AWOL on the Appalachian Trail

by David Miller

  10

  Delaware Water Gap to Kent

  My entry into New Jersey is on the Interstate 80 Bridge, over the Delaware River. A concrete rampart separates foot traffic (me) from four lanes of vehicles. Trucks ramble past and shake the bridge. The trail hooks under the north end of the bridge and passes through a parking area on the Jersey side. The trail reenters the woods and rises steadily on a wide, rocky path. New Jersey immediately has a woodsier feel than Pennsylvania. The trees seem larger and more densely packed, there is more slope to the land, and more separation from the sounds of civilization.

  It is a good day. Entering another state is always uplifting. From now on, I am breaking new ground. I have never hiked in a state north of Pennsylvania. I’ve only been to New York once, and I’ve never been in a state that is north of New York.

  Ahead, a man is out for a walk with his son. I catch up and talk with them for a moment before grinding past. The man knows enough about the trail to guess that I am a thru-hiker, and he tries to impress upon his son the magnitude of my trek. He says he’d like to hike the trail someday, maybe when his boy grows older. Each encounter like this is a happy reminder that I am on a grand adventure, which evokes memories of reading the online journal entries of hikers who started before me. Bono was one of the first hikers (if not the first) to start the trail this season, with a chilly January 1 start date. I eagerly followed his journal for nearly four months before leaving home, looking for the most current insight to what lies ahead. Each new entry of Bono’s journal exposed me to new sections of the trail, new places I longed to see for myself, and the emotional ups and downs of life on the trail. Bono was progressing slowly, by design, in an attempt to fully absorb the experience. When I started, he was a thousand miles ahead of me, approaching the halfway point. Now, I am the expert, relating thru-hiking anecdotes to those who dream to do the same.

  Be quiet. I lift my trekking poles and carry them both in one hand, slow my pace so I can land my feet softly, and start scanning the woods for whatever it was that put my subconscious on alert. Not long after I start this prowl, maybe a hundred yards later, a bear takes off running through the woods. There are two. The second is a cub, and he doesn’t go far before treeing himself. This scenario makes my heart race, because I know the mother won’t go far. She has stopped and is out there somewhere unseen, trying to decide what to do about the threat posed to her cub.

  I get my camera out and try to get a picture of the big cub up in a tree. Clawing and scratching at the bark, he circles the tree trunk, trying to keep me out of sight. Failing to make himself invisible, he climbs down and runs away. The mother bear had snuck back to within ten yards of the cub and was hidden behind a bush. When the cub runs by, she steps out and escorts him away.

  More often than not, I sensed an animal’s presence before seeing it, as was the case in this sighting. Something about the surroundings, possibly an unconsciously registered smell or sound, made me think, “A bear might be around here.” My experience with moose was the exception. Further north, I had similar feelings of being in the presence of a moose—feelings that were not followed by moose sightings. The only moose I did encounter was in plain view, and I nearly failed to recognize it.

  I eat my lunch on the rocky shore of Sunfish Pond under beautiful clear blue skies. The pond is huge, covering forty-one acres, anomalously located 1,380 feet above sea level where it was gouged into the land when glaciers receded from North America. There is an abundant supply of rocks at one point on the shore, which has inspired hikers to stack the stones into works of art. The most common arrangement is to balance a cylinder-shaped stone on one end, capped with as many disk-shaped stones as balance will allow. Some of the rock art is constructed with two columns supporting a beam, like miniature Stonehenge replicas. Dozens of sculptures adorn the shoreline, most of them two to three feet tall.

  The trail follows the rocky west edge of the pond and then eases out into rolling terrain, where I pick up speed. About a mile after leaving the pond, I realize it’s been a while since I’ve seen a blaze. I look behind me and can see no blazes on the north side of the trees, either. This is not too unusual, possibly just an undermarked segment of trail. I walk on until I am convinced I am off the trail. Backtracking is always the least appealing option. I retrace my steps for about one-half of a mile before I find a fork in the trail that I had missed. The AT veers to the right, and there is a small pile of twigs across the erroneous “straight ahead” path I had taken, obviously placed there to keep me from getting sidetracked. I had no recollection of this pile of twigs. I had stepped over them automatically, as I would any other obstacle on the trail, just like eyes will skim over missing or duplicate words in a sentence.

  I traverse a series of gentle hillocks. The tops are open and grassy, reminiscent of the balds in North Carolina and Tennessee, but much lower. And instead of looking out to other mountains, the view is to the flat interior of the state, which is speckled with crisp blue ponds.

  Awol hiking along a low, open ridge in New Jersey.

  After walking only ten miles, I take a short walk down a dirt road to the Mohican Outdoor Center. There are multiple buildings on the property. The first one serves as the main lodge and contains a camp store. The lodge is a large, rustic building nestled among the trees. Two workers are on the shingle roof. About a third of the roof has been stripped down to the plywood decking, and the roofers are discussing their next move. I get a soda and a snack from the camp store and sit on a bench in front of the lodge, watching the roofers as I eat.

  When I was in middle school, my dad decided to reroof our home. He wasn’t a roofer, or even a laborer, and my brother and I were his helpers. The job ran past the weekend, and my mom and dad had a disagreement about us kids continuing to help. Mom didn’t want us to miss school. So Dad had us get dressed for school, walk around the block, and wait until we saw Mom leave for work. Then we came home to roof and we were all happy. A couple of years later, a neighbor hired me to reroof his home. Before even having a driver’s license, I was directing a roofing crew composed of the neighborhood kids.

  The two roofers on the lodge haven’t made any progress. They are still talking, pointing to different locations on the roof as if they are debating where to begin reshingling the area they have exposed.

  One of them takes notice of me and asks, “Do you know anything about roofing?”

  “A little.” I’ve worked on a hundred roofs since middle school, but I’m not sure I’m ready to commit. I’m on a hike. I climb up the ladder to see how it’s going. The two men are employees of the Mohican Outdoor Center, not roofers, and they introduce themselves. Scott is assistant manager of the facility, and the other is Bono, the thru-hiker who started January 1. It is now July 17.

  Bono has taken a respite from his hike to spend the summer working as a cook and gofer. “I want to be the first one to start and the last one to finish,” he now says of his hiking plans.

  “We’re not sure if we should start here…or here,” they say, pointing to the locations under deliberation. But this is not their only concern. They haven’t had experience weaving the replacement shingles with the shingles that are still on the roof. I won’t be doing any more hiking today.

  Roofing fills my afternoon and the better part of the next day. Many hikers flow through during my stint at the Mohican Outdoor Center—Stretch, Tipperary, Shelton and Jason, Leaf, Indiana Slim, Skittles, Dutch, and more. They are as surprised as I was to find Bono here. They had also read his journal and greet Bono like a celebrity for being the one breaking trail ahead of us all. I spend two nights at the hostel, both nights free as compensation for my work. Dave, the manager, also sees to it that I have free meals, drinks, and a new Appalachian Mountain Club T-shirt. On my second night, Bono cooks up a feast of grilled swordfish. I have decided to pitch in without asking for anything in return. Feeling useful and receiving gratitude is inherently rewarding.

  Back at my workplace, at lea
st once a year we would have an “all-hands” meeting. At that meeting, we are always reminded that the company would not be what it is without us; we of the all-hand class are important. Employees who are important don’t need to be told, and if they are not important, being told doesn’t make them so. On many days, it would’ve been possible for me to not report to work and have my absence go unnoticed. The company is huge. The company and the project I worked on could carry on—are now carrying on—without me.

  Since leaving my job for the trail, I have received overwhelming support from former coworkers and from friends who hold similar jobs. They are intrigued by the adventure, but what they can most relate to is the desire to abandon the cubicle, to walk away from unfulfilling employment. In some ways I feel like a surrogate for their unrealized desire to escape, an escapee cheered on by the prisoners.

  On the trail again, my hamstrings are sore from roofing, but they don’t slow me down. The trail ranges from eight hundred to sixteen hundred feet in elevation, often open to views from the ridgeline. Below I can see a lake with a scattering of homes on the wooded shoreline. Boats stream long white tails in their wake. Rivers, ponds, and lakes are plentiful in the landscape below, but water continues to be sparse on the trail itself. When I bring my attention back to the trail, I discover that I have strayed from the white blazes. This is clearly a footpath, but it is not the AT. Backtracking, I learn that once again I had stepped over a pile of twigs that was meant to deter hikers from continuing along the ridgeline. The AT dips off the ridge and descends to Culvers Gap. I would repeat this frustrating error half a dozen times in New Jersey and New York, more than on any other section of trail.

  Worthington’s Bakery is right on the trail at Culvers Gap. The store is a heralded trail stop but has an insolvent aura, as if the owners are no longer restocking. There is a foot-long gap between the lone bottle of ketchup and a few loaves of bread. I browse the sparse shelves and cobble together a lunch. The young pierced-navel girl behind the counter, talking on a cell phone, probably would have been happier if I didn’t bother her to buy food. She rings me up without saying a word to me, and without interrupting her phone conversation.

  I sit out front eating, disappointed. A car pulls up; a man jumps out, addresses me as “hiker trash,” and gives me a beer. He introduces himself as Gray Ghost, a former thru-hiker. “Hiker trash” is a compliment. He lives nearby, and when he sees hikers at the store, he stops to chat and help if he can.

  I’ve noticed how other hikers now have untrimmed mustaches long enough to collect beer foam and sometimes food, so I’ve become compulsive about wiping mine after eating or drinking. Hiking along, I continue to be distracted by the length of my mustache. I can feel it when I wet my lips with my tongue. I decide I will keep the “no trim” policy for my beard and hair, but the mustache has to be shortened. Now. My knife is in my belt pouch, and there is a tiny pair of scissors on the knife. Stopping in midtrail without even taking off my pack, I take a hack at the right side of my mustache with no mirror to guide me. Immediately I can tell that my snip is too deep and crooked, so I abort the attempt. This ill-conceived bit of trimming jolts me into recognition of how indifferent I’ve become about my grooming. I hardly ever run a comb through my hair. I regularly go a week without changing or washing clothes, and almost as long without bathing, and now this.

  I stay at Mashipacong Shelter with two college-age girls who are out for the weekend. They hug the far side of the shelter, put off, I’m sure, by this unkempt hiker who looks like he just took a bite out of his own mustache.

  High Point State Park is so named because it contains the highest peak in New Jersey, which is only eighteen hundred feet. A monument is built on top, extending the height of the mountain another two hundred feet. The AT gets close enough for a view of the monument jutting out from the trees, but does not go over the peak. The terrain is mild with rolling hills, modest trees, and very little undergrowth. I have good visibility between the thin trunks of trees. Twice I spot bears strolling parallel to the trail. Neither bothers to run away; they pause apathetically to watch me pass. One is tagged on the ear.

  By midday, I have moved out of the park into low ground, passing through swampy woodland and pastureland. Former thru-hiker Jim Murray owns a farm here which is dubbed the “Secret Shelter,” although its existence is no secret to thru-hikers. Trace, One-Third, Orbit, and Soul Train are lounging on a shady porch when I arrive. We entertain ourselves with trail stories, resulting in side-splitting laughter. Objectively, it would be hard to quantify why any of the stories are so hysterical. Mostly we laugh because we are elated about our experience and are happy to share it with one another.

  Jim Murray pulls up in a jeep just after the other hikers have left. I thank him for access to his property and tell him of my plans to reach the town of Vernon, New Jersey, tonight.

  “You have a long afternoon,” he warns, and then he proceeds to ask rhetorically, “Have you ever heard about the Mahoosuc Notch being the most difficult mile on the trail? Well, some people say that the mile near the preserve is more difficult than that.”

  He doesn’t elaborate, leaving me to ponder what could be so difficult about these lowlands. I have noticed the heat. All of the thru-hikers who rested here were soaked with sweat and left outlines of their backs or butts where they lay or sat on the dusty porch. The trail gets muckier as I progress. I startle a family of turkeys, which trot down the trail ahead of me. Bog bridges lie in long spans over the trail, which now has some standing water.

  The trail exits onto a rural road, crosses a bridge, and then runs parallel to a steamy shallow swamp that was formerly a sod farm. This area is called Wallkill National Wildlife Preserve. The preserve ostensibly exists to promote waterfowl, but it truly excels as a haven for mosquito breeding. They swarm me mercilessly, stinging my exposed arms, legs, neck, and biting through my shirt to draw blood from my chest and back. They also drill unproductively into my pack straps. I dab on some Deet, but it does nothing to deter them. I collapse my trekking poles and stuff them into my pack so I have both hands free to defend myself, developing a constant, preemptive pattern of swatting my face, shoulders, and arms, often scoring multiple mosquitoes in a single slap. Damn the national park’s preservation efforts. The end isn’t even in sight before welts redden and itch, so I add scratching to my spastic slapping routine. There is a park bench located on this path through the breeding grounds. Never have I seen a bench look less inviting. I’m running this gauntlet.

  The trail hits the woods and heads steeply up a hill. Most of my attackers fall back. The only ones still with me are the dolts who are sucking on my pack straps. I quickly tire of sustaining my joglike pace uphill. I collapse on the trail, sapped by the ordeal. I’m tired, hot, irritable, and feel like shedding my itchy skin. I’ve come twenty miles today, and I need to conjure the energy for six more. I take off my shirt, shoes, and socks and air out for nearly a half hour. I put on my new AMC shirt and a fresh coat of Deet and finish the day with renewed vigor. In the late afternoon, I cross another long patch of cattail-laden swamp. There are no mosquitoes to pester me, and a luxurious boardwalk cuts a path for me through the head-high cattails.

  I easily hitch a ride to the Church of the Mountain Hostel in Vernon, New Jersey. The hostel occupies the clean and spacious basement of the St. Thomas Episcopal Church and is as thoroughly equipped as any hostel I would see. There are showers, laundry, TV, Internet, and a kitchen. And so, of course, the hostel is massively popular with thru-hikers; at least three dozen are here. A few hours after dinner, Stretch, Tipperary, and I walk a couple of blocks to Burger King for a dessert of milkshakes and fries. I sense, correctly it turns out, that this would be my last chance to spend trail time with Tipperary. I try to walk slowly on our return, to keep a distance from a gruff-looking character ahead of us. Tipperary, with his unfailing congeniality, catches up with the man so he can introduce himself. I wonder if Tipperary has forgotten that people in the real wo
rld aren’t used to introductions from strangers. I brace myself, not wanting Tip to be exposed to the rudeness I expect him to receive. Tip asks, “Are you a hiker, too?”

  Initially the man’s expression is defensive, and then his face is softened by Tip’s sincerity. “Yeah. I’m a hitch-hiker.”

  Many hikers are still at the hostel when I leave in the morning. They are opting for a zero day, and I envy them. Too recently I took a day and a half off at the Mohican Outdoor Center. A man has offered Trace and One-Third a ride to the outfitter, and the three of them are stuffed into the cab of a pickup truck. I jump in the bed of the truck with my pack and bum a ride back to the trailhead.

  With a pack full of food and weary legs, I trudge up the trail. Bono had told about sneaking rocks into the pack of his hiking partner, Rocket. Rocket suspected that his pack was heavier, but he did not find the rocks until the end of the day. Am I the victim of a cruel practical joke? My pack feels heavier than it should. It was unattended for most of my stay at the hostel, and there were plenty of thru-hikers, all potential suspects. I feel foolish and paranoid, but I know I will feel more foolish if I walk all day with ten pounds of rocks, so I stop and unload my pack. There is nothing there other than the same stuff that I always carry. Somehow it feels heavier.

  A tree lies fallen next to the trail. The top points away, and the underside of the roots face me. A disk of earth ten feet tall was pried up when the tree toppled. I hear digging and then a grunt of recognition. A bear is on the other side of the root disk, and we’ve both just realized how dangerously close we are to one another. I back away and peek around the roots. To make matters worse, it is a mother bear with her cub. The cub scampers away, and the mom hops up on the trunk of the fallen tree and walks away, sneering back over her shoulder. I fumble with camera settings, hoping to get a shot before she gets too far, when she turns around to have a word with me. I get one picture as she growls and advances toward me. The growl sounds like that of a horse expelling air through its jowls, but much more effective at communicating a threat. I backpedal as fast as I can without turning to run, still trying to click pictures.