speculated.
My logic seemed flawless. We divvied up what we wanted. Roughin' It took a package of Mountain House lasagne and some crackers. Caveman took some clearly homemade packages of something labeled "Sweet Pot." I took a Carnation Instant Breakfast and some Camelback® Electrolyte™ Drink Mix©. Lemon lime flavored. Fizzy. Delicious.
Then we sealed our fates by bragging about our find in the registry:
Apparently we caused a big uproar, enraged a few section hikers – the unfortunate kind – and caused them to suddenly realize and confront the bleak, inherent darkness of humanity.
When we reached Thronton Gap, we found a note from Redwing taped to a tree. Apparently her knee had been acting up, and Lil Dipper's shin splits had proved too painful, so they had hitched out of the park and gotten a ride here. Where they had met P-Nut, and gone into town to get a motel room. Did we want to meet them at the Taco Bell, just across from the Walmart?
Caveman and I didn't take long to decide. The only question was if Roughin' It would be going with us. To our credit, he actually considered it. But then he remembered he had his own friends, and our ride together came to an end. He hiked on, and Caveman and I were left to hitch a ride from the parking lot.
We eventually got a ride into Luray with a Parks' employee. She dropped us off at the Walmart – where she was heading anyway – and we made the short jaunt across the parking lot to the Taco Bell to find our friends. Then we heard the bad news: Redwing and Lil Dipper were getting off the trail for five days, so that Dipper's shin splints could heal. We'd see them again only once after that night, and then it was goodbye, possibly forever.
I sat in the Taco Bell, shellshocked, eating my six burritos, not listening to the conversation around me. It seemed like only yesterday that Caveman and I had been hiking with Lil Dipper and Redwing, and they had both seemed so vibrant and young and indomitable. We had been taking a break at a parking lot when a married couple emerged from the woods in the midst of a heated argument.
"Why do we always have to go to the Shenandoahs," the woman was saying. "There are other places in the world, you know!"
"What, like Maryland?" asked the man wearily, clearly not getting it.
"I should go over to them," Redwing had said, "And tell her, 'I hate the Shenandoahs too, care to talk about it over dinner?'"
And we had all laughed. Bonding over our shared hatred for this stupid park. That hurt us. That injured us. That was boring. That was always foggy. Where the views sucked. Where we acted like scoundrels, broke into cabins, and stole people's food. Where we had been having so much fun, and had felt so vivacious and free just a few short moments earlier.
Caveman and I returned to Walmart and walked out with a copious amount of beer.
The British girls' motel room was an inviting place, despite the fact that I had to share a bed with P-Nut. Or maybe because of that, actually. Still, we all got drunk – or at least proper buzzed – and tried to forget the warning in our hearts. That this all would soon end.
It was barely past dawn. We were on the western side of the ridge, leaving the sun hidden behind the mountain. Through a sparse canopy of still-leafless branches, I could see the crimson sky above me, fading to indigo and violet towards the horizon, streaked with thin white whiffs of cloud. I collected water and then headed up towards the shelter for breakfast.
Redwing was up, and staring at something behind the shelter.
"M.C.!" she whispered, waving me over. "Come see this!"
Intrigued, I left my pack by the fire pit and joined her. Fifty feet away, through a loose tangle of trees, was an enormous brown bear. It had its back turned, but was looking over its shoulder at us mournfully, almost accusingly. We stared at it. It stared at us. Then it shot a rueful glance towards our food bags and shuffled away into the forest. Maybe I was projecting, but I empathized with the poor bear. I wish I could have fed it some of the section hikers' food. Or some of the section hikers.
Somehow, despite being the first to wake, I was not the first to hike out. P-Nut left before the rest of us, leaving Caveman and myself to hike with Roughin' It. Not that I found this to be an imposition, or his company objectionable or anything. Quite the opposite. Roughin' It was actually rather pleasant and laid-back; he took my incessant teasing of his age and appearance in stride.
Roughin' It claimed to be twenty three – and not a hipster – despite his bushy old-man beard and doofy hat. And I suspected he was probably closer to being in my parents' generation than he was to mine. No matter. He apparently had friends with whom he was trying to catch up, but found Caveman and me so entertaining that he ended up hiking with us most of the day.
Lil Dipper and Redwing, meanwhile – both still feeling the effects of their injuries – were proactively taking it easy, and bringing up the rear. Still worried about their condition, we took a break at the Pinnacles Picnic Area to wait for them. And wait.
Luckily, there were some section hikers – the good kind – having a picnic nearby. Apparently a young woman and her grandfather had just finished a week on the trail, and their entire family had come out to celebrate with them. I politely informed Caveman and Roughin' It that we would be sitting in the pavilion right next to them. I was going to yogi us up some trail magic. And not keep it all for myself.
"Because I am a team player, Caveman," I scolded, still bitter.
Of course the section hikers quickly noticed us. We were pretty hard to ignore, hovering innocently around their table, looking hungry, dehydrated, and forlorn. I soon fell into a conversation with them, telling them that, yes, I was a thru-hiker, yes, we had hiked almost a thousand miles to get there, and that my companions and I were just taking a break to wait for our friends. Two British girls, limping, crying even? Had they seen them? No.
Pretty soon the grandfather made a joke that they could be making a killing by selling us bite-sized candy bar. I laughed good naturedly and said, "Forget about the candy bars. How much for a drink?" The family matriarch gently hushed my suggestion, however, and said we would be more than welcome to just take whatever we liked. Caveman, Roughin' It and I each got funky iced teas with guarana and ginko biloba and candy. I also got a chocolate milk, because I needed the protein. Or so I was told.
But we all got something.
"And that's how you yogi trail magic," I told Caveman later.
We hung out there for almost an hour and a half. Redwing and Lil Dipper never showed up. Worried that they might've gotten hurt, lost, or even passed us unnoticed, we had little choice but to continue on.
From consulting my handbook, I quickly realized that our next task would have us climbing "The Pinnacle," which – at only 3,730 feet – is hardly the pinnacle of anything. It's certainly not the highest mountain in the Shenandoahs. We had climbed to 3,800 feet already earlier in the day. So why was it named "The Pinnacle?"
We saw a southbound day hiker, and decided to ask him.
"Hey, man," I said, catching his attention. "How was the Pinnacle?"
"The w-what?" he stuttered. "I-is that what I'm coming off of?"
We all laughed. Any information a southbounder tells you is bound to be 100% wrong. A southbound day hiker is even less reliable. If anything, a southbound day hiker might be so completely wrong that they might be inadvertently right, but then they're wrong again. They're all just dumb. Forget it.
We continued laughing and continued on, leaving the man confused.
However, his cluelessness led to rampant speculation as to what horrors awaited us.
"Maybe the Pinnacle is so high," offered Caveman, "That there's not enough oxygen on the summit, and you lose consciousness."
Naturally, the next time we crested a hill prompted us to stumble about drunkenly – or as though hit over the head with frying pans – through a chorus of laughter.
"Whoa! I think I just blacked out!" I cried, clutching my head.
"What the hell just happened?" asked Caveman.
And we all laughed. Unfortunately, there was still more mountain in front of us.
"Of course the Pinnacle would have a false summit," said Roughin' It.
"Maybe the view on the Pinnacle is so awesome, it causes you to lose bowel control," suggested Caveman.
Now our hooting and hollering and stumbling about was joined by comedic butt grabs and juvenile, uncontrollable farting noises. It was a blast. And then we found a bottle of Dr. Pepper on the trail.
"I bet it was that southbounder's."
"He probably crapped himself, and it fell out of his pocket."
"The Pinnacle giveth and the Pinnacle taketh away."
"Southbounder's loss is our gain."
"Hey, this has been opened."
"So?"
And then we drank it.
A mile later we arrived at Byrds Nest #3 Shelter. Why is it #3? I have no idea. The other two – actually three, since there are four overall – aren't actually on the trail. But that's not important.
There were two food bags hanging from the bear pole.
"What do you think?" I asked the others. "Someone's garbage? Or trail magic?"
The shelter was empty.
"We should check if there's anyone camped nearby," warned Caveman.
And we did. And there was nobody around. It was a mystery.
"I guess it can't hurt to check, right?"
Roughin' It took the bags down, and we rifled through them.
"If someone left this behind, it's either garbage – in which case we're doing them and the Forest Service a favor by taking it and hiking it out – or it was meant to be found and distributed – in which case it's trail magic – and open season anyway," I speculated.
My logic seemed flawless. We divvied up what we wanted. Roughin' It took a package of Mountain House lasagne and some crackers. Caveman took some clearly homemade packages of something labeled "Sweet Pot." I took a Carnation Instant Breakfast and some Camelback® Electrolyte™ Drink Mix©. Lemon lime flavored. Fizzy. Delicious.
Then we sealed our fates by bragging about our find in the registry:
Dear Moron Who Left Their Food Bags Here,
Thanks for the food, moron! What possessed you to leave food bags here? Only an idiot would leave a food bag unattended.
-Roughin' It
PS. I took everything.
Found some "sweet pot." Smoked it. Not feeling very good. Beginning to suspect it might have been sweet potatoes, not marijuana...Feeling giddy and only slightly guilty, we left. We passed an older couple about ten minutes later, and could barely contain our giggling. And then we ran away.
-Major Chafage
Apparently we caused a big uproar, enraged a few section hikers – the unfortunate kind – and caused them to suddenly realize and confront the bleak, inherent darkness of humanity.
When we reached Thronton Gap, we found a note from Redwing taped to a tree. Apparently her knee had been acting up, and Lil Dipper's shin splits had proved too painful, so they had hitched out of the park and gotten a ride here. Where they had met P-Nut, and gone into town to get a motel room. Did we want to meet them at the Taco Bell, just across from the Walmart?
Caveman and I didn't take long to decide. The only question was if Roughin' It would be going with us. To our credit, he actually considered it. But then he remembered he had his own friends, and our ride together came to an end. He hiked on, and Caveman and I were left to hitch a ride from the parking lot.
We eventually got a ride into Luray with a Parks' employee. She dropped us off at the Walmart – where she was heading anyway – and we made the short jaunt across the parking lot to the Taco Bell to find our friends. Then we heard the bad news: Redwing and Lil Dipper were getting off the trail for five days, so that Dipper's shin splints could heal. We'd see them again only once after that night, and then it was goodbye, possibly forever.
I sat in the Taco Bell, shellshocked, eating my six burritos, not listening to the conversation around me. It seemed like only yesterday that Caveman and I had been hiking with Lil Dipper and Redwing, and they had both seemed so vibrant and young and indomitable. We had been taking a break at a parking lot when a married couple emerged from the woods in the midst of a heated argument.
"Why do we always have to go to the Shenandoahs," the woman was saying. "There are other places in the world, you know!"
"What, like Maryland?" asked the man wearily, clearly not getting it.
"I should go over to them," Redwing had said, "And tell her, 'I hate the Shenandoahs too, care to talk about it over dinner?'"
And we had all laughed. Bonding over our shared hatred for this stupid park. That hurt us. That injured us. That was boring. That was always foggy. Where the views sucked. Where we acted like scoundrels, broke into cabins, and stole people's food. Where we had been having so much fun, and had felt so vivacious and free just a few short moments earlier.
Caveman and I returned to Walmart and walked out with a copious amount of beer.
The British girls' motel room was an inviting place, despite the fact that I had to share a bed with P-Nut. Or maybe because of that, actually. Still, we all got drunk – or at least proper buzzed – and tried to forget the warning in our hearts. That this all would soon end.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Chapter 70: Pee-nut and the Two Bears
Registry entry, Hightop Hut Shelter:
pee-nut | pē - nət | informalOf course, P-Nut did nothing to deserve such ridicule. Except drink his own urine. But that had been almost a week ago. His behavior in the interim had been nothing if not sensible and mature.
noun
someone who such a nut for pee that they will lie down on the trail below someone else who is pissing in order to drink it
: P-Nut is definitely not a pee-nut.
----
"I really want to see a bear today, man," said P-Nut the next morning. "I'm going to see a bear today. I know it. It's going to happen."
Caveman and I exchanged wary glances.
"Well, I really hope you don't," said Caveman. "Because you'll probably try to ride it like the ponies back in the Grayson Highlands, or punch it in the nose, just to see if you can—"
"Hey! That's a good idea!" enthused P-Nut.
"—and then you'll get mauled and eaten," finished Caveman.
But P-Nut would not be deterred. He was now on a quest to find a bear, get as close to it as possible, and then punch it in the nose and run away. This was it. P-Nut's hubris would finally catch up with him. He was going to die.
P-Nut, Caveman, and I hiked out with Redwing and Lil Dipper that morning. We hadn't gone far – two or three miles at most – when it happened. No, not the bear. That would come later. We were descending a moderately steep downhill when Redwing suddenly tripped and fell smack on her face.
Caveman and I felt horrible. Having face-planted a few times myself, I knew the humiliation was almost as bad as the pain. I didn't know whether to rush to her side or pretend like it didn't happen.
"She'll be okay," assured P-Nut.
"But she's crying!"
And she was. Her knee had taken the brunt of the fall, and looked fairly mangled and bloody. Lil Dipper at least was hovering over her, trying to comfort and reassure her like a true friend would.
"Yeah, but they're always crying," said P-Nut. "They cry every day."
The tacit implication was either "I'm an incredible jerk and don't want them slowing me down," or "I respect Redwing, and want to give her some privacy, so she can at least retain her dignity." Even the optimist – and wanting to give P-Nut the benefit of the doubt – I chose to believe the latter. The three of us hiked on a little ways to a road crossing, then sat down to wait for the girls.
At least the weather had improved that day. It wasn't foggy or rainy for once, and sitting around lazily in a parking lot had its own meager charms. There was no traffic, no farting, burping section hikers nearby to disturb us. We had the warmth of the sun, the wide blue expanse of the sky, and a chorus of cheerful birdsong to keep us company.
Lil Dipper and Redwing arrived some five minutes later. Redwing was limping noticeably, but seemed to be in a much better mood. They were grateful for the excuse to take a break, and sat down with us.
"So where were we headed today?" asked Redwing.
"Well, I think the idea was to go to the Rockspring Hut, " I said, flipping through my guidebook. "That's 23.9 miles."
"Yeah, I don't know if we're going to be able to make it," said Lil Dipper uneasily. "What with Redwing's knee—"
"—and Dipper's shin splints," added Redwing.
Again, my stomach turned over. I had no idea they were struggling this much. And I had experience with shin splints. Maybe I would've been able to help! But I just didn't know.
"You should lean with your back against a tree," I advised Lil Dipper. "And lift your toes. That'll stretch out your shin muscle things. Whatever they're called."
"Really? Will that help?" asked Lil Dipper.
"Yeah, and take lots of ibuprofen."
"Or Excedrin®," offered Caveman, popping a couple pills into his mouth and – crunch – chewing them down. "What? They've got aspirin, tylenol, and as much caffeine as a cup of coffee."
Ever impatient, P-Nut left before the rest of us. Slightly more conscientious, Caveman and I decided to hike with Redwing and Lil Dipper, to make sure they made it and that they were all right. We took a lot of breaks.
We passed one of the handful of for-rent cabins that dotted the park. We had heard or read somewhere that they cost upwards of $80 a night, and that you had to call ahead for reservations. To us, this was a mildly insulting joke. If nobody else was using them, why couldn't we? And why did we have to pay for the privilege? However, this particular cabin – the Pocosin – was currently occupied by a quiet bunch of solitude-seeking retirees. Caveman wanted to beg for soda.
"No, man, it'll be easy!" he assured me. "Watch this."
He took a dollar bill out of his wallet and crumpled it up, then actually bent down and rubbed dirt on it.
"What are you doing?" I asked, curious.
"Oldest trick in the book, M.C.," said Caveman. "You take a single, get it all crumpled and dirty so it looks old, and when people see it, they'll think it's your last dollar."
"Why? What for?"
"'Cause then when you ask if you can buy a soda, they'll refuse because they don't want to take your last dollar, and then they might just give you one for free!"
"Or they'll say yes, and then you'll be out a dollar," I pointed out.
"But I'll still have a soda," Caveman correctly asserted.
"It'll never work," I said, shaking my head. "Besides, it specifically says 'Do Not Disturb Occupants' or whatever on that sign over there."
And then Caveman called me something like "killjoy" and stuffed the dollar bill into his boot.
"What'd you do that for?" I asked.
"Second oldest trick in the book, M.C."
And we hiked on.
A little later we reached the Lewis Mountain Campground. Redwing and Lil Dipper seemed to be doing better; if they were feeling any pain, they weren't letting it show. We were all joking about yogi-ing for snacks when we passed a man firing up a grill.
"I'm doing it," said Caveman in a fit of inspiration, retrieving the wrinkled dollar bill from his shoe.
He would not be dissuaded. The rest of us could only stand by and watch in appalled horror as Caveman gingerly approached the man, haggled with him cheerfully for a moment, and then returned bearing a proud smile and a Capri-Sun. Of course, I was livid.
"First of all, I cannot believe that worked. Secondly, why didn't you get some for the rest of us?" I cried.
Caveman laughed. Which only annoyed me further. Why were people always amused by my feeble, impotent temper tantrums? Anyway, Caveman seemed to think that since he did all the work, he alone was entitled to the spoils.
"The work?" I squeaked. "But you hardly did anything!"
If I had been thinking straight, I might have taken a better tact. Like pointing out that Caveman could have just shared his Capri-Sun with the rest of us. But I wasn't thinking straight. I couldn't.
"Shut up!" I screamed, preemptively cutting off his nonexistent retort. "This is not about me ridiculing your idea, or saying it would never work, or that I didn't believe in you, or being too lazy or scared or embarrassed to do myself!"
"It's not?" asked Caveman, slurping down his juice.
My blood boiled.
"No! This is about you not being a team player! If it had been me," I argued, "I would have brought back drinks for everybody! Because I am a—"
But whatever ridiculous thing I was about to say stuck in my throat, because a rather large black bear was standing in the middle of the trail about ten yards away, and was eyeing us warily.
"Oh look," gushed Redwing, pointing to our left.
Maybe a hundred feet away, an adorable black bear cub gazed at us from the crook of a tree. Mama remained where she was, ever vigilant, as if just waiting to see if we meant to harm her baby. Figuring I was safe with the others at my back, I glanced around for P-Nut's corpse. But there was nothing.
Mama eventually got bored with us. We weren't doing anything, just standing there watching her and taking pictures. She finally turned away and moved off towards her cub. My heart was racing.
"You know what would be awesome?" I asked the others. "If we saw a bear, and P-Nut didn't."
We quickly concocted a scheme to freak out P-Nut by marching into the shelter area covered in blood and telling him the British girls had been attacked and murdered by a rampaging bear. Unfortunately, our glaring lack of Karo syrup and red food coloring presented a critical flaw in our plan. We decided instead just to find out if he had seen the bears too, and then tease him mercilessly about it if he hadn't.
But he had. We only caught up to him at Rock Spring Hut, which once again was filled with the familiar obnoxious, farting, snoring, burping section hikers. When I asked him about the bears, P-Nut told us that he, too, had seen the mother and cub. Sadly, he had not tried to ride them around like ponies, or punch them in the face. I was bitterly disappointed.
It was late afternoon by the time Redwing and Lil Dipper arrived. I'd say we were pleasantly surprised that they had made it that far, considering their injuries, but we weren't particularly surprised. Still, with them and P-Nut cheerfully swapping stories over dinner, it felt like a long-awaited reunion.
By the time the sun was setting, Caveman had serendipitously discovered one of those for-rent cabins just below the shelter with its door unlocked. Or at least that's the official version of events. Anyway, we offered the girls the option of sleeping in the cabin, but they declined, opting instead for open spots in the shelter. P-Nut, Caveman, Roughin' It and myself all cheerfully moved our stuff into the cabin, eager to get away from our loud, smelly, unwanted companions. The cabin was actually kind of dumpy. At least we had beds.
If we had known this would be our last night on the trail together, would we have treated the occasion with more reverence and dignity? It's impossible to say, really. We didn't know. How could we?
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Chapter 69: The Whip-Poor-Will
The Thru-Hiker's Guide to Avifauna and Ornithology – the definitive compendium of all bird knowledge in the universe – has the following to say about the Whip-poor-will:
I lay in my tent, swaddled in the comforting warmth of my sleeping bag, and closed my eyes. Images swam before me. A promising dream world of infinite possibility beckoned.
Whip-poor-will! Whip-poor-will!
My eyes shot open.
Whip-poor-will! Whip-poor-will!
It sounded as though it were coming from inside my tent. But no, it must've been perched on a branch just above my head. Or – who knows – maybe in a nearby tree, like the one Caveman was sleeping under. I could hear him cursing at it under his breath.
Or maybe he was shouting at the top of his lungs for it to shut up and go away or die quickly, only in drastically less polite language. At least that's what it devolved into. The denizens of the shelter grumbled in disapproval. Even Redwing's normally reserved voice pierced the darkness to achingly wonder, "What the bloody hell is that thing?"
And, as if in response, the bird responded.
Whip-poor-will!
It was a long night.
The next morning, we remaining stalwarts bonded over our shared trauma.
"Why can't they have sex during the daytime like the rest of us?" asked Caveman – possibly rhetorically – ignoring the fact that the mating rituals of Homo sapiens are also stereotypically nocturnal, or at least crepuscular.
"What if we mated like the birds do?" he continued. "What if we stood in the middle of a crowded intersection screaming 'Fuck me!' 'Fuck me!' 'Fuck me!'"
"Well, I don't know about you," I shrugged, "But that's how I met my girlfriend."
And we all laughed.
Later that day, we met Sonic – a burly, impossibly tall northbound thru-hiker in a Danny Fortson Seattle SuperSonics jersey – and caught back up with Roughin' It. Oh, and a deer walked up to us while we were eating lunch, and Lil Dipper tried – and failed – to feed it a Pop Tart. P-Nut also got lost and ended up behind us somehow. And Caveman went down a side-trail to a wayside to get a burger and a milkshake. Which he said wasn't worth it. Or something.
It was constantly foggy. Sometimes it drizzled. We walked past supposed view points and saw only clouds. Visibility was nil. Our enjoyment was considerably less so.
And we all ended up at Hightop Hut, some 21.4 miles from Blackrock Hut where we had started. It was filled with the usual all-male chorus of farting, snoring, burping section hikers. Whatever. All in all, a very productive – if relatively uneventful – day. Perhaps a necessary calm before the storm to come.
The Whip-poor-will, or Canternoctus molestus, is a medium-sized bird native to the North and Central American continents of the planet Earth. Primarily nocturnal and possessing superior natural camoflage, the Whip-poor-will is rarely seen but often heard, usually in the dead of night or just when you're about to fall asleep. It is named onomatopoeically after its unique and singularly annoying call.
The Whip-poor-will's song has been described by many as haunting and etherial, and has figured prominently in American poetry, literature, and music.Presumably all of the poets, authors, and musicians who held the Whip-poor-will in such high regard never had to endure a sleepless night stuck with one singing incessantly from an unseen perch in a tree just above their head. If they had, the Whip-poor-will might be properly regarded as the scourge that it is, and may have even been hunted into extinction. Alas, despite human intrusion into and wanton destruction of its natural habitats, the Whip-poor-will's conservation status remains that of "least concern."
----
I lay in my tent, swaddled in the comforting warmth of my sleeping bag, and closed my eyes. Images swam before me. A promising dream world of infinite possibility beckoned.
Whip-poor-will! Whip-poor-will!
My eyes shot open.
Whip-poor-will! Whip-poor-will!
It sounded as though it were coming from inside my tent. But no, it must've been perched on a branch just above my head. Or – who knows – maybe in a nearby tree, like the one Caveman was sleeping under. I could hear him cursing at it under his breath.
Or maybe he was shouting at the top of his lungs for it to shut up and go away or die quickly, only in drastically less polite language. At least that's what it devolved into. The denizens of the shelter grumbled in disapproval. Even Redwing's normally reserved voice pierced the darkness to achingly wonder, "What the bloody hell is that thing?"
And, as if in response, the bird responded.
Whip-poor-will!
It was a long night.
The next morning, we remaining stalwarts bonded over our shared trauma.
"Why can't they have sex during the daytime like the rest of us?" asked Caveman – possibly rhetorically – ignoring the fact that the mating rituals of Homo sapiens are also stereotypically nocturnal, or at least crepuscular.
"What if we mated like the birds do?" he continued. "What if we stood in the middle of a crowded intersection screaming 'Fuck me!' 'Fuck me!' 'Fuck me!'"
"Well, I don't know about you," I shrugged, "But that's how I met my girlfriend."
And we all laughed.
Later that day, we met Sonic – a burly, impossibly tall northbound thru-hiker in a Danny Fortson Seattle SuperSonics jersey – and caught back up with Roughin' It. Oh, and a deer walked up to us while we were eating lunch, and Lil Dipper tried – and failed – to feed it a Pop Tart. P-Nut also got lost and ended up behind us somehow. And Caveman went down a side-trail to a wayside to get a burger and a milkshake. Which he said wasn't worth it. Or something.
It was constantly foggy. Sometimes it drizzled. We walked past supposed view points and saw only clouds. Visibility was nil. Our enjoyment was considerably less so.
And we all ended up at Hightop Hut, some 21.4 miles from Blackrock Hut where we had started. It was filled with the usual all-male chorus of farting, snoring, burping section hikers. Whatever. All in all, a very productive – if relatively uneventful – day. Perhaps a necessary calm before the storm to come.
Monday, March 7, 2011
Chapter 68: Welcome to Shenandoah
Nestled in an forgotten, shadowy corner of the Shenandoah Valley, Waynesboro, Virginia is a lovely little town primarily known for being the site of a deeply humiliating Confederate defeat during the waning months of the Civil War. Its humble and good-hearted inhabitants have ever since been searching for an alternate identity, anything to set them above or apart, through which to transcend their history. Knowing Waynesboro will never be an acclaimed or noteworthy center of culture or commerce, the locals' consensus strategy seems to have been to make their home the best trail town south of the Mason-Dixon line, and quite possibly anywhere. And they may very well have accomplished that goal.
With apologies to the Green Mountain House in Manchester Center, Vermont, the ridiculously accommodating hiker hostel at the Waynesboro Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church might just be the best such facility on the entire trail. The local YMCA – conveniently located right around the corner from the hostel and across the street from the public library – offers hikers complimentary showers and a gratuitous gift bag full of swag: toothbrushes, toothpaste, and some perfunctory proselytizing pamphlets that make for rather poor privy reading but prove surprisingly useful as fire starters. The Ming Garden is the most lavish, diverse, and reasonably priced AYCE buffet in the state. That said, the town's greatest strength probably lies in its well-organized network of "trail angels" willing to drop everything at a moment's notice to schlep innumerable smelly, insufferable, ungrateful hikers about town on errands or to wherever they might wish to go.
It was with one such trail angel that Caveman, P-Nut, Redwing, Lil Dipper and I got a ride back to the trail. Bandito had decided to stay behind, mainly to finish reading Harry Potter, but also to check out a martial arts dojo he'd stumbled across on a jaunt to the laundromat the day before. I made him promise to catch up post-haste, however. We were only nine days from Harpers Ferry, and although I didn't want to acknowledge it then, our time together was fast running out.
With apologies to the Green Mountain House in Manchester Center, Vermont, the ridiculously accommodating hiker hostel at the Waynesboro Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church might just be the best such facility on the entire trail. The local YMCA – conveniently located right around the corner from the hostel and across the street from the public library – offers hikers complimentary showers and a gratuitous gift bag full of swag: toothbrushes, toothpaste, and some perfunctory proselytizing pamphlets that make for rather poor privy reading but prove surprisingly useful as fire starters. The Ming Garden is the most lavish, diverse, and reasonably priced AYCE buffet in the state. That said, the town's greatest strength probably lies in its well-organized network of "trail angels" willing to drop everything at a moment's notice to schlep innumerable smelly, insufferable, ungrateful hikers about town on errands or to wherever they might wish to go.
It was with one such trail angel that Caveman, P-Nut, Redwing, Lil Dipper and I got a ride back to the trail. Bandito had decided to stay behind, mainly to finish reading Harry Potter, but also to check out a martial arts dojo he'd stumbled across on a jaunt to the laundromat the day before. I made him promise to catch up post-haste, however. We were only nine days from Harpers Ferry, and although I didn't want to acknowledge it then, our time together was fast running out.
With its omnipresent burble of traffic from Skyline Drive; the ready availability of refreshments at any number of concession stands, waysides, campgrounds and lodges; and the sheer mass and volume of clueless sightseers, the experience of hiking in the Shenandoahs is nearly indistinguishable from a rather average day in Central Park. Well, except for the conspicuous, shameful lack of any minorities. Maybe that's to do with the park's geographic inaccessibility. But no, it's only about 90 miles outside of Washington D.C. Maybe it has more to do with the latent racism of rural Virginia. Either way, it's sad, and not particularly encouraging.
For most rational Americans, hiking in Shenandoah National Park is probably considerably less appealing than driving it on Skyline Drive. However, with the price of gas skyrocketing, most rational Americans probably have better things to do than take an aimless three hour car trip. Like racking up thousands of dollars in credit card debt buying porn subscriptions and alcohol, updating their blogs, collecting belly button lint, and writing their Senators to protest the insidious influence of politicians on our political process.
On my bucket list – the one I just made up for the sole purpose of the following joke – "hike the Shenandoahs" was preceded only by "go over Niagara Falls in a barrel," "attend Oktoberfest in Munich," and "seduce Daniel Radcliffe." So far I'm two for four. And sorely disappointed.
Somehow I let Caveman and P-Nut convince me into hiking the whole way with the group instead of hitching to McCormack Gap, where I had gotten off the trail the day before. I thus found myself in the unenviable position of not only redoing 3.7 rather unenjoyable miles, but reliving my anguished experiences for the vicarious enjoyment of my companions. This is where I screamed for 13.786 seconds straight, freaking out Bandito. This is where I punched a tree and hurt my hand. This is where I threw my trekking pole over my shoulder and drop-kicked my guidebook.
Even P-Nut had the gall to laugh at me.
Two hours later we crossed a fire road at Jarman Gap and entered Shenandoah National Park proper. We were all slightly confused, since we thought we'd already been in the park for three hours. It took us a while to get over this. Imagine running a race, only the stewards keep moving the starting line back. It was like that, only more annoying and drizzly.
P-Nut eventually blazed ahead in some impertinent fit of impatience. I found myself hiking with Caveman, just behind Redwing and Lil Dipper. And then it happened. The air in front of me filled with the mysterious and unpleasant odor of methane and hydrogen sulfide.
Unfortunately – since we were going up a steep incline – my face happened to be right at the level of Redwing's ass. However, I knew it couldn't have been her; Redwing was far too dignified and stuffily British to have committed so egregious an offence. There was only one inescapable conclusion.
Unfortunately – since we were going up a steep incline – my face happened to be right at the level of Redwing's ass. However, I knew it couldn't have been her; Redwing was far too dignified and stuffily British to have committed so egregious an offence. There was only one inescapable conclusion.
I would later write the following in the registry at Blackrock Hut:
Of course P-Nut was there and had already claimed the last empty spot. He was chumming it up with the interloping section hikers when we arrived, and pointedly ignored our entrance. I wasn't particularly hurt by his betrayal, however. With a few notable exceptions, section hikers are the worst sort of people – after southbounders, day hikers, day hikers who don't offer you trail magic, and Nazis – and are invariably rude, inconsiderate, and horrible snorers. I wouldn't have been able to sleep in the shelter.
But, as it turned out, I wouldn't be able to sleep in my tent, either.
stealth fart | stel θ - färt | informalBy late afternoon, we had hiked 19.7 miles and crossed Skyline Drive no less than eight times. My guidebook informed me that Blackrock Hut was 0.2 miles off the trail to the right. What it didn't say was that it was also down a couple hundred feet in elevation. It was a ridiculous slog just to get there, and –when we arrived – we found the shelter packed.
verb [trans.]
when leading a party of three or more uphill, to fart in a way so as to make the last person in line blame the person in front of them
: Lil Dipper is a stealth farter.
Of course P-Nut was there and had already claimed the last empty spot. He was chumming it up with the interloping section hikers when we arrived, and pointedly ignored our entrance. I wasn't particularly hurt by his betrayal, however. With a few notable exceptions, section hikers are the worst sort of people – after southbounders, day hikers, day hikers who don't offer you trail magic, and Nazis – and are invariably rude, inconsiderate, and horrible snorers. I wouldn't have been able to sleep in the shelter.
But, as it turned out, I wouldn't be able to sleep in my tent, either.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Chapter 67: Waynesboro, or Where I Give Hikers a Bad Name
The Paul C. Wolfe Shelter was filled with weekenders and section hikers, seemingly all of whom were bragging about their monolithic efforts getting there from Waynesboro, where they had presumably started the day. Five miles. What an accomplishment. I hated them all instantly. Still, many of them were only out for the night, and were anticipating a short trek back into town the next morning.
Good, I thought, maybe they'll let us sleep in.
Wrong.
At first, I thought they might have been conspiring to keep us from sleeping at all. There was, of course, very little room left in the shelter when I arrived, forcing me to squeeze in on the floor by everybody else's feet. Occasionally, an errant raindrop or two – blown in by the wind – would splash on my face, or on the floor right next to me, inexorably soaking my sleeping bag. And by occasionally I mean constantly. Yeah. Pretty much all the time. It was bad.
Then there was the snoring. An unearthly, full-throated growl of such impressive timbre as to make me fear losing bowel control. And it was coming from a woman! It was impossible to sleep. Death seemed like a prudent if distasteful alternative.
And then I was violently woken by the sounds of people moving about, packing up, and making breakfast. P-Nut was awake too, and sat up groggily next to me. I grabbed his watch. It wasn't even six in the morning.
Boiling with barely-suppressed rage, I wrote the following in the shelter registry:
Good, I thought, maybe they'll let us sleep in.
Wrong.
At first, I thought they might have been conspiring to keep us from sleeping at all. There was, of course, very little room left in the shelter when I arrived, forcing me to squeeze in on the floor by everybody else's feet. Occasionally, an errant raindrop or two – blown in by the wind – would splash on my face, or on the floor right next to me, inexorably soaking my sleeping bag. And by occasionally I mean constantly. Yeah. Pretty much all the time. It was bad.
Then there was the snoring. An unearthly, full-throated growl of such impressive timbre as to make me fear losing bowel control. And it was coming from a woman! It was impossible to sleep. Death seemed like a prudent if distasteful alternative.
And then I was violently woken by the sounds of people moving about, packing up, and making breakfast. P-Nut was awake too, and sat up groggily next to me. I grabbed his watch. It wasn't even six in the morning.
Boiling with barely-suppressed rage, I wrote the following in the shelter registry:
Dear Day Hikers, Overnighters, and Section Hikers,It was going to be a good day.
You take our space in the shelter, and we fall back. You keep us awake with your outrageously obnoxious snoring, and we fall back. You generally act like a bunch of rude, unthinking ass holes, and we fall back. Where I draw the line is when you wake up at five in the morning and start talking in normal voices and banging pots and pans together like it's fucking Mardi Gras! Please be more considerate in the future. Some of us have literally hiked hundreds of miles to be here, and we're very tired, cranky, and desperately need our beauty sleep. Or just drop dead.
Yours forever,
Major Chafage
I was in a terrible mood when I hiked out, and maybe wasn't paying enough attention to where I was or where I was going. The fact that it was incredibly foggy didn't help matters. It was like walking through a marshmallow. And so I suppose it was only inevitable that I got lost.
I chose to blame The Thru-Hiker's Handbook, which says the following:
I chose to blame The Thru-Hiker's Handbook, which says the following:
1327.9 Stream (1780') crosses A.T. ............................. w 851.2Notice! Northbounders, go right on Blue Ridge Parkway where A.T. leaves woods, then follow blazes across bridge over Interstate 64 and US250; directions reversed for Southbounders.
1326.0 Rockfish Gap, Interstate 64 (1900') ......... R, M, L 853.1left 4.5m—to WAYNESBORO, VA 22980 ........... H, G, O, Lm, f
To me, that sounds like you leave the woods, cross Interstate 64, and then – 1.9 miles later – reach Rockfish Gap. Right? No! Apparently, where you cross Interstate 64 is Rockfish Gap.
And the next road crossing isn't for another 3.7 miles.
I was cursing a lot when Bandito caught up to me.
"What's up, M.C.?" asked Bandito.
I said nothing for a while, stewing in my anger. I was afraid if I opened my mouth I might scream obscenities at him, or that sparks and flames might shoot out and start a forest fire. Really.
Five minutes later, I had finally composed myself enough to spit, "This is ridiculous! We should've walked nine miles by now, not five!"
Bandito was worried, too, but didn't share my particularly acidic or profane perspective about it.
And then we emerged onto a road at last. A Forest Service SUV parked nearby. A sign by the road said McCormick Gap, and I let loose a vociferous string of vicious obscenities, threw my Leki pole over my shoulder, and then drop kicked by handbook. Or tried. I missed a couple times before finally – and feebly – connecting.
I think Bandito may have been talking to the Ranger throughout all of this. Yes, there was a Forest Ranger in the SUV. Yes, he saw my entire outburst. And yes, he promptly drove off, leaving us there.
I walked into the road and threw my hands up in disbelief.
"I think you scared him off," said Bandito helpfully.
"Well, that's just great!" I screamed. "The next car that comes along, I'm jumping out in front of it. We're not even going to bother to try to hitchhike. Okay?"
But I wasn't looking for his approval.
As it turned out, the next car that came along was the Forest Service SUV. I'm not sure what the Ranger thought of me running out in front of him and waving my arms in the air for him to stop, like some deranged, desperate lunatic. I probably wasn't helping my case any. Let's just leave it at that.
"Are you through having your temper tantrum?" asked the Ranger, rolling down his window as he pulled up.
I was grievously offended by this, and my first instinct was to punch him in the face. But the sensible part of my brain reasoned that doing so would probably lead to me being incarcerated, which certainly wouldn't help me finish my hike. On the other hand, it would get me back into town...
"We're lost," Bandito was explaining. "We're supposed to be meeting our friends in Waynesboro."
The Ranger actually proved rather helpful, although that would be hard for me to appreciate over my resentment at his rightfully treating me like a petulant child.
He first drove us to the Ranger station, where we picked up backcountry permits for the park. Shenandoah National Park, that is. Which we had already entered. By accident. Then he figured he could drive us into town, or at least as far as the Rockfish Gap Outfitters. We could walk into town from there. After all, we'd already hiked an extra four miles. What was another two or three?
I was in a terrible, pissy, awful mood when we arrived. I stocked up on chocolate and ate a lot of chocolate and bitterly raided the hiker box while Bandito fiddled about buying fuel. Then we left and walked to the Ming Garden Chinese Buffet in the rain.
Where we found P-Nut, Redwing, Lil Dipper, and some other hikers we didn't know or care about! And where I ate four or six full plates of lousy food, mostly deserts, and started to feel better about the world! And where we played a silly game where you read your fortune, and then add the words "in bed," or "on the trail."
"Grand adventures await those who are willing to turn the corner. In bed." said P-Nut.
"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step," said the other guy.
"On the trail," everybody chimed in, finishing it for him.
"You may accomplish more by being direct," read Bandito.
"In bed," we all chorused.
"I'm sorry, I don't get it. What does that mean, by being direct in bed?" asked Lil Dipper naively.
"Lie down," I commanded, inexplicably adopting a southern accent. "Now bend over! Now squeal like a piggy!"
Laughing, Lil Dipper blushed scarlet and then immediately started choking. And then got up and quickly staggered into the bathroom. Worried, Redwing excused herself and followed her.
They returned five minutes later to a subdued and anxious table.
Redwing shrugged, "Yeah. She threw up."
Lil Dipper chuckled sheepishly.
And the next road crossing isn't for another 3.7 miles.
I was cursing a lot when Bandito caught up to me.
"What's up, M.C.?" asked Bandito.
I said nothing for a while, stewing in my anger. I was afraid if I opened my mouth I might scream obscenities at him, or that sparks and flames might shoot out and start a forest fire. Really.
Five minutes later, I had finally composed myself enough to spit, "This is ridiculous! We should've walked nine miles by now, not five!"
Bandito was worried, too, but didn't share my particularly acidic or profane perspective about it.
And then we emerged onto a road at last. A Forest Service SUV parked nearby. A sign by the road said McCormick Gap, and I let loose a vociferous string of vicious obscenities, threw my Leki pole over my shoulder, and then drop kicked by handbook. Or tried. I missed a couple times before finally – and feebly – connecting.
I think Bandito may have been talking to the Ranger throughout all of this. Yes, there was a Forest Ranger in the SUV. Yes, he saw my entire outburst. And yes, he promptly drove off, leaving us there.
I walked into the road and threw my hands up in disbelief.
"I think you scared him off," said Bandito helpfully.
"Well, that's just great!" I screamed. "The next car that comes along, I'm jumping out in front of it. We're not even going to bother to try to hitchhike. Okay?"
But I wasn't looking for his approval.
As it turned out, the next car that came along was the Forest Service SUV. I'm not sure what the Ranger thought of me running out in front of him and waving my arms in the air for him to stop, like some deranged, desperate lunatic. I probably wasn't helping my case any. Let's just leave it at that.
"Are you through having your temper tantrum?" asked the Ranger, rolling down his window as he pulled up.
I was grievously offended by this, and my first instinct was to punch him in the face. But the sensible part of my brain reasoned that doing so would probably lead to me being incarcerated, which certainly wouldn't help me finish my hike. On the other hand, it would get me back into town...
"We're lost," Bandito was explaining. "We're supposed to be meeting our friends in Waynesboro."
The Ranger actually proved rather helpful, although that would be hard for me to appreciate over my resentment at his rightfully treating me like a petulant child.
He first drove us to the Ranger station, where we picked up backcountry permits for the park. Shenandoah National Park, that is. Which we had already entered. By accident. Then he figured he could drive us into town, or at least as far as the Rockfish Gap Outfitters. We could walk into town from there. After all, we'd already hiked an extra four miles. What was another two or three?
I was in a terrible, pissy, awful mood when we arrived. I stocked up on chocolate and ate a lot of chocolate and bitterly raided the hiker box while Bandito fiddled about buying fuel. Then we left and walked to the Ming Garden Chinese Buffet in the rain.
Where we found P-Nut, Redwing, Lil Dipper, and some other hikers we didn't know or care about! And where I ate four or six full plates of lousy food, mostly deserts, and started to feel better about the world! And where we played a silly game where you read your fortune, and then add the words "in bed," or "on the trail."
"Grand adventures await those who are willing to turn the corner. In bed." said P-Nut.
"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step," said the other guy.
"On the trail," everybody chimed in, finishing it for him.
"You may accomplish more by being direct," read Bandito.
"In bed," we all chorused.
"I'm sorry, I don't get it. What does that mean, by being direct in bed?" asked Lil Dipper naively.
"Lie down," I commanded, inexplicably adopting a southern accent. "Now bend over! Now squeal like a piggy!"
Laughing, Lil Dipper blushed scarlet and then immediately started choking. And then got up and quickly staggered into the bathroom. Worried, Redwing excused herself and followed her.
They returned five minutes later to a subdued and anxious table.
Redwing shrugged, "Yeah. She threw up."
Lil Dipper chuckled sheepishly.
"I thought M.C. might have killed you," marvelled P-Nut.
"I didn't think it was that funny," said someone else. Okay, that was me. Ever humble.
From there we went to the grocery store to resupply, and then to the Y.M.C.A. to shower. I feared the showers would be prison-style. As surprising as it may seem, I had never gotten naked or showered in front of another man before. I figured, the way things were going, today would be a good day to start.
I was right. I went in first, and tried to be thorough but perfunctory about my business. Then Bandito walked in, saw my bare ass, and nearly jumped out of his skin. I ignored him, and started singing manly songs like "The Star Spangled Banner" and "Genie in a Bottle" by Christina Aguilera.
Another taboo broken.
Afterwards, we went to the hostel at the Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church. It was their opening night. Our hosts were gregarious and giving. We had access to their kitchen, a full refrigerator full of juice, snacks, and frozen pizza! And to a lounge with a big-screen TV. I quickly settled in to watch "Galaxy Quest" and "The Shawshank Redemption."
Caveman and Hobbes arrived. Hobbes scolded me for mischaracterizing Mardi Gras in my log entry. Like I would know. He would, having gone to Tulane for college. Whatever.
And then Bandito had to tell everybody how we had gotten lost that day, and they all laughed at me and pointed. And I hated everybody. And then I went to bed, and cried myself to sleep.
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