right on

the hills

Now that my tent has finally dried out, all of my fingers and toes have thawed and Scout is speaking to me again, I think it’s safe to relate the actual story of our camping misadventures over Christmas break. Let me preface this little tale by saying that it has been a long time since I’ve been camping. A long time. Ohio, for all its pastoral sublimity, is unfortunately a very flat place. I might also add that it is drab, monotonous, and irrepressibly dull and boring. The only campsites within 300 miles of me are RV parks populated infrequently by lost Canadian retirees. So after a semester of hitting the books, I was pining for the mountains again. I envisioned a relaxing jaunt into the snow-covered hills for a few days with some buddies, a weekend of big campfires and even bigger lies told around them, passing a flask and watching the stars in their pale fires wheel across the sky. It’s interesting how selective my memory can be when remembering past jaunts into the woods, however. Though the trip turned out to be a blast, it was no mere spree. Nate, Jim, Adam and I were hoping to head up to the Smokies at noon on Friday, which of course meant we wouldn’t actually leave Birmingham until after dark. I don’t know why it is, but our crew is oddly incapable of getting into the woods before, say, midnight on any given weekend. It’s not really a complaint, but I’ve learned to always bring lots of spare batteries because chances are we’re going to be doing a fair bit of night hiking. The plan of attack was to head up to Davenport Gap and stay in the shelter Friday, then spend a leisurely Saturday hiking the five miles up to Mt. Cammerer, where we would stay in the old fire-watching tower perched atop the cliff at the northern edge of the mountain. Of all my Smokies haunts, this one is probably my favorite. The odd octagonal structure was originally built back in the ‘30s literally on the edge of the ravine, affording spectacular views of all the land around. They rebuilt it just a few years ago. It’s not an officially designated campground, and there’s no water, so one must resort to a little stealth camping unfortunately. But it’s worth it. In the evening the sunsets are always spectacular, and the sunrises are even better. You can relax on the wooden porch, amazed to be on top of the world. So we headed out of Birmingham and made it almost to Chattanooga before Nate’s fancy turbo-charged super Saab threw a belt. Luckily we had two cars, as I was going to do some solo hiking after this trip and brought the trusty Rodeo along. Note to self: Check the belts. Grounded for the night as Autozone was fresh out of relevant parts, we all piled in, found a room at the Best Western and hit the town, seeing what trouble Chattanooga had to offer on a Friday night. Well, we whooped it up. We did manage to avoid interaction with either the authorities or rival gangs, so the night went well, although the guy at the front desk called at 3 a.m. to inform us he’d had a few complaints. I really can’t imagine why. Next day, and we were back on the road. A quick trip to the Cracker Barrel and the Saab dealership (and the local ibuprofen supplier) set us straight. We managed to hit the woods that afternoon and decided to head on up to Mt. Cammerer. We enjoyed a nice stroll up the mountain as the hills wrapped themselves in shadow. Well, maybe “enjoyed” isn’t the best word to use. Not very accurate. In fact, it’s a damned lie. The Appalachian Trail runs from Davenport Gap, the northern end of the Smoky Mountains National Park, directly south and directly UP to Mt. Cammerer, a five mile plod at basically a forty-two degree angle. To make matters worse, we had to carry a few gallons of water with us, which meant carrying eight-pound waterbags in our hands as we walked by moonlight up the winding path. A couple of hours and several bouts of imaginatively profane language later, we all emerged at the top, a little worse for wear but immensely glad to have arrived. Moonlight covered the weathered cliff in a soft, pale glow, rendering flashlights unnecessary. The lights of Pigeon Forge and countless tiny villages spread out through the valley, until they reached the base of the mountain and disappeared into black nothingness. The Smokies here are an anomaly, a massive, silent presence surrounded by literally millions of people. Standing on Mt. Cammerer is like staring out across a city from the highest floor of the highest building in town. Beautiful, but surreal. Anyway, we were beat when we arrived, so we quickly cooked up some black beans and rice with sausage and hit the sack. I stayed up for a while and chatted with a guy from Knoxville about sushi and God. A group of younger kids came in as I was falling asleep and quietly spread out their sleeping bags. It was a nice night, not too windy and not too cold. We all woke up early and ate bagels and watched the sunrise, considering the new light as it filtered through the clouds, filling the valley. It was Jim’s birthday, so we broke out a bottle of champagne Adam had brought in and toasted the day. Champagne for my real friends, and real pain for my sham friends.. Then it was time to go. We hiked down the mountain in a silly mood, laughing with the various groups of hikers we met. As everyone had to be back at work on Monday except me, the fellas were going to take my car and leave it in Hot Springs, North Carolina, about forty miles away by trail. I didn’t have to be back at school for another week, so I figured I’d take the opportunity to hike up to Max Patch with Scout, and then on to Hot Springs, where I’d pick up my car and head up to school. Max Patch is a beautiful grass-covered mountain, or bald, about twenty miles south of Hot Springs, with spectacular views. It’s as if they’ve hired a yard man up there. If you can catch it on a nice day, it’s one of the prettiest hikes on the east coast, bar none. That’s if. Which, as Murphy would have it, is exactly what didn’t happen to me. When we hiked up to Mt. Cammerer the weather was beautiful, so as I repacked on Sunday I quite stupidly forgot to pack my gloves or my fleece layers, assuming the weather would be as dandy as I’d need it to be. Well, it was for Sunday. I said farewell to the crew and hiked in about five miles to a campsite I remembered from my 1999 hike and set up camp. The moon was bright, the wind was smooth and the creek beside my tent burbled in easy clinks and chuckles. Then the clouds rolled in. Just as I had finished dinner, washed my dishes and was settling into the ol’ sleeping bag to read my new Carl Sagan book, the rain started. And it rained. I woke and ate my breakfast in the rain. I packed up and set out hiking in the rain. I walked all friggin’ day in the rain, my boots and pack and clothes and food all gloriously soaked to the core, which added several more unwanted pounds to my pack as I walked up and over Snowbird Mountain, not an easy hill. My tent was so wet I’d had to wring it out like a towel that morning, so I didn’t anticipate setting it up again. My only option was to hike the whole fifteen miles to the next shelter. Great. Did I mention that it had gotten cold? Really, really cold? By about 3:00 my hands and face were numb, and I had to keep walking in order to maintain body heat. If I stopped for more than one or two minutes my wet clothes would take over and I’d start shivering uncontrollably. When I did stop, I had to pry my fingers from my hiking stick so I could unbuckle my pack. All I could think about was what an idiot I was. Let’s see, it’s January, I’m hiking in the mountains of North Carolina, and it snowed six inches here two weeks before. Gloves? Warm clothes? Nah. After a long, hard day, I finally rolled into Roaring Fork shelter as the light was failing. I thanked the gods. I then unpacked, feeling more and more miserable as I pulled out each cold, soaking wet bag. But I didn’t start worrying until I felt my sleeping bag. For a second I was sure that during the day my water bag had burst in my pack. I had never truly realized a sleeping bag could get that wet. As I pulled it out, water splashed. It didn’t drip, it splashed, and new curse words came to mind. Sailors worldwide blushed. Andrew Dice Clay wept and called his mother. It was going to be a long, long night. Luckily I’d made good mileage that day, which put me only about sixteen or seventeen miles from Hot Springs. As I cooked my dinner I figured I could maybe make it to Hot Springs the next day if I really busted it out. The more I looked at the water dripping from my sleeping bag, the tougher my resolve became. Finally I decided I would do it, which provided some options. Because I wouldn’t be needing my stove after that night I could crank it up and dry my sleeping bag on it! Hope suddenly broke through the stormclouds. I distinctly heard angels singing. With a new smile I proceeded to wring my sleeping bag out and lay it in a ring around the roaring stove. I had to be careful not to burn it, so I had to hold six-inch portions of the bag to the heat until the moisture steamed away in beautiful little clouds. This took me close to two hours. I couldn’t have cared less. Finally I got the inside of the bag dry enough to hold my body heat, and I crawled in exhausted. Scout curled up by my legs and whined quietly. I must have managed to drift off for a while because when I awoke the rain had stopped. But my joy was only to last for about two seconds until I realized that the silence outside wasn’t just from a lack of rain. It was way too quiet for that. A wet forest just sounds wet, and I wasn’t hearing anything. I poked my head through the saucer-sized opening and immediately felt the bite of frost in the air. Oh no. As my eyes adjusted I realized it had dropped below freezing and was now snowing. My water bottle was a solid block of ice. As I moved in the sleeping bag shards of ice showered onto Scout, whose fur had unfortunately frozen. Poor girl, she was shivering nonstop. I was too. I tried to go back to sleep for a while, but it was hopeless. The moment my eyes would close my body would shiver so hard it hurt my back. Unfortunately, the only way I could warm up now would be to start hiking. At roughly 4:00 a.m. I pulled the frozen sleeping bag off and started packing my gear. My pack was so stiff I had to beat it on the ground until it would open. By this time my situation was so ridiculously miserable that I was laughing out loud, cracking up each time I found another piece of gear frozen into some bizarre shape, covered in ice crystals. After packing each item I had to put my hands in my crotch for four minutes to get feeling back. But the worst part, the absolute most terrifically worst part of the whole episode was when I tried to put on my boots. You see, in 1999 I learned never to wear hiking boots because they are heavy, unwieldy, and generally pointless. Trail hiking shoes are infinitely lighter and more efficient (unless you’re carrying an 80-pound pack). If you’re hiking in the winter this is especially important because frozen shoes are easier to put on than frozen boots, which are basically . . . impossible. My bag was packed, Scout was ready to go, but I couldn’t get my feet into my damn boots. They were soaked when I went to bed and were now pure blocks of ice, the laces themselves frozen into amusing hieroglyphics. My only choice was to put my feet as far into them as I could and start walking. It was like wearing high heels. Frozen high heels. But I was able to hobble around, so I began circling the shelter, singing out loud the Rolling Stones song that was stuck in my head, slowly warming up my boots. Even Scout looked at me a little oddly. I think I circled the shelter fifteen times before my right foot finally slid into the boot, and the left joined shortly thereafter. With a whoop and a holler I stuffed the icy laces into my socks, grabbed my pack and bounded up the trail. As miserable as I was, the trail was stunning. During the night the soaked forest had frozen over completely, with each twig, branch and leaf sheathed in smooth glittering ice. Unbroken snow covered the ground. Stormgusts had piled ice into the trees on the tops of the mountain, shaping the icy surfaces into small windward angles. The forest was utterly quiet, insulated, broken only be the crunch of my boots on the trail. Scout was of course overjoyed to be in motion again and ran through the drifts recklessly. She chased anything remotely resembling a squirrel, often running so far away I lost sight of her, but then she’d come zooming by a few minutes later. After about an hour of this I had warmed up considerably and began enjoying myself. For once, everything was going to be alright. The rest of the hike was glorious but grueling, a sixteen-mile tramp into Hot Springs, most of it downhill. The sun came out and it was beautiful watching the shimmering ice-glazed mountains. But I was tired, cold, and hungry. I saw noone. My knees were killing me and I needed a beer. I didn’t roll into town until 2:00 that afternoon, having hiked almost nine hours. The first thing I did was to head to the Smoky Mountain Diner, where I had three cups of hot chocolate and a heaping plate of chicken-fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, cole slaw and a generous portion of apple cobbler. I caught the other patrons watching me eat, so I toned my gusto down a bit. After all, I didn’t want to look ravenous. I went to my car and turned on the heat and sat there for a long time. Thus ended one of my least-enjoyable hiking fiascos ever. As I drove out of Hot Springs toward Asheville, where I was going to spend a few days with Daniel, I of course resolved to never suffer like that again. Ever. But because and in spite of that suffering, this will be a lesson I will forget in less than a year. As I’m sitting in the Pettit College of Law library one afternoon, agonizing over unilateral contracts, I’ll think back and remember the glow of sunlight through the ice-covered trees, the starlight above a canopy of silhouetted trees, that delicious first sip of hot chocolate. I’ll remember singing to Scout, cooking up a steaming pot of black beans and rice, and reading a good book by flashlight. My memory will carefully filter out the throbbing knees, the painfully cold fingers, the ice-covered underwear. Those annoyingly negative images will drift away, supplanted by the ones that tend to justify my enjoyment of the outdoors, the images that remain. And before long I’ll be out there again, cruising along in cold or in pain, in joy and existing, moment by moment, in the presence of a truly original and unfettered experience. Just one thing: remind me to bring my gloves.

snow, redux

We've got a foot of snow up here, which means that this weekend I get to indulge in my latest physically abusive sport, snowboarding. Over Christmas break I got a chance to learn how to snowboard bust my butt on hard ice over and over again, and boy I can't wait to get out there and do it again. Fun? You bet. Painful? You bet. But once you get it, I mean really get it, and manage to stay up and execute a turn or two, oh yeah. I used to look on the snowboarders as object of scorn and ridicule, watching these young kids fly by within inches of my ski poles, doing these punk little jumps and then wrecking tragically. Snowboarders tend to be younger guys with attitudes, the one who can actually look bored while streaking down a black diamond slope at 50+ mph. How do they do this? Anyway, I promise not to be one of these annoying punks in the lift line. But I fully plan on doing this one day, if it kills me. It probably will, come to think of it, but at least I won't look bored when I go..

swamped

Just writing to say that I haven't been writing much at all lately, which should be obvious if you've stopped by in, say, the last 6 months or so. I'm really busy this semester, especially since I didn't do as well as I wanted to last semester. I think I did well enough to get a job somewhere this summer, but this semester I am taking no prisoners. Things are well here otherwise, except for the bitter, bitter cold wind that greets me every morning as I mount my frozen bicycle. You know, the one so cold that neither the brakes or gears work at all. If you were on the verge of rushing up here for a surprise visit, you may want to wait for it to warm up a bit..

Good interview with Leo Kottke here.

alas, sala

The Crook children rang it in in style this year, attending a small party hosted by friends of friends, wherin there was a bonfire and cheer all around. I knew the party was going to be a special occasion when our host, Jeremy, a youth minister at nearby St. James Methodist church, went to light the bonfire. A formidable teepee of old furniture, some logs and a christmas tree had been erected in his spacious backyard, and he proceeded to dump a large quantity of gasoline on the wood. I seem to remember glancing around uneasily as he walked up to the well-doused wood with his lighter, but I could be mistaken. The first log lit immediately, and the fire began spreading around the base. But just as Jeremy took one step back, the fire hit the gasoline and BOOM -- erupted in a ball of flame. Luckily the flames barely touched Jeremy, but the concussion was decidedly impressive enough to make us all jump back in fear of our lives. And then we all fell out laughing. 'Ol Jeremy's lucky he didn't lose his hairdo on that one. After a while we indulged in the usual bottle rocket mayhem, during which most everyone quietly went back inside to the snack table and safety. As no injuries were reported, the evening, I suppose, was a success. Happy New Year indeed. Now Jim and I are heading up to the Smokies with Adam and Nate for a weekend of pastoral delight, after which I am going to continue hiking north on the AT for about 50 miles or so with Scout. Then back to Ohio. If I didn't see you over break, I'll see you next time I'm home, which shouldn't be long, as I've got to fly back in a few weeks for summer internship interviews in Birmingham and Montgomery. Wish me luck, and I'll catch you soon.