Date: 2004-06-06
From: Mackerel-gray

To: Mountain in the Mist
Miles today: 11.2

I¢ll always have that night to remember, for it was the first night of my life I spent sleeping under a rock.         Sleeping under a rock is an experience. For one thing, you learn that no matter how much work it is it build a real shelter, it¢s worth it. For another, all rocky crevasses look bigger until you slip into one, and then you learn you don¢t have enough space to wrap what few dry spots still exist on your sleeping bag. You also find that, no matter what position you lie in, a rock will project into your lower back, your glute, or some other sensitive body part. You also dream while only mostly asleep; I dreamt I was a reporter interviewing a family that lived under a rock for four generations.         It was far and away one of the most uncomfortable Saturday nights of my life, yet also one of the most memorable. Sleeping under a rock will definitely make you less picky about where you sleep in the future. You¢ve reached rock-bottom in the heirarchy of hearths. Once you¢ve slept under a rock .. you¢ll never want to do it again.        And so it was I spent the night contorting myself under an overhanging rock, just too small to cover my feet or even most of my face and too low to allow me to take any position but on my side with a stone digging into my right buttock. At one point, I think it was around 3 a.m., I forced myself out of the crack to try to resume the trail, but I still couldn¢t find the next blaze. So I had to return, praying for the dawn to make the endless low clouds glow a lighter shade of gray.         Eventually I got my wish. The skies gradually lightened to the point where I realized my eyes weren¢t adjusting, the earth was finally rotating my way. I rolled out from beneath the stone, collected my sopping gear, and returned to the trail. The next blaze was now visible, thirty feet downhill from where I last stood.         I¢m not exactly sure how far I had to go, but this was it. This was the last day.So Long, AlabamaAbout two miles later I found the Wolf Rocks. All I can say is, what a disappointment. Sure, I had to drop to my hands and swing my legs for some old-school scrambling, and they would have been very hard to surmount on a dark and rainy night, but compared to how hat-man hyped them these were barely worth calling boulders. They were certainly nothing to go on in length on an online trail journal about. The Ice Age must have ended with a whimper.        Not long later I reached the Kirkridge Shelter, a site exactly six and a half miles from my goal. This was it, my last shelter stop. I wrote a quick note in the shelter register commemorating the occasion, then looked back at the other notes. Apparently, Haiku and Sugar Daddy had completed their 36-miles-in-under-24-hour journey thanks to a passing motorist giving them a lift part of the way. After that, though, Haiku cut his foot on the sharp stones (an event related in one of his 5-7-5 poems ending with the line, ¢Damn these PA rocks!¢). Still, they made it. Way to go, guys.        I read a little further back and saw Alabama also left a note. Apparently, this was his last shelter stop too. He had decided to take an indefinite break from the trail. That was a little sad, really. He could have become a trail legend, the man who did a few hundred miles before starting the two-thousand mile trip, but it was not to be. Tom summed it up best in a sarcastically written postscript: ¢It¢s OK, Alabama. Thru-hiking isn¢t for everyone.¢        Reading back further, I saw many of the other thru-hikers lamenting their bruised feet, split boots, and accumulated frustration at the merciless rocks. If it got to these guys too, I guess I¢m not a tenderfoot after all.        Only six and a half miles to go. I had walked 139 miles. I had hours left. I was so close to ending my journey. I was cold, wet, hungry, tasting blood from gums cut on raw ramen noodles, and each step made me wince. But I was close. So damn close. The Chaplain One aspect of the trail is that you really have no idea what day of the week it is unless you make a conscious effort to remember. I did, somewhat, in that I knew Day One was a Friday and Day Ten was a Sunday and could figure out any other day from those end points. But if you don¢t care what day the Sabbath is, it could well be any day you choose.         The trail has developed its own laws, its own language, and its own rituals. I now started to notice another aspect of a culture it had: its own spirituality. But then, it¢s hard not to be introspective when you are taken from the superficial distractions of daily life. You can only truly appreciate the true scale of nature when you are immersed in it. You have more time to acknowledge the divinity of others when you only meet two or three people a day. You come to understand the ways of all things around you and within you when the two peacefully exist. One would have to be a latter-day-Simon-LeGree not to feel less like something separate from the universe around them.         This is largely an individual experience, uniquely personal to each hiker, but it is starting to experience the first signs of civilization as it becomes manifested through the accomplishments of others. In time, it may be talked about, it will be noted, it may even be shared. A few sacrifices later, a religion is formed.         In the past few shelters I had seen signs for the Church of the Mountain Hiker, a Presbyterian church in Delaware Water Gap that offered a free hostel stay as part of its ministry. Unfortunately, the signs all said it was closed for repairs. At the Kirkridge shelter I found a copy of The Purpose-Driven Life along with a note about how a copy was left in many of the past shelters so the thru-hiker could read one chapter every night. Apparently, though, these were stolen from some of the other shelters I visited. Maybe they should have left copies of the Ten Commandments instead.         I pressed on through the foggy morning. The mist was chowder-thick, the sort of mist you can smell with each breath. In time, though, people began appearing in the fog before me, heading back in my direction. The first was a white-bearded man doing a short Sunday stroll, a pleasant fellow who let me know I still had miles to go. Then came two very large (about two dozen each) groups of Japanese hikers. I really wish I could speak more Japanese than the few rude phrases I know, because I was curious why such a multigenerational group was already several miles down the trail so early on a Sunday morning. Sadly, though, all I could do was politely say ¢good morning¢ as they passed. I¢ll be left wondering this one for a long time.         The Japanese hikers went into the fog, their tonal echoes softening to echoes and then to whispers behind me. A new sound now came from the fog, the sound of two pieces of metal scraping against stones in slow rhythm. A silhouette appeared, an outline of a man in a brimmed hat with two trekking poles. With each two scraping sounds he came closer into view, until at last I stopped and hailed the man who I shall henceforth refer to as ¢The Chaplain.¢        The Chaplain had the look of a man who had grown old without growing frail. Sure, he lamented his weak knees, so much so he stayed back and allowed me to descend the steep hills first, yet his flatland stride was faster than mine. It took some effort for me to keep up as he told me about his life in retirement after a career as a military chaplain and a pastor. Now he enjoyed taking Sunday hikes with his wife and her friend, who were presumably some distance back on the trail.        The Chaplain had hiked most sections of the trail, starting in the Smoky Mountains in his native Tennessee. He said he came to feel closer to God on the trail, surrounded by the wilderness. Although we never shared names or trail-names, we did share our more metaphysical experiences absorbed through the trail.        I also couldn¢t help but to feel supported by the Chaplain¢s frustration as the Appalachian trail twisted and turned away from the Delaware River. We could see it from the mountain, yet no matter how close we thought we were it was always just beyond the next turn. He started asking all the Sunday strollers how much further to the end. Each time the answer got a little smaller, although not in any particular proportion. For my part, I was willing to accept this prolonged ending from the trail. It was only the afternoon; I¢d still have plenty of time.        And, eventually, we reached the outskirts of Delaware Water Gap. The Chaplain and I parted ways with a handshake. He went back to find his wife and her friend. I continued east, already missing the one person I had come to regard as a good hiking companion. Last BridgeWhile it doesn¢t appear in many travel brochures these days, Delaware Water Gap used to be the vacation spot for the upper-crust. Back around the Civil War people were drawn to the area¢s beauty, prosperous hotels, and close location to Philadelphia, which was the a prosperous city itself. But then the railroads were built. Travelers could move on to more exotic and warmer locations, and Delaware Water Gap dwindled to a small town, with only its Victorian-era architecture paying tribute to its past glory.        Economic ramifications aside, I feel this was a good thing. The area is well-endowed with natural beauty, almost enough to make me forget the environmental scars I witnessed back at the Lehigh Gap. Mount Kittatinny, a mountain cleanly cut in half by the river, was worth walking 145 miles to see on a misty morning.         It seemed like a nice enough town, but I had no plans of sticking around any longer. I kept following the white blazes through the parking lot of the bridge maintenance company, between columns of shining municipal trucks, and finally to the banks of the Delaware river itself.        It took a triumph of will to take each step. Two times I had to stop on the bridge, trying to catch my breath as big rigs and SUVs with yellow New Jersey license plates passed to my left, each sending forth a burst of wind heralded by the roar of their engines. I moved onwards, watching them race past at sixty times my speed on the other side of the concrete divider. I¢d like to say this part was climatic, but the cars pretty much sapped the pleasure from the experience. Even if Beethoven¢s Fifth started playing I wouldn¢t be able to hear it over the traffic.         I walked over the wide Delaware. I found the strength to run when the end was in sight. I forced myself forward until I got to where the bridge met the rising eastern bank to where no one could dispute I had crossed the river. Then I collapsed. I glanced at my watch; it was now 2 p.m.        I had done it. I walked more than 145 miles over mountains and through storms. I had survived ten days of hardships ranging from boredom to outright hunger. I overcame my own self-doubt and inherent bumbling nature to traverse a visible section on most national maps. I accomplished what I set out to do in less time than I thought.         I felt like I could anything, yet I couldn¢t move.