The End of The Trail, Part 2 – A Peacock Comes to Camp

In “The End of the Trail, Part 1,” I recounted the tale of what was meant to be the last morning of our Appalachian Trail journey. Alexander and I had spent the previous night with our friend Stuart, from Texas, at Brown Fork Gap Shelter. Stuart was a highly organized hiker, who liked to be on the trail at first light. His efficiency reawakened some misgivings I’d been harboring about my own competence as an outdoorsman. Luckily, Stuart’s generous nature and his willingness to share his trail knowledge helped me see that my shortcomings as a hiker were simply OK in the grand scheme of things. No matter that other hikers might be more adventurous, more experienced, or, like Stuart, more efficient. I am the man I am. No need to compare myself to anyone.

That morning, after Stuart left the shelter, I sat sipping coffee, awaiting Alexander’s awakening, the day dawning all around me. There is something magical about the forest when the sun makes its first appearance through the trees. And once Alexander awoke, we allowed ourselves to soak in all its wonder. We talked, we watched the morning develop, and we began to mourn, each in our own way, the ending of our time on the AT.

So it was that, later that day, over lunch, we made the choice to linger one more night in the forest. After checking our navigation app, we discovered there was another shelter located less than three miles ahead—four miles shy of our final destination at Fontana Dam. That small decision—to spend one more night on the AT—opened a doorway onto one of the most unusual encounters of our entire journey.

* * * *

We arrive at Cable Gap shelter a few minutes after 3:00 pm. About an hour later, we are joined by Stephen, a fireman from Asheville, North Carolina. Stephen is drenched in sweat and appears to have been running a race. Before he says “Hello,” or removes his pack, or even asks our names, Stephen barks out, “Are you guys sleeping in the shelter, or what?” By this point, Alexander and I have unpacked, inflated our pads, unrolled our sleeping bags, and arranged our gear neatly in the shelter. In a word, it is obvious that we have settled into the shelter for the night.

I think to myself, “This guy could really get under my nerves.” But to be fair, he just hiked fifteen miles in four hours and forty-seven minutes. (Stephen informed us straight off of his astounding pace—a bona fide hiking miracle. Or so he claimed.) “Maybe,” I think, “just maybe, he’s tired, and after all that zooming through the forest his blood sugar is low. It could happen to anyone. Right?” So I decide to give Stephen a break.

It turns out I was wrong.

An hour rolls by, and even though he has eaten a Clif Bar or two, he is still pissing me off with his tales of personal accomplishments. Finally, he asks how far we traveled before arriving at the shelter. But our six-mile day is not up to Stephen’s rigorous AT mileage standards. “You guys are sure taking your sweet time hiking,” he quips. Thankfully, my early morning revelation to relinquish all comparisons with other hikers has already brought me a measured peace.

However, even for a man basking in the afterglow of inner stillness, there is no effective way of communicating with a guy like this. There is only listening to his one-broadcast programming: The Stephen Show.

So I am sitting here wondering who this guy really is—and what he’s doing in our camp. Then I remember. Oh, yeah. It’s the People’s Trail. And I remind myself to be patient. That everyone has a right to be here. “Just sit with it a while longer, sport,” I tell myself. “Let’s see how far this peacock can take this crap.” But then there is that other part of my brain that can’t believe someone can actually behave like this for more than five minutes. Stephen has been going on for so long, I am looking up and down the trail, expecting Alan Funt to step out from behind a tree in a cheap bear suit and welcome Alexander and me to Candid Camera.

Stephen doesn’t sense any animosity from us, but I can’t believe he sees us as his willing audience, either. Then a wayward thought creeps into my mind. Maybe Stephen is at peace with himself, too. Just the idea of that is a bit frightening, so I slough if off, and consider the other—and more likely—possibility: Stephen is just a self-absorbed idiot.

Of course, we can all be idiots. Myself included. But I get the sense that Stephen is routinely oblivious to the effect he has on people. And right now, he is on a roll, so he just leans into his self-inflated view of the world, and, for the next twenty minutes, recites details of all the cool hiking trips he has made on the AT—despite the bumbling ineptitude of the fools who have traveled with him. It is at this point that we discover Stephen has left his two current hiking buddies behind hours ago. When I ask why he would leave the company of friends to hike alone, Stephen informs me he is simply too fast a hiker. “Most people do between one to two miles an hour on the trail. Me, I do like twice that. Maybe more,” he boasts.

Inner stillness or not, this guy is standing on my last nerve. My skin hurts just listening to him, but I smile and probe a bit, searching for signs that he has a heartbeat and may, in fact, be human. Instead, I learn that he has all the best gear, packs light, knows all the trails, doesn’t even need a map, and has been climbing every rock in this forest like a mountain goat since he was ten years old.

About then, Alexander leans way over onto his right butt cheek, leaving a gap of about six inches between his left butt cheek and the log he’s sitting on and mimes sticking something up his rear end. This, of course, is the universal sign for “This guy really has a stick up his butt.” Alexander and I both grin—and turn our attention back to the evening’s entertainment: more of Stephen’s amazing tales of Stephen.

It’s going on 6:00 pm, by now, and Stephen has been flat out for more than two hours. A part of me is impressed that he can keep his monologue on target for that long. Another part of me notices that, while he’s been talking, Stephen has also been keeping an eye on Alexander, as he builds one of his most excellent fires. I know Stephen doesn’t focus his attention on anyone that long unless he can find fault. Now, he continues to stare at Alexander, looking for some sign that Alexander is building his fire all wrong. Which would lead Stephen right into his next bit, “How a Proper Fire Should Actually Be Constructed.” God help us.

But Alexander is a fire-making master, and I can tell Stephen is growing frustrated because my son hasn’t made a slip.

As I watch, Alexander constructs his fire like an origami master folds a single sheet of paper into a weeping swan. He gives such delicate attention to every detail—to how and where he arranges each of the small bits of wood that make up the tight assemblage of sticks—that I can see Alexander has inherited my father’s penchant for engineering. I wonder, what is he thinking as he focuses on the structure before him? Obviously, he is weighing the practical questions: Which sticks are the driest? Which will catch fire quickest? Which will support the weight of the next? But to my eye, the whole affair goes way beyond the ordering of sticks and twigs. I get the sense that at the crux of Alexander’s fire-making initiative is the fact that he is an artist. A sculptor and fine blacksmith in his professional life, he approaches each fire as if it were an artistic creation.

But I sense something else, as well.

This hike has become a spiritual pursuit for each of us. Of course, we are here to spend time together—to enjoy each other’s company and cement the bonds between father and son. But we are also individuals, and we have our individual reasons for being here.

For myself, I am seeking to quicken those aspects of my mind and body that have become fallow. In negotiating the circuitous path of the Appalachian Trail, I have hoped to also uncover a new and more sympathetic path for my daily life back home. In that quest, I have been helped by the peace we’ve found in the forest, by the grueling intensity of the physical exertion, and by the “allies” I have met—the owl, the snake, and certain of the plants I have discovered. Like Native American cultures teach, these allies of the natural world have offered me assistance and allowed me to draw strength from them.

And for Alexander? While I cannot begin to assume his deeper purposes for this journey, what I can say is this: It appears he has discovered fire to be one of his allies. I believe he creates fire with a spiritual intent, and that is why he takes such time, gives such focus, such meticulous care to its preparation. It is my considered opinion that when Alexander sees a circle of rocks in the woods, he does not interpret them as a simple hearth for the purpose of providing us with warmth for the evening or heat for cooking. Rather, he sees them as an altar—a place where he may practice his own understanding.

Now, sitting on my log, about three feet from where Alexander is creating this evening’s fire, I have a commanding view of the cross section of his intricately layered twig pyramid, and I wonder quite seriously if he was in fact Archimedes or Michelangelo in a previous lifetime.

I glance over at Stephen. He is still watching Alexander at work. It’s impossible not to. But Stephen won’t allow himself the luxury of being a voyeur, of staring avidly, of gawking in outright ecstasy at the beauty of Alexander’s creation. Instead, he watches covertly, from the corner of his eye, only stealing longer glances when he thinks I am not looking.

The fire is lit now and is warming each of us. Whether we like it or not, Stephen has entered our sacred space. Alexander and I have become accustomed to being in this space, the four-foot radius that emanates from the center of the flames. We are familiar with the level of silent communication that takes place here. And, as always, Alexander’s fire radiates warmth, but it also radiates his love for our journey. Stephen is an outsider. An uninvited and uninitiated guest. I can feel his discomfort in our presence.

I see an itch start to form at the corner of Stephen’s eye, and his hands dig way down into his shorts, and then his fingers begin picking nervously at something in his pockets, or maybe just at the hair on his legs. I sense the pressure building in him as clearly as if he were blowing up a tightly stretched balloon that is about to pop. He starts grinding his teeth, and I realize it’s because he can’t find a way in. I believe Stephen can sense how Alexander and I feel inside our circle. The love we have for one another is very present, and I think it pushes him hard. I think he understands that Alexander is up to something more than just building a fire, and Stephen’s uncertainty of what that “something” might be troubles him. I wonder how insecure and unsettled he must be in the presence of such subtle and genuine feelings. So he does the only thing a guy like Stephen can do—he turns his back on us. But then he does something strange. Back still turned, he scooches a little closer to the flames. Is he just trying to keep warm? Or is he trying to stay connected to our circle?

That scooch is the only sign of concession he makes. No kudos to Alexander for his incredible fire-building exhibition. No “thank you” for the raging fire that now warms his backside. Then, without missing a beat, Stephen continues his litany of woodsman accomplishments—now talking with his back to us. There is a different inflection to his voice, however, and his words spill out faster and with less certainty than they did before. I can tell he is nervous. Alexander recognizes it, too, and looks over at me, making a face that says, “What’s up with him?” I shrug in reply, although some things seem to be coming into focus.

Next, Stephen stands and moves to the far side of the ring of stones that surround the dance of flames, but he continues talking, addressing an invisible audience, located, I presume somewhere on the other side of the small stream at the bottom of the short ravine. The scene is surreal. But as I gaze across at him—at the back of him—I no longer view him as the pain in the ass we have been dealing with for hours, but as a pitiful character, one who strikes me as both lonely and afraid. Yes, he is still acting like an idiot. Yes, he is still standing on my last nerve. But for some inexplicable reason I am seeing him differently. Is it the obtuseness of a man addressing us, while looking in the opposite direction? Or is it the dark hilarity of his invisible audience?

Whatever the case, I now realize that his feeble attempts to communicate are an effort to save face. A few short hours ago, this obnoxious character entered our camp with all of the finesse of a German tank rolling down a cobblestone street in a small village in France. Now, all I can see is a little boy who has been placed in time out. I no longer hear his whining drivel. Instead, I hear a cry for help.

Suddenly, Stephen does an about-face. He seats himself back at Alexander’s fire, looks me dead in the eye, and begins to talk about his wife and his three sons. This is the first time since his arrival that Stephen has spoken about someone other than himself. Alexander and I share a questioning glance. Were the last two hours just foreplay?

Then, Stephen’s entire demeanor changes. It is as if someone sunk a heroine syringe deep into a main artery and drove the plunger home. Tears well in his eyes, but he holds them at bay—small pools perched on his lower eyelids. He tilts his head back to keep the tiny pools from running down his face. Finally, he lifts a hand to wipe his tears away.

To be continued.

 

The Hundred-Mile Memory

Alexander and I on top of Albert Mountain the 100-mile mark on the AT

This morning marks the 23rd day of our Appalachian Trail journey—and once again it’s raining. Today, however, the rain is not an obstacle, for I am warm and dry at the hotel in Franklin, North Carolina, a steaming cup of hot coffee by my side. Of all the things we have encountered, it is rain that has proven to be both our most unexpected and our most constant companion. Rain has assumed the role of fickle taskmaster, ordering us at times to hide, to cover up, to sit, to pace, to think, to read, to write—and to wait out its aqueous desires. It is rain that is responsible for altering our trip, for forcing us off the trail when we preferred to hike on. But perhaps it has the right, because water, blood brother to the rain that has chosen to rule us, makes up 97% of our bodies.

As we crossed the hundred-mile mark in our journey, I understood that the wisdom of rain has helped us most. Rain has contrived to slow us down, and its dampening effect has afforded us time to reflect upon who we are and why we are here in the first place. Had it not been for the wisdom of the rain, we would have kept moving, kept pushing forward, kept distracting ourselves by the pleasure of our own swiftness. Instead, the rain crafted a new timeline for us and taught us to revise our expectations.

Because of this, time itself has become more malleable than we were aware it could be. Alexander and I have come to see that there is day, and there is night, and everything that falls between those two points is a dance marked only by the progression of our feet. Gone are the gradations we previously used to measure our days—the man-made specificity of hours, minutes, and seconds. Now there is only the footpath and our footfalls along the rise and fall of its geography.

In the event that you doubt the intelligence of rain and believe I’m giving it too much credit, let me assure you: There exists a great and expanding body of evidence showing that water possesses a memory—and, by extension, a consciousness. Its molecular structure gives water the ability to absorb a resonance from everything it touches. In our case, the rain that has been our boon companion has fallen directly from the heavens, through the canopy of forest, and made its way from the tops of mountains, over rocks and plants. It has skipped across the backs of animals, and around the base of ancient trees, finally plunging through the earth, and exiting in a white vein of quartz crystal, before finding its way to us. In a very real way, we have been bathed in the wisdom of all the experiences this liquid has absorbed in its journey.

* * *

As I sit in the lobby at the Hampton Inn this morning, I watch families and couples mill about, lining up for the breakfast bar, getting their coffee and juice, making their plans for the day. It is Sunday, and most of them will be traveling home—to Atlanta and other destinations in Georgia, Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi, as the license tags in the parking lot tell us. Alexander and I feel apart from this crowd—partly because tomorrow we return to the trail, not to regular jobs nor to the identifying experience of home and the accumulated encumbrance of personal property. But partly, too, because we have allowed the forest to twine itself into us, and now we feel drawn back, as if the trail were an umbilical cord that siphons nourishment into us from the trees and mosses and boulders that line it.

Last night we strolled down the hill to a BBQ restaurant. It was like magic—and a bit shocking. We ordered. The food arrived. We dined. All week, we were engaged in a different sort of life, one in which we walk all day and filter our drinking water from springs that poured forth from the earth—not a tap, not a waitress’s pitcher. Alexander built fires to keep us warm and cooked simple meals. Our supplies are finite; they have to last a certain number of days, and yet in the midst of this ascetic routine, we were blissfully happy.

After we ate our BBQ, we both felt we had cheated, had broken an honorable code of the forest. At the end of our meal we simply paid the bill and left with our box of leftovers. We did not have to wash our bowls with leaves and sand, nor be concerned with the amount of water we used to complete that task. We did not have to follow one another into the darkness of the forest to make sure we were hanging our food far enough from our tents to keep us safe from bears. As we stepped through the restaurant door, Alexander and I exchanged a look. Our bellies were full, but we had done nothing to acquire such an opulent feast. Nestled way down inside our tummies, hidden beneath the layers of barbecued chicken and juicy rib-eye steak, we both felt a tiny, nagging sense of guilt.

* * *

It is a little after ten a.m., now, and the hotel lobby is quiet, except for the blaring beat of Fox News, which serves as a harsh reminder of the world that awaits beyond the lobby. I try my best to be optimistic, but the frantic anxiety that pours from the flat screen television seemingly has no end. It is easy to succumb. I realize, of course, that the world as it is today is the result of the choices we have made as a society. As a citizen of that world, I have some responsibility for its current state. Since we began this journey, I find myself asking, “How can I help to change it?”

However, that is a big question, larger than I feel I can take on today. For now, Alexander and I are still journeymen, following a path in the forest. So I purposefully erect a wall that separates the experiences of the past three weeks from the world that waits hungrily for us to step off the trail for good. Today, I will write. I will hike my “hundred-mile memory,” retracing the past weeks and attempting to unravel all that has happened. The world will wait.

* * *

Early on September 17th, I packed my gear in the trunk of the old Caddy and ran back inside the house to gather a few items I had left on the kitchen counter. I took a good long look around, absorbing the art on the walls, the placement of a few photos on the fridge, the color of the two worn chairs in the dining room, and the intricate but worn Berber rug that covered the floor. Our dogs, Ila Mae, Boo Boo, and Ruby Rose lay on their cushy dog beds with several of their favorite toys strewn about. I got down on the floor and put my forehead to each of theirs and told them I loved them. (They are all close to fifteen years old. I knew that if I left even for a few days, I risked not seeing one or another of them again. And I was departing for six weeks.)

Then I turned to my wife, Elisabeth, who stood, coffee in hand, looking beautiful—even as the my-God-you-are-a-huge-pain-in-the-ass look crossed the landscape of her early morning face, only to be followed by the I-love-you-more-than-anything-so-please-don’t-up-and-die-on-me-now look the next gut-wrenching instant. It was maybe the sweetest look I have ever had from from her. It said everything about the twenty-plus years we have spent together.

This—the house, the dogs, my beautiful wife—I wanted to remember it all as clearly as possible. Just in case. On the long hike on the Appalachian Trail, anything could happen. There are lots of possibilities for calamity. Not to mention the damn bears.

It can be hard for a guy to process an immense load of conflicting emotions—which is exactly what I was encountering in that moment. I stood there for a moment, spare ZipLock bags, hot cocoa mix, and Q-tips filling my arms, looking at my wife and wondering, “How in the hell did my world get so complex, so rich, and so beautiful all of a sudden?” Then I flashed on the good career I had pretty much just pulled the plug on so I could make this insane journey, and how all the great people whom I had worked with had always relied on me to rescue them from Computer Hell, and I asked myself, “What in the hell are you doing, sport?” But by then it was too late to consider the consequences of my actions.

So I did the next best guy thing I could think of: I leaned over to give my wife a kiss and told her, “I will call you later, baby, when we get on the road.” Then I took a virtual snapshot of everything in my mental viewfinder and stored it, along with everything I was thinking and feeling, safely away in my mind—just in case the worst actually did happen, like a bear had my skull firmly between his jaws or I slipped over some incredibly high cliff. Then, at least, there would be a bright moment when I could reach into that hiding place in my brain and replay for one last, sweet second all that I was now experiencing. And if the bear wasn’t crunching my skull too hard, or if the fall wasn’t too short, I would even have time to say to myself, “Yup, sport, your life was complex and rich and beautiful, and you were one lucky son of a bitch.”

Then Elisabeth, with the wisdom of a woman who has known me for twenty-plus years, said quietly, “You are coming home aren’t you?”

Well, that encompassed a lot of territory—and I was already on emotional overload—so I simply said, “Of course I am, baby. Why would you ask something like that?”

But I know why she asked. Elisabeth-who-knows-me knows even a dumb ass like me wouldn’t cut loose from her, the dogs, my mom, my job, and all the other wonderful people and things in my life—unless something was up. And something was up. As Elisabeth saw more clearly than I did myself, I was headed off on a pilgrimage—and pilgrimages have a funny way of changing people.

A long moment crossed between us in that kitchen. I held onto her, still clutching the ZipLock bags, cocoa, and  Q-tips, for so long her coffee grew cold. Then we looked at one another for another prolonged minute, before I gave her a final kiss and walked out the door.

* * *

As the old silver Caddy made its way north along the ribbon of I-75 to Amicalola State Park in north Georgia, I pondered the implications of making a pilgrimage. In America, we don’t really recognize the concept. Walking the Appalachian Trail is as close as to the idea of “pilgrimage” as we generally come in the good ol’ U.S. of A. And if one actually attaches some shade of religious or spiritual meaning to their “walk in the woods,” it is often overshadowed by the other reasons one has for making the hike.

Five years ago, I thought I had made a two-thousand-mile pilgrimage when I rode my bicycle from St. Augustine, Florida, to Taos, New Mexico. But as I look back on that two-month journey, I can see it was just the beginning—a preamble to the pilgrimage I am on now. The whole damn thing’s so tricky.

I remember a movie from the 1980s, starring Al Pacino and Jack Warden, titled And Justice for All. In the movie Jack Warden plays a circuit court judge who has seen too much greed, corruption, and horror. He wants to end his life, but the barrels of his shotgun are too long to fit in his mouth and still allow him to reach the trigger. Instead, he plays a game he calls “Halfway Out and a Little Farther.” Every day he fills the fuel tanks of his helicopter and heads out to sea, flying until they’re half empty,  then just a little farther, to see if he can still return safely home. In the end he never does complete his wish for death, but, instead, finds a level of peace in the attempt.

I don’t think that’s me, but I do find that the world can be a difficult place, a place in which hope is hard to find and maintain. But in some strange way, I’m discovering that the act of making a “pilgrimage”—whatever you take me to mean by that—has allowed hope to work its way into my life.

* * *

As early as Friday morning, I was not certain I would continue this trip. Franklin, North Carolina, seemed like a good place to call it quits. It was hard. Too hard. Then Friday morning, Alexander and I started up Albert Mountain just before lunchtime. The last part of the climb is an absurdly steep chute, a third of a mile in length. About half that climb, you’re using your hands as well as your feet just to keep yourself moving upward. The trail is treacherous, and one slip would ruin your day.

At about the half-way mark, I started laughing at the complete ridiculousness of the climb. Then something snapped—and somehow, I simply overcame whatever had been holding me back, and I finished the climb. When we made it to the top of Albert Mountain, we enjoyed one of the most outstanding views we had seen on the entire Appalachian Trail, so far. Then Alexander and I shared a summer sausage we had saved for lunch. As I gazed out across the view, I said, “I wish we could just keep walking” (exactly as my lovely wife anticipated I would).

He looked at me and said, “Really, Dad?” I could see the light in his eyes, that spark of hope most young people carry with them. At twenty-four Alexander has not seen so much of the world that he is daunted, so a pilgrimage is not necessary for him to revive his spirit. He is in this for the challenge and the experience. His dad, on the other hand, needs a little bit more to encourage him to face the challenges. But in that moment, our desires intersected, and the tops of the Appalachian Mountains protruding from the clouds in the distance looked like islands rising out of the sea. Right then, anything was possible. We sat back, lost in our own thoughts and devoured the rich slices of sausage, each relishing his own hundred-mile memory.