Date: 2005-12-21
From: Day 2 continues...

To: ...just a little longer...
Miles today: 0.0

Previously: The 'flat' Wilderness had recently become decidedly unflat, and we were all grumbling a bit, as our knees cried out in protest. Tromping along for an hour-and-a-half or so, I had just spotted sign-age ahead...Approaching the sign, I naturally began hypothesizing about what it might say. Could this, in fact, be Third Mountain? (The creativity of the mountain-namers really is, at times, beyond words. There was, for example, Brushy Mtn in Virginia, which we summited no less than 347 times. And no, it wasn¢t b/c we were directionally-impaired.) The timing was about right, assuming my estimate on the current time was correct, and based on our recent 2-212 mph pace. And, we had gone over the requisite number of ¢bumps¢ since Barren Mtn, according to Wingfoot. Exceeded the requisite, in fact. And yet, I remained somewhat incredulous, b/c, as much as my brain stubbornly protested the notion, I really didn¢t believe that I had maintained a 30-minute mile pace. I suspected that we were still a little shy of 3rd Mtn.Reaching the sign, then reading the sign, then incredulously re-reading the sign, it proclaimed: ¢Fourth Mtn Bog.¢ Fourth Mountain?! I swear that I could detect a mocking sneer in the very curvature of the letters of that sign. Fourth! ¢But¢¦ but¢¦¢ my brain silently sputtered. Mentally summoning the relevant page of Wingfoot, I rapidly calculated that 4th Mtn should reside at least a 30-minute walk south of us. I could accept that maybe, maybe, we hadn¢t made it to 3rd Mtn yet, but, to be stuck on 4th? Still? Or, even worse, to not even be there yet? I petulantly studied the implacable sign, pointlessly wishing its message would miraculously change, into something slightly more palatable, or at least more informative; all it really told us was that we were in the vicinity of 4th Mtn. Nothing about whether we had already, unknowingly, climbed it, or whether it still lay before us. (And my suspicions sided strongly w/ the latter.) Free caught up to me here and, her mental machinations evidently mirroring mine, asked (her incredulity equally matching mine):¢Fourth¢¦ Bog? But¢¦ This means that we¢ve actually done the actual mountain, right? That we¢ve gone up and over 4th already¢¦ right? The bog is past the summit. Isn¢t it¢¦?¢But her questions slowly trickled off. Her words, having escaped into verbalization, remained, hovering above us, weaving themselves into the unavoidable truth. Taunting us¢¦Hastily seeking to defract and disperse this web of words, I replied, w/ blustery confidence:¢Of course. Fourth Mtn must have been that last climb we did. Or even the one before that. I mean, it¢s been well over an hour. We have to have walked 2 miles. At least. Yes, certainly. I¢m sure. We must have¢¦¢Suddenly, my blustery confidence, which had begun as more bluster and less confidence anyway, instantaneously deflated into a hollow husk. Suddenly, my definitive assertions were no longer definitive, nor were they assertions; they sounded like feeble guesses, ringing emptily in the face of reality. For, from my (at times annoyingly) sponge-like memory, a recollection had resurfaced ¢ of how deceptive the miles had been in southern Maine, of how tortuously slow forward movement was. Suddenly, I had absolutely no doubt that, not only were we nowhere close to 3rd Mtn, but we had yet to see the summit of 4th either. Free read the unpalatable truth in my crestfallen expression and, resignedly, we stalked past that silently smug sign. I couldn¢t resist giving it a resentful ¢thwack¢ w/ my trekking pole as I passed.By this time, I had managed to work myself up into quite a little snarky ball of knots. Wingfoot hadn¢t given any indication or warning of these hellacious ups and downs; it actually appeared that he had omitted several of them. Of course, due to his previous mileage error earlier in the day (climbing Barren Ledges), Wingfoot had fallen rather abruptly from my good graces, and in my current disposition, I wasn¢t about to invest much faith in his data. But what about the trusty Trail Rumor-Mill? (And I was in absolutely no humor to have it pointed out to me that the Trail Rumor-Mill is neither trusty nor reliable; that it is, in fact, notoriously inaccurate.) It had made no mention whatsoever of challenging terrain in the Wilderness. ¢The Wilderness is flat,¢ everyone says. ¢Flat¢ my derriere! I was fully prepared to throttle the next person who smugly assured me of the prairie-land flatness of the Wilderness. Or better yet, I¢d just shove them off one of the non-existent sheer rock faces that our knees weren¢t protesting b/c we weren¢t having to climb down them.Our fatigue and frustration were compounded by our lack of a recent zero day; our last day-off was already twelve days distant. Now, as the Pod, we partook of zero days w/ a calendrical regularity, at least once a week. Our sore, abused bodies simply couldn¢t cope otherwise. (That, at least, was our public rationale for their frequency. Frankly, we enjoyed them. A lot. And so we took them. A lot.) Well, based on how we were all feeling, how our bodies were (not) holding up, there may have been an element of truth in that reasoning. We were all just a little bit run-down, our energy reserves just slightly depleted, the aches and pains just a little too achy and painful, the kinks not quite being able to un-kink themselves overnight. The relentless pace that we had set for ourselves (not that we were setting any mileage records or anything; a 10-mile day here, a 12- there¢¦), in order to reach our scheduled Summit Day of October 8th, was beginning to take its toll. However, this was our final week on the AT. Anytime our bodies rebelled at the notion of another step, we had only to remind ourselves that, seven days from now, we¢d be on Katahdin. We¢d be done. And, going down that particular line of thought opened a whole Pandora¢s can of worms ¢ angst-ridden, panicky, let¢s-not-go-there, Freak-Out-inducing worms. Worms I was only too happy to avoid.And so, ignoring the protests of my weary body, ignoring the wriggling, nibbling worms feeding on my Summit Day anxiety, I resolutely focused on the present. Which, at that precise moment, meant venturing into this ¢Fourth Mtn Bog.¢ Despite my less-than-rosy outlook, however, the bog was, admittedly, pretty cool. (It was also mercifully flat, a factor contributing to its inherent cool-ness.) The trail meandered through the marshy wetland for several hundred yards, and thoughtful trail maintainers had provided bridges of downed trees across the squishiest sections. The pungent, acrid smell that is uniquely bog-ish (from the peat, perhaps?) permeated the air. There was still some creative footwork and improvisation required, to successfully navigate the marsh unscathed, feet and limbs unmarred by bog-ified muck, having to tentatively test the solidity of the ground w/ each step, before trusting your full weight on it. Free had experienced personally the disastrous result of such a misstep, back on Surplus Mtn...There had been a narrow string of bog-boards, providing a safe passageway through the ravenous marsh. Becoming distracted, Free strode off the protective plank, momentum and inertia propelling her forward even as she hastily backpedaled. Her right foot immediately plunged into the aromatic muck, followed promptly by her right ankle¢¦ calf¢¦ and knee ¢ It was Shel Silverstein¢s poem in the flesh, acted out before our very eyes. (I¢m dredging this poem up from memory, so any transcription errors are mine, and mine alone.):¢Oh, gee, it¢s swallowed my knee.Oh, my, it¢s swallowed my thigh¢¦Oh, heck, it¢s swallowed my neck.Oh, dread, it¢s swallowed my h¢¦¢Fortunately for Free, her engulfment halted at knee-level, otherwise there¢s no telling how much of her body the voracious bog would have consumed. Of course, buried to her knee in mud, unable to get adequate leverage on the unstable crust of the bog, Free was in a bit of a predicament. A very humorous predicament. She was, in fact, stuck. Serenity, frantically tugging on Free¢s trapped appendage, besieged Poet and I to lend a hand. Poet, meanwhile, was doubled-over from the guffaws bubbling from her lungs. As for me, although I engaged in a good-natured chuckle or two, I was more concerned w/ capturing the moment for posterity. After ascertaining, of course, that she was in no actual danger, I took full advantage of Free¢s inability to reach me w/ anything other than her eyes, which we currently glaring at me w/ murderous intent. Whipping out my camera¢¦ CLICK, CLICK¢¦So, w/ Free¢s ego-shattering near-loss-of-limb serving as a vivid precautionary reminder, the two of us proceeded cautiously through 4th Mtn Bog. Several times, I mis-stepped or miscalculated the firmness of the soil, and found myself almost¢¦ bouncing, on the crusty surface of the bog, buoyed above an unknown depth of bog-ish muck. It felt like I was standing on an overly-filled waterbed, all too aware that it could burst at any moment, although rather than being drenched by purified water, I would instead be plunged into a pit of muddy quicksand, eagerly grasping my flailing extremities in a bearish embrace. So, yes, we took our good ol¢ time. We also harbored (slightly unfounded) hopes of spotting a moose, complacently wallowing knock-kneed-deep in the bog, a strand or two of moss dribbling from its rhythmically gnoshing mouth. Especially as we were suddenly aware that the sun had somehow made significant progress in its trek across the sky. But alas, no meese sightings today.Moreover, our temporary respite from the strenuous travails ended, all too quickly, as we found ourselves returning to the relentless ascents, and the even more atrocious descents. For traversing the perilous tightrope across the bog was vastly preferable to the brutal escalator-esque terrain, where you felt as if you had accidentally jumped on the ¢Down¢ staircase, and must frantically scramble uphill, simply to stand still. (Running up the ¢Down¢ or down the ¢Up¢ escalator in the mall may have been an enjoyable dare when you were 8, bored, and despised shopping w/ a passion. However, we were no longer eight, boredom was displaced by exhaustion, and ¢shopping¢ was only equated w/ grocery stores and outfitters. Plus we had 45# behemoths adding to the challenge.) But, scramble we did, up and over 4th Mountain. Coming down its northern slope was particularly merciless. Our progress literally came to a standstill at times, as we assessed the treacherous topography for the safest course. Poet joined us, as we painstakingly navigated the descent, and I gratefully relinquished my position at the helm. I loathe being the designated pace-setter, largely b/c of my inability to set a suitable pace. When in the lead, I always feel that I am personally holding up everyone behind me; as a result, I tend to over-compensate, and jet off at a breakneck speed. Or, predicting this inevitable over-compensation, I attempt to rein myself in, over-compensating once again, and thus brake to a crawl. So, needless to say, I was only too happy to yield control of the speedometer to Poet.Immediately stabilizing our pace, Poet sure-footedly guided our steps ever-downward, through the vertical maze of rocks and roots. In our artfully choreographed descent of 4th Mtn, there was a slight amount of assing, several opportunities for half-assing, and a great deal of tree-dancing. (See my Nov 30th entry for definitions of the first two terms.) Tree-dancing is a technical maneuver involving a significant degree of finesse and grace. Like assing and half-assing, it is a technique born out of necessity, in the boulder fields of Mahoosuc Notch. Tree-dancing is typically applied when you, the hiker, are confronted w/ a particularly high and/or sheer rock face that must be descended and, for whatever reason, (half-)assing is not an option. (Perhaps the rock is exceedingly wet, and you wish to avoid a soggy bottom. Or there may be protrusions on the rock that would result in a decidedly unpleasant collision.) Tree-dancing, as the name implies, does require a tree to be present, conveniently positioned on the side of the trail and near the top of the boulder. The actual maneuver is performed thusly: taking a firm, two-handed grasp of the trunk of said tree (your trekking poles, which are unequivocally useless in such conditions, have been unconcernedly tossed to the bottom of said boulder), you plant your inner foot (the one closest to the tree) firmly on the top of the boulder. Then, pushing off from this established foothold, you shift your weight to your arms, swinging your body so that you are actually facing the opposite direction, having completed a half-pirouette. Your opposite foot, meanwhile, is seeking purchase in the roots and dirt on the edge of the rock-face. Once sturdy footing has been established, your balance shifts to that foot, you release your hold of the tree, and you continue on your merry way (after, of course, retrieving your trekking poles). Don¢t be discouraged if it takes you several attempts to become comfortable and adept at tree-dancing; it is a very tricky and awkward maneuver. And thus ends the impromptu lesson in tree-dancing, your Pod-speak word of the day.And thus also ends today's entry. I promise -- Day 2 of the Wildnerness will be concluded tomorrow. Also, for anyone interested, I added some more photos, from the early days of the hike. I'll try to continue to post more pics in addition to the entries, but no promises on that.