[at-l] First Times - Part 1

[cballs@mindspring.com (Curtis Balls)]

This is the first part of a trip report I wrote and posted on ATML after
spending my first night alone on the AT in 1998 in preparation for a 1999
thru-hike.  Some of you have perhaps read this before.  I've edited all of
it and rewritten some of it.  The focus on gear and the repetition of gear
talk was written to poke a little fun at the gearheads on ATML, which
obviously didn't work very well because I had to explain it to too many
people before they understood.  If any of y'all gearheads know how to fix,
it let me know.  And if you want me to stop please stand up so I can get a
good look at you.
__________________


My Night in The New York Woods with an Appalachian Elephant

by Curtis Balls

I made my way alone, mission-like, across 125th Street on an August
Saturday morning to the Metro North Train Station at Park Avenue to buy a
round trip ticket to the Appalachian Trail that lies roughly 50 miles north
of New York City.  I was packing a rented EMS 4500 cubic inch, blue
backpack, my new Primaloft synthetic down, red, rectangular, roomy sleeping
bag, my new Sierra Design Orion CD three season, two person, blue and white
tent with the brass colored aluminum spring-action poles, complete with
blue rain-fly, personally designed first-aid kit, multi-functional yellow
K-Mart AA flashlight, my small green hand-spade with the wooden handle, my
company issued version of the Swiss Army knife with their logo in place of
the Swiss Cross, Wingfoot's 1998 Thru-hiker's Guide, enough food to feed a
couple small elephants, two 1.5 liter bottles of Vermont Pure Natural
Spring Water, my new Swedish-made Primus Multi Fuel Rechaud with the
instructions in all the major European languages, no fuel and ¼ roll of
papier du toilet.  I was wearing a pair of black synthetic Columbia hiking
shorts, a forest green Oregon Coast Aquarium all-cotton T-shirt bought last
year while visiting my sweet old musical college pal from North Carolina
who now lives in Portland, a pair of thick tan wool socks rakishly pushed
down to the top of  my all leather Fabiano Rios, and a Fossil watch with a
brown leather band given to me as an apology by a someone who once hurt my
feelings - bad.  I was one sexy lookin' decked-out dude-hiker.  I was the
cat's pajamas of the hiking world on 125th Street.  If pimps were hikers
they'd all want to look like I did last Saturday morning.  This being New
York City, I guess I must have passed about 1,000 people on my way to the
station.  This being New York City absolutely no one took notice of me.
Not one head was turned.  Not a single sideways glance. So goes hiking
get-up and hiking gear on 125th Street in The Big Apple.

No matter.  The Trail beckoned.

The train was on time, 10:05am on the nose.  Of course it was crowded with
no convenient place for a hiker lugging around what I was lugging to sit
down, and no easy place to store an EMS 4500 blue backpack full of gear.
So I stood until the Brewster North Station where we were required to
change trains.  At Brewster North we ran into a bit of a problem.  It seems
that Metro North in all its wisdom and experience had provided the Saturday
morning passengers going to Dover, all 200 of us, with an engine and only
one passenger car. Grousing and grumbling and "gee whizz"-ing and "I'm not
believing this," we were all trotted on the train car.  Squeezed against
the door railing at the end of the car with the engine roaring in my head,
its heat blowing on my neck, I found myself standing hiking boot to flak
jacket against Eleanor and Ralph Smiley.   Eleanor it turns out is an
office worker in the City and Ralph is in the lawn ornament business.
Since they were wearing daypacks I assumed they were hikers but they were
only trying to get home to Pawling. Even Eleanor and Ralph, who take the
Saturday morning train to Pawling frequently, couldn't believe the train we
were on.  The conductor finally admitted he couldn't believe it either and
ordered everyone off the train.  While waiting for the real train to Dover,
Eleanor and Ralph entertained me with the tale of how they had gone hiking
in Yellowstone and how Eleanor had hooted down a grizzly, beating her flak
jacket with her fists while yodeling like Tarzan while the other five
members of their party jumped up from their campfire, scattering like a
twelve gauge shotgun blast through the forest screaming for their lives,
running through the woods in their underwear.  It took them nearly half an
hour to find their gear after all the excitement was over.  Eleanor said
she didn't know where it came from, her mindless bravery and downright gall
in the face of such danger.  Her only other scrape with another creature
with that amount of effrontery and rudeness to physically attack her was a
fellow passenger on the IRT Lexington subway line where she was elbowed
while trying to get up the escalator one morning on her way to work.
Eleanor gave that rib-crusher a tongue scalding that no doubt still burns
in their ears.  From the way Eleanor told her story, you could tell that
had there been an actual meeting at the campsite, that grizzly would have
never had a chance to say a word.  Ralph explained Eleanor's bravery as the
old fight-or-flight syndrome at work.  Good to know the ancient reflexes
are still working, however dangerously engaged with a grizzly.  Later
Eleanor admitted that it was dark and they weren't absolutely sure that it
was a grizzly.  It could have been a large bird or even a late night
chipmunk, but it sure sounded like a grizzly.  The Rangers were called and
questions followed so that it could be determined if the Park had a rogue
grizzly on its hands that needed to be removed.  After the Rangers were
assured that no one was hurt and that there might not even have been a
grizzly, Eleanor asked the Rangers to forgive her and her party, she
explained that they were from New York and shouldn't be held accountable
for their actions while in the woods.  Not to be outdone, and to redeem his
pride from the tale of how he'd run off like that in his underwear from a
silly old, possibly phantom grizzly, Ralph launched into a hypothetical
"What would you do if..." story about a rude and obnoxious guy who keeps
hitting the back of your seat in a movie theatre.  He allowed as to how he
would ask politely first and then proceed to beat the holy crap out of him
if he didn't stop it.  "It isn't World War III and it isn't nuclear war.
What's the big deal about using a little force to solve your problem, if it
comes to that," Ralph insisted.  Really.  It's just a hypothetical tussle
Ralph with a hypothetically rude and obnoxious hypothetical person in a
dark hypothetical theatre.  It isn't at all like hooting down a grizzly.

Our train soon arrived and we were on our way again with ample space to
store my pack and to even sit.  We breezed through the countryside with the
greenery hugging the tracks more closely with each passing station and
rising further and further up in our view out the windows.  I was truly,
finally, leaving the city behind.  Just before Pawling, it occurred to me
again that I had no fuel.  I decided to get off in Pawling and walk the
railroad tracks to the Trail.  Lighter fluid it turned out was all that
Pawling had to offer. Theoretically, the Primus Multi Fuel Stove can use
car gas, but the idea of using car gas around an open flame gives me the
heebie jeebies.  I visited every fuel establishment in town before settling
on the lighter fluid.  Once I started up the tracks I began to get a little
lonely once out of sight of Pawling, all alone, walking along the railroad
tracks like some mentally deranged homeless person, fully exposed,
vulnerable, no one to turn to for help or comfort.  The mental hand
wringing started. "What if it rains and gets cold or snows?"  "Will I know
if I'm getting hypothermic?"  I began to feel like Ironweed.  All I needed
was a bottle in my hand.  "Snows?  It's July, calm down," I told myself.
"This is what you wanted."  "Stay calm, the Trail is near,  just up the
tracks here a little further, surely."  I started looking for a walking
stick just to take my mind off what I was getting myself into and for
providing some defense against any mad dogs that might be lurking around
behind the house and business I was coming up on.  (The next day, I learned
that it was the world famous Tony's Deli.)  Finally, after what seemed like
half a day, but was actually about 45 minutes,  the Appalachian Trail
Station came into view.  If it had a roof on it, it would look like an
outhouse.  A rather large outhouse, but an outhouse.   From the photograph
at the MTA's website, I expected concrete and glass and a concession stand,
at least a soda machine.  I guess a 10 foot wooden platform with a wooden
bench isn't quite the image that Metro North wants to advertise.  Deciding
to hike north, I turned right off the tracks and nearly stumbled across two
young fellows waiting beside the access road in the shade of the brush for
the train back to the City.  They'd been out day hiking and looked
sweat-soaked and exhausted.  They looked at me suspiciously so I knew right
away they were from the city and were probably wondering what sort of
mentally deranged odd-ball person would hike up the railroad tracks.  Where
had I come from?  What was I doing on the tracks?  Was I dangerous?  Either
that or I'd finally found two people who were impressed with the way I was
dressed and what I was packing.  After we exchanged pleasantries, I asked
"So what's the best way to go?"  "Either way, you have about 20 minutes of
walking through meadows," one said.  Pointing south he said, "There's more
people that way."  "Then I'll go north," I replied a little too defiantly.
I headed toward NY22 about 50 feet away.   It wasn't clear once I'd reached
the road which way the trail went.  I tried looking toward the pastures
that the young man had spoke of to see if I could make it out.  I turned
and looked back at the two hikers for some direction.  He waved his hand
over his head and said something I couldn't hear over the zooming of the
cars.  I decided my intuition was correct and that I should turn left and
then ran smack into my first Trail trial;  crossing a busy highway with God
alone knew how much stuff on my back.  Standing patiently at the side of
the road I waited for the opportunity to make a run for it.  Zoom! zoom!
zoom! zoom!  Not one head was turned.  Not one sideways glance.  Just like
on 125th Street only faster.  Finally, I bolted and made it safely to the
other side.

I stepped off NY22 onto the Trail and felt like I'd stepped into a little
piece of heaven.  After a few steps, I had the sensation of being swallowed
up in green.  The scent of freshly mowed grasses filled my nostrils and I
came into the presence of  the buzzing, darting, swarming world of
grasshoppers and butterflies and moths and spiders and ladybugs and
countless other insects unseen.  It was a sensation I'd known so well as a
boy and had taken for granted and sometimes as something hateful.  But now
I drank it in through my senses and let it wash over me.  The day was
brilliant.  The freshly scented breezes played with the tall grasses and
occasional larkspur and morning glory on either side of the Trail.  The
gentle rustle of the weeds reminded me of Truman Capote's grass harp.  I
looked up at the mountain, the ridge I was going to climb. The entire world
was a palette of green from one ridge to the other.  What a feast for the
senses!  What a sight for the soul!  I said a little prayer of thanks.  I
choose this, I thought.  I have made it.  I am home.