The High Road

Shenendoah

2005-02-03T16:46:00.000-05:00

Shenendoah
Originally uploaded by Lotus Eater.

Flickr

2005-02-03T16:44:00.000-05:00

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Visions of Johanna

2004-08-06T13:54:00.000-04:00

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'

2004-07-12T14:18:00.000-04:00

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

2004-06-14T00:25:00.000-04:00

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

2004-05-27T20:44:00.000-04:00

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

2004-05-26T14:55:00.000-04:00

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

Picture Link Works

2004-05-17T12:08:00.000-04:00

The link to my pictures now works.

By Jove, That Was a Close One

2004-05-14T10:14:00.001-04:00

I write to you from Earwin, Tennesse, the first town with a movie theater along the Appalachian Trail. I fantasize alot about movies. They are definitely one of the things about civilization I miss most. The Earwin cinema is currently showing "13 Going on 30" and "Scooby Doo Pt. II" (which ends with a shot of Scooby in his Lake Tahoe estate, utterly alone, having ordered the assassination of Shaggy--it is the Great American epic of our times). I am headed to Damascus, Virginia for the weekend to attend Trail Days, the big annual festival in which hikers get drunk together and have a talent show. There is a parade or somesuch, too.

(Day Long Interruption--in Damascus now)

I have never really been what one might call a "hippie" festival-goer, but, in my AT milieu, I figured that this would be a rather interesting experience. After leaving the bar with a few old friends from earlier days on the trail--KTR (who has been fantastic to see), Rocket, etc--and walking back to "Tent City", I think I can fairly say that I am initiated into the tribe. The red bonfire on the mud flat field flame-blackened the surrounding woods, and I entered into a shirtless, shoeless mesh of human beings, their formless writhing fueled by the pulse of one hundred homemade drums and domestic beer. I looked around for the water buffalo.

In anycase it's been fun. But I feel like I should try to fill everyone in on my hike since the Smokies, so I will have to let the Bacchanalia rest for the moment.

I suppose I made passing reference to the fact that I ran into some bad weather. You see, the Smokies are essentially a temperate rainforest, and they are also some of the highest mountains east of the Mississip, so even in late April, one should plan on a good chance of getting wet and cold. Three years ago, I took a trip to the Smokies in mid-March, and, though we stayed at much lower elevation than the AT, the cold rain provided me with an opportunity to get much closer to Peter O'Keefe than I ever though necessary or desirable (bundling is one of the best ways to avoid hypothermia). Well, after two days of rain, I wasn't about to bundle with someone I didn't know that well (I like to take things slowly), and I heard that there were two more days of rain coming, with nightime temperatures in the low 30s. All of my gear was sopping wet. So I hightailed it to the most elegant city in the Volunteer State, Gatlinburg. Good thing, too. Because when I got back on the trail it snowed, sleeted, hailed, and dipped to windy 22 degrees. Of course, 2 days later, right past Davenport Gap where the Smokies turn into Cherokee National Forest, I was walking in humid 86 degree weather. And I only have one bag 4"x8" bag of clothes.

Nevertheless, I did find the trail in Smokies ridiculously gorgeous, though I lost out on some of the best vistas in the park. Once you get up to about 5800 feet or so (the peaks go as high as 6700), you start running into Northern Hardwood forest, which includes my favorite thing in the world, spruce glades. Since a church youth group trip in 6th grade, where we stopped to camp somewhere, I have had this feeling for pine trees that borders on the religious (though it has nothing to do with Espiscopalianism). I can't explain it, really--they just put me at peace.

One last little highlight of the Smokies: I walked 21 miles in one day. It may have mostly graded, downhill walking, it may have been a gorgeous temperate day, I may have been chewing coca leaves (I wish), but I walked twenty miles with a house on my back. As I have said before, I am no speed demon, overly concerned with mileage, but it is actually rather empowering to know that you can do something like that. I have found that, as my physical fitness has improved and I have been walking and camping alone more often, I am possessed of a newfound sense of self-reliance. I'm suppose I'm talking about the kind of mental or psychic strength that I have read about for years in Nietzche or Emerson, and talked about vigorously in bars without entirely understanding it. You know, the knife-self stuff...

The section of trail between the Smokies and Earwin, which is where I'm headed back to tomorrow, is really fantastic, particularly between Hot Springs and Earwin. It's been really challenging terrain (or perhaps it just feels this way since I've been averaging 14-15 miles a day), but May is in full bloom and the mountains are teeming with flowers and thing. One of the most amazing feats of Trail engineering is about 25 miles outside of Hot Springs. For about a mile the AT becomes a narrow ridgeline between sheer drops at 5000 feet up. It involves alot of hand over hand climbing. I had to strap my pole (new piece of gear) to my pack. It was really incredible, especially for someone as scared of heights as myself. It was made even more incredible because I was caught halfway through it in a thunderstorm with a lightning rod on my back. I have, never in my life, scrambled so fast or been so much full of adrenaline. When I finally got towards the end of the section, where there was no four-limbed climbing, I ran down the mountain, in full gear, for about five minutes, until I got to lower elevation (harder to do than it looks). Sex, drugs, and rock n' roll can suck it--Zeus wields far more excitement in his thunderbolt. I will probably not gamble on beating storms for awhile, though. Or I will take the bad weather route, at least.

And now, of course, it is time to talk of the hikers. Those friendly, salty, young and old Martians with Martian names that I walk with day in and day out. Most of the group I stayed with in Fontana Dam moved on out the next day. I stayed on because I do not like hiking after I drink alot of PBR, and I generally like taking days off (which makes me a soft-core hiker, I suppose). However, Waker stayed on too, so I continued hiking with him as I had been doing since the fourth day. The first few days in the Smokies had a few section hikers and one guy going South to complete his hike from Maine (his winter sounds fun). On the third day, I was sleeping in some, and a forty-year old guy named Goggles stopped in the shelter and gave me some cheese. He instantly knew I was a thru-hiker he said, because I ate straight from the hunk. Goggle actually just finished his hike. He did a Southbound last year, but blew out his knees just south of Hot Springs, so he decided to finish the rest Northbound (NOBO) this year.

I have also been hiking with Ole Man, a testament to people who stepped on land mines everywhere. He is in his fifties, and a Vietnam Vet. He originally started the Trail in March with his wife, but she broke her foot four days in (he actually broke his leg in the Smokies on an attempt in 2001). Now she stays in towns that he is headed to and talks to hikers passing through. She is also known to head to gaps and distribute lemonade and coffee to sweaty hikers. I met another group of older folks doing a section-hike, led by a fellow going by the name Model T (his crew, which it is, includes Dragonfly, Too Tall, J-Bird, and some other guy whose name eludes me at the moment). Model T has hike the Trail 3 times. Why? I don't know. But he has a book, which he is selling at a booth at Trails, which I probably buy. He is a master at the art of Yogi-ing. That is, he gets stuff for free without asking. I have seen this in action when he got a breakfast for five taken care of in Hot Springs. Hey Boo Boo.

Let's see, one last round. I'm sort of doing this chronologically, so, imagine if you will that there is 1:1000 time ratio in my meeting these folks to your reading about them. I met a group going by the name of the The Three Stooges (and Shemp) in Hot Springs. They include Joker, Rainmain, My Little Pony, and Crash (with his dog, Cadbury, who carries his own pack which may be the coolest thing I have ever seen). They had slacked a day out of Hot Springs, so they were ahead of me when we met at the Paddler's Pub, but I caught them in Earwin and we rented a car to get to Trail Days together. I also met up with Superstition, who I hiked with for a few days between Hot Springs and Earwin. Very relaxed mellow kind of guy, who grew up on a farm in Oklahoma, but has run some interesting small businesses over the years (like selling teepees to Germans in Hannover).

And the best for last. I having been hearing about him from a number of people, and I figured he would catch me because, though he is slow, he does not zero out. Yes, I am now a good acquaintence of Doc Gnarly, the man who came without a sleeping bag, and during a snowstorm where he was not in a shelter, made a fire and warmed himself by putting hot stones down his pants. The same Doc Gnarly who smokes so much he wakes up in the middle of the night to puff a Marlboro Red. Several times. The same Doc Gnarly who used to be a bodyguard for Alexander Haig in the 70s and 80s (if you are not familiar with Haig, I suggest you learn your own country's history and find out about the Secretary of State who would have been President). In all cases, the man is Doctor Gnarly. He currently teaches jujitsu.

Though I have more stories to tell, I'm sure your eyes are all tired by now. I'll write you more about the Festival and the upcoming Roan Range when I get back to Damascus (I'm about 110 miles away, so I figure it will be Wednesday or Thursday 10 days from now).

Your friendly, neighborhood,
sugarplum

P.S. Since you guys all know me, you probably know I like Cheez-Its with a fair amount of intensity. I had been thinking of them, craving them, really, during a 7 mile, 4000 foot climb, when what should appear on the Trail but four individual, unwrapped, slightly-dirty Cheez-Its. A sign? Perhaps. But I will tell you--they were stale.

My Beard is Getting Respectable

2004-05-08T14:37:00.000-04:00

So I can't really write today because the library is closed and the Hot Springs Outfitters is generous enough to lend me what little time they have. In anycase, I just got out of a relaxing mineral bath and I need either a nap or a beer.

I have come out of the Smokies (through the wild and windy weather as Woody might say) with only a short stop in Gatlinburg to chat up a hot chick from the Army (just back from Iraq-101st Airborne, very intense) and dry out. I am writing down the last ten days reflections by hand and I will post it as soon as I can get two hours at some library. I'm hoping that will be Erwin, Tennessee, which is the first stop out of the NC/TN borderland I have been walking for the last 150 miles. I may just have a story or two. Here's a haiku, since I must be brief:

The Smokies' summits
Smell like spearmint leaves steeping
Even through the rain.

BTW, Up is a granola Texan boy and Down (Big D) is a tiny little Chinese girl. They have provoked alot of comment.

I just walk along/I stroll and I sing
I see better days/and I do better things,

Sugarplum

I love the Ziploc corporation

2004-04-27T12:29:00.000-04:00

To begin with, I just want to let you all know that I am about 4 days ahead of schedule, and I will be anywhere from four to six days ahead of schedule through Damascus, VA.

Unfortunately, I can't really write a full entry today since the computer terminal I am at costs 25 cents per minute (and I spent about 20 already reading back issues of the onion). However, I will give everyone a brief update of my last week on the Trail and things I have been thinking about.

First off, the blind guy. I'm not sure how many of you know about the blind guy who walked the Trail several years ago, but I continue to be impressed with him as I pick my way through rock gardens and ridges with sheer drop-offs. He had a seeing-eye dog, true, but, even if we are to agree to the proposition that a seeing-eye dog can find and recognize white and blue blazes, we are still left unsatisfied with the dog's ability to understand the concept of North. Also, the blind guy writes that he fell only about 4000 times, twice a mile. This is not that bad. I have fallen maybe 10 times so far (an 1 per 16 mile avg.) and I can see quite well. Even more impressive is the fact that the blind guy only got lost 70 times. If the Trail is 2100 miles long, this means he got lost once every 30 or so miles. My average, currently, is once every 50 miles. So I have come to have great, great respect for this blind walker.

Really, I have alot of respect (sometimes mixed with humor) for anyone who walks the Trail with some handicap, god-given or self-imposed. My favorite person this year has to be this kid people are calling Santa. He is 18 or 19 and is relying on Jesus to help get to Maine. He carries his gear (no food--manna is what he is expecting), get this, in a black garbage bag slung over his shoulder. Santa...

I am walking right now with a guy going by the name Brother, who is, essentially, a Buddhist monk, though he does not follow the teachings of any one person. For the last two years, he has not worked for cash; rather, he works on a room and board basis only. He also came without any food (he didn't eat for the first 40 hours) and is relying on hiker boxes and other. More wisely than Santa, Brother is carrying a pack.

Oh, and what of me and my trail. Well, it looks as if Sugarplum (slash the fairy part, thank god) has stuck. Cupcake and Down started calling me Sug (s w/hachek, pronounced shug) when last I wrote, and it has not gone away though neither are with me any longer.

In fact, I had a pretty different group of hikers I was walking with during the second week. There was kind of a group of 5 that I was camping with for awhile (Solace, KTR, Cupcake, and Waker)--3 are off the trail, Solace for good and the other two for injury time. Lately I have been keeping time with a group of four consisting of the Lorax, Zami, Nissa the Hobbit, and Darrin. Darrin and the Lorax are normal mid-20s guys, Nissa is this 18 yr. old girl from Manatawauk, WI with an obsession for real medieval cuisine, and Zami is a 50 yr. old Israeli, whose pastimes include walking on European pilgramages and criticizing the Likud government. Two guys from UNC, Windowpain and Red Beard, have also been around a few days. Windowpain got his name last night (from me) when he, well, drunkenly walked into the door.

Another fellow, Lint, is a health nut when it comes to food, but to balance this out, he drinks whiskey and smokes 10 or 15 cigarettes a day. Lint is kind of like an outdoorsy punk. He is tatooed from head to foot, enjoys dumpster diving for his food, and is a proud non-breeder (vasectomy '01). He's also very knowledgeable about anarcho-syndicalism. The Green Mountain Man (a rabid libertarian), Lint, and I had a fiesty three-way argument a few nights ago (Lint also shared a few nips of his bourbon, which I believe makes him a Trail Archangel). Mama Bear and Spider, two hippie chicks are also in my realm. They have grown on me since they started running low on grass and were forced to live on the planet earth some of the time.

The walk itself has also been great lately. The weather, except for yesterday has been perfect, and now, at lower elevation we are really getting into spring (Brother has shown me how to find edible greenbriar leaves). Actually, the rain yesterday was really rather beautiful; walking through a misty green tunnel (and I mean the greenest possible green I can concieve) was quite an experience. The terrain has become a bit rougher, but I am getting into shape, and can manage it. I enter the Smokies tomorrow.

From Fontana with Love,
Sugarplum

Sumwhurs down on the Chattahooch

2004-04-17T10:42:00.000-04:00

I have stopped cursing at the mountains.

No, I no longer reach a summit and gasp out such creative slurs as "Fuck you, mountain" or "Jesus fucking Christ". Instead, I find myself calmly pointing out a mountain's flaws, which include, but are not limited to, uphill and downhill.

Had I known a week ago what I know today about hiking, I would be sleeping-in in Cincinnati. It turns out that walking around with the equivalent of a chimpanzee on your back is hard. I did not suspect this the first day out. Indeed, except for the first .9 mile climb to the summit of Springer Mt. which I "slackpacked" (i.e. not a full pack), the first day was mostly downhill. There was a bit of an up around the end of the day, but nothing significant, and I was fresh. I arrived at Hawk Mt. shelter about 3:30 (7.5 mi in 4 hr, pretty good) and met up with some other hikers. We had a grand old time, talking about what it would be like in Virginia or Maine.

And then the second and third days reared their ugly heads.

I am ill-equipped to describe to anyone the kind of shape that I am in. If you have seen my send-off pictures, you can begin to understand, I suppose. (I bought my shirts to grow into, and I am beginning to fit these days, thank you very much). Well, anycase, the second day started off fantastic. I took a wrong turn and hiked up a summit that wasn't on the trail. Then I walked the mile downhill and begin my real 7.8 mile hike. But hey, I made it, even though the last hour was an agony. It was not sleeping that night and trying to keep up with some mile-happy folks on a 12 miler in the cold rain the next day that really sucked. I did not make it 12 miles. I got through ten, gave up in disgust and pitched my tent in a thunderstorm for my first ever solo night in Deliverance National Forest.

Fortunately, the Trail smiled on me just a little. My bag stayed dry (not my food bag though), and I was awakened by a--yes--Trail Angel. Some guy walking south and calling himself Flatfeet gave me breakfast (PB&J, cookies, and crackers). I made a short 7 miler to Neel's Gap where I slept in a hostel during a snowy night. One of the nice thing about Neel's Gap (which is a solitary store/hostel at road crossing) is a tradition called the Shakedown. That's when past thru-hikers tell you what to send home to lighten your load.

Now, ever since the first day, when I was talking about pack weight with some other hikers and found I was carrying about 10 lbs. more than the average, I had been meticulously planning, dreaming and fantasizing about what to send home. I had got maybe 5 pounds off in my mind (so down to about 48-9). At Neel's they were more thorough, so that with full water and 6 days of food I am at about 43. (Oh yeah, that 10 days of food thing is the most preposterous idea I can imagine at this point). But my feet and and back are singing now and in the last three days I did an 11 (through snow), 14.9 (very difficult on the second half--the first 7.8 took about 3:00, the rest about 6:00), and another 10. I got to the bustling metropolis of Hiawasse, GA (8.8 miles from North Carolina) for a Friday night party at the Hiawasse Inn that has given the group of people I know a reputation as the rowdiest bunch of thru-hikers yet.

So, onto the weirdo trail-not-civilization part: The Hikers. I am walking, off and on, with Solace, Kicks the Rocks (KTR), Cupcake, Waker, Jaws, Twinkle Toes, Slow Train, Rooster, Up and Down (a couple), Sassafrass, Walkabout, Rocket, Grits, Buckwild, Zuma (the Georgia ATC Ridgerunner), Sarge, Lieutenant Dan, and Amy (who may have become the Hobbit this morning). I am still Jeff, though there has been much speculation on what I should be called. It's kind of like a primary. Currently, the front-runner is the Sugarplum Fairy. Down was talking about trying to give guys cute names like Fuzzy Bunny and I mentioned, stupidly, Oh you could call someone the Sugarplum Fairy. Then Up said, yeah, we could call you SPF. A chain of events seems to have been set in motion, though I am waiting things out. But now, some of the girls are calling me Sug, and I am thinking of taking Plum or Plums (for the guys-- though I don't mind being called Sug by the females, especially by Cupcake who has the correct Southern accent--it also makes me kind of ghetto and death row). Some of the other contenders are Rambo, a Kucinich that stems from the way I wear my bandanna, the Professor (because I brought too many damn books and know too many damn facts), and my least favorite, Mudbutt, from a spill I took the second day. I shall soon be something, in anycase.

It's a different bunch of folks, mostly about 30-35. Solace and KTR are twins from NH and just about every other state. Solace is a hockey radio announcer and KTR is a real mountain man who actually runs on the trail (which is exceeding difficult). He did a 23 mile day in six and one half hours. Jaws is an older guy with a salty sense of humor who did a Southbound (read: stupid, cold, lunatic) thru-hike last year. The last few days, I have been at about even pace with Waker and Cupcake. Waker is theater technician from NYC, about 29 or 30, and Cupcake is a 35 year old waitress/designer from Raleigh. She came about her name from the grey streaks in her hair--Grits said she was a Cupcake beacuse she was sweet with frosting on the top. There are lotsa other folks, all with similarly disparate and usually interesting backrounds. Lieutenant Dan, an absolutely hysterical army recruiter, who was deciding whether or not to re-up, decided yesterday to leave the Trail, go to college and become a teacher. He'd had a few conversations about education with Sassafrass (high school math teacher), some guy I don't know, and me. Sarge may be everyone's favorite hiker. He is about 68 or 70 and almost totally deaf. He has a hearing aid that does not seem to work, and he wakes everyone up in the morning shouting in perfect geezer pitch things like, "There's about six inches of snow out there" and othersuch. I think a vocal imitation is the only justice that can be done for him.

One thing I have noticed about thru-hikers is that this is not their first entrance in the wide world. Most have lived in scores of different places and a minority have one place they can say they grew up. Everyone is well-traveled, and likes to talk to strangers (everyone else). The hiking is great and I am hourly captivated by some facet of the trail or nature (I am also beginning to like the walking as my legs firm up and my lungs clear out), but I must say that, at the moment, I am most amazed at the bizarro social world of the trail, where there is actually communication through shelter registers and stones on the ground.

It also turns out that I appreciate beer and fried chicken more than I can I ever hope to relate.

Not a preppie, not yet a hippie,
Jeffrey (as yet)

the future

2004-04-08T12:31:00.000-04:00

This is a test. In the not too distant future, I wil get married on a blog. To a robot.
aml

neato

2004-04-08T10:55:00.000-04:00

Hi Jeffery just checking this thingy works...

keep on trucking
wuv
sara

Itinerary

2004-04-08T03:00:00.000-04:00

Place	ETA
Springer Mountain	10-Apr
Neel's Gap, Walasi-Yi Center, GA 28734	14-Apr
Fontana Dam, NC 28733	30-Apr
Hot Springs, NC 28743	12-May
Hampton, TN 37658	26-May
Pearisburg, VA 24134	9-Jun
Waynesboro, VA 22980	25-Jun
Harpers Ferry, W.Va. 25425	3-Jul
Duncannon, PA 17020	14-Jul
Delaware Gap (Mid-Terminus)	23-Jul

*Many thanks to Matthew Hanlon for HTML help.

This chart is a list of the town in I have chosen to pick up mail drops. Should you want to send me a letter or check or package full of worms, I have generously included the addresses of these post offices. Any letter to me should be in the format:

Jeffrey Greggs
General Delivery
Anytown, Appalachia 12345

You also might want to write Hold for AT Hiker somewhere on the envelope or (and I'm stretching here) box. This itinerary is only tenative, and I will update the ETAs should they change.

If Champagne Came in Virtual Bottles...

2004-04-08T02:43:00.000-04:00

...now would be the time to break one. I am leaving for Springer Mountain, the southern terminus of the Appalachian Trail (or, as the big boys at Parks and Recreation say, the AT) in less than 48 hours. It is my goal to reach Mt. Katahdin in Maine in something rather more than 2 days. I want to use this site as means of keeping anyone who is interested in my expedition informed of my activities. Those of you who are my friends, i.e. close enough to have given me your email address, will be invited to be members so you can comment on what are bound to be incredibly pretentious, Proustian exercises in autobiography. I also hope to have create a link to some pictures I will take along the way. In anycase, I thought I might initiate this little travelogue a few days early to give everyone some sense of how I am holding up under the anticipatory weight of my own lunacy. Also, I thought I might provide something in the way of a cursory introduction to the Trail, it environs, and how to prepare for hiking it. Finally, I want to relate to you my first real trail adventure, which I experienced in Milford, OH, about 400 miles off the actual AT.

So, for those of you whose ears have not suffered the numerous repetitions of my pre-hike trail and gear talk, here are some general facts and figures regarding the AT. The Appalachian Trail wends its way for 2,164 (or so) miles through fourteen different states. Over 260 shelters, at an average distance of 10 miles apart, dot the trail for those stupid enough to hike it. The Southern Appalachians include Georgia (albino-banjo-pickin'country), North Carolina (moonshin' country), Tennessee (cousin-kissin' country), and Virginia (fightin'-off-revenuers country). This is not to suggest that these activities only occur in the one state; indeed, I have found that the claw-hammer, hooch, inbreeding, and hostility to the federal government are highly correlated with one another. But back to the Trail--there is a short stop in Harper's Ferry, West Virginia that is considered the AT's spiritual mid-point, mainly because it is 1) the headquarters for the Appalachian Trail Council (ATC) and 2) it stands on the Mason-Dixon line. During the Mid-Atlantic section of the trail, you walk through Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York. If you're lucky and have not been eaten by a bear or Yankee fan in New York, you get to complete the New England Leg of the journey going through Conneticut, Massachussets, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine.

The Appalachian Trail is not like an interstate highway. There are very few McDonald's and Popeye's along the way (McGORP tastes like shit in anycase--I hear that their raisins are 70% soy). It is essentially one long, green tunnel that spikes its way up and down the eastern seaboard. Though you do come across roads pretty much everyday, and towns every week, the AT is a generally isolated corridor of protected wilderness. Walking the whole thing should be pretty fun, eh? What with all the bears, coyotes, giardia, hantaviruses, scurvy, hippies and rain, it's as if we are seeing a picture of heaven.

In fact, the AT was originally concieved in a fit of utopian dreaming by it spiritual founder, Benton McKaye, in 1921. He envisioned a series of alternative communities of ex-proletarians living in work camps, study camps, and other joyfully toilsome camps, all connected by the ridgeways of the Appalachian Mountain Range. Arbeit macht freude, no? Sadly, proles everywhere had to keep their jobs in dingy urban (unfroliche) factories, and the only bits of McKay's vision that have been realized are the ones dealing with conservation and trail linkage. Today, many people live along the Trail and volunteer their valuable time to its upkeep, making sure it's pristine for hobos like me. These people are known as Trail angels and they evidently perform Trail magic (more of which later) for thru-hikers. While I am excited to see these "angels" with my own eyes, I have feelings of ambivalence with regard to the existence of a Trail God , and I suspect that much Trail magic is simply caused by accidental Trail phenomena.

Questions of the Absolute aside, there is definitely what can be called Trail Society. In addition to the Trail angels, the society is, of course, peopled by hikers. There are day hikers, section hikers and (William Safire be damned) thru-hikers. There is quite a bit of communication up and down the Appalachian ridgeway. It is, however, more akin to pre-telegraphic ages--word of mouth and shelter registers record and pass on news--than anything in contemporary society. In Trail society, people mostly go by their Trail names, which operate on the same concept as CB and IM handles. I am not quite sure how one comes across their Trail name; personally, I would prefer to have mine bestowed upon me by other hikers, but I know, for instance, that some woman from Cincinnati who is hiking this year gave herself the name Ladybug. One person I know did not want to bother with the whole trail name business. He went with his first name, which, luckily, is Walker. Some non-hiker friends of mine have suggested that I use the name Spitoon, but I am holding out for something a little more poetic.

Enough of this trail history. It is time to move on to a topic, albeit boring, that I know more about: PREPARATION, or as I like to say, the Type B person's finest hour. Essentially, there are two kinds of preparation, mental and physical. The physical can be broken down into two aspects, gear prep and supply prep. I figure I'll go through the physical stuff first, since this is the area that could prove most troublesome for my humanities-oriented mind. I don't know if any of you have ever agonized over buying, say, a prom dress or a used car, but if you experienced anything like the uncertainity and anxiety I had in selecting boots, a tent (do I even need one?), raingear, and other such, then my sympathies go out to you. You see, when you are buying what is to be the entireity of your household for six months and are fairly sure that it needs to be able to survive well through typhoon or atomic blast-like conditions, you want to be deeply convinced that you are getting the best product available. You also want it to weigh next to nothing because you know that you're going to have to hump all the way to fucking Maine. I have never really been into top-shelf material consumption (though I am on solid ground with top-shelf alcoholic consumption), so I had to buy all of this stuff (about $1000 worth) based on other people's recommendations. Now, if you know me, you'll know that ignorance does not suit my image of self. It turns out that it does not suit my sleeping patterns very well either. However, I have made my bed, literally, and, at this point, I have decided to be reluctantly satisfied with my decisions.

Here's a brief list of the more important things I bought: a Northface Cat's Meow Sleeping Bag, a ThermaRest Ultralite 3 sleeping pad, an MSR Whisperlite Stove (which even burns gasoline), an REI Roadster solo tent (nightmares persist on this one), Patagonia Capilene long underwear, shirts, and boxer briefs, Asolo Fugitive GTX boots (I can't begin to describe the ideologically-torn world of boot purchase), a Patagonia R2 Fleece jacket, SmartWool Socks ($$$), and so forth. I would link to a total suggested list, but, once again, we are in murky philosophical waters here. The best available one, if you are interested, appears to me to be the ATC Thru-Hike Preparation Workbook, which can be purchased at the ATC online store.

Onto supplies. Supplies are those pesky things that you run out of. Because you have to eat, drink, and go to the bathroom nearly every day. Obviously, food is the most important and most complicated item on this list, so I will focus the conversation accordingly. While you can ressupply in towns along the way, you cannot count on a well-stocked hiker's grocery in Hiawasse, GA. Most hikers solve this problem with the instrument of the maildrop (which also provides the opportunity to refill on medicines, TP, water purifiers, etc). A maildrop is pretty self-explanatory--you send yourself a package of goods and pick it up when you walk into the town's post office. I have eight scheduled through the Delaware Gap, each consisting of 10-12 days of supplies. This means I will have to fend for myself for about 20 days of food between Saturday and July. No problem. I am very knowledgeable about mushrooms and berries, and I believe that I could kill and eat a fellow hiker or two if it came to that.

So, OK, maildrops. What will do they contain in regard to menu options, you ask? About three weeks ago, I turned the prep focus to diet and food. As I opened to the first chapter of the ATC's Food Planner, I was struck by the first sentence: " You should begin planning and researching logistics a full six months before the hike begins". Ahh, excellent, I thought, I am merely five months and one week behind the recommended schedule. Plenty of time to hastily prepare my death from malnutrition. However, after a spell of mild cardiac arrest, I looked further into the book and was able to find comfort in the fact that its author was a control-obsessed lunatic with a dogmatic sense of open air gourmet. Imagine, if you please, a lady who dehydrates everything from scratch. Many of her recipes call for oregano, thyme, garlic, onion, and chili powder as if, along with your tent, you brought a spice rack. So, no surprise that I have pretty much thrown out the Planner and done some work of my own. Which is to say I went to Bigg's Supermarket and bought all of the rice, pasta, and soup mixes in the store. It was kind of fun. I just went in, found my aisle and shoveled everything into the cart. I'm afraid I also rather drastically reduced their stocks of vacuum-sealed tuna. My meals look pretty repetitive and boring, but I think they will suffice. Here is a sample day: oatmeal at breakfast, energy bar for snack, tuna and bit of cheese for lunch, gorp (that's good old raisins and peanuts--Matt Hanlon remix) for snack, pasta/beans/rice/soup for dinner. I have also invested in some good multi-vitamins.

As I mentioned earlier, preparing for the Trail has its psychic requirements, too. As to what they are, I can hardly tell you. More than anything else, it seems to me that the Trail requires a lack of fundamental good sense. Or at least a very cogent set of reasons for voluntarily undertaking the kind of unneccessary hardships that the hike entails. I suppose mental preparedness is signified by mental clarity, such that a series of questions about the Trail could be easily answered. For instance, why would anyone sleep in a rodent-infested shelter when they could sleep in a Manhattan apartment where the rodents are mostly under control? Why walk when you can drive? And, what about showers, don't you like bathing? Yes, the prospective thru-hiker had better have some damn good answers for people when they ask such questions. The toughest (and by extension, most important) question is: Why do you want to walk the Trail?

I don't really have an answer to this question (or any question outside bathing one). I find it funny when people ask me the Question, and while I ramble through my vague reply, they try to fill in that one great reason that trumps everything else for me. "Oh" they say, "you're trying to find yourself" or "you've always dreamed about going on a grand adventure, now is your chance". Sometimes fill-in-the-Jeff tries to reach a little bit deeper--"you're trying to do something independently of your friends for once" or "you're trying to escape from the bad habits and stress of post-adolescent city life". However, I like it most when people just shake their heads, and say, "You're doing what now?"

Almost all of the reasons do play a part in my mind. I am going to make myself after a fashion (not find--there's nothing there). I have always dreamed about grand adventures. I do need to do something independently for a change. I do need to escape from the bad habits and stress of post-adolescent city life. I'm doing what now?

There is this one fantasy I have about the Trail that I cannot help but regard with a bit of a skeptical, giggling eye. It is a vision of walking, foot after foot after foot; it is a idea of myself in perpetual motion, oblivious to anything but the walking, following the pull of an nearly imaginary, absurd lodestone somewhere in the middle of Maine. I am convinced in the belief that this walking, after the first few weeks, requires a tyrannical sense of purpose, a whetting of the knife-self to sublime sharpness. And it's not really so important that I get to Katahadin (the northern terminus), so much as I get anywhere under the mantle of that single-minded purpose. I spoke about needing clarity in one's causes earlier, but I think that clarity is more my desired result for the hike than its source. I am (un)luckily afflicted with a preternatural restlessness, and I feel like the Trail may be, for me, its spiritual realization.

I don't mean to represent myself as having doom and gloom, sturm und drang expectations for the Trail. It turns out that I am someone who relishes 90% of the pleasures that are not too-hot-for-TV and nearly 60% of the pleasures that are. I am incredibly, wildly excited for this walk. I am also scared out of my wits. Because after all, what the hell am I doing?! I don't like rain. I don't like walking uphill with 40 pounds on my back. I don't like bears outside the circus and I don't like mosquitoes outside hell. I don't like sleeping on the ground and I don't like shitting in the woods and I wish I could just get there so I could stop thinking about what it may be like because I've been thinking about it for the last three goddamn months So I may or may not be ready for the Trail...

But I think I am ready to start walking.

On a closing note, I want to leave you all with an episode that I've decided marks the start of my expedition. For I, Jeffrey Greggs, do solemnly attest to witnessing an act of Trail magic, on this very afternoon of April 7, 2004. I was at my local outdoor shop, picking up a few last-minute odds and ends. As I was standing in line for the cash register, a lady in her late middle age struck up a conversation with me. She asked me why I was buying so much moleskin (blister pads). I explained to her that I was going to try to hike the AT and told her I was stocking up for future maildrops. She asked me how far I was going, and I replied that I would go as far as money and will power would carry me. Then we chatted about her daughter, a hiker who lives in North Carolina, and her own school days in Virginia. Anycase, she left, and, after paying, I followed suit. As I was walking to my car, she came up to me with money in her hand (something like $15), told me to take it, and apologized for how little it was. Of course, I profusely thanked her and asked her several times for her address so I could send her a note from the trail, but all she would tell me was that her name was Joan and that she hoped I'd have a great time.

What a fucking racket I've got going (for someone uses the word "knife-self" with increasing frequency).

Until we meet again,
Jeffrey