[at-l] "In the Dark" by a Grateful Dead

[tmcginnis@ucclan.state.in.us (Thomas McGinnis)]

     No, not the weak 1987 album by *THE* Grateful Dead. No, this is a 
     trail report by *A* Grateful runner who is a lister of the at-l and 
     the Dead Runners' Society. ("Ah!," you say.)
     
     Planned to do a long run on the Low Gap Trail in the Morgan-Monroe 
     State Forest last Saturday, and I wimped out. And chastised myself 
     sufficiently to warrant a personal promise to do the 10 mile run 
     (well, 11 according to DRSers Cookie Karl and Paddy Wagon) on Monday 
     after work. With it getting dark around 7:00 or 8:00, and it only 
     being a 45 minute drive down there, I figured I had lots of time.
     
     Lots of time, except that I postponed leaving work until 5:20 or so, 
     because I lolled around not changing into my running clothes, didn't 
     want to end those end-of-day conversations, wanted to avoid the long 
     run entirely and was desperately waiting for sufficient excuse.... 
     (Whoa, did I say that?)
     
     After slogging through rush-hour traffic (which in Indianapolis 
     usually lasts about 15 minutes, unless the chicken truck capsizes in 
     the downtown turnoffs somewhere), I arrived at the trailhead at 
     6:20pm, and opened the car door to the heavy, sweet smell of autumn 
     leaves (a good thing, to be sure) and the bittersweet orchestra of an 
     entire forest throbbing in cricket song. There was a glimmering of a 
     clue there, but I didn't get it. Slammed some Gatoraide MaxLoad, 
     puffed my inhalers ('cause I was going to be away from the car too 
     long to be uncomfortable if any EIA came up), wished I had a 
     flashlight "just in case", and took off. I was wearing trail running 
     shoes, crew socks, microfiber shorts and vest, and a sleeveless 
     CoolMax shirt under the vest. PowerGel, Succeed! tab, Conquest drink 
     (thank you, GBuff!), no sleeping bag, no flashlight, no lighter, no 
     cell phone (oops! forget I said that).
     
     The first couple of miles were entirely uneventful. Even the "bottom" 
     area that held the thick crop of stinging nettles for the DRS run back 
     in July was free and clear and smoooooth sailing. Motored right 
     through, noticing instead the beauty of the fading sunlight on the 
     tops of the tall skinny oaks that shaded the bottom. Ran up the other 
     side of the trail (ran slowly, powerfully, "ultra"-like, like I 
     learned during training for Grandfather Mountain); I heard the first 
     call of a night bird when I reached the crest of the ridge -- another 
     clue of time missed.
     
     Had a great run through the first third or so of this trail. Mile one 
     in 7:30 or so; mile two (including in and out of the "nettle bottom") 
     in 16:30; missed mile three altogether. Came down to the first road 
     crossing pretty cautious. Visibility was getting a little unclear, and 
     I was having trouble picking out the small stumps and such that mark a 
     newer trail from the sticks, dips, and shadows that I could pretty 
     well ignore. Wanting to avoid the use of "faceplant" in any trail 
     report, I slowed materially. I was on the sunrise side of the ridge 
     during sunset. There was a message there, but what got through was 
     "Gee, better hurry a bit to be able to make it up and across the next 
     ridge before sunset."
     
     Had always read of the stink of a good carcass warning hikers away 
     from a potential bear encounter, but thought the description always 
     overblown. Coming down that ridge, within sight of the road 100 yards 
     away, I got a powerful smell of death and decay. I immediately thought 
     of sheltered and humid valleys or hollows I'd been in before, and my 
     brain tried to write off the stench as something expected, but 
     something was wrong. It took a moment before I realized that although 
     this valley would normally be quite humid and therefore subject to 
     "stink" in the right conditions, the conditions weren't here! It has 
     been a powerfully dry summer -- the forest was prematurely wilted and 
     leaves covered the ground as thick as most Octobers, but this was 
     still September. So where did the stink come from?
     
     With each step down toward the road, the stink came more powerfully to 
     my nose. It was death, it was rot, it was gagging if only I'd hadn't 
     been so dry in the mouth from running the previous ridge. The smell 
     was so pungent that, as I approached the road now just feet away, I 
     covered my mouth and moaned loudly with each exhale. Disgusting! Get 
     me the hell OUT of here!
     
     The trail crossed the road and dropped down a couple of steps to a 
     small parking area, and as I descended the steps, I saw to my left, at 
     the edge of the parking lot, a large deer carcass, bloated but at this 
     point unviolated by scavengers. From the hairless areas on the 
     shoulders and rump, it looked like a traffic victim that had been 
     dumped out of someone's trunk. A big sucker, nonetheless. Then I had 
     the flash -- was there a bear nearby going to come down and feed on 
     this pup at dark -- like *now*??? Oh boy! Time to go! Then I flashed 
     to "Yo! Yur in Indiana, dude! Four Hundred miles from any bear not in 
     a cage! Chill!" Still, I hurried on quickly, as much to get away from 
     the clinging stench of death as much as anything else. I think that is 
     where I made the big mistake.
     
     Started up the next ridge in a hurry, not looking at the clock, not 
     realizing that if it took me 35 minutes to reach that point, and I 
     left the trailhead at 6:30pm, that it was now pretty late to attack 
     the remaining six-odd miles of trail. And fighting to get the stink of 
     death out of my nostrils, working hard to power up one of the trail's 
     more sustained climbs, I didn't realize the implication of the fact 
     that I couldn't see well where I was going -- even though this was the 
     western side of the ridge, and should be as bright as was going to be 
     available for the rest of the evening. Didn't catch it. Clue Phone 
     Ringing, didn't pick it up.
     
     Ran up that ridge concentrating on distracting myself from the deer 
     death smell by running well up the sustained climb. Ran and ran and 
     ran; cursed occasionally the "zipper" switchbacks cut into the climb, 
     the ones with legs that might be only fifty feet long -- where you can 
     see the next leg of the trail from the one you're currently on -- the 
     ones that make you feel foolish for following the designed route 
     because of the waste of hikers' forward motion efforts. The zipper 
     switchbacks that encourage hikers to cut corners and drop off the 
     trail, causing erosion in areas probably already suffering. Distracted 
     so much that I failed to notice that even on the western slope of a 
     ridge half denuded of it's overstory leaves by drought and early 
     autumn breezes, I had to slow to a walk because I could no longer 
     distinguish between mere shadows and larger sticks on the ground. Went 
     from firm footfalls placed with confidence and strode from with power, 
     to tentative reaching strides which tested the ground with extension 
     and hesitation stride by stride. Reached the top of the ridge at dark, 
     couldn't pick out the trail without a thoughtful effort to contrast 
     the surrounding ground. From here on out, I could only walk.
     
     My "quick trail run" had now turned into a night hike -- one without 
     benefit of flashlight, a week's worth of food, shelter or sleeping 
     bag, spare clothing, or the security that carrying those things with 
     you always provided. 
     
     "Oh shit."
     
     "How far back to the car is it, if I go back versus go forward."
     
     I couldn't recall the detail of the map enough to know. Momentum 
     carried me forward. It was sometime after 7:00pm, and it was now as 
     dark as night. DUH! It WAS night. (What a bonehead.)
     
     I proceeded along the ridge, generally north, with the sunset sky to 
     my left only slightly less dark than the blackness to my right. At the 
     beginning of the next dropoff (where I Tarzan-yelled past MarkO back 
     in July), I stopped to relieve myself, and noticed in the sudden 
     silence that I was not alone. Heavy footfalls, horse-heavy, sounded 
     just twenty yards in front of me, essentially invisible in the heavy 
     gloaming. I thought I could distinguish shapes only slightly darker 
     than the dark night moving vaguely in the brush and understory, but it 
     was the details my ears strained to hear.
     
     The sound that finally greeted me was of a large nose being forcefully 
     blown. Phneeeeee. Phneeeoooch! Phneah! Phneah! Fruuiiieaah! I was 
     taken back to previous autumns in Galyans where deer hunters would 
     audition buck call devices and echo their attempts throughout the 
     store. "Oh shit!", I thought, "Mr. Buck, live, in person, about to be 
     up close and personal, Stage Right sixty feet off." I had to really 
     battle the sudden fright, the urge to listen, the curiosity to attempt 
     a response to bring the sucker in closer, and the abiding fear that, 
     since I couldn't pick out tree branches about to whip me in the face, 
     how would I fend off an angry buck's rack wielded with primordial 
     attitude? I thought "How about I just yell "Hey sucker, don't give me 
     any of your noise tonight, ok??'" and then thought that in a forest as 
     quiet as this one was right now, anybody camping quietly within 
     earshot would think me a raving lunatic. I kept quiet and moved on.
     
     The rest of the run/hike went rather quickly. I encountered more 
     rutting bucks. I continued to battle the nervous fear of "unknown" in 
     the darkness; I continued to thrill in traveling a trail at night 
     without flashlight; and whenever the moon attempted through the clouds 
     to light small patches of forest in front of me, I flashed back to my 
     hike through Maine twenty years ago when, being 18 and facing the end 
     of my Appalachian Trail throughhike, I attempted to work in any "cheap 
     thrill" I could before the grand adventure of it was all over -- 
     including hiking at odd hours of the night, generally without 
     flashlight, over terrain as wild as anything I had every encountered. 
     "Jeez," I thought as I placed footstep following footstep yard by yard 
     up one ridge and down the next, "this is Indiana, you're touching on 
     forty years old, you're within shouting distance of Indianapolis: calm 
     down!"
     
     Still, every leaf bank called my name: "Tom! Come here! I'll cuddle 
     you! I'll keep you warm till morning! You'll be back to work, with a 
     shower, and nobody will know better! Bag it! You're going to take a 
     wrong turn and end up lost on some forest road, hungry, frozen and 
     ruined!" No! Keep going. Calm down.
     
     A couple of times, the trail would turn from a shimmering spread of 
     light in front of me to a mottled and indistinct guess of direction to 
     nothing more than the darkened lack of sound in the strides of my 
     legs. At times like those, I had to slow, listen carefully, and 
     proceed forward till I saw some greater hint of direction from the 
     darkness around me, or till my footfalls crashed loudly in the forest 
     quiet into untrod leaves and twigs, signaling that I'd just stepped 
     off trail. When the "Crunch! Crunch!" happened, I would freeze, and 
     attempt -- even in the blackness of the forest night -- to carefully 
     balance on one leg at a time and reverse my footsteps out of the 
     "excursion" off trail. Makes you realize, when you can't see 
     surrounding landscape, just how hard it is to balance in the dark.
     
     Made it to the road recrossing an hour after crossing by the deer 
     stink spot. It should have taken less than half that. Still, for a 
     hiker, I was moving pretty well, was past the worst of it, and knew 
     the trail ahead to be a simple forest gravel road. I stopped for a 
     moment and downed as much of the PowerGel as I could suck out of those 
     silly reusable squeezie tubes, and downed my bottle of Conquest. I was 
     starting to really feel the thrill again -- the thrill of being "one 
     with the night" again, the thrill I had indulged twenty years ago in 
     Maine -- the kind of thrill one feels on a roller-coaster: you know 
     it's safe, intellectually, but emotionally -- primordially -- you are 
     scared, alert, nervous, and gleefully grateful to survive.
     
     I started up the return ridge with a full belly, a slacked thirst, and 
     a cockiness in "conquering the wilderness" undeserved given my 
     proximity to urbania. Too bad. I was tired, it was still dark trail, 
     it was still a good hikie, and I'm not going to argue with not being 
     caught out cold, lost, and alone on some misplaced forest road. Nah! I 
     am a Forest Traveler again!
     
     When the forest road hits the top of this ridge, the route becomes a 
     combination electric/phone/natural gas route as well, so it snakes 
     along the ridge with a right of way sufficiently wide to allow much of 
     the scanty moonlight to shine in. I was able to run for about half a 
     mile -- perhaps four minutes -- and it was pure joy: new muscle 
     groups, no thirst, clear and easy route, beauteous forest shimmering 
     in moonlight -- the scenery changing and rolling slowly past with the 
     only sounds being the steady crunch-crunch of my feet on the gravel 
     roadbed and the increasing "freight trains" of isolated winds pushing 
     through the treetops. The winds really tried hard to make me feel 
     lonely, but they couldn't know of the power rush I was receiving from 
     the entirely of sights and sounds just then. I'm within an easy hike 
     of the car, the moon is out enough to give me light to travel by now 
     -- if barely -- and the howling waves of wind (sounding much more like 
     winds heard in mountaintop lean-tos in Vermont, New Hampshire, and 
     Maine than some twinky little ridge in Hoosierland) -- well, the 
     package was too much. I grinned as I paced along into the not-so-scary 
     forest. By the time I hit the paved road through the main portion of 
     the forest, signaling an easy mile back to the car, I had to hold back 
     the urge to fly at flank speed.
     
     Got back to the car in 02:08:41, roughly quarter of nine pea-em. A 
     world away from when I started. Obviously, I had the whole place to 
     myself. I remained disappointed that my much anticipated "hard trail 
     run" was lost to accidental and avoidable darkness, and truth be told, 
     I was quite embarrassed -- being a Mr. Hiker type -- at being caught 
     out in the darkness with no descent excuse except sloppy planning and 
     execution, and yet I remained happy at my ultimate success -- and 
     remain more so as time passes. Boy, what a time. And on a weeknight. 
     And for free. Not illegal. Mostly a healthy activity. The whole can of 
     beans.
     
     So I'm going back to Low Gap Trail this weekend, and hopefully I might 
     do better than two-oh-eight, and hopefully -- if I push into darkness, 
     I'll be carrying a flashlight to get a taste of different thrills, 
     challenges and successes, but I know one thing: A little pause, a 
     little cold rationality, a little reflection, can turn a nasty go into 
     an opportunity for personal challenge, learning, growth, and even 
     triumph. 
     
     So again I guess I'll sign off with
     
     "Have just an excellent day, OK?"
     
     That ol', slightly touched in the head
     Sloetoe'79
     --TMc in Indy
     
     
     
     ORN: What, are you crazy? Did you read this thing? Day off, brother.
     
     NP: Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers/Echo: ("I'm down, but it") "Won't 
     last long"
     
     
     
     
     Knobstone Trail Half-Marathon, October 23rd
     (On the Low Gap Trail. You got the guts to do it in daylight?)
     
     Citizens' Gas Run for Heat 10k, November 26
     
     
     
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