TRAIL DAY 133
Sat, July 2, 2016 What is it about the trail. Most of our lives are spent in some sort of twilight between womb and tomb, between the natural and the eternal world. In the twilight, we create vast amounts of stuff, including this writing, while in the core of our being, we long for connection with the real – not ink on a page or the electronic interpretation of 0s and 1s on a screen – but REAL!
The time will come when alone and lost in a dense forest with thick undergrowth and a useless compass in the pitch black of night, but for a headlamp reflected in the eyes of my sweet companion, when I will face life-on-the-line real!
Why do we need to hear “The cancer has metastasized” to crack open our hearts? My daughter heard. Let prayers rise up like incense and breathe life in the forest of decay. La Chaim!
Oooh, give me dirt underfoot! Give me a mountain to climb!
We awoke with the other hikers at the Allentown Hiking Club Shelter and, once again, dear JP delved into another book. It was his last day. He was going home and would be taking further steps to make his way to college in Florida in the next month. Other hikers and I were woodland bound. We would commune with boulders, dirt and leaves and trees and the occasional creature of the wild. He was heading into the depth of culture and I was heading away from it.
Henderson the Rain King by Saul Bellow was looking for the most primitive society after his father’s death. I was steeped in primitive, however high-tech my gear. I was living a minimalist life and was very happy doing so. Returning from Africa, Henderson concluded on the animal farm he inherited from his wealthy father, “Hell, pigs don’t have a monopoly on grunting.”
There’s a story of a monk being told to sit by a river in silence to learn from it. As he sat there, a monkey jumped in and splashed revealing what the river had to teach. Free. Alive. Basic. Joyful.
All is right in its own time.
JP would leave me today.
Our shadows preceded us to the pick-up point. We had hiked 3.8 miles and 0.2W to the restaurant on PA 309, a common N/S highway to eastern Pennsylvanians. The restaurant was closed. We waited. The shuttle driver would be there in a half hour. JP paid the driver the $50 to come get him and take him to Port Clinton. We and other hikers entertained Theo and vice versa. I said good-bye to JP with my sincere thanks for his help getting me back on the trail and kick-starting the rest of my hike.
After hiking a couple of miles, we came to a power line. Just before it was a small clearing behind some bushes. There was a fire pit there surrounded by lush green grass. A lovely breeze was blowing and this was an ideal spot to stop for lunch while Theo took a nap resting his head on a stone. After eating, I called Bonnie to tell her I’d bid adieu to JP and was enjoying the sunny day.
The “Knife Edge” is coming up – another of those places that takes on a life of its own. There was just a little aura around this one. It was over so quickly but there were plenty of opportunities for it to turn very uncomfortable.
Before I get there, I must deal with a soul-level recall of my time traversing Pennsylvania. Forgive this diversion but it was part and parcel of the entire adventure.
I was born in Manhattan and raised around the white-pulp, red-skinned Mecca. As a 12-year-old, I commuted into New York for a speed-reading program to address my irregular eye movements as I read. I’m ambidextrous. I throw a baseball right-handed and a football left-handed. When I pole vaulted for 4 years in prep-school, my coach never recognized that I jumped off my left foot and went up the left side of the pole instead of the right my takeoff demanded. I still got to 9’6″ with the old stiff poles but my right thigh would get very painful as the season wore on. When I pole vaulted for a school on a year’s exchange program in England, I took one jump and the coach flipped out. My wires had gotten crossed and he saw it immediately.
Well, I guess my eyes have not known which way to go when I read and I work at it every single day of my life.
My parents were both alcoholics and my brother became one. I was the “white knight” (the color has yellowed over the years) in the family – and the dreamer. Mom was not an intellectual but very creative and glamourous – she could sew anything, including making clothes for Broadway. She could just looked at you and begin cutting. A very strong, no-nonsense, get-it-done woman! I love her dearly. Love my whole family – all 3 of them. They are all in the heavenly ether.
My father and brother used to be critical of me. “Are you of this world?” my father would ask. “You’ll see” was all I ever got out of my brother when I wondered what clever thing he was doing as the younger of the two of us. In any outdoor events, it was always, “Hey, Gard! Wait for me. . . .” Dad and my brother were both named Gardner. My mother whose maiden name is Sorensen (Danish) had hoped for a Sorena but got me.
Mind you, I don’t feel sorry for myself. There are just inner voices we all have that I had to deal with and Pennsylvania became the place where I dealt with the negativity that came at me from my father and brother.
I had made a silent vow that came from my dad’s questioning my origins or my brother’s put-downs: “I’ll show you.” Never spoken but it rose up within like a mythical black stallion of extraordinarily muscular build storing up its energy in a deep dark silence.
Now Pennsylvania is the half-way state on the AT. It is rocky as I’ve said and hard on the feet. It is also my home – the place to which I moved from suburban New York. My birthday and then Pennsylvania were big milestones on the first half of the trail. Beacons to light the way of the emotions. It was also the dividing line between the unknown south and my home turf in the north. Passing through Pennsylvania I was time traveling and time was traveling through me.
“Why’d you do that?”
“You should have gone this way.”
“That was stupid.”
I started hearing those stored inner voices from long ago. My father and brother were being critical of my stepping on this stone instead of that one. Unbidden, the voices were there for many miles – until.
Maybe because I was doing something they could never do – and would never want to do. Because I was doing something I know they would have to admire and respect. Because maybe, at some level below the conscious mind, I was “showing them” by just being me – doing what had been put on my heart to do a long time ago. Because I had said “Yes” to me over all exterior demands and suggestions and requirements. All the “musts” were set aside to answer something deep within me. And it was good. It was right. It was more than right. It was ordained from the beginning of time and God, with Theo, had smiled on it many times already.
Maybe for these almost out-of-reach reasons, I came to a point on the trail where I took charge. I took charge of the voices that were haunting me even from beyond the grave. Were they looking down on me and seeing what I did? Did they see a near fall because of a misstep? Were they consciously aware only of what they could criticize?
I would turn those voices around. I would reprogram them. I would have them consciously aware only of positive moves. Recovery from a misstep.
“Good move!”
“Nice recovery!”
“Good choice!”
I spoke for them knowing that doing so they would have to get in line and follow suit.
“I am in awe at what you are doing. We could never do that. You are a remarkable person – a remarkable human being.”
“CONGRATULATIONS!”
There is only a faint echo of those former voices now. The stronger voices are those I won for myself. The ones I commanded and authored. I don’t need to think on the whys and wherefores of the darker times. I had chosen the trail. I had chosen the light. I had chosen the climb to the summit and I was on my way.
We were heading for the Knife Edge, right?
The second day out with JP, July 1st, we found ourselves in a tall stand of trees by a stream getting water when Applejack showed up. I had heard that he had to go off the trail, return to Columbia, Pennsylvania, 10 miles from my home to recuperate from shin splints. I assumed he was off for good until another season and another attempt. I had thought of him as a strong hiker, certainly younger than I was but not all that much faster than I.
And now – there he was! Back!
“Applejack!”
Big smiles and a very happy hiker – back on the trail – and he seemed to be really motivated. He had a goal and surely it was Katahdin!
As JP and I were getting water and visiting Mother Nature far from the stream, threatening clouds were moving in and Applejack was in a hurry to get to a point where he could set up his hammock. After a quick, surprised and happy reunion, he was gone.
JP and I hiked on, soon to come to the spot Applejack had chosen just in time to get out of the downpour. There he was, under his suspended tarp, dry, ready for the night. JP and I were going to move on ahead feeling ever-so-slightly superior. “OK, you caught up to us but now we’re claiming our lead once again.”
Does that competitive streak ever die out completely?
So JP and I made it to the Allentown Hiking Club Shelter and by 9:30 a.m. we’d be at the point of his departure from the trail. Around noon Applejack whizzed by me like a gazelle. He was on a roll. . . .
At the Knife Edge, Applejack was there waiting to be sure I’d be OK on the dangerous rocks. Now that’s superior! I was fine but I was blessed by his concern. He went on his way and I would not see him again until there was a knock at my door a month or so after I got home, evoking a loud, delightedly surprised, “APPLEJACK!”
Over beers at a nearby hangout I learned that he finished on September 9th, nearly 50 days ahead of me! Who was this guy?
And then I learned that he hiked from Crawford Notch to Osgood Tent Site a distance of 21.6 miles through the Whites, over Webster, Jackson, Pierce, Franklin, Washington, Jefferson and Madison, a distance that took me over 3 days to hike. Who was this guy? Applejack!
And then he returned to Damascus, Virginia from May 19-21 for Trail Days. Jackrabbit – that’s who he is!
I have no idea where Jackrabbit stayed that night after the Knife Edge but Theo and I made it as far as the Bake Oven Knob Shelter. Say what? “Trail in front leads down to multiple water sources, more reliable farther down.” AWOL was 99% reliable. Guthook was an online resource that many used. It was interactive. You could post updates on water sources, etc. It ran off GPS and would tell you where you were on the trail and miles to go to a given destination. You had to have battery and shade to use it. I was happy with 1/8th of AWOL in my pocket rain or shine, battery or no. And that’s where I took the notes I am referencing as I write.
“Bear Rocks” was soon after the Knife Edge and worth the climb off the trail. Theo waited for me down below.
The shelter was just off the trail to the east down a short path and to the left. Camping was to the right. There’d been something said about bears so I hung my food. As I was getting ready to turn in, a couple of guys set up camp nearby. They were respectfully quiet going about their business. I’d chat with them in the morning.
Day #133 Allentown HC Shelter > Bake Oven Knob Shelter 10.0 miles