TRAIL DAY 54
Thu, Apr 14, 2016 It is Friday, April 14, 2017 as I write. Good Friday. It was on March 25th last year on the trail, 20 days earlier. I was in Gatlinburg at the Motel 6. It was the day of the worm. The day of return to the trail at Newfound Gap. This year I am home in my garage office writing.
Earlier in the day I was reading a couple of spiritual books. Good Friday, Spring and my stage in life have me reflecting on this day in the Christian Church. Is it Good because it is the day on which death was conquered? Good because life is eternal? On the birth of my first grandchild I wrote, “Once in being you always were.” Isn’t it so? Can being ever be eradicated? Even if you say it can, aren’t you affirming the existence of the being you are “eradicating”? Does it not reside forever somewhere even unseen? If you say “no” are you not again confirming the existence of the life you are denying? That which you refute must be or there is nothing to refute.
Perhaps the point is that consciousness is eternal in the same way that matter or energy is – or even the matter of which an individual life is made. Since the Big Bang – or even before, at least in potential – the stuff of which we are made was always there. And always will be somewhere. Perhaps consciousness is the knowing affirmation of what is – of matter in a particular form. Eternity is there and we are always a part of it.
Perhaps Good Friday is the day death, even in its most heinous form, did not consume this truth. Once in being life always was and always will be and perhaps it is only we who don’t see the infinite and eternal reality of life beyond present form, beyond time and measure.
Well, back to Doll Flats where I made a small stand for the quiet dignity of a dog and for sincere connection with my fellow man. I believed I had done what needed to be done and the rest was beyond my control.
The day dawned bright and clear, as Theo kept an eye on me retrieving our food from the trees and Shooting Star readied her pack for the day’s trek. “Back home,” my tent was framed in a mound of gold, pack at the ready. It would be a day of 215 pictures and the 400-mile mark. It all floods in as I review the scenes and check my notes. I have felt many times over the past several years, “I need no more input. I just want to order what’s inside already.” I am doing some of that work now. You might raise your eyebrows when I tell you that a therapist once asked me to go home and write out my life in 12 pages. I got to page 475 and the birth of my youngest child and have left it there. Perhaps when I finish this verbal trail, I can fill in the gaps and add these pages as the most recent chapters.
Writing has always been a big part of my life. A preacher called “Amen Henry!” from Harlem came to our parish in Lancaster once and I’ll never forget his saying, “Impression without expression is depression.” That resonates with me. At prep school, I took English with a teacher known to be very demanding. It was he who saw a sensitive spirit who had a desire to express his inner world. I will never forget him – a short, fair-skinned, dark-haired Irishman with clenched, greyed-and-crooked teeth and an sharp wit. Thomas Donovan. We called him “TD.” He never wanted his picture taken and he wore his belt buckle on the side as was fashionable with my classmates in the late 1950s. I had written a piece for class called “My Wonderfully Crazy Brother.” He had me submit it to “The Atlantic Monthly” in some contest and told me it was the kind of thing I should put away in a place where my brother would someday find it. Unfortunately, I lost it over the years but remember it well, including its long vertical fold the way we handed in papers back then.
When I went off to college, I wanted one thing: to get as much out of literature as TD did. And I always took whatever classes made me write.
Well, I’m writing. I hope I haven’t glazed your eyes over, if you’ve even gotten this far. Ex-press-ion.
The AWOL profile for the day was like a thin sheet of corrugated metal flapping up and down with a swell in the middle. Lots of mini ups and downs starting with a 1000′ descent then over the swell then down and up to the shelter.
There was an awesome wall of sharp layered rock rising up out of the ground at an angle like a gigantic bird wanting to take off. This was our earth, eons of history frozen in time, yet, in truth, not at all. Merely a cosmic moment, an intergalactic millisecond.
More rocks on the trail presaging days to come, trees recently blown over at the edge of the trail, cut wood making steps which were always unwelcome by me. It was difficult having someone else decide when you should step. They didn’t match your stride and required a rhythmic jolt down or strain up that was unnatural. Shades again of the spoiled hiker wanting it his way without any interference. But we were not in pristine forest and were benefitting every step from the efforts of unseen legions over countless hours, not to mention the vision and foresight of the trail’s founding fathers.
Rhododendron tunnels and dry-ground paths through sparse woodlands ushered us on our way. Armies of workers had made the way passable and I was grateful.
A long section of easy, dirt trail gradually descended to US 19E leading (2.4E) to Elk Park, NC or (3.5W) to Roan Mtn, TN. Very rarely and only at road crossings, you might see an advertisement for a place to stay. It was really more informational and helpful than commercial. You would also find notes at times from fellow hikers giving their input and continuing a tradition of looking out for each other out here. “Zam” wrote a note about the Roan Mountain B&B. I wondered, “Did I get Slam’s name wrong back at Roan Knob?”
Our way was simple, our possessions view, our needs limited, our connections genuine and on the mark because we were all on the same path in very much the same way and at base, way down, very much for the same reasons.
Theo and I kept on – this was not a road to lead us off the trail. Our rest-and-resupply stop was out ahead.
It was an easy trail underfoot but we soon began a long climb up to an “open ridge with views to east and west” (AWOL). I remember an S-curve left then right at the start of the climb and meeting “Highway” with Cold-Snap and Diesel in the leftward descent. I don’t remember if I caught up to them or they to me.
Highway had trouble with one of his knees and felt he was going to need surgery. I told him about my partial knee replacement on May 16, 2014 by Dr. Jess H. Lonner of the Rothman Institute near Philadelphia and that I hiked 70 miles with 30 pounds on my back three months later. Highway was from Philadelphia and, therefore, took the information and would eventually leave the trail and have Dr. Lonner do a full knee replacement, fully intending to return to finish. Such is the nature of the thru-hiker.
After a slight additional descent, the trail turned right out of the “S” and headed fairly steeply upward through a wide grassy swath. Cold-Snap and Diesel took a significant lead and soon were out of sight. Highway took up the rear, slowed by his leg for sure. In days to follow, he’d be ahead or behind me but we’d end up at the same spot by nightfall and I was never sure how he managed with his bad knee. How bad would become apparent in time.
In the middle of the steep grassy climb, there was a 2″x4″ note on the ground which read:
TURN
AROUND
AND
LOOK AT
THE VIEW
FROM HERE
“CHAMPA”
It was fixed by a twig at top and bottom.
I obliged and took in the magnificent view and Highway laboring up behind me.
We were soon back in the woods where we met “Chopper” heading southbound. I asked how he got his name as Highway joined us. He said he had been hiking in Maryland the year before when he got dehydrated and was suffering from heat stroke so badly that they had to call in a helicopter to evacuate him. He told us we could see where a tree had been removed to bring in the chopper by a flat rock after the last shelter in Maryland. I kept this in mind for a while until “just keep on going” took over and the thought was long gone when the time came.
Chopper said “I heard about you” from a hiker named “Last-Minute.” I met this hiker in the shade of a shelter just before a climb. He said doing the trail was something he’d thought of shortly before he started. I asked if he had a trail name and he didn’t so I suggested it should be “Last Minute” to reflect the very brief prelude to his start of the trail. I guess it stuck. He left the shelter before Theo and me.
It is Good Friday today as I’ve said. I remember noting many times from Springer Mountain on how prolific were tough, green, thorny vines along the trail. I took many pictures of these that came out only so-so because of how thin the vines are. Here again, right after leaving Chopper, I came upon a massive tangle of thorns, again, hard to photograph but impressive in their rugged survival and passive flesh-tearing competence.
Our short sojourn in the woods brought us back into the open, climbing amidst spindly spines of tiny thorns as on the evening of the 7th day, past tortured tree sculptures to scenes all the more bright over green and golden grasses.
Soon we were in a pine forest where we encountered a hiking couple with a very energetic-but-friendly, pack-carrying Pit bull named “Tulip” who I don’t think knew it had a pack on. They did their best to control her but she was all over Theo then and times to come. She was calmer eventually and then we saw her no more.
It was noon and Theo and I had stopped for lunch when Tulip and family came along. By this time I had shifted from meats in cold weather to peanut butter, touted to be the best protein-rich nourishment on the trail. If it was good for me, it must also be good for Theo.
Lunch over, we continued in pine forest for a while until we met another couple whose names I never got. We’d see them a few times up ahead. I remember them first near Isaac’s Cemetery which I photographed intending to show my grandson, Isaac. Haven’t mentioned it so far. It was a neat cemetery in the woods, not far from a paved road and a church.
We’d pass the road and church and continue in a thin pine forest where we met “Sister” who was so named not by a religious order but by her brother. Her smile was infectious and reminds me of what my late brother used to say to his girls when they were little, “Squeeze me with your eyes.” I thought that was one of the neatest expressions. It seemed Sister was doing this to me when I took her picture.
A section of dead pine trees led to a turnoff to Jones Falls which seemed worth the side-trail excursion and it was. Perhaps the most dramatic falls on the whole trail – at least among those I saw. Moosilauke in the Whites would have its own amazing falls but different in character from these – cascades really.
Back on the trail, we came to a wide, shallow stream with a flat, wide, grassy bank on the east side where the trail passed, following the river for some distance. As soon as we reentered the woods, we hit the 400-mile marker some hiker left in sticks on a rock. An easy trail with rhododendron, a stream and mild climbing brought us to the new double-decker Mountaineer Shelter down a steep descent from the trail. Water was down farther. I filled up and went back to the trail where I found a nice flat area to camp.
Even without pictures, I remember how close I pitched my tent to trees and using the crotch of a tree to hang something – pictures tell me it was the water bag that had frozen back at Bald Mountain Shelter five days before. I remember setting up to eat and leaning against a tree to cook, Theo nearby as always. Portuguese, Wonder, Magic-Man and some gal were using the shelter which had ample room. The shelter occupants were busy about supper or planning. They were sober and so was I – there were no exchanges.
It was a clear night and the moon was full. My pictures shift from moon in the sky to the morning sun – but that’s tomorrow.
Day #54 Doll Flats > Mountaineer Shelter 11.8 miles