Date: 2005-12-10
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Miles today: 0.0

After my truly epic entry of the other day, which required a truly herculean effort on your part to actually read it in its entirety, I feel mentally wrung out. You just had to suffer through my endless verbiage; I actually had to re-live the whole rollercoaster ride of the day, every peak and valley (of both the metaphysical and physical kind). I also feel as if I exhausted my allotted quota of words for the next, I don¢t know, month or so. Really, I half-expect to be evicted from trailjournals, for consuming so much bandwidth. But, as long as Leif and Zipdrive continue to extend their generosity -- Something we should all thank them for, by the way. Not that they extend it to me personally, but simply that they provide this amazing service to the hiking community, free of charge. -- As long as I¢m allowed to, I¢ll just keep on keepin¢ on¢¦Summarizing yesterday¢s saga (and filling in the ending for those of you who nobly tried, but ultimately failed, to trudge through the whole interminable tale): My first day in the 100-Mile Wilderness was intensely emotional, encompassing not one, but two Major Freak-Outs, the second a vivid flashback to the Great Canoeing Incident of 2005. And then there was simply the magic of the Wilderness itself, of finally being there, the realization of a dream born six months earlier, on a mountaintop in Georgia. But, despite the surreality characterizing the day, the truth was that the reality of the Wilderness, the inherent simplicity of its unadulterated, unpresuming beauty, so far exceeded even my most fantastical imaginings. I couldn¢t fathom what the ensuing week would entail, building up to the grand finale, to Summit Day. To Katahdin. (And anyway, even my wildest, craziest, kookiest, zaniest dreams couldn¢t have eclipsed the events that were to occur. Hollywood couldn¢t have scripted a more implausible sequence of events¢¦) I didn¢t even try to envision it. I didn¢t want to envision it. Summit Day, as an indeterminate, theoretical event, was exhilarating and frightening and giddiness-inducing enough; having an exact date, having Katahdin nearly tangible in its proximity, was downright terrifying. Something not worth dwelling on. Better to suspend reality as long as I could, since I knew that my sleep schedule would suffer enough of a deficit as it was. And it did, one of the infallible constants in my life, my sleep-depriving anticipatory nerves. That first day in the Wilderness ended w/ me, after hurriedly downing a quick nondescript dinner, crawling into my tent and collapsing in exhaustion, more mental than physical. (This was after we had been stalled, waiting for a train to pass by. Only the Pod, getting held up by a train, in the middle of the woods, the Wilderness¢¦)Emerging early the next morning from my solitary haven, following a largely sleepless night, I retrieved my food bag, which I had haphazardly hung the previous night. Now, a word (or, more accurately, an essay) about the Pod and our bear-bagging habits: they were¢¦ non-traditional. Unique. Some may call them ¢lackadaisical¢ or just plain ol¢ ¢lazy¢. We like to think of them as ¢practical¢ and ¢efficient¢. For us, it was a system perfected, carefully fine-tuned over the previous 6 months. We didn¢t proscribe to the standard ¢20-feet-off-the-ground and 5-feet-from-the-trunk¢ technique. The Pod couldn¢t be troubled w/ ropes and rocks and tree branches. That just leaves you w/ a tangled mass of string. Plus, anything involving a Pod-member and a rock being thrown¢¦? A hazardous (and potentially lethal) combination, holding great potential for injury (both self-inflicted and bystander), but very little probability of a productive outcome. Besides, finding a branch that would be capable of w/standing even one of our incredibly obese food-bags, let alone the cumulative tonnage of four? That sounded suspiciously like work. And anyway, Serenity had been the last remaining Pod-member to actually carry rope, and she had disposed of that in Monson, in a (futile) attempt to reduce pack weight. So, even if we had wanted to be conscientious bear-baggers (Hah!), the option was really out of our hands.No, the Pod philosophy on bear-bagging is premised on the notion that, at least on the Appalachian Trail, it isn¢t actually the bears that your food is most susceptible to. It¢s the mice (and sundry other rodent species). (The notable exception to this premise is New Jersey specifically (and the entire mid-Atlantic region to a lesser degree), and we did adopt amendments to our technique under these circumstances. Geez, it wasn¢t like we were completely irresponsible or anything¢¦) And the mice, particularly those of Maine, are adept acrobats, w/ such acutely-attuned olfactory sensors, that even the most proficiently positioned bear-bag is not immune to their agile antics and avaricious appetites. So, the Pod-reasoning went, why expend all of that unnecessary effort? Why trouble w/ the ropes and the rocks and the branches? Counter-weights and elaborate knots? Nuh-uh. Nope, the Pod is all about practicality and convenience. That¢s not to say that we weren¢t opportunistic. B/c, I readily confess, we were. I mean, if someone else chose to enact the whole rigomarole -- locating a suitable tree, getting out their rope, untangling their rope, finding a suitable rock, tying the rock to the rope, throwing the rock over the branch, trotting over and retrieving the rock from the underbrush (b/c, invariably, the rock comes loose, goes flying into a bush (usually a thorny bush), while the rope falls in a limp puddle at your feet (which mysteriously turns into a Rubick¢s Cube of knots by the time you pick it up again)); once you¢ve recovered the rock (or replaced it w/ a new one, also a possibility), you then repeat the previous three steps (re-tying the rock, re-throwing the rock, and re-trieving the rock) a variable number of times, dependent upon the individual¢s: a) aim b) level of frustration c) degree of pride d) pure bull-headed stubbornness. Yes, if someone else is willing to suffer through this experiment in futility, and then offers to hang my food bag w/ theirs, well, of course I¢m not going to turn them down. Wouldn¢t want to hurt their feelings, now would I? Or make them feel that the whole silly scene was extraneous and unnecessary? Hikers have their pride too! No modesty whatsoever; no, that gets tossed way down in Georgia, along w/ the back-up stove and the pepper spray that your parents¢ wouldn¢t let you leave w/o. The first time someone walks up on you when you¢re squatting, peeing in the woods? Yeah, modesty doesn¢t last long on the trail. But pride? We do have our pride. So, if someone goes through all that trouble, entertaining me for half-an-hour, naturally I¢m going to boost their ego and toss my food up in that tree w/ theirs. But the thing is, the further north you get (again, excluding the bear-dense NJ region), the likelihood of people actually re-enacting this bear-bagging scene diminishes. Rapidly.One more thing about the dangling bear-bags (or maybe just two¢¦ or three?¢¦ aw heck, I have no idea how long I¢m going to be blathering on about this. ¢Til my brain decides to move on to something else, I suppose. So, just bear w/ me; although, at this point, it¢s probably safe to assume that, at the end of this entry, I¢m still going to be at Big Wilson Lean-to, emerging from my tent, retrieving my food bag¢¦): For whatever reason, the bear-bags, twisting gently in the wind, at the end of a rope, 20 feet above the ground, always conjure up images of those counter-weight thingies that you find on theatre sets. Or the sand-bags on hot air balloons, used for ballast. Anyway, knowing the Pod¢s¢¦ I don¢t want to say ¢ineptitude¢¢¦ maybe ¢proclivity¢¢¦ for creating disastrous results out of (seemingly) innocuous situations¢¦ throw in some rocks, and a 10# weight hanging 20 feet in the air? That¢s not even close to ¢innocuous¢ to begin w/. Add the Pod, and you¢ve got a debacle in the making. I just have this unshakeable mental image, that one morning, as a Pod-member is retrieving the food bags, the knot will slip or the rope will break, and then, well, then gravity takes over, and the food bags, which have become guided missiles (cumbersome, but missiles nonetheless), will unerringly, in a scene worthy of a Marx Brothers¢ skit, land on someone¢s head. And then there¢d be, you know, well, an unconscious person to deal w/. B/c, while hikers are notoriously hard-headed, I don¢t know if any skull could w/stand my food bag, hurtling through space, accelerating at 9.8m/s (or whatever it is). Seriously. There were times on the trail when I thought, ¢If a bear ever does try to snatch my snacks, I¢ll just wield my food bag like a weapon, swing it like a flail. It¢d be more effective than the proverbial ton of bricks, tho¢ only marginally lighter.But, back to the poor soul I left fading in and out of consciousness: we now have an unconscious person, a giant welt popping up on the back of their head; there¢s the worry about concussion when they do regain consciousness, something about dilated pupils¢¦ And, unlike the always-prepared and overly-equipped Marx Brothers -- Honestly, I mean, Harpo always pulls out the giant rubber mallet from some hidden pocket in his overcoat, or, you know, the pigeon, or the hard-boiled egg, or whatever it may be that the situation demands; he¢s got it, tucked away in his coat somewhere. Well, unlike the enviable Harpo and Co., smelling salts aren¢t exactly a high priority on a hiker¢s gear list. Although¢¦ I suppose that, in an effort to emulate Ray Jardine and his every-item-should-serve- (at least) 2-purposes, I suppose that any hiker¢s socks, being sufficiently odiferous to raise the dead, would be capable of rousing someone from a food-bag induced black-out. They may very likely punch you, for shoving such a sock in their face, but they¢d at least be conscious again. But, what am I saying? Concussions? Stinky socks as smelling salts? And all just to put our food¢¦ in a tree? This is precisely why the Pod never bothered w/ all of this nonsense. We manage to produce enough d-Rama (that¢s Pod-speak, for the more colloquial ¢drama¢; pronounced de-rama, but you¢ve got to get this raspy, almost growl-like ¢errr¢ on the ¢Ra¢, which is also accented. Don¢t worry, it takes practice to be able to say it properly. It¢s part of the induction ceremony into the Pod, actually.) (Again, we¢re hikers. We¢ve been isolated in the woods for 6 months. You don¢t think you¢d get a little weird yourself?) Anyway, the Pod drums up enough d-Rama on our own; we don¢t need to go deliberately inviting more, hanging things in trees.Just so we¢re clear: the little scenario I just described, someone getting beaned on the noggin w/ a food bag? It didn¢t really happen. Ever. (Well, at least, not to my knowledge.) The only place it exists is in my mind. But, it was also such a vivid vision, and, knowing the individuals involved as well as I do, such a plausible one, that I had no difficulty in picturing that very scene playing out in reality. So, seeing no need to tempt fate¢¦ I keep my food bag safely near the ground.But, if the Pod wasn¢t hoisting our food-bags 20 feet overhead, it begs the question: What did we do w/ them? Well, as I mentioned before, we were opportunistic bear-baggers, as long as the ¢opportunity¢ didn¢t entail too much expenditure of effort. On the nights when camped near a shelter, I utilized the mouse-hangers that were invariably present. Some terminology for the armchair hikers: a ¢mouse-hanger¢ is an ingenious device, consisting of a short (~1 foot) length of rope, strung through a can of some sort (tuna fish seems to be the container of choice, but any will do), w/ the can serving as a (semi-)effective barrier, theoretically preventing a mouse from scampering down the rope and reaching your dangling food bag. A lot of the local trail clubs disapprove of these mouse-hangers, believing that the devices encourage mice to inhabit the shelters, as they become habituated to food always being there. But, no matter how frequently the maintainers take them away, those pesky little doo-dads will be dangling from the rafters again by the next morning. The first hiker to come along, and, POOF, like magic, there¢s a mouse-hanger. Don¢t ask me how, b/c, I mean, no self-respecting hiker is going to be toting a tin can around. And yet, unless there are mouse-hanger-producing elves that frequent the trail¢¦ It¢s just one of those inexplicable things, like, Where do all the ball-point pens disappear to? Think about it -- Every place you go to, they have ball-point pens, w/ the name of their business branded across them: restaurants, museums, car dealerships, your dentist, prescription medications. You name it, they¢ve got pens. But, where do all these pens go? Do they vanish into people¢s sock drawers? Do people hoard them, like pennies? Are you a ball-point pen hoarder? Do pens silently amass, like penny collections, starting w/ just a handful of pennies getting tossed into a jug, b/c, really, what good are 4 pennies? But then, those 4 pennies multiply, and suddenly, you¢ve got $100 worth of pennies, sitting in a jug in the corner of your living room. And, do you have any idea how much $100 in pennies weighs? Well, actually, I don¢t either, but, it sure sounds like it¢d weight a lot. And then you¢ve got the hassle of having to wrestle the jug to your car, hauling it off to the bank, to convert it into ¢real¢ money. (B/c, have you ever tried to pay for something w/ just pennies? I don't recommend it. If looks could kill¢¦) So, maybe that¢s what happens to the ball-point pens of the world, maybe people unintentionally hoard them, shove ¢em in a drawer, forget they have ¢em, and then have to swipe one from the bank when they go in to cash in their pennies¢¦Anyway, I sorta forgot the whole point of this analogy¢¦ Oh, right: mouse-hangers and pens and inexplicable appearances and disappearances. So, maybe wood elves do make nocturnal visits, bearing mouse-hangers. I don¢t know. All I do know is that every shelter, w/o fail, had them. And I took advantage of their existence. Using the mouse-hanger served a dual-purpose for me: one -- it (theoretically) kept my food untouched during the night, away from scurrying rodent feet (and the insatiable appetites they carry); and two -- it kept me away from the food bags, so even if the scurrying were to occur, I wouldn¢t be close enough to hear it or, heaven forbid, feel it. B/c, you may have noticed that I said ¢nights when camped near a shelter.¢ That was deliberate. You see, I didn¢t sleep in shelters. I couldn¢t sleep in shelters. Sleeping, in close quarters, w/ 5-10 other people (of whom, invariably, at least half snore)? No, no sleeping for me. Just another curse of being a light sleeper. And it¢s not that I blame anyone; I¢m fully aware that people don¢t voluntary want to snore. It¢s just, when a ticking clock 2 houses away keeps you awake, then the raucous cacophony of heavy breathing is simply prohibitive. Plus, the shelters also have a tendency to house members of the rodent populace. Conceptually, I don¢t have a problem w/ the little critters. I had the pet hamsters, and the guinea pigs, and even two rats, as a kid. And I realize that they play a very crucial role in the whole ecological food-pyramid scheme. That¢s fine. That¢s cool. I am not, however, ¢fine¢ w/ them scampering over me, in the middle of the night. I¢m actually not ¢fine¢ w/ them scampering over me at any time, day or night; but it¢s decidedly worse, when you can¢t see them, when you can only feel them, making featherlight tracks across your skin. Eww. Just the thought gives me shudders. Go ahead, call me a pansy. I don¢t care. My pride can take it¢¦So, yeah, me and shelters, we don¢t mix all that well. At least, not for overnight accommodations. I actually really enjoy the shelter system on the AT. They provide a predictable destination, if you want to experience a social atmosphere at night, have dinner and hang out w/ other hikers. I just enjoy having my tent to retreat to, once the socializing is over. Through my entire, nearly-7-month journey, all told, I probably spent less than 10 nights in a shelter. I know I must have in the Smokies, b/c you¢re required to there, and I¢m usually pretty good when there are actual guidelines to follow. (Plus, one night, I tented, and the Ridgerunner yelled at me¢¦) There was Woods Hole Shelter, down in Georgia, b/c, well, that was really early on in the hike, and it was damn cold, and it was raining, and I was lazy. And then there was the Ed Garvey Shelter in Maryland, which I thought (foolishly) might be different, b/c it was just Poet and Serenity and me, and it was two-stories, and there was a balcony, and a sky-light; it was about as un-shelter-like as a shelter could be. And¢¦ And I think that might be it. At Partnership Shelter, in Virginia, I began under the roof, but very quickly decided to cowboy camp; there was a lot of alcohol-induced snoring that night. And the last shelter I even considered sleeping in was Jeffers Brook Shelter, just outside of Glencliff, NH...It was my first night back on the trail, following my 3-week, fatigue-induced hiatus from hiking. So, naturally, it was raining. I wasn¢t really in the mood to set up my tent. Frankly, I was whipped. That one mile I¢d hiked, from Glencliff to the shelter? It kicked my butt good. I was still incredibly fatigued, and the persistent, low-grade headache would continue to nag me for another two months, but I had vowed to myself that I was going to hike the Whites. W/ the Pod. Even if I had to crawl. (Which, thankfully, it never came to that.) But, there I was, shoulders slumped in exhaustion, the sky petulantly spitting rain, disgusted at the idea of packing up a wet tent on my first day back on the trail. And I thought, ¢Screw it. I¢m just gonna sleep in the shelter.¢ Actually, we all did. B/c this was one of the rare and notable occasions when all six members of the Pod were present: Free, Serenity, Poet, Freedom, Thatch, and yours truly. We all spent the night together, at Jeffers Brook. And were promptly shattered into 3 groups by the following evening. But, that night, as a unified Pod, we uniformly decided to sleep under the roof, rather than in our tents. Now, this was an atypical decision for most of us; Freedom and Thatch did the shelter-thing occasionally, and Poet had been a shelter-rat, before she became enmeshed in the Pod; but Free, Serenity, and I were pretty resolute in our avoidance of the 3-sided structures. However, willing to give the shelter-concept one last chance, we all prepared to settle in for the night: unfurling sleeping bags, inflating sleeping pads, fluffing our pillows (also known as our clothes bags), getting headlamps out, books and journals at the ready; the standard cadre of nightly chores. Dusk was falling, dinner over and done w/, food bags packed and twirling placidly on the convenient mouse-hangers, a soft hum of conversation pervading the stillness. And then, shattering the serene atmosphere, was an ¢Eek!¢ followed by, ¢A mouse just ran over my foot!¢ Immediately on-guard, adrenaline pumping, eight headlamp beams focus on the spot where the mouse was last sighted. I could feel the hairs on the back of my neck standing up, all of my senses heightened, waiting, watching. They were there. I could feel them, could feel their beady little eyes. In the darkness. Lurking in the shadows. Eyeing. My. Food. And then, amidst a crazy strobe-like pattern of headlamps, flickering from corner to corner, as heads were turned seeking rodents (real or imagined), then something very real scampered across my foot. My bare foot.At this point, just to give you a breather, I¢m going to end this entry. Don¢t worry, I¢m posting a continuation in the next entry. But, for those of you who don¢t have, well, 2 hours to spare, I¢m dividing the tale.