Shenendoah

Shenendoah
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Visions of Johanna

New York is a city where people have the balls to where silly hats. It turns out that walking around the East Village in bright red clown shoes, matching bandanna, a battered lounge shirt open to the sternum ringed by a crumpled blue and yellow rep tie, a button that reads "chaste makes waste", and smelling far worse than people from European countries with exotic ideas about bathing does not attract too much attention. Even my beard, which easily falls under the category "suspicious" in our highly charged geo-political climate, failed to provoke reaction. Undoubtedly, your typical New Yorker will pass someone whose look is more colorful than my melange of rags and ironic humor (which I like to call hiker chic) within twenty seconds of passing me. They're busy, motivated people who don't waste time asking questions, particularly as they are guaranteed the certainty of a one-up two blocks north. I think that to really get noticed in Manhattan, I would have to wear a tuxedo made entirely from citrus rinds (with an avocado skin tie, of course). At least, downtown.

As most of you know--because I met up with you--I spent some time in New York City, another little break from my hike. After leaving my grandparents at the Delaware Water Gap, the plan was to hike New Jersey and New York, then go into town for a birthday reunion with old friends. I was going to take the Metro North Train from the Appalachian Trail stop near the Connecticut border directly to Grand Central, where I would likely be trampled to death by businessmen, the ungodly sound of fourteen million people trying to cooperate or at least not kill one another on a hourly basis, and rampant air pollution. Well, I hiked New Jersey. And what a treat it was. I consider the Garden State to be my mother country or, in any case, my mother's country, and I was excited for a chance to hike in a state without manners. That is to say, I was no longer in Dixieland, where white people exchange an almost suffocating amount of pleasantries with other white people. At last, I would be back where I belong, in the lands where people pledge obedience to their own IMPORTANT SCHEDULES from a very early age.

I guess I was a little disappointed. I found the locals in Jersey to be nearly as friendly as those farther South. I suppose it has something to do with proximity to mountains. Indeed, if anyone in New Jersey was brusque it was I, unable to handle the steady diet of ridiculous rocky terrain and mosquito-infested swampland. It's not that much the NJ Trail wasn't beautiful--though I am no swamp-fancier--the Delaware Water Gap is especially pretty. It is simply that, while you are hiking, you are far more concerned about your very tenuous footing as you hop from one pointy, slippery rock to the next. There is not much time for taking in the less immediate surroundings. I did, however, manage to catch a glimpse of one of the infamous Jersey bears that plague campsites throughout the state and Tony Soprano's backyard.

Since I had skipped PA, I was well ahead of most of the people I had come to know really well. I foresaw this of course, and the whole plan was to time the ending of my breaks in PA and NYC with the arrival of my Trail friends in my vicinity. I did not understand how much they came to mean to the hike or forsee the fact that I would be stuck in a relatively lackluster realm of hikers. Not bad people, of course--just not my kind of people. Though the social part of the Trail has been a full half of my experience, I think I would rather have been alone than in a group to which I could establish no real connection. So I was a bit lonely. After a week, I decided to call my Aunt Carol and spend a day or two in Nutley with my relatives before walking New York State. When I arrived, I discovered that Christina and Matt Kelly, friends from Chicago, were going to be in New York for the weekend, so I decided, to hell with it, I'll go to the city for a longer spell. Thus began a marathon break, which has had as many bizarre and interesting experiences as some of those on the Trail proper. I am guessing this is because I was still operating with the context of "hiker" rather than "suburban-boy-on-vacation". There is no mean difference 'twixt the two.

But first, one golden nugget from New Jersey. Now, the Trail in NJ (and NY and CT) has a lot of road crossings, but very unlike those in the less populated South. For instance, there is usually a restaurant or deli no more than a quarter-mile up the road. So you can lunch in style. I decided to stop in to Gyp's Tavern right on Lake Kittaninny for one of their well-reviewed burgers. Gyp's is really just a bar, and when I walked in at 12:30 in the afternoon to the sight of old union guys enjoying liquid lunches in a half-light filled with Giants memorabilia and notices about long-past dart tournaments, I had the distinct impression that Bruce Springsteen should have been playing on the juke box. Anyhow, Fox News was on and the subject of the day was Governor Ah-nold's quip that the Democrats in California were "girly-men". Said one goombah to the other, "Well, that's how they touak. I mean, he's from Auwstrailia, iddn't he?" A recent conversation I had revolved around the idea that some dialects are suited to deeper penetration into the bewildering ignorance of humanity than others. I had the benefit of moving directly from the South to New Jersey.

And then--New York--the triumphalist architecture; the million cultural attractions which include but are certainly not limited to musueums, Broadway shows, galleries, concert halls, jazz clubs and street peformers; the throngs of fashionable, cosmopolitan urbanites; the shops; the restaurants of all stripes; the bars and nightclubs; the niche market businesses that all set up shop on the same block; minorities who are not minorities; the fantastic subway system; the hectic street traffic; the noise everywhere all the time; the garbage on the streets because there is no room for alleys. And me. Hiker trash. On the streets because if there is enough room for real refuse, there is room enough for me.

I must confess, that, even having called Manhattan a home for a year or so, my reintroduction put me into something close to a state of shock. I hesistate to call it sensory overload, because if you listen and look carefully, nearly every place on earth is just as busy as the rest (forgetting man-made minimalist spaces for the moment). It's a matter of intensity, how much attention must be paid to ascertain the infinite amount of activity going on around you. New York's ambient intensity registers somewhere between a Ghengis Khan campaign and the Big Bang, which is why I was so easily thrown into shock. It's more difficult to filter out one or a few objects of attention from the rest. However, I would hold that the woods have a significant intensity arising from manifold sources that is all their own. Throw a hardened New Yorker onto the Trail and see if he is not in shock, at first. The list of details than can be written of the forest is surely as long as the one I have written above. Perhaps people think of Nature as more peaceful than the city because they find themselves more easily disposed to concentrated thought in the woods. Perhaps the demi-urge is a more subtle architect than Man.

As my strange reacquaintence with the City began to settle (somewhat), I was able to enjoy a more immediately pleasurable reacquaintence with a number of my dear friends who live in New York. After they got over the shock of my beard, that is. It is funny and fortuitous, I think, that you can spent six months apart from someone to find that they have grown up (or out or whatever) and started to carve out a career or a professional education or their own business while you have been living like a free radical, rarely bathing and living in the knowledge that you can do whatever you want at any particular instant in time, but that the warmth and fundamental connections that established the link in the first place still endure. I think that these different directions in which we are headed is a function of age. The post-collegiate stasis boat has pulled into port and we are finally ready to explore this or that tract of land, mayhaps even stake out a homestead. It's really a rather exciting prospect, and I can only hope that my experience of abiding friendships remains the same after six years as it has these six months.

Thru-Clubbin'

I am on my vacation from my vacation. I just pulled into Harper's Ferry, W.Va., which is sort of the spiritual half-way point of the Trail, after spending three days in DC. The Appalachian Trail Council HQ is in town, in addition to all of the Civil War historicana.

It's been a rather long time since I've written anything. Almost a month. I tried once or twice in Waynesboro, but found that I no longer knew how to properly frame the account of my travels. At some point or another, I suppose that I have become completely immersed in the Trail--the old analytical eye has gone blind. I don't feel as confident that I can throw my experience into the kind of sharp relief that I could before. This is only strange to me because, throughout my life, I have normally resisted any kind of totalist involvement with anything, whether it was the theater, academia, politics, or romance. I have always maintained what I believed to be a healthy critical distance from the contexts in which I placed myself. Tongue-tied Jeffrey is certainly a first.

However, I have just been in DC for several days with good, articulate friends (even read the July Harper's on the Train), and engaged in some high-minded political and social discussion. So I'll try and give writing another stab. Maybe the old pen has some ink left...

I believe that I left off in Pearisburg, which is a good 250 miles South of my present location. I have hiked a little less than half of Virginia since last I wrote. Now, Virginia has some beautiful country, with a number of absolutely stunning places to walk relatively free from the physical challenges that mark the terrain further south and north. That said, the Trail in Virginia is incredibly long and the lower elevation ensure that the foliage does not change in any radical manner. So one can experience a bit of what's called the Virginia Blues. I had my first experience with this phenomenon shortly after I left my parents in Roanoke. To be honest, I think that the intestinal problems I encountered after eating perhaps too many wild cherries may have played some role in my first real Trail fatigue. Bad cherries combined with the a 4-day stretch of relative civilization in Roanoke, the fact that all of my friends seemed to be just out of my reach, and a peculiar phenomenon of lightning storms hitting just as I crest the exposed tops of ridges, I was almost ready to pack it up and head home. But at the end of the day, I ran into good people at the 4 Pines Hostel outside of Catawba, and everything was made better.

(My location has changed--I am currently in Scranton and will be here for several days)

It was right around this time that I fundamentally changed my approach to the Trail. Now, I have never been a big-mile demon or even over-concerned about reaching Katahdin (by a certain date or at all). Indeed, this journal contains a fair amount of writing about the many town days I have taken. But until Central Virginia, I always felt like I had something to prove to myself and all my aquaintences about the validity of this hike and me as a hiker. All of which translates into rapid advancement and the reaching of certain destination by certain times. Well, after hiking 700 miles (which is alot--believe you me), I began to consider myself a real, live hiker, and whatever insecurities I had hanging over my head receded from whence they came. So, the hiking challenge met, all I am really concerned with is interesting experience and some wonderful days in the woods. Of which there have been plenty.

Somewhere between Catawba and Waynesboro, which is the start of Northern Virginia and the Shenendoahs, I ran into Gaul who I'd met in Damascus. At this point, I was hiking with D-Bone and Munchkin (Waker and Gordy had gotten a few days ahead). He told me that he liked camping with us because we were more like thru-clubber than thru-hikers. He meant it as a compliment though I imagine some would get offended. I actually ended up spending a rainy afternoon by a waterfall with Gaul (instead of hiking 22 miles) and yellow-blazed the 9 miles into Glasgow, the strangest town on the Trail. There are maybe about 700 people in Glasgow and, from what I can tell, they are are related. Glasgow has the distinction of being the only town I have ever seen that is adorned--festooned, really--with nearly life-size fiberglass dinosaurs. A shirt for sale in it's one restaurant reads "Glasgow--The Town that Time Forgot", but I shall not soon disremember her Plestiocene glory.

The residents of Glasgow say that it is difficult to hitch out, but D-Bone, Munchkin and I were picked up by an old man with no toes who spends his days driving around Virginia. He drove us to Buena Vista, which, according to a sign at the city limit, is pronounced Beeyoonah Veesta. We picked up a case of beer and camped near a forest service road. After a few days of hiking we reached Rusty's Hard Time Hollow, one of the strangest, most wonderful places on the Trail. Rusty has forbade me to divulge the location of his Hollow, as he only wants hikers and bikers staying there. Let it be said that it is totally isolated from just about everything. Rusty is not just a hiker-friendly hermit. He is Amish-Mennonite; I had not heard of this sect, but from the strange rules guiding his use of technology (he can use second-hand but not new machines like a car?) I gathered that it is a bit like being a reformed Jew. His shack, and it is a shack, is lovingly decorated with an array of boots, trekking poles, and original signs. His refrigerator is a natural spring which is stocked with soda for hikers, and the driveway is littered with empties that hikers use as a ball in weird wiffle-bat/t-ball homerun derby. There are several other shacks where hikers sleep. Out back a hill descends into the hollow, where a wood-burning hot tub and sauna are located around a garden. There is a horshoe pit and marked frisbee-golf course, which the length of the surrounding brush makes as difficult as Augusta National. If you can find your frisbee.

Rusty loved us (we had caught back up to Gordy) because we made use of all his cool stuff. Easy call. However, it appears that in the last few years, he is getting more and more hiker who stay only one night and leave early in the morning. We were the first or second people to play games and sit in the tub. In fact, Rusty liked us so much, he gave all of us gifts (for a guy who often kicks people out who he doesn't like, I took the gifts as a sign of good will). He told me I was special and gave me some Amish Choral music. He also told me I needed to come back to visit when I wasn't chasing women (which I'm not). In anycase, I would like to return at some point.

While we were at Rusty's, Gordy filled us in on her adventures alone. While the parts about her nude night-hiking and bathing in mountain streams ala Artemis were extremely interesting, we also were intrigued about her stay in Lexington. She had arrived in Glasgow a few days ahead of us, and was picked up by a hippie couple who offered her a place to stay. On which she took them up. Several times. In fact, she left and hitched back. Well, Missy and Tom obviously took a shine to Gordy and they met up with us in Waynesboro. Something was said about a Ricky Scaggs concert, and before we knew the four of us were 100 miles South in Lexington on their 17 acre farm. It turned out that the concert was at the end of July rather than June, but it was no matter. They have a rental property which they let us stay in, and invited their friends up for big old barbeque, complete with fireworks and ATV rides. I love ATVs. They also have a spastic ferret named Pikachu.

So a couple more zero days at Rusty's and Missy's. It's like I'm not even hiking anymore. Well, not exactly. I finally made it through to the Shennendoahs, where I experienced another phase change. On the first night in, we only hiked about 5 miles since we started at 9 PM. The next day proceeded as normal (I was actually a little slow because I had to get my heavy pack back--my lighter pack doesn't fit and hurts my upper back)until I decided to stop at a shelter about two miles before our planned campsite. I thought I'd catch everyone in the morning because like me, Munchkin and D-Bone and Gordy aren't what you'd call the earliest risers. Well, was I ever surprised. I got up early thanks to Troll, a 2001 thru-hiker from Baton Rouge who was out with his grandsons and reminds me more of Foghorn Leghorn than anyone I've ever met. I got to their campsite to find everyone gone, up early as well, and my old friend Doc Gnarly knocking back a few silver bullets in the AM. Gordy and Munchkin had decided to hitch to California for a three day climbing adventure in Yosemite and D-Bone was going to do thirty miles (which I was not). I had lost the Peacock Posse. Well, I had no choice. I helped Doc kill the werewolves inside. Cold. Down. Easy.

It was good to see Doc and hear of him staring down a male bear (as his sense had instructed) and his 60-hour hike-a-thon. We took an easy 13 mile day, peppered with beer breaks. I ended up losing him the next day, but I walked straight into another party at one of the cabins site that can be found in the Shenendoahs. A quick note about the Park: it is not really backcountry. You walk almost paralell to Skyline Drive (and extension of the Blue Ridge Parkway) and run into campstore, bars, and hotels about every ten miles. It was the July 4 holiday weekend so the Trails were really crowded. Anycase, the party was thrown by a Trail Angel named Becky Boone who feeds hikers hot dogs and beer in the Doahs every year. I ran into Dirtnap and Banjo, two brother who I'd met at Rusty's and ended up hiking the rest of the Park with them. We had a hard time getting very far with all the bars and we kept running into Becky Boone, which was good for the soul if not the map.

And that pretty much brings us up to speed. I got a ride from Front Royal into DC, with the plan of riding north with Walker to somewhere near Scranton. Turns out he wasn't really going anywhere near Scranton, and because I thought it would be difficult to hitch from Philly or Jersey, I took the commuter rail to Harper's Ferry. H. Ferry is near I-81, which goes to Scranton as well as being a more rural route. The plan was to stay for a night and hitch out in the morning. However, I ran into a guy named Wonderboy who hike last year and is doing odd jobs up and down the Trail this year. He was going to a hiker feed in Port Clinton, PA, which is right off the Trail and and just about the closest point to Scranton. I thought, hmm, didn't that work out and went to the party. Then the next day, it turned out that some other ex-hiker were driving right through Scranton, which eliminated the need for me to hitch again. In fact, they took me all the way to the Lake Ariel exit, and save my grandparents all but 3 miles of a drive to pick me up. Everything always works out on the Appalachian Trail.

On the Road From Damascus

It's not like I've heard the voice of God or Jeebus or anything, but this Trail has certainly thrown me into a state of non-rapturous ephipany. There has been alot of talk among my hiker friends and me concerning our regression into childhood; this may be because we rearrange marquis signs to spell dirty words and force each other to eat suntan lotion (I am SPF, you know) or bottles of syrup while playing Truth or Dare. However, from a more reflective vantage point, the word regression doesn't do justice to the transformations that occur in those hiking the AT. Rather, what we undergo is much more a process of dropping any and all pretense--that is, social masks--that daily life in 21st America seems to require. I suppose that includes "maturity" along with "casual dishonesty", "aggression" and "cleanliness".

I am of the opinion that there is probably value in what I have chosen to call social masks; I don't think that either the gears that run civilization or the prettily painted surfaces that make it so appealing could exist without intense normative pressure on individual behavior. Though this may be the case, we all have spaces or friendships in which we can "relax" and "be ourselves" that are necessary for life, and, more often than not, we place more value in these spots and people than in those contexts where we must conform to external standards (even in the official ideology family comes first). It was pointed out to me that these feelings of freedom from constraint are largely a condition of trust, when considered with regard to relationships. I completely agree.

The thing about the Trail is that the bonds of trust arise with a lightning immediacy when compared to normal life. After knowing people for less than five days or, in a few cases, five hours, I often feel as if I have known them (and let's round out this rhetoric) for five years. I believe that this phenomenon occurs for several different reasons. There is the trench-buddy thing. We are all on the same journey, which can be as grueling as it is rewarding--we all experience the same pains and joys, the same ups and downs, if you will (sorry, that was irresistable). There is the voluntary aspect. Most everyone out here feels almost completely free; to a large extent we are masters of our own destiny who stop sometimes to chat with other masters. I think, most importantly, there is a prevelant good will among hikers on the Trail. You might even call it the practice of karma (which as you might, imagine, is a concept a good 80% out here believe in). Everyone simply wants everyone else to have a great hike, and will do everything in their power to make this possible. The old Latin comes through: neminem laede, immo omnes, quantum potes, juva (hurt no one, rather, help all as much as you can).

The kind of good will I'm talking about is taken as matter of faith by most, which is why it is so easy to "be yourself" and experience feelings of nearly absolute psychological freedom in other's company so frequently. One ends up taking this kind of context for granted. About a week, the group I have been hiking with for the last two weeks stopped at a shelter that was only about 200 yards away from a park center with a pay phone where you can order pizza (the Partnership Shelter, with its proximity to pay phones and vending machines, also comes equipped with an actual hot-water shower, which is why it is often referred to as the Taj Mahal). We had heard that the pizza guy would pick up beer for you if you offered him a few extra bucks. So we asked him to grab a couple sixers and gave him some cash when he said OK, be back in fifteen minutes. None of us thought to hop in the car with him to physically retrieve the beer ourselves. So, claro, poor Waker waited an hour in the rain for the beer that never came back. Suckers, the lot of us...

Well, the thing is, nothing like this had ever happened to any of us on the Trail. Angels, other people along the way, and hikers almost always do what they say they will and usually go out of their way to make your day better. Recently, for instance, I camped a bit up from a road at a campsite, where, every Monday, a Methodist church comes and takes hikers back to their parish, where a banquet awaits. I had a bevy of blue-haired ladies waiting on me hand and foot, trying to get me to each another apple fritter with homemade apple butter. What I'm saying is, we did not expect this pizza fuck to steal our money. We really gave some stranger a bunch of cash and thought that he would help us out. And, you know what, I am honestly happy to lose five bucks once every two months if I can hold relatively ridiculous expectations for myself and my fellow man met 99% of the time.

Enough of this introspection already--I want to jot down a few quick notes about the people and places of the last two weeks. It's late--almost 2 AM--and I have to walk about 17 miles tomorrow so it's going to be brief. Really it's more for my memory than anything else.

It took me about 3 days to get out of Damascus, which is the first town you reach in Virginia. I met up with a some people I had known for a few hours before, but I found to be in a like mindset. That is to say, hooray, Viriginia, we want to party. The group there was composed of Princess Gordy, D-Bone, Lil' Munchkin and her dog, Kayah, Tippy Tap, Bear Bait, Cliff Dancer, Traildawg, Gaul, Seraphim, Hookah and Wad. Superstition also made it for the last two days. This is where the eating of suntan lotion occured. Waker, with whom I have been hiking on and off since Georgia finally caught up to me after two weeks. He is the closest thing I have to a hiking partner, so I was happy he made it.

After breaking away from Damascus after an extended stay (again), we went up into the Grayson Highlands, where there are, get this, several herds of feral ponies. I fed one an apple. It was about the coolest thing ever. Unfortunately , my camera broke, so I have nothing with which to prove this rather incredible experience (or anything from Damascus to Pearisburg at all). In addition to untamed equine apple-baiting (as if that were not enough), the Grayson Highlands is one of the most beautiful sections of Trail I have hiked. I walked through the seven-mile bald stretch on an overcast, windy day, and the stunted groupings of trees amidst the rock formation suggested a perfect setting for Lear or the Scottish Play.

From the Highlands, VA turns into some easy cruising. There is still alot of uphill--I don't think that will ever go away--but the grades really are more gentle. It's not the prettiest area, which is not to say that it's not spectacular, but I've been spoiled. Also, we had an agenda, so we put on some miles. D-Bone, Gordy, Munchkin, Superstition, Waker and I have formed a loose coalition called the Peacock Posse (complete with gang sign), and we needed to get to Pearisburg by the ninth to reunite with friends and booze for Gordy's 21st birthday. There was a lot of reuniting.

Since then, my parents have come down to see me and bring me to the thriving metrop of Roanoke, where they have Indian food and malls. I missed the former much more than the latter, but I got some much needed equipment at the outfitter. I also got a new pack. Well, not new--I've had it for several years, actually. It is my small weekender pack, but after shedding winter gear, it fits all my stuff. The exchange of my sleeping bag for a fleece blanket greatly aids this cause. Anycase, I've shed about 8 or 9 pounds from my total pack weight, which is a cause for celebration and rejoicing. For me.

Other than that not too much. I'm about 650 miles in now, and I think I will be ending the thru part of my thru-hike 350 miles from now in Harper's Ferry. No. Don't cry. It's allright. There just have been more strains on time and wallet than I expected. I think I am going to skip PA, and start back up at the Delaware Gap, where I will break in NYC and then maybe hike NY, CT, MA and possibly VT. But I will be a section-hiker, and my status will like that of a demi-god in the lesser hiking pantheon. We'll see...

Until next time, a Bible verse:

Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will take care of itself. Each day has enough trouble of it own. --Matthew 6:34

--Sugarplum

Hey There Mountain Man

So Jeff....
I was at lunch today telling my friends the story about you hiking the extra couple of miles to meet up with those girls. I talked about the East and Right mixup and how you just ended up going the wrong way. Laura (I assume you remember her) turns to me and says, "Wait! Does your brother have a car with him?!" Just thought I'd tell you that one. School is out. Summer is here. Louie is eating the cicadas. Things are pretty good. Hope your shoes get a little better.

Don't mess up,
Love,
Chesa

Yes, Santa Claus, There Is A Virginia

I am done, done, done with the spiky Southern range of the Appalachian Mountains. I am in the promised land. Yesterday night, around 11:00, I walked into Damascus, VA after a rather tiring 26 mile hike (a mountain marathon, as it were). For the next 600 miles, I got nothing but easy-going pastureland and the rolling Virginia hills to stroll through. Should be a cinch.

So they say, in anycase. I have my doubts.

I think I ended my last entry in the midst of the Traildays Festival, from a dense thicket of hippie reveling. I thought I might describe some of the weekend's other attraction before I go into the last ten days of hiking. However, first, I have decided to include a little AT glossary, and give you all a sampling of the hiking vocabulary that peppers my daily life these past six weeks. As for format, I figure word-denotation-sentence will do. Unfortunately, I have no time for alphabetical order, Mr. Hanlon and Miss Roselle.

Sugarplum's AT Dictionary

White-blazing, v.: following the 2"x6" white squares painted on trees, rocks and roadsigns, which mark the TRUE AT. I am currently white-blazing from Georgia to Maine.

Blue-blazing, v.: trails marked with a blue square that are for bad weather, lazy people, water, shelters, and vistas. I foolishy did not blue-blaze the exposed ridge during a thunderstorm.

Yellow-blazing, v.: Following the long-paralell yellow lines down the road--hitchhiking. Y'all be yellow-blazing everyday.

Red-blazing, v.: Covering the trail with your own blood. Night-hikers red-blaze the stumpy sections of forest.

Vitamin I, n.: Painkillers, comes from ibuprofen. I take my daily dose of Vitamin I every morning since I walk like an 80 year-old man in the morning (seriously).

Cowboy, cowboy camp, v.: to sleep under the stars. The shelter is full, so I'm just going to cowboy tonight.

Camel-up, v.: drink alot of water before you hike so as not to have to stop every five minutes. Let me just camel up before we leave this shelter.

PUDs, n.: Pointless up and downs--a section of trail that has very little net elvation change, but you could never tell because you go up and down every damn ridge. Those PUDs didn't even have a damn view.

Post-hole, v.: to walk through snow up to your knees. I am not a winter hiker, I do not post-hole.

Web-walk, v.: Early morning and late-night hikers run into this silky, stick mess. I had to web-walk into VA last night.

Allright, enough words. I'll add more in later entries. Back to Traildays.

The highlight of Traildays seems to be the parade, which I, for one, found unusual for parade, seeing as it is really just consisted of the townsfolk hurling water-balloons at hikers. If you have never marched in a parade where people throw things at you, you are really missing out. It lets you know how much you are loved. The whole festival was not really the most impressive spread that I've come across. There were plenty of booths with all the outfitters and gear-companies, where I got some stuff fixed (notably my therm-a-rest mattress which has had a hole since the first night--it turns out that they really do make a difference). There were alot of freebies in terms of food and drink, sponsored by restaurants, churches, ex-thru-hikers, etc. And hippies, hiker-trash, booze and bonfires (I would consider myself boozy hiker trash).

Even though the festival was a little anti-climatic, it was really nice to see so many of the people I hiked with so far. I would guess I saw maybe 60% of those who I have really come to know: Grits, Rocket, KTR, Lint, Ole Man & Navi-Gator, Waker, Up & Down, A Squared, Everglade, Joker, My Little Pony, Rainman, Crash, Achilles, Wonka, Redbeard, Strangelove, the Sheperd, Spider, Brother, Nyssa the Hobbit, the Lorax, TallTales & Crazy Legs, etc.

Two last notes from Traildays. One, I did a "chilly-willy" in order to join Lint's BLAH Society (the Black Lung Alcoholic Hiking Society). What is a chilly-willy, you ask? It is a modification of the old Russian tradition of snorting vodka during times of scarcity. Lint walks up to me, puts a cigarette in my mouth and a spray bottle full of bourbon up my nostril. I say, "What exactly are you doing?" The reply, "It's allright. Don't worry. It's me--Lint." Well, that was the most painful thing I'll ever try twice.

Secondly and finally (for Traildays), for the whole trip I have been reading the register entries of this one guy about a week ahead of me. They were never anything interesting. Just alot of got to the shelter after long night type of thing. Well, I suppose something in his name--Heesoo Chung--must have triggered my memory. I found out when I got to Traildays that he is a fellow alum of the UofC. We started talking about Chicago, and I realized that he was Nelly, Sarah, Kimmy, Nathanael, and my subletter the summer between freshman and sophmore year. The subletter who stiffed us a couple hundred bucks and left our place trashed. The subletter who eluded Nelly and Sarah for two or three quarters. The subletter from Hell. And I caught the motherfucker on the Appalachian Trail...

I realize I'm running a little long this time, but bear with me (those of you who are my real friends and are reading this). More stuff happens in the woods than you would think. Back to the hike.

After 3 zero-mile days and a whole lot of chemical and greasy food, I set back off from Earwin, TN with my new shoes and full 6-day 44 lbs. pack. I was going to go easy, maybe do 10 miles. I made it four. I came to a shelter and saw Tall Tales and Crazy Legs (and engaged couple), who, with the aid of metereological knowledge, persuaded me to camp with them. It did not take too much effort. In anycase, I was feeling a little guilty the next day, so I decided push for a shelter 22 miles up the road. Bad idea. My new shoes decided to break my feet in. I could feel my heels being shred to mincemeat all day, but I ignored it. This may or may not have been due to the invitation of Nitro and Wipeout, who are not only female but rather attractive, to stay at $6 hostel with them. (Note to Justin and Aaron: Nitro, the cuter one is Jewish, I think--out of the nine girls I met, the prettiest is Jewish. You guys need to start hiking--I figure your chances are least 25% better out here). Well, I did not make it to the hostel, because I got lost on an unblazed trail in the dark. The book said go east. I did, not realizing that east is not necessarily what the compass says; rather, east is right. Who would have figured that the Trail has logic-defying dogma akin to the Jesuits? Made for a very enjoyable evening, alone, in the rain.

The next day I was to hike up Roan Mountain and into the Roan range, which is noted for its beauty as well as its ruggedness. Indeed, it is the last really hard hiking in the South, if reports are to be believed. I planned to take Roan easy, with a 14 miler. I made it two, and stopped for three hours, in excruciating pain. It turns out it is hard to walk with bloodied, raw heels. I did make it five more that day and seven again the next, in an oddly surreal setting of exquisite beauty and extreme physical anguish. But was it worth it? No, not really. I pride myself on not being one of these masochistic, Hardcore types. I am more what one would call a soft-core, satin-and-lace kind of hiker. But when you're in the middle of the woods with a limited amount of food, you don't really have an option with regard to walking. My hike from Earwin to the Kincora hostel in Hampton took my six days rather than four and a half, but hey, I ain't worried. I have found a way to tape my heels so that the pain doesn't reaching fainting-level, and the right one is beginning to heal, at any rate.

What else is new? I am now the proud owner of a magical battery-operated wand, given to the Sugarplum Fairy by his fellow hikers. Suprisingly, it repels shelter mice, and one enchanted occasion aided by the samurai strength of Doc Gnarly, it coaxed down my stuck bear-line from a knotty tree. Upon learning that I like to go to salons such as Jean Louis David in NYC (which is not that nice), and taking my wand and name into account, Crazy Legs has asserted that I may be the only metrosexual on the Trail. Standards are low out here.

I have several stories about encounters with mountain people, but I feel that I really need to relate these verbally as the accent is key. If you wish ask me about My Little Pony's teeth or good ol' Deke when we talk next.

I did not get attacked by emus between Hampton and Damascus. I am profoundly happy at this.

I am tired of this writing. Before, I end, however I want to implore you all to add comments of your own. That is partially why I created a membership website. I know none of you have time to write letter (I never have in my lifetime), but you can goof off at work and post a comment. Or aren't you coming to read my ong drawn-out novels at all? Hmmm, I am suspicious. Whatever. Love to you all...

Old Dominion-bound,
SugarPlum