Date: 2008-04-11
From: NOC

To: NOC
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: overcast clouds

Taking a zero in anticipation of meeting my friends Barb and Brian Saturday. They come to NOC often to kayak. The weather predictions are for thunderstorms followed by dropping temps (into the twenties at NOC elevation). I¢m here until Sunday afternoon, so I should get rested and healed. I¢ll be hiking out with a new crowd. The one constant on the trail is everything changes. Reflections on trail life: One of the amazing features of the trail is the amount of time and energy it takes to maintain it. The trail is not a path beaten down by constant usage; nature is constantly trying to reclaim it as a forest. The major battle is against erosion. Although hikers like to think all those log steps on steep ascents were put there to make their climb easier, the real purpose is to prevent the trail from washing away and becoming a continuation of the natural landscape. The trail was manually carved into the sides of mountains by persons long passed. We owe them a great debt of appreciation for their work. Much of it done in the 30¢s as part of the depression recovery CCC project. Now maintenance is done by volunteers who adopt sections of the trail. They haul in heavy chain saws to clear blow-downs and brush intruding on the trail. I¢ve met a few of these people and thanked them all personally. I would now like to thank them all publically. They do their work out of love for the trail, and not for the praise of rookies like me. But, all the same, thank you.Not that I¢m any sort of competent judge but I¢m thoroughly impressed with the intelligence level of AT hikers. With a few exceptions (myself included), they seem to be well-traveled and true citizens of the world. Although the indiscriminant use of the word ¢like¢ has invaded even their language, the thoughts they express are insightful and, at times, poetic. To my discredit I was prepared for a community of ¢dumb and dumber¢ dropouts populating the shelters. But what I found were highly intelligent people looking for an alternative lifestyle if only for a few short months of their lives. It takes a fair amount of courage and self confidence to set out on a quest such as an AT thru. After only a couple of weeks, I get the feeling that we¢re all in this together. A drop-out is a failure for us all. Unlike myself, a good portion of hikers are forced to be extremely frugal. Their financial reserves are thin, and any set-backs are devastating. Most hikers are in-between some milestones in their lives. In between school and jobs, in between careers, in between jobs and retirements. The trail is like a hiatus in the streams of their lives. A welcome time to reflect on where they have been and where they are going.I¢m sure that things will change, as things always do, but so far the daily hikes have been physical struggles rather than mental reflection exercises. The struggle with bodily aches and pains focuses the mind on one thing ¢ getting to the shelter for the sweet relief of being able to drop down your pack and take off your boots. So far there have been no high-minded philosophical debates resolved and no transcendent epiphanies. Just the physical struggle and challenge to get from here to there over that mountain. But I¢m sure there¢s a mental process at work behind the scenes that is a product of the daily battle with the immediate physical sensations of the body. Maybe it¢s Zen-like and it¢s discovery will be as Albert Camus imagined that Sysephis, as the devil rolled the stone up the hill, only to find that it had rolled back down overnight, was happy. The Bible says that the truly happy man is he who is daily satisfied with his day-long toil and its immediate reward of food and rest. Maybe the trail teaches us that lesson. Anything more are complications we bring to ourselves at our own risk, striving for something better ¢ but often spawning something sad.