Date: 2004-10-04
From: 100-Mile Wilderness

To: Katahdin
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: overcast clouds

Mile 2100October 4, 2004Half a dozen stuff sacks fulla food hang together on a single string, theballast of a hot air balloon hovering above the shelter, nestled in the trees. No, they are a bouquet of birthday balloons for a child in an upside down world. They hang together from a stick no bigger than my pen, tied to a length ofparachute cord secured to a rafter overhead. Where typically an inverted tuna can will suffice, this ¢mouse proof¢ foodhanger wears a bucket for a hat, a full-blown 5-gallon galvanized bucket hunglike a lampshade midway down the chute cord. The food bag ¢balloons¢ twistslightly, slowly in the nonexistent breeze of peaceful dawn. All about thisinadvertent piece of ¢thruhiker art¢ hang back packs as well, also from theceiling and likewise twisting slowly, languidly as if to say ¢We are in nohurry and will hang this way forever if you wish.¢Beyond the open front porch-esque open front wall of this log cabin structurethere is a fire pit, huge, big as a Cooper Mini, tall enough that from myvantage here on the shelter floor it half obscures the lovely stone-walled poolbeyond it. Far to my right I see the white of waterfalls whose sweet blanket ofsiren song has made for solid sleep full of few dreams and mostly just the cozyblack velvet of wonderful nothingness. The pool, green-from here but no doubtclear as glass up close, is fed by the falls and would make for a lovelymorning dip. I make a dip of a different sort however, reaching down out of mybag with now near-frozen fingers (from writing) and read the thermometerattached to my pack. The Fahrenheit numbers are too closely bunched togetheron the tiny thing, but the metric message is clear: zero.There is much about this scene I would wish to hold onto: a strong and prettywoman beside me, our bags zipped as one, she warm and supple in all the rightplaces; beyond her one, two, three more lumpy mummy sleeping, thruhikersburied in colorful down bags against the morning frozen world; the tin roofoverhead, the wood beams all around and beside and beneath me, softened, carvedwith decades of names, black here and there with the halo shaped burn scars of ahundred meals cooked on alcohol stoves, the floor boards pitted and hew with useyet glazed as well by the movements of a thousand bodies or more; and of coursethe poles, sometimes dozens of them, reminiscent of a ski lodge, all standingat attention awaiting their master¢s call. They, too, walk the trail, giantmetal insects become organic with use: true ¢walking sticks.¢I would freeze time and keep all this just so. But I cannot. Nature will atany moment trump me and freeze this place real. It is time to summit and gohome.Then voila! Spin Cycle, a guy I never much cared for as he seemed stuck-up,cagey, but was likely just shy and didn¢t talk much, well, Spin Cycle sees mefall this morning at the shelter and Yazzy gives him the lowdown on my tweakedlower back and next thing you know ¢crunch-crunch-crunch¢ the guy¢s a closetchiropractor! Not an hour later, I¢m just whizzing up the trial, relativelypain free! I mean, it still hurts, my whole mid-section on red alert, a plateof hot coals burning, burning and sending shooting pain down my legs but sincethe crunching, it¢s better, way better. I can walk again and walk I do, fully 16 miles today to the shore of somelonesome lake where an air horn hangs from a tree and says ¢Squeeze me¢ so I do. And wow! Does that horn split the light fandango and send every late afternoonegret flying and duck squawking and the word on the trail is that this magichorn will summon a man in a boat from far out across the lonesome lake. Fiftyfour miles into the so-called Wilderness and here I am summoning a boatman who will take us to a remote hunting lodge for respite from the forest primeval,the forest of which I am so fond yet so utterly sick-of, finished and DONEWITH.Result? The boatman cometh in a flash from across the water and a dock where inthe usual customers are seaplanes delivering rich men with big guns and huntingpermits licenses to kill!The sun in the west setting all orange small and growing cold as the telescopeof pending winter sends it further west, farther away from here. Conversely,Katahdin is so close!   Magnificent. So grand and vaulting solo lone kind ofthe landscape now with all other mountains melted away to the south and west.So now I sit in comfy black faux leather chair `neath lamp of propane in a largecabin with many rooms to let yet just me & Yaz here. All the boys, the men,the scant thruhiker crowd here on the island with us tonight sleep in thebunkhouse up the hill: Spin Cycle, Impulse, Two Dogs Fucking and some guy I¢dnever met named Screamin¢ Steven.Luxury! And our tab is running high and I couldn¢t care less. ¢Burgers please,yet the works, and oh put me down for one of these waffle-sized brownies andwhat¢s that? Bud in the fridge? Two dollars fifty cents a piece. No problem. I¢ll take four. Yazzy and I walk the grounds, check out the bunkhouse and theprivate rooms, too, and pondering the joy of sharing a bed and the displeasureof bunking with snoring men and ohh! and old four poster bed all made up niceand knowing full well now that at close of day no new guests will arrive toshare the house with us, private room it is. Private house! I mean, how couldanyone else come? At dusk the ferryman closes shop & you can blow the air horn all you want and none will come. No. This place is ours tonight. And the silence is deafening, profound. Itell Yazzy how I wish we could afford to stay another night here as check outtime is a brutally early eight. Be packed and ready to roll with your packs bythe dining room door at the ring of the breakfast bell, 8 a.m. But no, wedecide that to stay another night would be unnatural (and perhaps unwelcomed). We are a nomadic people. This place, for all its lace and beauty is just onemore ¢one night stand¢ in a string of some 180 now. Thus then no time towrite. Got to shower now, then pack, then sleep, then roar across the waterand back into the wilds to hike again.-RSM