Skywalker--Close Encounters on the Appalachian Trail

by Bill Walker

  Troll said, “We’re going to get Oblivious in the record books too. We’re planning to hike the PCT in 2007 and the CDT in 2009. That should make him the youngest Triple Crowner ever.”

  When we crossed the border out of New York the next day Troll led the group in singing, “Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, free at last.”

  One of my strong incentives in the rough early going was that I’d never been to New England, but here I was. Better yet, the trail runs through five of the six New England states, Rhode Island excepted. Almost universally, hikers fell in love with the region, despite it containing undoubtedly the toughest hiking on the AT.

  Connecticut begins inauspiciously in a valley named Rattlesnake Dam. But, fortunately, it starts to become more scenic as the standard darker pines became intermingled with the lighter white birch, beech, and maple trees. We arrived at Connecticut Route 41 and hitched easily into Kent, Connecticut. “Hey, this is where Henry Kissinger lives,” I said excitedly. “Maybe he can work out a cease-fire between you and New York, Troll.”

  “You and your political ass ought to go over to his house and see if you can stay,” Troll shot back.

  “A lot of the New York elite live here,” Anchor noted.

  “That’s even worse,” Troll muttered.

  Kent is a picturesque, bucolic New England town with graceful, old churches and inviting taverns. Unfortunately, there was absolutely nowhere to stay. Further, it was late Sunday afternoon, the grocery store was closed, and I was just about out of food. I had no idea where I was going to stay.

  Finally, in desperation, I approached an elderly woman in her yard and explained my predicament. “Well, I’ve got a back yard where you could put up your tent,” she offered.

  “I would be willing to pull every weed out by hand if I really could,” I said gratefully.

  “No worries,” she said, “and how about letting me do your laundry?” This turned me giddy, but there was one small problem: My friends.

  My father used to say, “Be a pig, but don’t be a hog.”

  I disregarded that advice and said, “Uh, I was just wondering one thing. I’ve been hiking with some friends.”

  She cut me off right there. “It’s not big enough, and I don’t want my yard trampled.”

  “Why, of course.”

  The Trolls were forced to hitchhike back to the trail, where they had to hike south halfway back up the mountain we had just descended in order to sleep in the shelter. Meanwhile, I was able to eat deli sandwiches and drink milkshakes until dark and then head across the street to the lady’s backyard to retire for the evening.

  The hike north out of Kent is eventful. The trail ascends sharply to Caleb’s Peak, and then descends precipitously six hundred feet in one-third mile on exposed rock with little on which to gain traction. The scenery is beautiful running along the west bank of the Housatonic River, which the trail finally crosses.

  Once over the Housatonic River the trail enters a series of deep-rock ravines and creek crossings, and I soon realized I wasn’t moving as fast as expected. My goal was Pine Swamp Brook Lean-To, which was six miles away. The sun had dipped below the horizon, and I was hurrying. Yet when I crossed Connecticut 4 and saw trail angels Gordon and Sue, I didn’t even consider turning down their offer of a Gatorade.

  “The Trolls left about twenty minutes ago,” Gordon said.

  “Are they trying to make it to the next shelter?” I asked.

  “No,” he replied. “There is a campsite two or three miles from here.”

  “Good, I’ll camp out with them,” I said and eagerly headed off.

  After a couple miles I began actively looking for the Trolls and the campsite, but somehow missed them. Now I had to make it another three miles to the shelter. The rocky, angular terrain didn’t appear to offer anything in the way of camping opportunities before then.

  By the time I crossed over West Cornwall Road, it was about eight-thirty, with little light left. According to my guidebook it was one and one-tenth miles to the shelter, but with a steep climb ahead. There was nowhere acceptable to drop my sleeping bag, so I bolted up the mountain without hesitating. It was a strain to make out the blazes in the flat light. After almost a half-mile of climbing, a couple of huge boulders lay in front of me. It wasn’t apparent whether the trail went around, through, or over them. I didn’t see a blaze and decided to try to run up and around them to the right. But, quickly it became clear it was impassable, so I turned down to go back around. I panicked and ran to the left of the huge rock, frantically looking for a blaze in the near dark.

  Finally, I spotted a blaze down and to the left and ran toward it, but my stomach sank when I realized I was headed back down the mountain. I ran back up to the huge rocks and, squinting my eyes, was still unable to locate a blaze or anywhere that looked passable. Disconsolate, I quickly decided my best bet was to use the remaining bit of light to get back down the mountain by the road. My chances of an acceptable evening should be better there than on this rocky mountain.

  But my instinct when crossing the road the first time—that there wasn’t anywhere flat nearby—proved correct. It all looked inhospitable. However, peering down the windy, mountain road I saw some lights in the distance and walked toward them. My hopes were lifted when I came upon a series of modest-sized buildings.

  Two middle-aged people were chatting when I approached. “Hi, is there lodging here,” I inquired.

  “It’s a drug rehab center,” one replied. “You’d have to ask the manager.”

  They took me to find the manager, and I explained what happened. “Yes,” he said pensively, “we’ve had a couple lost hikers here before.” Then the three of them began peppering me with questions about the AT, and I even told them about the wilderness therapy program for recovering drug addicts. Soon a dozen people were gathered excitedly around looking at me like a museum piece. With their expansive lawn and ample facilities, my prospects looked pretty good.

  As politely as possible I asked the manager, “Is there anywhere around here, maybe your lawn, that I could drop my sleeping bag for the evening?”

  “I’d like to say yes,” he said evenly, “but I have to ask the director.”

  I held my breath as the manager called the director at home. It was now completely dark. When the manager started saying, “Uh, huh, yeah, okay, I see,” my heart sank. He hung up and said, “The director says that because of liability reasons you can’t stay on our property.”

  But then he added, “There is an area behind our property down by the creek where you might be able to stay.”

  I dutifully wandered off the lawn as several of the inhabitants commiserated with me. When I went down a hill behind their property I was able to make out with my headlight a swampy area with a creek, and I began looking for somewhere this side of awful to set up for the evening.

  After locating what appeared the best spot, I wandered back up the hill looking for more solace. Two late-twentyish females jumped up and said, “God, you scared us. We thought you were a bear when we heard you.”

  Not in a joking mood, I asked, “Are there bears around here?”

  “Oh yes-siree,” one said emphatically. “Some outdoor society, I forget the name, anesthetizes troublesome bears in the Northeast and dumps them off on a mountain near here.”

  “Oh great,” I muttered.

  I finally got in my sleeping bag, knowing full well that the mosquitoes would be on the other side of awful. I wrapped myself as completely as possible so that the only exposed parts of my body were my mouth and nose. Sleep is so important to a long-distance hiker that I sometimes felt like I was trying to convince myself I was sleeping, even when I wasn’t.

  After about two hours I was awakened by a loud, reverberating sound, but tried to ignore it. At first I honestly thought it might be the power lines malfunctioning. Then I realized it sounded more like the snort of an angry animal. I looked up and, in the moonlight glare, caught a glimpse of a buck
deer dashing away. Counseling myself that deer aren’t dangerous, I tried to go back to sleep. But soon I heard a heavy animal thrashing through the brush on the far side of the creek. More wild animal calls carried through the woods. Chalking up the sleeping effort as a failure I packed up my belongings and wandered back up the hill and onto the lawn. I looked for a place to just sprawl out, but the night-shift manager approached me. Again I explained myself, and he seemed sympathetic. But then he said he had to call the director. I braced myself as he awakened the director and explained about a lost hiker and the animal disturbances. But when he said, “I see, yes mam,” my hopes dimmed.

  He hung up the phone and with a more serious look said, “You were here earlier.”

  “Yes,” I replied meekly.

  “She says you can’t stay on our property,” he said firmly. “But there’s a cemetery across the street where you can stay.” I wandered over to the road, but all I saw was a steep, windy mountain road. When I went back and reported this he called someone else to find out where the cemetery is. He hung up and said, “Actually, if you follow this road down the mountain the cemetery should be on your left in a couple miles.”

  “What time is it?” I asked. I was trying to impress upon him the seeming inhumanity of sending a lost individual down a lonely mountain road in the middle of the night looking for a cemetery to sleep in.

  “One-thirty,” he replied.

  I slowly hoisted my backpack, hinting at my need for just the most basic succor, but all he could say was, “Sorry.”

  I finally decided I had too much self-esteem for this treatment. I wasn’t going to wander down a mountain road in the middle of the night looking for a cemetery, and I wasn’t about to go back down to the swamp with all the heavy animals rampaging. I walked over to the very edge of the lawn and threw my sleeping bag down. My attitude was, “What the hell.” I don’t know if he saw me, but I lay there until six o’clock and then got out of there. I hope that lily-livered director tries to hike the AT some day.

  The following night was somebody else’s turn to be tormented. I was alone in the Limestone Spring Shelter and had gotten my head fully wrapped in my sleeping bag for bug protection, when a panicky, shirtless hiker appeared in the entrance to the shelter.

  “My friend has given out,” he said anxiously. “I’ve got to help him down the mountain.”

  He dropped two backpacks in the shelter and tore off with his headlight. A half hour later he was back with his friend, also shirtless, draped around his shoulders. They were policemen from New York on a week’s hiking trip. When I told them about the cold spring behind the shelter, billed as Connecticut’s finest, they looked as if I had mentioned the Holy Grail. The stronger one set up the sleeping pad and sleeping bag of the weaker one, and then went and retrieved water.

  “That was close,” he said relieved to his zombie-like friend.

  In supine position the exhausted one accepted a few ministrations of water from his helping friend, and quickly fell into a deep sleep. They woke up early the next morning and hiked out at first light. I never saw them again.

  But then sometimes things work out perfectly. Coming out of Salisbury, Connecticut, the trail goes up yet another Bear Mountain. Signs were posted all around the base of the mountain. “Warning: Due to Recent Bear Activity We Recommend Hikers Exercise Caution.” However, as I neared the top of the surprisingly steep climb to the summit I ran not into a bear, but into two “hiker-friendly” women. The younger one, in her early-thirties was especially impressionable. She lobbed one softball question after another in wondrous fashion. Finally, she asked, “How do your feet stand it?” When I started to go into the mechanics of duct tape, mole skin, and the wonders of callous formation, she said, “I’m a massage therapist. Would you let me massage them at the summit?”

  I struggled not to accept in overly eager fashion. But then she strained credulity by exclaiming, “Oh, you thru-hikers are so brave. Only a thru-hiker would be brave enough to let a complete stranger massage his toes.” When I suggested a nearby boulder for her to ply her ministrations, she insisted, “No, the summit is what we agreed on.”

  “Why yes, of course,” I said and dutifully trekked up to a summit that I thought would never arrive. I hadn’t been so glad to see a summit since Blue Mountain on my “day from hell,” back in Georgia. We sprawled out on a huge boulder overlooking the Housatonic Valley and she enthusiastically went about her task. She didn’t even complain about the infamous hiker “toe cheese,” guaranteed to powerfully pique one’s olfactory properties.

  “I love the Appalachian Trail,” I said dreamily.

  “I love these feet,” she giggled. I don’t know if she was lying, but I damn sure wasn’t at that point.

  Halfway through my thirty minutes of bliss, Stranger, an unflappable Kansan, arrived with a look of amazement. “Stranger,” I called out to him, “You’re my witness when I brag about this to everyone.”

  Because of the unexpected delay, Stranger and I got to the Hemlocks Lean-To just before dark. Just as I had hoped, the shelter was full of male hikers, a perfect audience for my story. From the looks on their faces when I described the foot massage it felt like I was describing a gourmet meal to a bunch of concentration camp inmates.

  Chapter 17

  Like many of my southern brethren, I had always imagined Massachusetts as a land of nauseating, pointy-headed snobs. I pictured it populated by latte drinkers, Kennedy aristocrats, and urban elitists with Ha-vud accents. But after walking through the rugged and scenic Berkshires in western Massachusetts, and passing through lonely, quintessential New England towns adorned with American flags, I began to hold it in a different regard. Norman Rockwell, the famous American illustrator whose paintings glorify small-town settings and rural life, had settled in nearby Stockbridge.

  But of all the early American writers extolling the virtues of wilderness, the name of Henry David Thoreau rings most resoundingly. The early European settlers had been shocked at the utter denseness of forest in the new continent. Their attitude can be summed up in one word: Hostile.

  Wild animals and darkness loomed large in this haunted imagination. One pioneer on the American continent, theologian Cotton Mather, wrote in 1707, “the Evening Wolves, the rabid and howling Wolves of the Wilderness, make havoc among you, and not leave the bones ’til morning.” Perhaps their greatest fear of all was that wilderness would drag down the level of all American civilization. “The further and further a pioneer pushes into the woods,” wrote Timothy Dwight, the President of Yale, “the less and less civilized man he becomes.”

  Given such paranoid attitudes almost universally held towards wilderness it is no wonder that the pioneers set about to conquer it. These early settlers used martial metaphors, referring to wilderness as “the enemy to be vanquished by a pioneer army.” Their obsession was to clear the land and bring light to darkness. In fact, it was the chief source of pioneer pride and national ego.

  But in the nineteenthth century the transcendentalists, led by Emerson and Thoreau, began to view nature reverently, even as a source of religion. Thoreau thought that if a culture or an individual lost contact with wilderness, it became weak and dull. “The forest and wilderness furnish the tonics and barks which brace mankind. It is the raw material of life,” he intoned. “All good things are wild and free,” he exulted.

  Thoreau grew up on the eastern side of Massachusetts, in Concord, a Boston suburb. However, given his contrarian style and romantic bent, he naturally gravitated to the western side of the state, with its rougher, wilder geography.

  Wild is what Thoreau got in western Massachusetts. The AT moves up mountains and down deep ravines and through swamps. The bugs and mosquitoes are nightmarish. One thru-hiker, Adrienne Hall, in her book, A Journey North, vividly described her Massachusetts experience:

  The trail circled, skirted, and sometimes plunged directly through nearly every swamp in the state. I sank and slogged in the mud. Nearing 100 degrees,
the stagnant air was itself a chore to walk through.

  She continued:

  The wetlands belched out swarms of bloodthirsty mosquitoes. They attacked with gusto. I was driven by a deep hatred for them. But I swore these measly little bloodsuckers would not stop me from going to Maine.

  In this land of swamp and bugs I met the folksy character of Doctor Death. He was in his late forties, with a slim wiry build and thinning black hair. “I thru-hiked the trail last year,” he said. “I’m thru-hiking this year, and I plan to come back and thru-hike again next year.”

  “How can you afford to do that?” 49’er wondered.

  “I go home to Florida and eat Ramen noodles six months out of the year at twenty-five cents a pack,” he said, “in order to save up enough money to come out here and eat Ramen noodles for six more months.” The following day I remarked, “It seems like we’re going up and down more than at any point since Virginia.”

  “You can assume it’s all tough from here on out,” Doctor Death responded in his gravelly voice.

  It was dry as a bone. The area had experienced a drought for two months and, combined with the intense heat, many streams were dry. Streams that had water took on a brackish tint, possibly unsuitable for even animals to drink.

  At dusk I climbed Mount Wilcox with the Troll family to arrive at the Mount Wilcox South Lean-To after 19.7 miles for the day. We were elated to see Whitewater and Nurse Ratchet for the first time since they had gotten off the trail to visit New York City. But our greetings were truncated by a more pressing question. “Where’s the water?” we anxiously asked.

  “We’ll see how you like it,” Whitewater said. He then led us bushwhacking down a precipice as Troll and I held our breath.

  There was a hole about a foot deep, with a pool of water full of leaves and debris. “Fuck this,” Troll said and stormed away to tell his weary family they weren’t through marching for the evening.