Date: 2011-07-01
From: Morgan Stewart Shelter

To: Diana's Apartment, New York City
Miles today: 10.7

(In which I help search for a lost hiker and take the train to New York City)I wake up briefly at 6:30am when Doc Boom leaves, and then again 7:30am when the father - daughter team hiking the New York section leave. I sleep in until almost 9, knowing I have a short day ahead of me, and feel refreshed when I finally wake up. I eat breakfast at the shelter and chat with Capt. Planet, who is hanging around to catch a ride into the city with Vinca, Poncho Verde and the visiting Mama Vinca. They plan to take a taxi from the nearest road crossing to Mama Vinca's car, drive to the train and then ride into the city. I'm tempted to join them, but know that it will be nearly impossible to get back on the trail at such an obscure point, so decide to stick with my plan to hike the ten miles to NY 22.At the ominously named Nuclear Lake I catch up with Overload, who is taking a break. He is annoyed with himself for having just walked southbound for a mile, realizing it only when he reached the lake again. A bit further up on the trail I meet to southbounding day hikers. "Your daughter is looking for you," one of them tells me, but the other one corrects him, "No, he's just a guy with a beard." They tell me that a woman has gotten separated from her father and that if I see him I should tell him that she will be waiting at the next shelter.Not long after I hear an emergency whistle being blown and hear calls of "Dad!" When I reach the daughter from the NY sectioning team I ask her if she I alright. She is perilously near tears when she describes getting separated, and I try to be as calm as possible with the hope that it will help by way of osmosis. She was hiking a few minutes ahead of her dad, and when he didn't catch up she set down her pack and jogged backwards to find him. Not finding him, she jogged forward, checked the shelter, and then backward again. I've reached her as she is returning to the shelter again, more than three hours after she last saw her father.I ask her the obvious questions about cell phones -- he has one that is turned off, she borrowed one from the day hikers. The most likely number he would call is her mother, but she doesn't want to alarm her mother by checking just yet. (I suggest calling to say hello and seeing if her mother mentions anything, but she doesn't think she could pull it off without spreading panic, and the way her voice falters, I think that she is probably right.) We check the shelter again and leave a note in the register, then hike north to retrieve her pack. They had planned on reaching the CT state line at 5pm, so when she asks me what I think we should do, I suggest continuing hiking north in hopes of passing a southbounder who can tell us if he's ahead.She calls her brother to see if he or her mother has heard anything, and then the trail angel who had planned on giving them a ride, but nobody has any news. Her name, I finally find out when she mentions it on the phone, is Elizabeth, and her father is Mark. When we reach a garden and landscaping store that the trail runs directly in front of, Elizabeth decides that her father could not have passed the store without waiting for her, so I stop to wait with her. She calls the other phone of the day hikers, her brother again, and finally calls the non-emergency number of the local police, who listen to her story and say that they will check with the local troopers and call back.When they call back they don't have any information, but say that they will send a trooper down. Elizabeth wants to go back on the trail to look for him, but I convince her that she should wait at the store, and I offer to jog up the trail to see if I can find anybody. Saying that I will return in 45 minutes, I trail run as fast as I ever have before, and cover roughly three miles before 23 minutes elapse. I stop to shout and whistle, in case I am close to catching up to anybody, and then turn around and run back. I don't see anybody on the trip, but do pass a trail register that her father has not signed.When I return to the store, red-faced and panting, a female state trooper is waiting, and lets me jug two liters of water and catch my breath before asking me for my contact info and my version of events. I check in with Elizabeth, who still wants to go out to help look, and then after checking with the trooper I head back on the trail to run south. A detective has already started walking southbound and in a few minutes I catch up to him. I walk with him to talk for a few minutes when we see Overload, who after a long break has finally made his way here. He hasn't seen any sign of Elizabeth's father, so rather than cover the same ground that he just did I leave the detective and head back to the garden store.More state troopers have arrived and Elizabeth is near tears again as she waits on the porch. I sit with her and another hiker who arrives after coming from town, Ugly Jethro, joins us. We chat idly to distract her, telling stories of the trail and listening to her stories from the past week of hiking. A search helicopter flies by -- one of the new troopers says that they're flying over the earlier section of the trail, and have a search dog on that section as well.All plausible explanations for his mysterious disappearance seem increasingly unlikely. My two remaining theories are that he got off the trail with all of his gear to go to the bathroom and something went wrong (I almost always leave my pack by the trail, mostly out of hurriedness), or that he somehow slipped ahead unseen and didn't leave any notes in the logs or turn his phone on after hours of being separated, but these theories are unsatisfying at best, and I don't mention the accident theory to Elizabeth. I ask the female ranger if anyone is searching the trail north of where I ran, and she assures me that they are, though having heard that most efforts are on the southern section I am somewhat skeptical.Shortly after 5pm, eight hours after Elizabeth last saw her father, she gets a phone call on the borrowed phone. "Hello?" she says cautiously, followed by a near hysterical, "Dad?!" The cell phone connection cuts in and out, and one of the troopers takes the phone and eventually determines that he is at the CT state line as planned and is doing fine. Elizabeth gives me a hug and her email address before a trooper takes her to be reunited with her father. I remember that I still have to find a way to a train station, and when I ask the female trooper how to get there, she offers to drive me.I ride up front in the passenger seat of the patrol car, my pack in the back seat. The trooper and I are both relieved that the incident has ended happily, and I am glad that my first ride in a cop car is under such amiable circumstances. Sitting on the platform of the train station I feel, as if by remote osmosis, Elizabeth's flood of relief to see her father safe and sound again, and I wish that I could hear his story.The glow of this elation lasts nearly all of the way through my train ride to the city, but after it fades I find myself overwhelmed by a strange and inexplicable sadness. I have this feeling sometimes when I am alone and coming down from a powerful experience, as if the tidal suction of my receding elation threatens to carry all of my happiness away with it. But then this too passes, and I am left feeling simply drained, all of my expected joy to enter the city present only as a numb desire to rest.I pick up the key to my aunt's apartment from the doorman, drop my pack on the floor of the vacant apartment and take a long shower. I check email and surf the net as I try to muster the energy to do laundry. I put on my rain clothes -- my rain jacket reeks even by thru-hiker standards -- and take the service elevator down to the basement, where I realize that I don't have any laundry detergent. I consider washing the clothes with just water, but doubt that this would be sufficient to clean my collection of impressively dirty socks. The only other occupant of the room is a middle-aged woman folding clothes by the driers, and I ask her if she has any laundry detergent. She looks at me as if I have just asked permission to murder her child, and shakes her head emphatically as she tells me that she doesn't.After double checking the apartment for any sign of detergent, I head down to the lobby to ask the doorman where I might find a store that sells some. Shortly before I ask, I overhear a snippet of a story being relayed by another doorman in the office just out of sight from the frontdesk. "--said he smelled like--" and by the way the doorman by the door straightens and makes a point of seeming not to hear this conversation, I can tell that they are talking about me.Even my own nose is offended by the stink of my rain jacket, and walking down the streets of New York City at night in my rain gear and a daze of tiredness is a surreal experience. I return with laundry detergent in hand, and when I enter the building the doorman, the one who let me out last but not the same one who gave me my key, quizzes me on whom I am visiting and which apartment I am staying in. "Sorry sir," the doorman says with perfunctory contrition, "a tenant complained about a strange man in the laundry room, so you understand why I had to ask."In the laundry room I take off my rain jacket to try washing this too, and when the woman from earlier returns to collect more laundry, she does a double take upon seeing that I am back and now shirtless. I nod to her like we are friends and she grabs her laundry, not stopping to fold it this time, and hurries out. I sit and write in my journal as my clothes wash and then retreat back to the empty apartment when they finish, chores finally done.It's been a long day, and while I am happy to be able to rest, I already miss the trail with a melancholy ache. I do not fit in here (though I think that perhaps nobody does, some people are simply better at pretending than others), and I long for the friendships and simplicity of the trail. But if nothing else, this break should renew my appreciation for the trail, and tomorrow I can sleep as much as I want.