Date: 2012-04-02
From: Winding Stair Gap

To: Burningtown Gap
Miles today: 13.7

I woke up thinking about the color orange. Wobbles' solid shirt, the standing equality slash marks on the rock face the three of us had passed by in a strait on the way to 100 miles. ¢I I¢ in orange spraypaint.Halfway between ¢caution¢ and ¢stop.¢ but much more alive than dead. Cauterize and continue. I met a hiker, Bam!, who sounded and looked as though he'd been hit in the face with a baseball bat. ¢You uh, you missed cinnabuns and oranges back at Winding Stair Gap today!¢ he said. Hmn, hard to skin. Would rather have a grapefruit any day. ¢Good thing I stocked up on that homemade cake trail magic yesterday¢ I said.It had been very innovative. A pully system with one end tied to a tree which lowered down...a laundry hamper? A glorified trash can? No, a plastic bin filled to the top with individually wrapped, fresh baked cakes: chocolate cake with icing to match, vanilla with chocolate topping, marble coffee cake with crumbs, and banana bread. Courtesy of a former thru-hiker named Ginger Snap. ¢Oh yeah, that was great,¢ Bam!said. ¢I admit it: I took like two of each,¢ I said. There had definitely been enough. O¢Too much i' th' sun¢ at USFS 69, prattling on about Nordic movies to two foreigners. Met with deadpan sex.¢'Fast Cash.' Ever heard of that movie?¢But they didn't know I'd already been to Franklin. I took some lunch hours at Wayah Bald (5,342 feet) reading Much Ado About Nothing. Wished they sold collapsible traffic cones at REI so I could temporarily take over a patch of trail I liked to be alone in. There's a place for them inside my Ospray Xenon 70 pack in terracotta, bought on Brokenland Parkway.¢Go Lite¢ isn't really my motto, despite the flourishes of ultraLite backpacking gear I'd seen all around me. Mostly guys hike the trail in general, but it's mostly the guys who sport the new, neon, designer stuff. It's a conspiracy when they fly by so fine, smelling like day hikers. But who has the time, money, or will to go into town that often? I finished my lunch in silence, feeling generally disgusted. Zero-range. Homeless cowgirl. Just keep going thru the world and act as if you make sense.OI caught up with Wobbles and Voltron around what I'm guessing was 3:35. I'd been speeding since that morning so it was good to sit down among kindred spirits. Wobbles was calm sitting on the log beside me in windbreaker shorts. His pale thighs were shapely like a woman's. Voltron checked the guide book to get a hang on where we were, and I suddenly felt the urge to sing:¢I want to be your dashing white knight,Bum bum!¢I jittered the theme from Bertolucci's 1968 film Partner, shifting my eyes back and forth, very nervy and intense. But it was alright. They understood.Wobbles showed me how to roll my own cigarettes. I'd never even rolled my own joints before so it was good to get the distribution and tightness just the way I wanted. After watching him rolling it up with a dollar bill then trying a few times myself I had it down. The ends were tucked in and no loose tobacco fell out. A part of me wanted to hike with them, but I didn't want to impinge and besides, I figured it would be difficult matching my pace to a man's. I didn't know this at the time, but traveling with all your ducks in a row isn't necessary on the Appalachian Trail ¢ and it's not even preferred. I learned that all that's really necessary is for the members of a group to meet up at the same agreed destination at the end of the day. But it took me awhile to figure this out. The itinerary for the day made me laugh: ¢Swinging Lick Gap¢ was .2 from where I'd begun that morning, and somebody had changed the ¢L¢ on the sign to a ¢D.¢ Panther Gap, then ¢Wayah Gap,¢ whatever that meant, followed by ¢Wine Spring.¢I stopped at an unnamed campsite to get water and, despite the late hour, I decided to night hike at least a few hours. I felt more comfortable apart from the large group staked out in the fields. Privately I sang to myself as the water filtered. I would have felt pretty stupid if somebody had come by and seen me, but here with this waterfall cascading behind me I hopped from rock to rock, grinning wide and saluting the surrounding trees with outstretched arms. As I walked on into the night, I praised the beauty of North Carolina. The heavy violet dusk could fade to black without alarming me. My soul was afire with love! To walk step by step from one end of the east coast to the other wasn't demonstration enough of how much I loved the nature around me. I worshiped the world I walked through with everything I had, only hoping to be graced with more. I wound my arms in eurythmic pantomime. I sang bits of song as they came to me, as I was inspired. It was here, in the now, that I felt free to be myself. Alone like this it was most real, the most honest representation of what goes on everyday within the constrains of society. I'm still alone on trains or in classrooms. Why not move myself through new worlds?I followed the colors of passion banding together near the tips of the mountains ahead, knowing that the rare quiet and absence of color in the night would only invite me further into ecstacy. I sang:Call her moonchild,Dancing in the shallows of a river.She's a moonchild,Drifting on the echoes of the hours.Waving silver wands to the Night bird's song,Waiting for the sun on the mountain.Playing hide and seek With the ghosts of dawn,Waiting for the smile of a sun child.The tree branches overhead were still leafless so the half moon's sheen aided the beam of my flashlight. But when the trail transitioned from high mountain ridges down to fields of blonde tallgrass I threw my heavy pack down and stowed my flashlight away. I could do without it altogether due to the brightness from the sky.I was racing up on another ridge when I heard someone behind me feign a loud wolf howl. ¢Ouuuuuuuuooooowh!¢ Without hesitating I responded:¢AIIIIEEEEEh!¢ and waited on this other night hiker to appear. I couldn't see him for his headlamp as he walked closer to me, stabbing with his trekking poles. He was tall, really tall, and wore a neon orange shirt. I squinted and tried to look into his face. ¢Look what I found,¢ he said. A second source of light was his camera. Deflected, I saw on the screen my first salamander, dark purple with membrane-like skin. ¢Just look at his leg, the way it angles out from his body like that,¢ he said. The salamander did have strange, rubbery elbows looping out at a vague 90 degree angle. Its toes were translucent pink. I'd never seen one that close up before.By the glow of the screen I could also see his face. His eyes caught mine, then he stood up and asked me ¢You're not part of the Wolf Pack, are you?¢¢Uh, no.¢¢I could tell by your response. Definitely not a wolf, more like a little hyena, but you still answered in some way. That's pretty cool, I don't think most people would have known what to do.¢ He paused and looked at me awhile. I stood admiring his stature, his finely-angled face with a close beard and a wide cleft in the upper part of his full lips. I smiled. ¢You're the only other person out here,¢ he said. ¢You're not afraid?¢¢No.¢¢Well, you really shouldn't do this.¢¢Do what?¢¢Night hike.¢¢But why not?¢ I asked, a little upset. ¢I love it!¢¢So do I.¢ He took a few steps closer and leaned down so I could see the sincerity in his eyes. ¢You see me out here, don't you? I understand. But it's not really, uh...recommended.¢Why not?¢Who are you?¢ I asked.¢I'm Thin Timber. It's very nice to meet you. And I'll night hike with you anytime you want. We can run to Maine only hiking at night for all I care. But just don't do it alone.¢ I was amazed, and not a little delighted at how forward he was. ¢I'm C.V.,¢ I told him. ¢Seevee? OK.¢ His whole demeanor seemed to say that he really didn't care what my name was. He hadn't even taken off his pack and clearly wanted to keep moving. ¢Whatever, that's nice,¢ he may just as well have said. But he also said he wanted to hike with me. So I led the way and we continued on. ¢So! Today was kind of interesting,¢ he told me with perfect ease as we sped along the ridge line. ¢I hiked 14 miles in the wrong direction.¢ ¢How did you manage to do that?¢ I laughed. ¢You mean you went southbound instead of north?¢¢No. I was just running through the woods, offtrail.¢ ¢For 14 miles? That's a really long way not to have noticed there weren't any white blazes.¢¢Yes, yes I know,¢ he said testily. ¢You couldn't even see that there was no worn trail? What did you go by?¢¢Anyway,¢ he went on, ignoring my questions, ¢I got so far into the middle of nowhere that by the time I noticed I was out of water it was too late.¢This guy must be completely crazy. ¢So how did you get back?¢ I asked. ¢I called for help and...a rescue squad came to bring me water. They said I was severely dehydrated.¢ ¢Well it's good your phone had service,¢ I observed aloud while privately judging him to be a bit of a coward. After Thin Timber had told me about that incident, we covered the introductory stuff in a swift five minutes, highstepping over tangling roots and jumping over a serpentine stream where it cut the trail several times. He said he'd worked with trauma patients before setting out on the trail with his friend. ¢You know, I had to make sure they didn't raid the refrigerator at night and stuff.¢Ah, so by trauma he means head trauma. Perfect. ¢Maybe we'd make a good couple,¢ I thought to myself miserably.¢You should be careful about joining the marines, if you really decide to do that,¢ he said. ¢They have a very high rate of rape for the women that do enlist.¢¢By other marines?¢ I was dismayed.¢Yes.¢ I had to decide he didn't know what he was talking about. I practically hero worshiped the men who'd trained us and there was nothing about my fellow trainees that would lead me to suspect they could ever be capable of something like that. All I thought of were our early PT sessions at Ft. Mede, how the ten or so others who would go included me and pushed me to be greater with them. It had been utopia for me, really.Thin Timber said he had just broken up with his girlfriend. ¢And then my friend who I brought out here ditched me. So I guess it's karma,¢ he said wryly. ¢He didn't like hiking as much as he thought he would?¢ I asked, unable to believe that someone wouldn't instantly experience an immediate, propelling gratitude for the woods that could last them six months, the time necessary for a thru-hike. ¢We'd planned the trip half a year ago at least, too,¢ he said. ¢Chris bought all the gear just like I did, and we planned out our mail drops in advance. Pre-packaged food and everything.¢¢I don't understand,¢ I said. ¢Some leave the trail with the explanation that it 'wasn't what they were expecting.' What the hell were they expecting? It's the woods.¢Little did I know that there are hunters in the woods looking for more than just scenery.¢You have very strong ferimones,¢ I heard him say from behind me after some time had passed in silence.¢What are those?¢ I asked.¢Levels within your body that alert others to you. I can smell them.¢I didn't quite know what to say to this, so I just laughed. We came upon a huge bonfire to the right of the trail, thirty feet through the trees. ¢Oh, this is them, I think,¢ Thin Timber said. ¢Who?¢¢The Wolf Pack.¢ Sure enough, the sounds of carousing and howls reached our ears. ¢You want to go over there?¢ he asked me, dubiously. ¢Sure...¢ I replied after hesitating. I would have preferred to keep going, just as we were. But it was too late; we'd been spotted. An isolated, nearer howl and then Thin Timber responded in kind. Two ambassadors came over to us, drinks in hand. ¢C.V., this is Cassanova the Nightwolf and this is Spam.¢¢Hey, how are you?¢ greeted Spam. He was virulently handsome by firelight. Dark, spiky hair and tan skin, wearing an unusually dressy button down shirt. ¢Hello!¢ I replied. ¢Want anything to drink?¢ asked Cassanova, a blonde with little, dark eyes wearing pink crocs. He would always seem a little intense and insistent to me, and I felt a little afraid of him. ¢Get the girl a drink!¢ an old man called from the fireside. There were a lot of people about drinking booze and relaxing after a long day's hike. Thin Timber rubbed me on the shoulder reassuringly before going over to catch up with some people he knew. Cassanova showed me where all the trail magic was. The Wolf Pack had done well for themselves. Our host had set up a tarped pavillion with two tables full of hard liquor and plastic cups. I helped myself to half a cup of JD, straight. All the soda and the paltry chip and pretzel stores had been depleted. ¢So, where are you from?¢ Cass asked me. ¢Middling,¢ I replied after gulping down the spirit. ¢Maryland.¢¢Oh nice, so you'll walk through your home state.¢¢Yep.¢ I don't remember where he said he was from. Maybe Colorado. There were a lot of people on the trail that year from Nashville and from Colorado in general. ¢Do you wanna hear a joke about Maryland?¢ I asked him. ¢Sure.¢¢What's the 'MD' in 'Maryland' stand for?¢¢I dunno, what?¢¢Mason-Dixon line! Haha!¢ I refilled my own drink with some of the same, cracking up because it had been a few years since I'd told that to anyone.¢I don't really see how that's a joke,¢ Cass replied. I thought about this for a minute and then, assuming he probably had a point, muttered ¢I see what you mean¢ before finishing my second cupfull.¢That's your seat!¢ The host, a man in his forties wearing cowboy boots, pointed towards an unoccupied seat right by the fire on top of a cooler. ¢Thanks, don't mind if I do!¢ I walked over to join them. Took a beer out of the cooler then sat down on top of it. ¢Nobody gets by me, OK?¢ We all laughed.Rambling, end of day conversations were going on to my left: four twentysomething guys sat in lawn chairs and didn't move much or notice me. Sparks flew from the bonfire, which blazed as though it were set for logs for the next hour or two. Tents were behind me and to my right. Their reflective strips looked like a hundred intersecting road marks. It turned out that our host knew The Mayor, the proprietor of the only hosted I'd stayed in during my section hike two years ago. I asked him whatever happened to Bill, Mayor's 89 year old friend and hostel cook. ¢I think Bill went and got remarried.¢ I laughed goodnaturedly, surprised that I actually had something to say to this outstanding trail magician regarding mutual friends. I pulled out one of my last Salems, with some difficulty (not for lack of dexterity but for a shady recollection of where I'd put them in my pack), then, while I was standing, got out another beer. ¢To the Mayor!¢ I toasted the memory of him, still clear in my mind. Always trying to get hikers to chill out, selling them beers for .25 cents (¢The first one's free!¢), staying up with us until 3am talking and smoking, giving good advice, making fun of how skinny all the girls had gotten, and holding back Bill from biting our heads off with his rancid sense of humor and his jokes which verged on the edge of being extremely confrontational and intimidating. ¢Hey, how are you?¢ Thin Timber touched me once again on the shoulder. He was back from wherever he'd been. He leaned down to me so that his face was close to mine. ¢Yeah, I'm feelin' alright,¢ I slurred.Some guy who was feeling really fantastic yelled out to Thin Timber from across the fire:¢Hey! The one you should be concerned about is Sunshine!You know she walked all the way back to Siler Bald today just looking for you.¢¢What?¢ Thin Timber barely ticked his head towards the speaker. ¢It's true,¢ a heretofore reticent, sweet-smiling girl sitting on the ground about the bonfire said. ¢Well, I'm back now,¢ said Thin Timber. Then, in my direction: ¢Everyone can calm down...¢o¢Seevee. Pssssst! Seevee!¢¢Hmmmm?¢ It was later that night. I'd set up my tent near a few trees and Thin Timber had slung up his hammock behind me and the two of them. I guess he knew I was still awake. ¢Do you want earplugs?¢¢Yes.¢ At least a few people near us were snoring away and a few hours ago a couple had been having some very vocal sex. In that moment, I felt resentful about my night's hike being curtailed. I didn't have a hangover but I still couldn't sleep. Laying down within hearing distance of snoring people seemed to make about as much sense as any act of self-abnegation. Ever. Why wait? Ever?¢Here you go.¢ Thin Timber was at my tent's equivalent of a door, an unzipped flap which left only a sheer netting layer. This, when I unzipped it, left only the night air between us. I accepted two purple earplugs enclosed in a convenient, tiny plastic case.The earplugs were good, I thought, and it was cool they came with a case, but my avatar was still blazing solo through the woods. I would have just kept going if I hadn't met Thin Timber.