Date: 2004-04-03
From: Georgia

To: Maine
Miles today: 13.0
Weather: overcast clouds

4/3/4 Mile 134.6 Just above NantahalaStepping up a craggy cliffside out and away north from the NantahalaOutdoor Center in Somewhere, North Carolina, I feel a mixture of irony,satisfaction, gratitude and the will to move forward. Fading below meas I rise in elevation come the strains of Whiter Shade of Pale, thatmelodic and nostalgic-sounding 70s dirge that trips the light fandangoand all that. The music is piped high and loud through the canyon tobe heard over the roar of the Nantahala River. I have stayed twonights at the NOC, taking a zero day primarily for the purpose of restand to catch up on what seems to me days and days of stories untold,but also in hopes that Underground and Tumbleweed might catch me up. That's right, they're gone too. In just a matter of a few days, ourcool little family foursome went dry like a keg of Blue Ribbon in abowling alley. Now there's nothing left but me: the tap. Or am I theempty keg? All right, enough of that analogy. Two nights at the NOCand I couldn't write diddly squat. Now I'm just half a mile up trail and the words begin to flood in. I sit down on a leafy soft spot andpull out my "works" and shoot up some words. Round the corner comes NoBeard and his pretty fair-haired, fair-skinned, fair-everything'dgirlfriend No Dog. They're a cute couple. Seem solid as oak andgranite and colorful as fruitcake. What am I saying? Okay, time tohike up a jillion switchbacks. Two days at 15 miles/day will put me atFontana Damn and the gateway to the Great Smokey National Forest, 70miles of bear-infested and allegedly rule-crazed ranger territory. Theprize at the far end is Hot Springs, NC, where the whole town comes outto celebrate thru hikers on April 17. Sounds like a blast to me. Oneday soon here I'll catch you all up on questions like: what happened toElly? And where am I? Who am I? And more importantly, who are allthese crazed mutants huffin and puffin alongside me bound for Mainewith nutty names like Dirtnap and IceBox? Tune in next time... [a little later..]I sit on some high rock overlooking ridge upon ridge upon mountain uponmountain. Mule and the Professor point at the snowline atop thehighest mountain as far as we can see and say "See that snow? That'swhere we walked from the other day." Indeed. Was that a nightmare ora lovely crystal white fluffy winter dream for which I should feelgrateful for having been present? Truth: I froze my ass off up on thatmountain. I got wet, shoes, socks, and upper body garments from thesweat beneath my raingear. But hey, I also hiked my longest day thatday: 18 miles. Hoo-frikken-ray.-RSM4/3/4 11:51 pm Mile 137.6 Grassy TopAnd they¢re off! Right outa the gate it's Harvard Lark apparentlyinexhaustible after her much-celebrated 22-mile day. Right behind Larkis Beer Thirty from Jersey, bent trekking pole and all he's makingtracks like a champ. Third out the gate this morning here atAppalachian Downs it's Big Horn Wanderer, big, wandering, and well,horny I guess. Sarge is out there, holding back from his usual pace,throwing the race for the sake of Little Engine, the judges daughterfrom Pensacola preparing for the big flip-flop half way to Maine. She's smokin' , but not in the way to win the race, if you get mymeaning. In our next heat we have No Dog and No Beard, colorfullyadorned in red and yellow Gortex jackets, sure not to be shot by anynear-sighted turkey hunters this season. Initially ahead of them butnow dropping back we have the Professor and Mississippi Mule, twodaunting 60-something studs sure, by dint of age and determination, towin the Gold no matter how they place in this one-of-a-kind, 2000-milerace.But of course it ISN'T a race at all. I just make fun with metaphor. Someone back at the beginning said "First one to Katahdin loses." Ithink they're probably right. For to run that fast would be to takeall the fun out of it, and would likely also mean you got some big uglyresponsibility awaiting you at home that's rushing you so. Fuck that. I and most that I have hiked with here so far have no deadline. Manyof us have no homes, no phones, no nothin. And that's why we'll makeit. I both admire and turn a curious eye on those who have spouses orlovers at home. I wonder how they'll do it. I admire them for trying.Me, I'm not wired right for long-distance relationships. I gave upgreat love once (maybe more than once?) when I knew that our paths weredividing, geographically-speaking. It's too hard on the poet's heart,on any heart, I suspect. But I did get lucky and on Day 2 of thisendeavor met Elly, with whom I hiked and camped for some ten days. Then it was time for that to end, too. Our paces, our patience, ourreasons, our ways & our means, none passed the test of that gruelingfirst week. So alone I go, now last in that little mock race I wasjust describing. My pace has quicked though, enormously. Now andagain I remember that my stride measures far wider than I usually askof it. Then into that stride I step, braking my fall with poles as Idescend, pulling with poles as I climb. In no time I will have thighsof iron and biceps to match. The sun is out today, 70 degrees, lightbreeze, and we're cooking along. What a vast and incomprehensibledifference from just two days ago when I descended through snow with apack full of frozen stiff stocks and a drink tube full of ice and thusundrinkable. Onward.-RSMThank God for small favors from the fascist hunter fuckers who "invent"time travel with this whole Daylight savings Time shit. Today theyhave done my fellow hikers and I a favor. Starting today, our days nolonger end so damn early. Course, we'll still rise and set with thesun, but the sun will be around longer. And speaking of time and thewhole game of reckoning progress, I came out here to relax and enjoynature, (exfoliated and kinda winter-dead as it is right now - but SOWHAT?). The "whole food crack heads" as I've come to call them, are upand stuffing their bags and wolfing down Cliff bars at the crack-o-dawnno matter what the weather, and then THEY GONE! Off and running. Gotta do the BIG MILES today. I say, fuck Big Miles. Sarge is fromthe Big Easy and I think he'd agree. The whole "big mile" mentality isjust another manifestation of the shop-til-you-drop, go-go-go,work-long-hours-for-the-man bullshit that I THOUGHT we were out here toescape. Of course, I never see those big milers again. They're wayout ahead now. But every morning there's a new crop of whole foodcrack heads, bustin' ass to get to Maine quick as bunnies so they canrace home and bustass into jobs and cubicles and clich©s. Kindasaddens me to see this mentality. But more so I suppose it chafes atme, like jock itch, cuz many of these guys I'd like to see again ondown the trail. But I won't. They're gone. And speaking of gone and sadly so, Fast Eddy passed me going southboundyesterday as I was heading outa Nantahala. I said, "Hey, Fast Eddy,where you going?" He said, "Hey buddy! I forgot something back at theNOC." Just like that, chipper as can be. And away he went. Iremember thinking right away, "Hey, he called me buddy. That's cool." Fast Eddy was the quietest, most soft-spoken giant of a man I've yetmet on the trail. I liked him a lot and looked forward to gettin toknow him better. I heard last night at Sassafras Gap Shelter thatFast Eddy had quit the trail, sold his gear to others, and headed hometo Galiano, LA. He hadn't forgotten anything. Too shy perhaps to saygoodbye, he'd at least called me buddy. ¢RSM4/3/4 Mile 134.6 Just above NantahalaStepping up a craggy cliffside out and away north from the NantahalaOutdoor Center in Somewhere, North Carolina, I feel a mixture of irony,satisfaction, gratitude and the will to move forward. Fading below meas I rise in elevation come the strains of Whiter Shade of Pale, thatmelodic and nostalgic-sounding 70s dirge that trips the light fandangoand all that. The music is piped high and loud through the canyon tobe heard over the roar of the Nantahala River. I have stayed twonights at the NOC, taking a zero day primarily for the purpose of restand to catch up on what seems to me days and days of stories untold,but also in hopes that Underground and Tumbleweed might catch me up. That's right, they're gone too. In just a matter of a few days, ourcool little family foursome went dry like a keg of Blue Ribbon in abowling alley. Now there's nothing left but me: the tap. Or am I theempty keg? All right, enough of that analogy. Two nights at the NOCand I couldn't write diddly squat. Now I'm just half a mile up trail and the words begin to flood in. I sit down on a leafy soft spot andpull out my "works" and shoot up some words. Round the corner comes NoBeard and his pretty fair-haired, fair-skinned, fair-everything'dgirlfriend No Dog. They're a cute couple. Seem solid as oak andgranite and colorful as fruitcake. What am I saying? Okay, time tohike up a jillion switchbacks. Two days at 15 miles/day will put me atFontana Damn and the gateway to the Great Smokey National Forest, 70miles of bear-infested and allegedly rule-crazed ranger territory. Theprize at the far end is Hot Springs, NC, where the whole town comes outto celebrate thru hikers on April 17. Sounds like a blast to me. Oneday soon here I'll catch you all up on questions like: what happened toElly? And where am I? Who am I? And more importantly, who are allthese crazed mutants huffin and puffin alongside me bound for Mainewith nutty names like Dirtnap and IceBox? Tune in next time... [a little later..]I sit on some high rock overlooking ridge upon ridge upon mountain uponmountain. Mule and the Professor point at the snowline atop thehighest mountain as far as we can see and say "See that snow? That'swhere we walked from the other day." Indeed. Was that a nightmare ora lovely crystal white fluffy winter dream for which I should feelgrateful for having been present? Truth: I froze my ass off up on thatmountain. I got wet, shoes, socks, and upper body garments from thesweat beneath my raingear. But hey, I also hiked my longest day thatday: 18 miles. Hoo-frikken-ray.-RSM4/3/4 11:51 pm Mile 137.6 Grassy TopAnd they¢re off! Right outa the gate it's Harvard Lark apparentlyinexhaustible after her much-celebrated 22-mile day. Right behind Larkis Beer Thirty from Jersey, bent trekking pole and all he's makingtracks like a champ. Third out the gate this morning here atAppalachian Downs it's Big Horn Wanderer, big, wandering, and well,horny I guess. Sarge is out there, holding back from his usual pace,throwing the race for the sake of Little Engine, the judges daughterfrom Pensacola preparing for the big flip-flop half way to Maine. She's smokin' , but not in the way to win the race, if you get mymeaning. In our next heat we have No Dog and No Beard, colorfullyadorned in red and yellow Gortex jackets, sure not to be shot by anynear-sighted turkey hunters this season. Initially ahead of them butnow dropping back we have the Professor and Mississippi Mule, twodaunting 60-something studs sure, by dint of age and determination, towin the Gold no matter how they place in this one-of-a-kind, 2000-milerace.But of course it ISN'T a race at all. I just make fun with metaphor. Someone back at the beginning said "First one to Katahdin loses." Ithink they're probably right. For to run that fast would be to takeall the fun out of it, and would likely also mean you got some big uglyresponsibility awaiting you at home that's rushing you so. Fuck that. I and most that I have hiked with here so far have no deadline. Manyof us have no homes, no phones, no nothin. And that's why we'll makeit. I both admire and turn a curious eye on those who have spouses orlovers at home. I wonder how they'll do it. I admire them for trying.Me, I'm not wired right for long-distance relationships. I gave upgreat love once (maybe more than once?) when I knew that our paths weredividing, geographically-speaking. It's too hard on the poet's heart,on any heart, I suspect. But I did get lucky and on Day 2 of thisendeavor met Elly, with whom I hiked and camped for some ten days. Then it was time for that to end, too. Our paces, our patience, ourreasons, our ways & our means, none passed the test of that gruelingfirst week. So alone I go, now last in that little mock race I wasjust describing. My pace has quicked though, enormously. Now andagain I remember that my stride measures far wider than I usually askof it. Then into that stride I step, braking my fall with poles as Idescend, pulling with poles as I climb. In no time I will have thighsof iron and biceps to match. The sun is out today, 70 degrees, lightbreeze, and we're cooking along. What a vast and incomprehensibledifference from just two days ago when I descended through snow with apack full of frozen stiff stocks and a drink tube full of ice and thusundrinkable. Onward.-RSMThank God for small favors from the fascist hunter fuckers who "invent"time travel with this whole Daylight savings Time shit. Today theyhave done my fellow hikers and I a favor. Starting today, our days nolonger end so damn early. Course, we'll still rise and set with thesun, but the sun will be around longer. And speaking of time and thewhole game of reckoning progress, I came out here to relax and enjoynature, (exfoliated and kinda winter-dead as it is right now - but SOWHAT?). The "whole food crack heads" as I've come to call them, are upand stuffing their bags and wolfing down Cliff bars at the crack-o-dawnno matter what the weather, and then THEY GONE! Off and running. Gotta do the BIG MILES today. I say, fuck Big Miles. Sarge is fromthe Big Easy and I think he'd agree. The whole "big mile" mentality isjust another manifestation of the shop-til-you-drop, go-go-go,work-long-hours-for-the-man bullshit that I THOUGHT we were out here toescape. Of course, I never see those big milers again. They're wayout ahead now. But every morning there's a new crop of whole foodcrack heads, bustin' ass to get to Maine quick as bunnies so they canrace home and bustass into jobs and cubicles and clich©s. Kindasaddens me to see this mentality. But more so I suppose it chafes atme, like jock itch, cuz many of these guys I'd like to see again ondown the trail. But I won't. They're gone. And speaking of gone and sadly so, Fast Eddy passed me going southboundyesterday as I was heading outa Nantahala. I said, "Hey, Fast Eddy,where you going?" He said, "Hey buddy! I forgot something back at theNOC." Just like that, chipper as can be. And away he went. Iremember thinking right away, "Hey, he called me buddy. That's cool." Fast Eddy was the quietest, most soft-spoken giant of a man I've yetmet on the trail. I liked him a lot and looked forward to gettin toknow him better. I heard last night at Sassafras Gap Shelter thatFast Eddy had quit the trail, sold his gear to others, and headed hometo Galiano, LA. He hadn't forgotten anything. Too shy perhaps to saygoodbye, he'd at least called me buddy. ¢RSMWhat? You want words at 830 in the morning when the temp inside mytent is a whopping 25 F? Forget it! [written during one of those weird endorphin highs I been gettin' latein the afternoon]It's 7 o'clock and I really should be going. Still need to make campsomewhere before dark. I've hiked 15 miles or so today and I feelokay. I really should be going but I just felt compelled to stop and,if not capture in words, at least admire the beauty before me. It's amix of manmade and Heaven, this dazzling late afternoon scene. Thereis a breeze, cool but not uncomfortable whilst seated in the sun inwindbreaker and fleece hat. I hear no birds just now, likely tuckingin for the night. There is only the light dance of dry leaves and thewhisper of wind in the trees. To my right and ahead sits the sun inthe sky, framed by mountains, poised almost as though to drive downYellow Creek Mountain Road which stretches onward below it. Thesunlight has painted it, lit up all its yellow lines and shiny spotslike a river or a silver ribbon through the forest. So perfect is itin line with the sun's path this afternoon that the shadow of not onetree touches it. And it is lined with trees. It disappears into thetrees way off. Closer to me, a tiny little alley of dirt and twigs anddry leaves tumbles upward toward me from that road. This little alleyis but a few short paces of the Appalachian Trail. On a tree beside methere stands painted into the bark a tiny white blaze, not much biggerthan two business cards end to end. It is the simple white paint signto all who hike that yes, this is the trail, this is the way to Maine. A few thoughts at a crossroads in North Carolina.-RSMI learned a lot from Elly, like the names of a few birds and trees. She taught me about the junko, a little bird that gets its dinner fromjunk laying around on the ground, and the pileated woodpecker, a bigand beautiful thing that would sing to us through the jungle-likerhododendron groves of Georgia. That was before the snows of course,back in those first days when one might believe that Georgia knew noreal winter. From Elly I learned more than I may ever need to knowabout life on a commune, on one of the few still existent andapparently successful communes in the country, her home. I learnedall about the The Rainbow Gathering and heard for the first time theterm "spange" a short form of spare changing, the mainstay of the youngmodern hobo. Those are among the good things I learned about Elly, andmost of them because I asked questions about her life and probedfurther when probing felt welcome.I rather quickly developed a kind of lonesomeness around Elly, however,stemming from something I don't often encounter in people of mutual attraction trying to get to know one another: Elly never asked meanything about me. I learned that Elly had been hurt somehow,somewhere, quite badly it seemed. I learned this through her anger, ofwhich she had plenty. We all deal with depression in different ways,and Elly's way is anger. The night when things really fell apart for uswent something like this:We made camp and went about the business of cooking our separate mealsand washing in the creak almost entirely without dialogue. For mypart, I didn't know what to say anymore. I felt I had run out of"interest" in this woman thanks largely to her seeming total lack ofinterest in me. If she didn't want to know about me, then I didn'treally care to know much more about her. Weird how that works. But Elly was sweet as a peach when we lay down together nights. Shelaughed and smiled a lot and was a totally different person than herhard hiking day self. So that night, duties done, when we lay down andwatch the sunset, the last thing I wanted to do was get heavy on her,but I had to get the question off my chest. "How come you never ask meanything about myself?" I inquired. She didn't want to be invasive,she said. Hmm. Okay. "But you've asked me NOTHING about myself,nothing at all." She went on to explain that she had learned muchabout me by the stories I told, and that she hadn't felt comfortableasking more. Basically, she went on to explain away something that hadreally only required an apology, or some small balm on my ego with theassurance that in the future she looked forward to learning lots moreabout me and would do her best to ask.Yeah, right Rick. Dream on. The whole thing stank for me, and the combination of this problem and alot of things I HAD LEARNED about her through incessant query and justplain observation 24/7 since we'd met had already likely sealed ourfate. I felt it was time to move on, to say thank you both to oneanother and the Universe for the great gift of companionship in gettingthrough this difficult first stretch of the trail, and say adieu. Despite appearances to the contrary, however, I don't easily make suchdecisions. But then Elly went kinda nutso, and that sealed the deal. It was a nothing kinda thing, but the way she reacted was telling asall hell. She rolled a joint and then lost it in the leaves. Okay,okay, let's put on our headlamps and look for it. "LIGHT IS NOT WHAT INEED!" she railed. Roll another one? NO! And so it went, for likehalf an hour, a stomping, cursing, obsessive and repetitive search,back and forth over the same bit of ground. After a no-good attempt tohelp, I just kept my distance. Amazingly, she found the thing at last,in her sleeping bag. She lit up, we lay down, and I said, "I thinkstarting tomorrow you and I should hike our own hike."One long sleepless, tear-filled night and three days of tense relationslater, she accepted my wish that this be so and raced on ahead so as toavoid the pain of seeing me. It was terrible. I felt awful. She'deven threatened to quit the trail over it. Elly's whole Terminatortough exterior turned out to be a total facade, and I was left to breakthe heart of a girl as broken inside as I am. But Elly is a girl whosebrokenness has manifested in ways utterly alien and quite frighteningto me. Actually, not totally alien. I understand it, but I cannot bearound it. From her sadness has grown anger; from mine a turninginward. Elly is lovely when she smiles. At times, she was the spitting imageof Jodie Foster. And gross as this will sound to those of you outthere in the scrubbed-clean world, I loved her several-day unshoweredsmell. After her first 15-mile day (the night we met) she was ripe ashell. I loved it. She lay down beside me up there in the loft atGooch Mountain Shelter and I was in Heaven. I'd barely gotten a look at her before darkness, but I lay therebasking in her scent and her stories, a man in a dream. And dream Idid that night. I woke twice in the early morning totally convincedthat I had somehow mounted her through our sleeping bags. (And whynot? It dropped into the teens that night and that sweaty body 15inches away meant more than sex, it meant warmth!)I see Elly now freshly showered and smiling in the afternoon sun atRainbow Springs Inn looking beautiful as ever. "There's a couple ofCoronas in the fridge in the yurt," she tells me, knowing full well I'mdying for a beer and there's none to be purchased for miles around. This is her gift to me, her concession, her sweetness after anotherangry freak out earlier that day left us both mute as trees. But sadlyit's too little too late. By the time I get to it, there's one beerleft in the fridge. I drink it and am grateful. The sun is setting onthe cabins and the grassy grounds beside the river. John from Saco,Maine plays Frisbee with his dog Casey. Elly goes to the phone to callher mom. But the phone is occupied, and she returns to my campsite tosay that she'll race on ahead tomorrow if that's what I'd like. "Justsay it," she says. "Just tell me you want me to go away." I can't doit. I won't do it. It's not fair and it's not what I feel. I justwant her to acknowledge my request of three days ago: that we walk ourown walks now. I say again what I've been saying for days: thank you. Thank you forthe gift of one great week together. And I repeat some of what I'vebeen saying about compatibility, that's it's a miracle and a gift welasted a week. Elly smokes pot; I drink beer. Elly is a vegetarian; Ieat anything and everything. Elly wants to help the Earth; I think theEarth's just fine and it's we who are fucked. Elly is a self-describedluddite, one who avoids machinery; I carry a virtual laptop and modemin my pocket. And then the final big one: Elly is an atheist; Ibelieve in God and GODDAMMIT I'M GONNA FIND ME A WOMAN WHO WILL TELLME, ON MY DEATHBED, THAT I'M GOING TO HEAVEN AND SHE'LL SEE ME THERE!!And that's the story of Elly and me. Until I meet her up the trail. Which I probably will. Whether she likes it or not.From a mountaintop overlooking Fontana Dam, North Carolina and the onlyspot I could transmit from for the past 40 miles or so, this is LordDuke "Jester" Malcovich Gadget Tinkerbell Hammerhead McKinney sayinggoodbye, and see you on the other side of the Smokey Mountains if Idon't get eaten by a bear.-RSMFor the full story of Rick's journey, visit Jigglebox.com