Date: 2009-08-20
From: Cooper Creek Falls Lean-To 

To: Logan Brooks Lean-To 
Miles today: 11.4

Well, the good news is that I am here, eating some nice hot Mountain House Dehydrated spaghetti and meat sauce. If I had written this journal entry at noontime, it would have been a lot more positive and filled with my usual ¢cup-half-full¢ point of view about my hiking experiences on the AT. And, for good reason ¢ knowing today was a relatively short one (11.4 miles), I really took things at a leisurely pace; getting breakfast, packing up, etc. As I was just finishing my coffee, two hikers arrived for breakfast and water. ¢Legs¢ is a Thru Hiker who was joined by a hiking buddy from Munson for the last ¢leg¢ of his journey. They had camped a couple of miles away and made my morning coffee all the more enjoyable for the sake of their company. A little before 10:00 am (yes, that¢s 10:00 am!), I was finally on the Trail and enjoying the sunshine and scenery, the lakes, and beaver dams, and the life of the AT hiker in general. As I walked along, I outlined a novel (possibly called ¢Winter and Spring¢) in which a 75-year-old man hires a 21-year-old, out of work college female to accompany him on his lifelong dream of hiking the Appalachian Trail. Needless to say, the double generation gap between them is huge in many factors but quite aligned on others ¢ but the great common denominator for both of them that would mitigate all the differences would, of course, be the Trail, itself. If I had my way this summer morning with all going well, it sounds like a bestseller, for sure, with Clint Eastwood or Jack Nicholson playing the male lead in the movie version. Buy your popcorn and save your seats now! A little after noon, I reached the top of Little Broad Man Ridge and was able to get hold of my son, Jack, although only long enough to wish him a happy 39th birthday before I lost the signal for good. Two years ago this day, he was with me while we were hiking the AT in southern Maine with some really interesting other hikers, including ¢Grasshopper.¢ That hike with Jack was one of the best times I¢ve had on the Trail. After I lost the signal, I realized that my cell phone battery was now more or less half gone, so I needed to keep some in reserve for Saturday¢s drop box delivery, so it seems I¢ll be quite out of touch until I reach Munson in four more days. From this point on, my day (and my mindset) started to turn sour. The Thru Hikers I passed along the way were all very pleasant but clearly suffering from a bad case of Katahdin fever, and we chit-chatted and exchanged information about what lay ahead (beaches, climbs, water sources, campsites, etc.,), that was about it. Only ¢Rolling Stone,¢ an architect on sabbatical, who was drinking water at one of the streams, I had to ford was at all interested in talking and proved to be the most interesting and personable person. Early in the afternoon, the sun disappeared, and middle-distance clouds rolled in, turning the woods gray with the threat of rain overhead. About this time, I took my third fall of this trip, slipping on a muddy rock and landing on my back (the first fall I took was going up Katahdin, and it was a real ¢beaut.¢ It should have done a lot more damage than just a few scrapes and lumps and bumps and blacks and blues). The second fall was on the second day while hiking with Lindsey Pritchard. I slipped on the side of a rock, and I slid onto my back, landing in a pool of water we had just gone down to test for its suitability for swimming. Apparently, it was more suitable than I had given it credit for. Ultimately, this prompted me to go for a swim and to enjoy a break in the day, which I guess I needed whether I liked it or not. Today¢s fall did no physical damage to me, but I landed on my pole and smashed the last 10¢ of it off. Fortunately, however, the new Leatherman tool that I found at my outfitter just before I left proved to be the perfect combination of devices needed to repair the pole and get it back into full condition in an hour. Even so, the fall left me shaken, mentally if not physically. They always have that effect on me because they make me realize how quickly and unexpectedly something can happen out here that might have dire consequences. A little while later, as I was contemplating my human frailties, I began to feels drops of water on the backs of my legs, not rain. The source of water could only mean one thing ¢ I stopped and pulled out my 2 liter camel pack bladder and, sure enough, it had sprung a leak (probably as a result of the fall). So, I drank what was left and pressed on, knowing that I had enough in my 1 liter bottle to get me through the day. I have since found the hole in my camel pack and used duct tape to fix it ¢ I¢m in the process of running an overnight check to see if the tape holds before trying it out on the trail and having it leak into all of my clothes once again. So, here I am, sitting in a shelter in the middle of the 100-mile Wilderness with no one to talk to (once again, I¢ve got the lean-to all to myself) ¢ gray skies now turning into black ¢ dark woods all around and not much charge in my cell phone, and four more days of walking until I reach any sign of ¢civilization.¢ Sometimes, I guess the same questions you¢ve got to ask yourself about me is applicable for me to ask myself about me ¢ what the hell are you doing this for? Oh well, enough rambling for me. I guess I¢ll go to bed with no cigar (all out), no tea (had to get up three times last night to pee), and aware of the metaphor of my ¢real life¢ back in New York City ¢ where I am just as vulnerable most of the time; just as much at risk for injury or accidents most of the time; and just as much aware of how little effect the consequences of something devastating happening to me would have on anyone else. Oh, I know for sure that I would be missed, that¢s not what I mean. What I mean is that from time to time I realize (especially after my fall saw myself walking around in a funk) that no one¢s way of life would even be altered by my absence. Maybe that's true; maybe that¢s a good thing, but for me, as of now, it doesn¢t feel like it. It¢s fair to suggest that I am not an integral part of the pattern of anyone¢s life ¢ a part that if removed would cause them to restructure significantly the way that they operate their daily lives. But feelings aren¢t facts, and tomorrow is another day, and I¢ll just have to see what it holds. Now, maybe the fact that the patterns of other people and of this experience fit into my life is what matters more at this point than not? These are heavy questions to broach as I try to go to sleep.