TRAIL DAY 108
Tue, June 7, 2016 Oh friends – oh friends. . . . Hold on to life. Find that turn of events, that twist in the road, that high point, that silence in the deep that makes your heart skip a beat to shout out to your inner ear, I AM HERE! I AM HERE! I am alive!
Say YES!
What choice do you have?
To let go of the rope floated out to you – to let it pull away?
Say YES!
As I write in 2017, I have received news that could end a life – but it won’t! All the sweeter is the nectar of the day. Drink it in and pass the cup on – DRINK deeply; drink long; pass it on.
Hear Alfred Lord Tennyson’s Ulysses:
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees
for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Culled essence like the gift of the flower to the hummingbird.
As I trekked through the woods this sunny morning, a young fawn darted off with such speed and skill you would think it were running through an open field. The trail wound down a hillside and turned left, soon to ascend to a dirt road. You could see that trees had been cleared up ahead but you didn’t know if it was for a field or road until you got there because of the elevation. There were no pylons suggesting a right of way for overhead powerlines.
As I climbed out of the woods onto the dirt road, I was greeted by Trail Angels – a middle-aged couple who had crossed this very road one year ago to the day. Their trail names were “Count” and “Lavender.” They had a pick-up truck with the tailgate down and food on board for hikers. They also had a table set up with more food, a cooler for drinks and there were the typical cloth folding chairs with mesh slung from a hole in the arm to hold a cup. A chair to “take a load off!”
I did just that and happily munched a couple of sandwiches and swilled one or two cold drank.
Of course, we got to talking and introduced ourselves. The lady asked me where I was from and I replied, Lancaster, Pennsylvania. She hesitated a moment and then asked:
“Do you have a son named Christopher?”
“Yes,” I replied.
This was the very couple Christopher had picked up in Vermont and told of my plans to hike the trail at 75 the next year with my dog. Here I was with a white beard and a dog. Lavender’s journal wish had come true – and I was the astounded beneficiary.
That Christopher would be in Vermont where and when they were.
That he would tell them of my plans with my dog!
That she would make her journal entry!
That they would return to the dirt road with Trail Magic on June 7th!
That I would cross this same dirt road on June 7th as they had done a year before!
Say what?
I was flabbergasted!
I called Christopher on the spot and gave the phone to Lavender. He joined me in a flabbergast and said, “God is smiling on your adventure, Pop!”
Oh, how true it was! The whole time. Again and again, I felt blessed with good weather just when you’d want it, the abundant kindness of people, chance meetings, good health and, when there was an issue, good care.
Many years back, I found myself thinking, the one who benefits most from a book is the author. My recall day by day of my trek on the Appalachian Trail has been providing me with a vehicle to express things lodged within my body, mind and soul for years, taking shape as I age and surfacing over time as the bright lights of Gotham dim.
I repeat, I need no more input. I have enough inside to ex-press and it is my great joy to get on with it at last. The boots-on-the-ground AT has led me to the inner landscape of an endless trail traveled best, for me, in excavating the most searching words I can to erect, I pray, a lasting monument to Earth and Sky. Words are but gossamer veils merely hinting at the exquisite art they drape and colorful pictures accompanying them can only suggest the windswept reality of endless mountain waves stretching forward to the arched horizon of this orb housing fragile life formed and surviving here beyond all comprehension.
As Count, Lavender and I tried to absorb the goodness of what had just happened, along came a fellow thru-hiker, “Tailspin.” He was in his 20s and had a very pleasant way about him.
We all chatted briefly while Tailspin removed his pack for a brief respite. He didn’t sit or eat but did have a soda. He was soon ready to move on and I decided to follow. When I put on my pack, Tailspin noticed my “lifter straps” were extended. Here I had hiked with this pack a total of 1406.5 miles ever since I began training in 2010 all the way to this spot and I had not bothered to take account of my lifter straps, a term I had not heard before. They connect the top of the shoulder straps to the body of the pack and allow for a shorter or greater angle between the two. There are still straps and vinyl-covered loops on my pack whose use I can only guess at. I think some are for carrying trekking poles when not needed but I stick the tops of mine through my right shoulder strap and under my arm although very seldom. As I said before, I don’t tie things to the outside of my pack. Others who do not observe this perhaps overly-tidy approach surely make more use of the mysterious straps than I do.
Anyhow, tightened lifter straps helped and I was glad for Tailspin’s input. He was generous to care enough to observe and offer assistance. The whole time at this road crossing was blessed by the helpful instinct in man – being there for each other. This is the way of thru-hikers who carry on day after day impelled by a quiet inner drive which they recognize and honor in their fellow.
Tailspin took a picture for me of his three amazed companions and then it was time to hike. An hour and a half in I took a picture of a curious, rough-hewn sign reading:
APPALACHIAN TRAIL
RT 7 625 MI
As I reviewed this to refresh my recollections for today’s verbal offering, I wondered if I was reading the sign correctly. I zoomed in and didn’t see any decimal point. Why would there be a sign telling me that RT 7 was 625 miles away? Was RT 7 so special that it warranted this very early reference? What state was it in? Was it Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont? Was it the RT 7 I’d hitch-hiked many times as a boy and drove many times as a fundraiser for my prep school?
Hitchhiking was safer in the 1950s and I often thumbed from Springdale, Connecticut where I grew up to Camp Mohawk in Litchfield Connecticut or even back to Mount Hermon School in northern Massachusetts. When I returned to Mount Hermon School on a one-year contract to raise funds after graduation from Yale, one of my initial territories was Vermont whose main north-south artery is Route 7!
I checked AWOL and found that 625 miles forward brought me northeast of Bennington, VT. Google searches for the trail in the region were unsuccessful. The sign will just have to remain a curiosity both as to its accuracy and intent. Was there a trail maintainer out there from New Englander who just wanted to note how far he was from his homeland?
My pictures tell me also the AT was coming into some rocky areas and that I had run into my first squirrel. They also tell me that it rained for a while just as I arrived at the 1000-mile sign at 3:00 p.m. Only 1189.1 miles to go. I guess 1000 miles qualifies you as a long-distance hiker.
In the next 3 hours of hiking westward vistas like those in the Shenandoah would open up and I would arrive at The Bears Den, a hostel just off the trail. It was a small stone castle built by a doctor for his wife who loved music and entertaining at this country estate. An alcove inside was built for its acoustical value. Bunks were downstairs. A sitting room by a stone fireplace was upstairs and a dining room with several blond, shellacked picnic tables. There was a nice kitchen to prepare supper. The price for the night entitled you to a pint of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, a soda and all the fixings to make your own pancake breakfast.
Notices, articles about the Hostel, stuff about the trail and the early visionaries were posted on bulletin boards.
The grounds were beautiful and I wandered out to the end of the mowed lawn at dusk to find a handyman with a guitar by a fire.
A hundred miles or so south of Bear’s Den, I had called Merrell from the trail. My decision at Four Pines to keep the Moabs didn’t last and my feet were really giving me trouble. Merrell had an agent call me. She was willing to do anything she could to get me in the right boot. She connected me with an outfitter in Purcellville, Virginia, and was willing to meet me there to do whatever she could. We called back and forth over the next several days trying to work out schedules and the end result was that I would go to the outfitters myself and they would set me up with whatever worked for me – all on Merrell.
I called the outfitter and a nice man said he would come and pick me up in the morning before his shop opened and do what he could to get me in the right boot. He knew Merrell had already approved this. He would pick me up at 8:00 a.m.
I visited a little upstairs and down. My bunk was at the back right corner of the downstairs. A hall led to this back room and midway there was a door to a bunk room off to the left. There was a TV in the back room with several folks around it watching things that would never interest me. The shower and bathroom were catty-corner from my bunk and I took my turn.
A mother and daughter were in a double-decker bunk across from mine and some fellow was above me. Soon it was quiet enough to turn in.
Day #108 Rod Hollow Shelter > Bears Den Hostel 9.9 miles