Skywalker--Close Encounters on the Appalachian Trail (26 page)

Complaints were rampant as we traipsed through the Cumberland Valley grain fields in broiling sun. But, given my urban background, I found it pretty novel hiking through ripening corn and wheat fields. And there was another thing I liked about it. It was flat as a table top.

At several points the trail was a narrow corridor through high stalks of corn on both sides.

“Boy, those farmers sure have been generous to let the trail run straight through their crop like this,” I remarked.

“Oh no, they hate hikers,” the defense lawyer Not Guilty corrected me. “We’re lucky if they don’t shoot us. The ATC and the local trail maintenance clubs have fought many a legal battle to obtain the right of eminent domain for hikers to pass through here.”

In fact he turned out to be correct. Originally, the trail ran over hundreds of miles of private property. Fortunately, the ATC and local trail clubs have been able to gin up enough money through private contributions, legislative grants, and the like to narrow to just twenty-nine miles the amount of private property through which the AT passes. And on those twenty-nine miles you have passages that have been carefully designed and negotiated through private farmland and the like.

After a couple more days the trail finally left the corn and wheat fields and entered the famous fields of Pennsylvania rocks. They aren’t large boulders, but rather small, sharp stumble stones the size of bricks that keep your speed down as you pick from one to the next.

Whitewater was slightly faster than me, but in normal terrain I generally moved at a slightly quicker pace than Nurse Ratchet. However, in these rock fields, with my head down, I struggled to keep up with them. What’s more, with my head constantly looking down at the rocks I was having trouble following the trail.

The trail went down Cove Mountain and then right through the streets of Duncannon, Pennsylvania. Once again Nurse Ratchet and Whitewater were ahead of me, and while descending Cove Mountain I wasn’t seeing any blazes. Finally, instead of arriving in the center of town I arrived in what appeared to be the outskirts of the city. Spotting a fellow-human I said,

“Could you please tell me where the AT is?”

“You’re on the old AT,” he laughed good-naturedly. “The new AT runs through the downtown area.” So, off I hiked a couple extra miles not so good-naturedly to the town center. I finally saw Whitewater and Nurse Ratchet waiting in front of the Doyle Hotel.

“Skywalker, did you get lost?” Nurse Ratchet asked.

“Somehow I ended up on the bloody
old
AT,” I muttered.

She laughed and said, “When we took that left turn there on Cove Mountain we predicted you’d go straight.”

Jesus Christ, I thought. Just when it looked like I was gaining some confidence as a hiker I had missed a critical turn in the trail. Worse yet, they had predicted it and turned out to be right! And to top it off, the well-known local trail angel Mary had been at the bottom of Cove Mountain to deliver trail magic to Whitewater and Nurse Ratchet.

If I made it all the way to Mount Katahdin I was planning to make up for my 5.5-mile blunder leaving Hot Springs, North Carolina. But I’d be damned if I was going to redo a mile I missed on the new section of the AT in Pennsylvania instead of the three miles I did on the old one.

Chapter 14

T
he Doyle Hotel looks like something out of the 19th century Wild West. It’s one hundred years old and had been one of the original Anheuser-Busch hotels. You enter the hotel through a dilapidated saloon entrance, and make room arrangements with the bartender. The price had recently been raised to $17.50 for a single.

Walking through the streets of Duncannon, a fiftyish hiker named 49er observed, “This looks like another old company town that was devastated when the U.S. lost the steel business.” Indeed, the main street along the train tracks had nothing much to offer in the way of thriving enterprises. Sadder still, many of the denizens looked as if they had taken to the bottle as consolation.

“It makes you wonder,” I conceded. “I’ve always been an avid supporter of free trade, but this place shows the grotesque consequences.” In fact, the last twenty years has seen an unprecedented reduction in poverty and hunger in the two largest countries in the world, China and India. But the hard-working members of communities like these in rural Pennsylvania, that had formed the backbone of the American middle-class, had borne the brunt of the pain.

I hiked out of Duncannon as quickly as possible the next morning after being kept awake by blaring music and revelry all evening. The trail runs for almost a mile on the bridge over the Susquehanna River. Normally, I was morose as the last vestiges of civilization disappeared behind me when leaving a trail town. But, on this occasion with huge trucks flying by on the left and a low rail on the right between me and the river, I was quite glad to arrive at the woods.

Pine Grove Furnace State Park, fifty miles back, is the official halfway point on the AT. However, Warren Doyle had said the Susquehanna is the real halfway point in terms of time and effort required for a thru-hike because of the greater difficulty in northern New England. Given that it was July 2, and I had started on April 10, I was on schedule to make it, though not with much time to spare.

The weather forecast was invariably the same on these high–summer days: hot, humid, and with a chance of thunderstorms. Whitewater,

Nurse Ratchet, and I often tried to predict whether it was going to rain on these days. My forecasting record was appalling, while theirs was merely bad. The irony was that each day we fervently hoped it wouldn’t rain, but rain was absolutely essential.

Whitewater, Nurse Ratchet, 49er, and I climbed up Stony Mountain to make twenty-one miles for the day. Fortunately, I had carried almost two liters of water up the mountain from the creek below because it was dry as a bone at the top. Some hikers already camped out up there had walked a half mile down the side of the mountain looking for running water, but to no avail. Serendipity prevailed for Whitewater, who was dangerously low on water. A section hiker, who was headed back down the mountain, gave up most of his water to Whitewater. The next morning we all quickly packed up and moved on. The data book showed no water for eight miles, and not even that was a certainty.

The famous Pennsylvania black flies were beginning to reach full expression. Pesky bugs orbited our faces, and even running didn’t seem to shake them. We were especially amazed at the way they dive-bombed our open eyes, presumably to get at the liquid inside them. Two hands were far too few for defense. Uncharacteristically agitated, Whitewater vented, “I can’t believe it. The same bug has been stalking me for the last three days.”

“But it wasn’t in the tent with you last night, was it,” I pointed out.

“No,” he said, “he waits outside of it all night and jumps me first thing in the morning.”

Nurse Ratchet and I laughed, but he sounded serious. I whispered to her, “He doesn’t really believe that, does he?”

“Yes, he does,” she said. “He was going on and on about it in the tent last night.” It sounded incredible, but the way bugs had also been stalking and orbiting me for long periods during the day I began to believe it could be possible. And Whitewater stoutly maintained this for hundreds of miles, as it shook his customary composure and good humor.

Finally, we got to the Rausch Gap Shelter and eagerly sought the spring. We were relieved to see that even a minor trickle was flowing. When Nurse Ratchet disappeared into the woods to relieve herself I said, “Let’s tell her we’re quitting.”

“If these bugs keep up like this,” Whitewater said, “I just may.” We lay there with our backpacks as headrests as she walked up.

“Do you want to hear the good news or the bad news?” I asked.

“What?” she asked.

“I’ve often wondered whether dropping off the trail is a long, drawn-out decision or happens on the spur-of-themoment. In my case, it’s the latter. Whitewater can speak for himself.”

“Shut up,” she said.

“Honey, we’re going back home to Tennessee,” Whitewater drawled. “I’ve had all of these bugs I can take.”

“Right, let’s go,” she said impatiently. But we weren’t going anywhere.

“Do you know?” I said dreamily, “a sizable minority of the population never believed humans ever landed on the moon. They think it was all staged.”

“Maybe it was,” Whitewater said drolly.

“Well, I think it is the same with this Appalachian Trail. Everybody I’ve seen lately has been miserable or quitting. No way they’re hiking the whole thing.”

“Ya’ll better not be serious,” Nurse Ratchet said sternly, sounding a bit more concerned.

Finally, after about thirty minutes of hectoring and deriding us, she said, “Well, you two losers can do what you want. I’m hiking.” With that off she stomped into the distance. Our dark moments of the soul soon passed and we slowly got up, hoisted our packs, and unenthusiastically trudged after her.

We hiked until dark and were able to root out 21.3 miles for the day. At the William Penn Shelter on Blue Mountain we watched 4th of July fireworks exploding in the distance. All that probably inspired my trail journal entry:

William Penn Shelter—mile 1,175

7-4-05
:
At the Continental Congress, which decided to rebel against mighty England, Pennsylvania’s Ben Franklin famously said, “Let us all hang together, or else we shall hang separately.” We hikers should keep that in mind.—
Skywalker

We were passing by the Pennsylvania 501 shelter the next day as the weather looked threatening. Again, entropy set in with Whitewater and me, while Nurse Ratchet roused us out of our lethargy. “I’m going on,” she said. “You two wimps can do whatever you want.” Soon we were trailing after her.

Hiking to dusk we made it to a point in our data book that showed a spring two-tenths mile off the AT. We walked expectantly down only to find the spring empty. Finally, after walking several hundred more yards, we ran across a very small pool of barely moving, bug-infested water. We had no alternative but to get out our filters and pump laboriously.

After pitching our tents in a small, clear area Whitewater said, “Skywalker, I’m tired of watching you eat cold food. We’ve got an extra dinner in our pack, and I’m gonna’ cook it for you.” I accepted and enjoyed it heartily.

They were great company, and certainly had more to offer me in a hiking sense than I did to them. That night was fabulous. Just as we finished eating and Whitewater hung the food, a magnificent electrical storm began. It thundered and rained all night as we were safely tucked in our tents. The streams would be flowing again the next day.

After a ten-mile hike, the trail ran right through the streets of Port Clinton. The other towns in which the trail had passed straight through the streets—Damascus and Hot Springs—were hiker favorites so we had high hopes. The only restaurant in town was at the Port Clinton Hotel. We tried to walk into the restaurant, but the manager rushed up with an alarmed look on his face to say, “Excuse me. You can’t come in here. Hikers eat at the bar.” I was well aware of our fetid odor, but segregating us so formally was nonetheless galling.

Hikers milled around in the bar, where the service was erratic. While eating, I turned around to talk to Paparazzi, whereupon the waitress, who apparently considered herself Pamela Anderson’s twin sister, cleared away my plate—including my half-eaten burger. Paparazzi again captured the situation, saying, “Remember how Damascus bills itself as the friendliest town on the trail. Well, Port Clinton is the least friendly.”

A Nor’Easter tropical rain storm was forecast for the next two days, and the hotel was full. Nurse Ratchet and Whitewater were planning to hike out, while everybody else stayed put. I decided at the last minute to stay under the pavilion shed in the center of Port Clinton, which earned me no admiration from Nurse Ratchet and Whitewater. I wondered if I would ever see them again.