Nurture through Nature: The Summer Maintenance Project

 

About a week after tromping through the muddy woods, I find myself back in an urban oasis, where the wonders of modern tech have locked in a comfortable 72 in the house that makes drinking a hot Earl Grey in the middle of the Southern Summer comfortable and pleasant.

But there’s an itch I need to scratch, and it’s not just from the bug bites and “poison whatever” in my back yard.  So, I wake up earlier than I need to and throw all the gear and point the whip northwest.  Luckily, though I live in one of the fastest growing cities in the country, there’s a little spot not far from here that’s going to give me what I need today.

The trails are not overwhelming.  They don’t lead to any breathtaking waterfalls or awe-inspiring vistas.  But they are enough, enough for me to run under the trees and hear the quiet crunch of dirt under my feet, enough for me to push my lungs and legs.  It’s a system check.  I haven’t run since Tampa.  I haven’t run a trail in close to a month.  If one of my summer goals is to maintain a running baseline on the trails,   here’s the step where that journey of a thousand miles begins.

Shady Trail is first, a loping two-track horse trail if there ever were one.  I’m running above pace.  I’m checking all the muscles to see if carrying a pack or hiking in Chacos has caused me any long-term problems.  All systems go.  After a mile, I cross the road: Beechwood Loop.  More technical.  A loop over roots, down a hill, around a gully, and back up. Pace slows as I pick over roots.  I’m thinking these are great walking trails, but nobody’s stupid enough to be out here in the summer heat.  Then I run up and spook a couple of people on the bridge.  Back, back, back up the hill, step by root by step.  Soon, it’s on to the Treasure Trove, whose trailhead is moved, but is still one of my favorites, loping wide trails over roots through a high, open tree canopy that allows a wide view as I trot through the trees.  Soon, I’m back on Shady in full sunlight, back across the road.  Climbing done, the finish near, I open up the last gear, floating at times down the trail.  Cut right.  Up a hill.  Cut left.  On the pavement.  Run over.  

The best part of running out here is that when I’m done, I throw my kayak off the Honda, throw it in the lake and paddle, paddle, paddle.  At first, the run’s got me like, “maybe I’ll get in a half hour.”  But the day is beautiful, and I settle into a groove, cruising up the south channel of Mtn. Island Lake, chomping on pistachios.  In an hour, I’ve made it to the NC 16 bridge. 

The current seems to be pulling me further, so I choose to turn it around and explore the coves on the way back.  The south side is more developed, but I spot some possible “park and hammock” spots.  However, it’s clear that the more secluded spots are ones that someone’s looking to build a dock or personal beach on someday.  Lots of “Warnings” and “Private Property” near the beginnings of worn paths. So for today on the coves, it’s me and the herons.

The water is high after storms the last two weeks.  After about 30 minutes, I’m at one of my favorite swimming spots, but the beach where I usually park the boat (and definitely don’t swim, because that is against the county rules) is but a small shelf of sticks.

I park and sit on a large root.  I sit and hear the morning roll in, the waking of the sun and the song of birds and insects yawning to life.  The sun warms the top of the water, leaving the bottom cold, and each time I re-emerge, the openness of the lake with its teeming life greets me.  Swimming pools are great and clean and neat, but there’s nothing like this fish impression to cool off after the morning’s paddle.

Come August, these moments will be difficult to find. I spend quite a bit of my job hermetically sealed in a third floor classroom, and as a teacher I worry that we are training students to be people who are satisfied with a limited life of indoor living, what I heard one podcaster call a “zoo animal” existence, satiated and reduced by limited movement.   I love books, and enjoy the quiet sitting and reading as well, but one I’ve been reading recently, Richard Louv’s Last Child in the Woods (AP 2013 for you LangNerds), is playing in the back of my mind as I drink in all the sense data around me.  Louv cites a study that differentiates between “direct focused attention” and “fascination”.  The first is task-oriented (read this passage, write this essay, do this math problem) to focus narrowly at the exclusion of all distractions (like school).  The second is to have the senses overwhelmed, as is often the case in a natural setting.  While the first kind seems the necessary to the A+ student, productive citizen type, the second type is necessary to refresh the capacities of the first, lest the first get weaker and weaker.  In the first type, the mind tries to exclude distracting stimuli.  It is a muscle that weakens, and—according to the cited study—causes irritation, exhaustion, and reduced performance in kids.  The second type allows the senses to be overwhelmed, to ponder the infinite possibilities of the universe, to take it all in, therefore allowing the first type to regenerate and re-focus with newfound vigor.

I’m going to follow the science on this one (though not in a Mike Pence type of way).  I’m going to undertake the delving into nature as my own summer maintenance and regeneration.  I wish I could bottle up this wisdom and figure out how to use it in my classroom.  But I don’t know how that works just yet.

But for today and for the summer, it is also a thought I need for myself.  Absent the structure of a day’s work, ideas come and go as I churn and churn over the water.  On my left in a small cove, a group of green young canoers struggle across the water in an area populated by hawks and blooming underwater plants.  From a distance, they seem a mixture of frustration in getting the boats to go and fascination at the surroundings.  Soon, 

I’m passing what I call “Frog Rock”, a convenient rest point, it seems, for teenagers to come and tag a rock with messages of love and sorrow, a short paddle from a nearby public dock..  By the time I’m back on the shore, it’s just getting warm enough to be less than bearable.  The noon sun shimmers across the water, igniting every ripple of water as far as I can see.

 

The Agony of the Feet: Day 5 on the MST

Day 5 (2.88 miles):  Lost Cove to Roseborough

Last day.  Short day.  Up the trail.  Down the road, and hopefully to a “civilized” meal in Morganton.

Chuck and I have had an ongoing discussion since Wednesday, and if you’re experienced in this field, please share below.  How do you best keep your feet dry and functional when hiking is always a little wet, always crossing the water—as is the case in the never completely dry, always humid mountains of the American Southeast?

Kate (our Alaskan thru-hiker from Tuesday evening) claimed she simply wore her rain gear non-stop, but even that—with the persistent obstacles of creek crossings—would not solve the problem of wet footwear that lead to our boot/sandal toggle this week.  Inevitably, sandal hiking with moisture will lead to some irritation.  At camp, we had discovered what we dubbed “the old man’s solution”—socks and sandals—as a compromise; but you can’t really cross a creek in socks, and we had our first crossing 50 yards down the trail behind our campsite and four more before we hit the parking lot.  So for our exit hike, it was a Frankenstein of moleskin and waterproof tape keeping the sandal straps from rubbing the skin further raw.  

You would think that without a shoe issue, the dogs would have fewer worries, but they seemed even more reticent to cross.  Like us, their confidence ebbs and flows; unlike us, they are not the best at reading maps or moving water: they are tentative at easy crossings and foolhardy at difficult ones.  I found myself in the role of encourager, gently lifting the dogs by the strap and praising them; I’ve done this enough that I start to get low-key jealous that no one is there to give me a little lift over fallen logs or tell me I’m a good boy when I cross the creek.  

Usually, Atticus loves splashing in the water; he’s made bad decisions trying to get down to water.  But this morning, he just stands on the rock and looks at us: “Not another one” he seems to think.  But a gentle nudge and we’re off.  On one crossing, Juno thought she had the creek licked—a narrow but rapid crossing—and nearly slipped down a mossy rock, once again putting the handles into play.  We frequently meet day-hikers who look at the backpacks as an oddity, but it cannot be overestimated how many times being able to pick up the dogs like a suitcase has saved us all some headaches and heartaches.

Soon we reach Gragg Prong, which will unfortunately get filed away under “visit this on a day hike someday, as the push to get out and on the road at a reasonable hour negates side trips.  From the parking lot, Gragg Prong is neither a long nor difficult hike, and a quick side trail leads to both the bottom and the top of a long rock perfect for climbing and sunning with a vast pool below.  Indeed, like most of the last two days of the hike, the trail has many points where a little bushwhacking and careful steep descent could yield a large reward.  

The trail has followed a narrow but passable Cliffside hike up to this point and we finally make our last two creek crossings of the day.  The dogs are champs.  They barely move in camp, but put the packs on and they are ready to go, surmounting obstacle after obstacle.

Less than a half mile the end, a dog barked from across the creek.  Too tired to care, Juno and Atticus ignore him and plod on.  I look over and see the camp site across the creek with a full sun canopy and a dirt road behind it: car camping—we must be close.  I keep my eyes peeled for the bridge where we start.  But as one last cruel joke, the trail twists upward into a tree, making the easier to choice to get down in the knee deep water one last time.  

Soon, we reach the parking area to watch a purple she-shed getting pulled up the road.  I remember thinking on Monday that Atticus would lunge for the running water under the bridge, but he’s having none of it.  He follows Chuck up the trail, across the bridge, patiently waiting to jump in the car.  They were so excited on the car ride up; they are so wiped out on the car ride back.  Soon, we’re on the road and hit Abele’s.  It’s not the breakfast buffet I was hoping for, but it is a gluttonous repast nonetheless.

I was home by the afternoon, stopping to bathe the dogs at The Dog Salon (during which they barely moved) and settled in by 10:00 to write this final chapter, sitting “proper” at a table and chair to write for the first time in over a week.  It’s comfortable, but there’s something about sitting under the tent light that I already miss.  According to the official guide, our hike was 36.9 for the week; the Apple watch (for which I carried a charger so I could monitor mileage and heart rate all week) claimed we went 39.38 miles.  ON cue, it buzzes and gives me my gentle reminder that I can close my calorie ring if I’m willing to get up and have a brisk 23-minute walk.

I think not.

I’ve drawn a bucket of epsoms with which to begin repair of the damage to my feet.  But the final impression of this trip is not the fatigue, despair, nor the pain.  In moments large and small, there are sense memories—such as lying on a rock beside a waterfall under the perfect summer sky, the thunderous sound of the water washing over tired bodies with joy, staring up at the stars beside a glowing fire, or even a quiet log in the middle of lush woods—that will be touchstones of peaceful respite for years to come.  There are the long stretches of silence through which my mind churned through mental obstacles heavier than my backpack.  There are the unfettered rambling conversations blossomed in the absence of the distractions of the “to do lists” of the modern world.  With all the struggle, these moments justify all the pain of the undertaking, preserving ecstatic memories and the possibility of further lands to explore, both near and far.  Having the space, time, and companionship to take this trek is a blessing for which I am eternally grateful.

Good night!

In the glorious Land of Waterfalls: Days 3-4 on the MST

Days 3 and 4: Steel Creek (?) to Lost Cove

Wednesday (13.04 miles): Alaska Kate was up and out in 47 minutes, two minutes over her target departure time.  Chuck and I sat and ate breakfast more casually, but were out by 9:30 with the goal and momentum to make it to Harper Creek Falls by a reasonable hour.

In the first mile, I was day-dreaming about something Chuck had said—that when you do something challenging like hike all week (or in Kate’s case, all summer), it makes all the everyday challenges seem easy by comparison.  I was cruising, reveling in the thought of things feeling easier this morning after yesterday’s struggle when all that came crashing down in a creek crossing.  Wet Socks again!!

I pushed through, fueled primarily by ire, but by 2.5 miles at FS 496, I was feeling hot spots on the outside of my big toes and under the pads on the left foot.  So, we stopped.  I had to take care of my feet so they would take care of me.  Boots off.  Powder and moleskin.  Less wet socks on. 

The 1.2 miles on a dirt road was something refreshing, except leashed the dogs decided to let me drag them a bit until we reached 181, the four-lane curvy road that climbs out of Morganton into the mountains.  Across the road, a large white truck with USF license plates sat at the guard rail in front of the MST trailhead.  From there, the trail descended rapidly down a mudslide–we both agreed this would be a horror show to hike up, especially in the rain.  As the trail leveled out in about a mile (5.2 for the day), we came to a white Members Only jacket hanging beside the trail and a confusing creek crossing.  I walked around the back searching for the white blaze while Chuck explored the creek.

There he met a man who interrogated him rudely about the presence of Upper Creek Falls (which, from our logic, would be reached from a different trailhead was at least another half mile up 181).  The man seemed frustrated that Chuck didn’t know the whereabouts of a waterfall, as if Chuck’s backpack meant he knew all things about the area.  I didn’t get the pleasure of meeting him, but Chuck said he and his lady friend (or special lady, maybe) didn’t seem particularly well dressed for the hiking bit.  It seemed the man and his wife may have to re-ascend the trail.  Florida retirees in the NC mountains: gotta love ‘em.

For us, it was the creek.  It should be noted that the official guide greatly misrepresents an abundance of camp sites in this area as well as underestimating the actual mileage, and had we actually made our goal of getting here yesterday, we would have been left in a poor place.  That said, this was no simple rock-hopping creek.  Off came the boots.  On went the sandals.  Across went the dogs as we handed them across a fairly deep pool and set of rapids.  Thank God for backpack straps.

On the other side, the skies opened up again, just as Florida man and his special lady (or is it lady friend?) must have been re-ascending the washed out trail.  But by this time, we seemed mentally oblivious to the rain.  We looked at the sky, simultaneously gave the rain a “who fucking cares?” and decided to hit the trail, sandals still strapped to our feet.  Yesterday’s impromptu tarp party had taught us that the best thing to do in the rain was to just keep walking.

As such, we did not stop for the next four miles–almost zombie-like—in our sandals.  Much of this hike was done in silence, with one of us on the lead and the dogs in between. Every time we came to a place that looked like a good place to stop, we both agreed that we wanted to keep pushing.  The zen of hiking.  The body on autopilot.  The mind churning unfettered  

By the time we finally stopped, we had crushed four miles since the creek and 7.5 since we last sat so I could change socks.  Just inside the Harper Creek Wilderness boundaries, we found a sandy spot on the trail just below the MST/Raider Creek intersection, just long enough to get a little sand in my shorts, just enough to cause some minor chafing. Map check.  Trail Mix.  Chocolate Almond Butter.  Back on the trail. 

We hooked a right and headed east. I had told Chuck I had thought the trail between here and camp was fairly easy.  I was wrong.  It was mostly downhill, bombed out by water, waist-high embankments on both sides.  As we came back to the creek, fallen trees obstructed the trail, causing us to navigate full branches in full packs.  Tempting campsites began to appear, singing their siren’s song.  Rest with us.  Put down your weary burden.  But we resisted and finally found ourselves at the last creek crossing of the day where Harper and Raider Creeks intersect.

A quick check of the dehydration meter ran dark.  By the time we rolled into camp a half mile later, it became clear to us that we had pushed ourselves to a breaking point and beyond, and we would later admit that fatigue and lack of water had made us get some of that woozy, trail drunk feeling.  It had made us susceptible to the siren’s song, but we resisted and were rewarded with one of my most coveted campsites ever.

The descent into the campsite is steep and dangerous, but once there, a large, flat floodplain flanked by boulders gives ample space for camping and easy access to water, swimming, and sight-seeing.  The creek runs the length of a football field that houses 5-6 separate sites, each divided by large rocks. I’ve always wanted to camp here, but never on a weekend.  It’s close enough to the road that large groups often occupy all of the campsites with de facto car camping.  But on this day, it was all for us.  We took the site closest to the falls—easily the best.  Upon arrival, our fatigue and dehydration set in, so I put up the hammock, pounded some electrolytes, had a snack, and rested my feet.  Soon, the falls began to call me.

Harper Creek Falls is a mammoth two-level fall upstream from the site.  There are two ways to get to it.  1) rock hop and wade through the water for ten minutes 2) get back on the trail and rappel down a rope tied to a tree.  I chose the former on the way up.

People often wonder my obsession with hiking, and even reviewing the trip to this point, it may seem like a mild form of masochism.  But if I could distill one of the moments that makes all the grueling pain worth it, the afternoon swim in the falls would be that moment. 

The pool is all mine, centered in rock canyon on three sides.  I jump head-first in the cold water, washing away the sweat and grime from a 13 mile day.  Different muscles awaken as I swim a hundred feet or so against the current to find myself against the rock face, where a rope hangs, allowing me to climb up to the second level of the falls thirty feet above.  There, the more powerful falls reside, so I walk around in both fear and reverent awe, careful not to get swept downstream.  Later, I sit on the rocks, now able to see high above the water, far down into the canyon.  The sun dries me for the first time all week.  The water rumbles, vibrating the rocks beneath me.  Chuck and the dogs are down at camp.  I am a small speck of life on this rock face amid a vast openness. It seems like a perfect meditation, but I don’t want to close my eyes.  I want to take this sight in, for these moments are rare gems to be treasured in the memory.

The movement of the sun across the canyon reminds me this precious infinity is coming to a close, so I rappel back down the rocks and hop back in the pool.  Grab some soap and take a river bath.  Pack the bag.  Let’s take option 2 out: a 70 foot climb up the canyon on a rope.  Back on the trail.  Back down to the campsite.  

After the long hike, the waterfall trip seemed to have completely wiped me out, but somehow, we find the strength to get some wood and coax a fire into existence—our first campfire of the week.  It’s amazing what that simple act can do to lift one’s spirits.  Distance thru-hikers often eschew the campfire as an unnecessary expenditure—taking time, requiring the energy to find wood, carrying resources that create weight in the pack.  While we both agree with this logical calculation, the effect of light bouncing off the titanic boulders, shadows dancing against the canopy of trees underneath a clear starry sky, the opportunity to stretch aching muscles next to a roaring fire constitutes an essential part of the experience.  We ate our dinner with gusto. Soon, we came near the end of our wood pile, the embers began to lose their glow, and we stumbled contentedly into our hammocks.

Day 4 (8.24 miles):  After yesterday’s ball-buster, we had the inclination to sleep in a little bit and cruise in to Lost Cove on a short day.  There goes that word again.  Cruise.  Again, a condition and terrain dependent term.  Official trail guides somewhat undersell the difficulty of this section of the trail.  Getting out of camp is a gnarly task in itself, but crawling over narrow trails as we hiked over the falls brought us to a sandy part of the trail next to the creek.  It makes the hike more challenging, but “Thank God,” we thought, “that at least we don’t have to do this in sandals.”  But soon, the trail became more challenging.  There were creek crossings, sure, but even when on land, the trail climbed over rocks jutting into the creek through snake-infested trees, on trails that with just a bit more water would become all the more devastating.  

The creek crossings were actually the best part.  After the first one, we took the time to tape up our feet and spent another four miles hiking in sandals.  It was a bit more manageable this time, and the water crossings were the best way to cool our feet and flush out the sand.

The dogs saw it differently, and by the time we reached the seventh crossing a half mile before Bard Falls, we had a near mutiny on our hands.  Admittedly, we had to jump into knee-deep water, which for a dog is swimming level.  Juno and Atticus took one look at the creek and tried to turn around.  I threw my pack on the opposite bank and came back to grab them.  In moments like these, I’m extremely grateful for Chuck’s help as he knows the dogs and they know him.  We’ve crossed water many times.  But despite all that, the dogs didn’t want to listen, and I had to grab them one at a time and coax them in the river.

Luckily, we soon came to Bard Falls, our first major break stop of the day.  We left our packs on top of the trail and scurried down.  Atticus seemed hesitant to go down any hill he didn’t want to climb back up, but we coaxed him to the bottom.  

The flood plain opens into fire rings right beside the creek that comes gushing out at the bottom of the falls.  We snacked, snapped pics, and began climbing on the rock in front of the falls.  The volume of the water coming through the narrow canyon pushed a continuous blast of cooling air over the front of the rocks, giving us some natural air condition when we needed it most.  The water, moving faster that normal for the summer, kept us from exploring the cave that drops to water level, but the stop refreshed, and gave the dogs a quick nap.

We got back on the trail.  A half a mile later, we stopped at the MST/Harper’s Creek intersection to put boots back on.  For a while, I leaned back on the log and fell into a perfect harmony of fatigue and rest, taking in the beauty of being out, far, far away, like I had earned this beautiful moment of rest on this one secluded spot.  In retrospect, it seems a non-descript log in the middle of the woods, but it is one of those sense memories—perfect place, perfect time—that will always be a touchstone of absolute rest and contentment.

Soon, it was time to cruise.  A gentle mile climb up to FS 464; .6 miles down a gravel road; 1.2 miles down into the valley and into camp.  Lost Cove: a flat, shaded area with multiple campsites.  Chuck and I were again fatigued and had already started having breakfast fantasies while setting up camp.  It was still early and the sun was out, so I set up a clothesline for my damp sleeping bag and wet socks.  An hour later, we found the energy to hike back 10 minutes to Hunt Fish Falls.

Compared to Harper Creek, the return to the Hunt Fish Falls is far less strenuous but equally rewarding.  In the waning afternoon sun, a giant rockface overlooks a massive pool beneath two waterfalls.  We both took the plunge in the massive pool, treading water, watching hawks overhead and fish jumping out beneath the waterfall.  Contented, we sunned ourselves like lizards in the warm air.  After being in the state of perpetual moistness for most of the week, the evening swim and drying was the perfect rest and ending for the day.  Knowing tomorrow was our last day—a short hike out—it was the perfect punctuation to our long days of hiking and sleeping in the woods.  These falls are not far from a road, but as the culmination of four days that started with grueling climbs and downpours, the brief rest seemed our reward that made all struggles worth the game.

Back at camp, we found sufficient wood to easily build a roaring fire through the night as we tried our best to empty our bags of as much food as possible.  Then sun set over valley and we drank freely of both the conversation and the silence.  There would be no rain tonight, and as the woodpile ran low and the fire dwindled, I became excited for the rest the hammock would provide.  For me, there is no sleep in the world like that in the woods by the running water on a clear and temperate night.  Dreaming would pale in comparison to this.

Trudging the Muddy Trail: Days 1-2 on the MST

Days 1 and 2: Wolf Pit to Steel Creek.

 

The first climb is the deepest.

Monday (5.43 mi): Chuck and I started up the trail around 4:45 after shuttling cars and waiting out an initial rainstorm.  The first climb from Wolf Pit is up Shortoff—over 1,000 ft in the first mile.  A nice way to break a first sweat and get the lungs pumping as every few minutes or so we could turn and see Lake James growing smaller and smaller in the distance—giving us a necessary short break to continue.

We briefly and uneventfully stopped at Gully Pipe so Chuck could re-up water.  It is what it says: a grey pipe sticking out of the side of the mountain over a deep gully.  The end.  It’s on a crappy part of the trail, but accessible water would be nowhere until we reached camp.

After the initial climb, the trail evened in altitude but presented a new challenge: lush, overgrown vegetation and soppy trails from the 45 minute deluge that preceded.  The trail muddied our boots; the vegetation, bloated with dew, whipped our clothes, leaving everything in our possession slightly moist. We trudged through at a feverish clip, making Saddle Camp by about 8:00.  We set off down a steep side trail for a water fill and came back—breaking a second sweat coming back up the mountain to erect camp.  Just as everything was in place, the deluge returned just as night fell.  Too tired to eat dinner, I crawled into my hammock and fell in and out of sleep, only to awaken fully around 12:45 to the sound of Atticus licking the water off my tarp, which I discovered was in no condition to fully withstand the torrents.  I crawled out to remove my contacts and pound a Nalgene of electrolytes, then crawl back in.

I was awake by 5 with the sun, but every time I summoned the gumption to get out of my hammock, the rain returned, and I returned to more sleep.

Tuesday (8.80 miles):  Around 9, we were finally out of the hammocks.  We milled around, readying breakfast, check the extent of the storm damage.  It’s a late leave time, but on your first night when you come to camp in the near dark and survived the rain, taking stock seemed more important than a quick exit.

Around 10:30, we were near ready and a group of about ten giggling late-teen/early-twenties group of girls—having knocked out 1.5 miles already—came rolling into the site and halted on the trail.  They seemed oblivious to us as they made their way to use the off-trail facilities.  We hurried to get out and in front of them.

A good choice.  Larger groups tend to move more slowly, and the 2.5 miles of brutal knee-to-nose climbing, rock scaling, and tedious tromping that followed slowed us enough on its own.  From a distance in the previous twilight, the saddle up to Table Rock had seemed lush and magical; up close in the morning, the fog obscured the views into the Gorge and left little but the immediate steps of the snarling trail ahead.  After an intense climb, the trail levels ever so briefly only to begin to descend into The Chimneys, an area popular with climbers such as the large group we passed.  They cooed at dogs in backpacks, but we had to preserve what little momentum our trudging steps could muster.  A group of trail runners passed us, mocking us with their empty shoulders and seemingly effortless movement over the boulders.  The trail is rocky and technical.  As it ascends back to the Table Rock parking area, the hands become as important as the feet—picking up the dogs by their back pack straps for a boost, and pulling ourselves through narrow crevices and up rocky faces.

The moisture in the air did little to help dry the previous night’s damage, and by the time we reached the parking area, my socks felt like mud and quicksand in my own boots.  You non-backpackers may find this disgusting, but I have ridden a pair of socks for multiple days only to use the spare pair as the gift for walking out; this would not be that trip.  By 12:00 on Tuesday, I changed socks, liberally applied Gold Bond, and was officially out of perfectly clean socks for the rest of the week.

An hour’s stop in the picnic area for feet and snacks (it was a slow start) and we were back on the trail. We found a brief moment of levity—passing a “professional hiker” in the parking lot talking to a woman who swears her sister’s “Wott-Reiler” weighed 200 pounds—as a brief moment of grace before descending through one of the more demoralizing sections, a steep 1.4 mile drop from Table Rock to FS 496.  Slippery Rocks.  Steep downhill.  We reached the bottom and stopped to refill water; Atticus exemplified our low morale when he went into the creek and ended up getting his backpack hooked on a stick as he tried to exit.  Later, we would both agree, that this was a nadir of mental fatigue where we really had to ask ourselves why the hell we had chosen to do this.

I thought of Billy Crystal’s character in City Slickers.  “Remember,” I sarcastically told myself, “you’re doing this because you like this.  You’re doing this because you think it’s fun.”  

Once we turned left off FS 496, our fortunes improved, both physically and mentally.  The trail evened into a soft, even bed of pine needles.  “I could run this all day,” said Chuck.  And we did.  Our pace picked up to knocking out around 2.5 miles an hour, making up somewhat for the slow start.  Soon, we found a wide open campsite next to a creek around 4:00.  We were still tired, but in much better spirits than we had been at our previous two stops.

“Look,” says Chuck.  “We’re making good time.  I think we should keep going and get some more miles in.  Let’s cruise for another hour or two, then make camp.”

Cruise.  Fateful word. Dependent on conditions and terrain.  The thunder rumbled ominously in the distance.  The trail crossed the creek, and instead of returning to a soft bed of needles, the next mile hugged the creek.  The rain began softly and intermittently, but as it became clear that we would be walking on rock, it became more imperative to move before the hard rains came.  We saw a giant waterfall below us in the brush; while a dip in a deep pool by the falls would be sublime, we needed to get off the river before the heavens opened up.  We couldn’t take the time to explore, lest the storm break and we were stranded on wet rock below.  At one point, Atticus found the appearance of a pool and a sandy beach alluring, looking at us like “Really?  This looks nice.  Let’s stay here and hang out.”  His idea of paradise, his fatigue, kept him content, incapable or realizing the danger of staying up.  Instead, I had to hump him over two rock climbs, the first of which led directly into walking up a cascading creek at a steep angle.  On a sunny day, I would revel in the exploration of the area, but the impending storm made getting me and the recalcitrant Rottweiler up the trail.

Pushing him up the rocks and climbs took the wind out of me, and as the trail normalized somewhat, I saw Chuck at the top of a climb, huddled under branches.  I stopped.  In hindsight, we recognize the best thing to do is just keep walking.  However, we learned that by stopping, thinking we could briefly wait out the storm.

But the storm persisted, and I finally yanked the tarp from my bag and threw it over us, just to keep some semblance of dryness.  Hope would make it sound like it was subsiding, but we would lift the edge to a cold wind and to see it raining just as hard as before.  This kept on for a good 30-45 minutes before we bit the bullet and decided that we had to make a go of it and find camp.

Fifteen minutes later, we came into a small flat spot before the trail ascended up the ridge again.  It was not the most ideal or prettiest camping spot, but it had water access and was big enough for us.  As we broke down our packs and set up camp, the rain finally relented and we had some semblance of normalcy.  

The dogs were wiped, but in the lingering drizzle, we began the rudiments of making camp: getting water, setting up tarps, prepping food, feeding the dogs.  They barely looked at their bowls. Juno fell asleep in her bowl, only waking so I couldn’t snap her picture.  We fell into a quiet lull.

Having not moved since we stopped, Atticus stood up and barked as a thru-hiker came into camp.  She asked if she could share, and we gladly gave her the space.  The effort to start the fire was in vain, but it gave us an excuse to be out of our hammocks and socialize with Kate from Alaska, who decided on a lark to start backpacking, researched the MST, and flew halfway across the country to try it for the first time.  We talked trails and gear and stories until we were all ready to turn in.

By dusk the rain had completely stopped, and though we had no fire, I had enough space to stretch out and time to write beside my camp site, both of which I crave on the trail, both of which I got for the first time on this trip.  Despite the struggle of the last two days, I turned into my hammock and fell into peaceful, contented sleep.

Trudging through Mud: Days 1-2 on the MST

Days 1 and 2: Wolf Pit to Steel Creek.

 

The first climb is the deepest.

Monday (5.43 mi): Chuck and I started up the trail around 4:45 after shuttling cars and waiting out an initial rainstorm.  The first climb from Wolf Pit is up Shortoff—over 1,000 ft in the first mile.  A nice way to break a first sweat and get the lungs pumping as every few minutes or so we could turn and see Lake James growing smaller and smaller in the distance—giving us a necessary short break to continue.

We briefly and uneventfully stopped at Gully Pipe so Chuck could re-up water.  It is what it says: a grey pipe sticking out of the side of the mountain over a deep gully.  The end.  It’s on a crappy part of the trail, but accessible water would be nowhere until we reached camp.

After the initial climb, the trail evened in altitude but presented a new challenge: lush, overgrown vegetation and soppy trails from the 45 minute deluge that preceded.  The trail muddied our boots; the vegetation, bloated with dew, whipped our clothes, leaving everything in our possession slightly moist. We trudged through at a feverish clip, making Saddle Camp by about 8:00.  We set off down a steep side trail for a water fill and came back—breaking a second sweat coming back up the mountain to erect camp.  Just as everything was in place, the deluge returned just as night fell.  Too tired to eat dinner, I crawled into my hammock and fell in and out of sleep, only to awaken fully around 12:45 to the sound of Atticus licking the water off my tarp, which I discovered was in no condition to fully withstand the torrents.  I crawled out to remove my contacts and pound a Nalgene of electrolytes, then crawl back in.

I was awake by 5 with the sun, but every time I summoned the gumption to get out of my hammock, the rain returned, and I returned to more sleep.

Tuesday (8.80 miles):  Around 9, we were finally out of the hammocks.  We milled around, readying breakfast, check the extent of the storm damage.  It’s a late leave time, but on your first night when you come to camp in the near dark and survived the rain, taking stock seemed more important than a quick exit.

Around 10:30, we were near ready and a group of about ten giggling late-teen/early-twenties group of girls—having knocked out 1.5 miles already—came rolling into the site and halted on the trail.  They seemed oblivious to us as they made their way to use the off-trail facilities.  We hurried to get out and in front of them.

A good choice.  Larger groups tend to move more slowly, and the 2.5 miles of brutal knee-to-nose climbing, rock scaling, and tedious tromping that followed slowed us enough on its own.  From a distance in the previous twilight, the saddle up to Table Rock had seemed lush and magical; up close in the morning, the fog obscured the views into the Gorge and left little but the immediate steps of the snarling trail ahead.  After an intense climb, the trail levels ever so briefly only to begin to descend into The Chimneys, an area popular with climbers such as the large group we passed.  They cooed at dogs in backpacks, but we had to preserve what little momentum our trudging steps could muster.  A group of trail runners passed us, mocking us with their empty shoulders and seemingly effortless movement over the boulders.  The trail is rocky and technical.  As it ascends back to the Table Rock parking area, the hands become as important as the feet—picking up the dogs by their back pack straps for a boost, and pulling ourselves through narrow crevices and up rocky faces.

The moisture in the air did little to help dry the previous night’s damage, and by the time we reached the parking area, my socks felt like mud and quicksand in my own boots.  You non-backpackers may find this disgusting, but I have ridden a pair of socks for multiple days only to use the spare pair as the gift for walking out; this would not be that trip.  By 12:00 on Tuesday, I changed socks, liberally applied Gold Bond, and was officially out of perfectly clean socks for the rest of the week.

An hour’s stop in the picnic area for feet and snacks (it was a slow start) and we were back on the trail. We found a brief moment of levity—passing a “professional hiker” in the parking lot talking to a woman who swears her sister’s “Wott-Reiler” weighed 200 pounds—as a brief moment of grace before descending through one of the more demoralizing sections, a steep 1.4 mile drop from Table Rock to FS 496.  Slippery Rocks.  Steep downhill.  We reached the bottom and stopped to refill water; Atticus exemplified our low morale when he went into the creek and ended up getting his backpack hooked on a stick as he tried to exit.  Later, we would both agree, that this was a nadir of mental fatigue where we really had to ask ourselves why the hell we had chosen to do this.

I thought of Billy Crystal’s character in City Slickers.  “Remember,” I sarcastically told myself, “you’re doing this because you like this.  You’re doing this because you think it’s fun.”  

Once we turned left off FS 496, our fortunes improved, both physically and mentally.  The trail evened into a soft, even bed of pine needles.  “I could run this all day,” said Chuck.  And we did.  Our pace picked up to knocking out around 2.5 miles an hour, making up somewhat for the slow start.  Soon, we found a wide open campsite next to a creek around 4:00.  We were still tired, but in much better spirits than we had been at our previous two stops.

“Look,” says Chuck.  “We’re making good time.  I think we should keep going and get some more miles in.  Let’s cruise for another hour or two, then make camp.”

Cruise.  Fateful word. Dependent on conditions and terrain.  The thunder rumbled ominously in the distance.  The trail crossed the creek, and instead of returning to a soft bed of needles, the next mile hugged the creek.  The rain began softly and intermittently, but as it became clear that we would be walking on rock, it became more imperative to move before the hard rains came.  We saw a giant waterfall below us in the brush; while a dip in a deep pool by the falls would be sublime, we needed to get off the river before the heavens opened up.  We couldn’t take the time to explore, lest the storm break and we were stranded on wet rock below.  At one point, Atticus found the appearance of a pool and a sandy beach alluring, looking at us like “Really?  This looks nice.  Let’s stay here and hang out.”  His idea of paradise, his fatigue, kept him content, incapable or realizing the danger of staying up.  Instead, I had to hump him over two rock climbs, the first of which led directly into walking up a cascading creek at a steep angle.  On a sunny day, I would revel in the exploration of the area, but the impending storm made getting me and the recalcitrant Rottweiler up the trail.

Pushing him up the rocks and climbs took the wind out of me, and as the trail normalized somewhat, I saw Chuck at the top of a climb, huddled under branches.  I stopped.  In hindsight, we recognize the best thing to do is just keep walking.  However, we learned that by stopping, thinking we could briefly wait out the storm.

But the storm persisted, and I finally yanked the tarp from my bag and threw it over us, just to keep some semblance of dryness.  Hope would make it sound like it was subsiding, but we would lift the edge to a cold wind and to see it raining just as hard as before.  This kept on for a good 30-45 minutes before we bit the bullet and decided that we had to make a go of it and find camp.

Fifteen minutes later, we came into a small flat spot before the trail ascended up the ridge again.  It was not the most ideal or prettiest camping spot, but it had water access and was big enough for us.  As we broke down our packs and set up camp, the rain finally relented and we had some semblance of normalcy.  

The dogs were wiped, but in the lingering drizzle, we began the rudiments of making camp: getting water, setting up tarps, prepping food, feeding the dogs.  They barely looked at their bowls. Juno fell asleep in her bowl, only waking so I couldn’t snap her picture.  We fell into a quiet lull.

Having not moved since we stopped, Atticus stood up and barked as a thru-hiker came into camp.  She asked if she could share, and we gladly gave her the space.  The effort to start the fire was in vain, but it gave us an excuse to be out of our hammocks and socialize with Kate from Alaska, who decided on a lark to start backpacking, researched the MST, and flew halfway across the country to try it for the first time.  We talked trails and gear and stories until we were all ready to turn in.

By dusk the rain had completely stopped, and though we had no fire, I had enough space to stretch out and time to write beside my camp site, both of which I crave on the trail, both of which I got for the first time on this trip.  Despite the struggle of the last two days, I turned into my hammock and fell into peaceful, contented sleep.

Yea, Though I Walk Through The Valley: Discursive Musings on the Advent of Summer

Grades finished.  Classes closed.  The battle over.  Another year of teaching in the books.  All of the inevitable “next years” come to the fore as one school calendar gives way to the next.  I often wonder, do people in other professions function this way? 

It’s Sunday evening in Tampa.  On the eve of AP scoring, I find myself in a space of existential wandering in my profession—an instructor of writing, philosophy, and film.  Tomorrow, I will embark on the assessment of the work of hundreds of thousands of students who took the AP exam.  After investing a year in the classroom instructing my pupils with this test in mind, I switch roles and become a different cog in the system of evaluating student writing—assessing the “national” standards on which they are all judged.

All this seems like a natural confluence. However, as I sit over my first plate of Tampa Convention Center quinoa salad of the week (ah, the meal that never fails), the waters of the Hillsborough bleed through the channels under the golden sun into the sea and teachers return to familiar channels—returning from Publix, libations in hand to share notes from the past year—and my mind begins to wander how all these molecules of freedom hold together.

Unlike much of life, a teacher’s world is somewhat predictable in these yearly cycles. Teach. Tweak. Repeat.  Yet every few summers, this professional reassessment goes a bit deeper, a bit darker as musings of techniques and content give way to the shadowy realm of purpose.  Why am I doing this in the first place?  What good am I doing in this position?

Such thoughts have been brooding with me before I first read “Is Philosophy OK?” by Robert Gressis,  but certainly it kicked my mental wandering in the pants.  In the essay, Gressis challenges himself to construct an air-tight argument to justify his continued instruction of Immanuel Kant to undergrads.  He fails.  His argument—though perhaps a bit of a philosophical word game—bespoke the lament of my teaching soul.  There are all sorts of ways in which I justify teaching to myself as important, and teaching writing and rhetoric and argumentation specifically as societally important, both as motivation to myself but also context to my students.   But as Gressis points out, sometimes when we look at the lines of overall impact on students, they can seem tenuous and insubstantial, wondering what students retain of our lessons as year bleeds on to year. 

Perhaps I’ve got Gressis on the content front. He teaches an esoteric (though widely respected) dead German philosopher; I teach rhetoric, lively and ever changing, the lifeblood of democratic debate and daily interaction.  I teach students to enter the grand conversation; to better sniff out the bullshit; to craft ecstatic, beautiful, meaningful prose.  Or so I tell myself.  But like the Sophists of old, I feel that those who truly get rhetoric and language use it for the most perverse purposes—selling useless trinkets, peddling destructive ideas, obfuscating the truth.  

For everyone else, writing can become a pro forma exercise in gate keeping mentality, showing the academic institution that one can follow a proscribed set of rules to achieve an ultimate goal—high AP scores to get into a good college to get a degree, etc.  As Gressis suggests, sometimes getting through college merely proves to prospective employers that you can conform to a system and jump through a series of hoops, whether or not you remember anything about Kant or logical fallacies or any content that may actually be taught.  As the world continues to speed up, students often crave a quick formula to give them the simplest way to master this task to move on to the next, even if none of the content learning actually occurs.  

Even as I prepare to sit at a table with other professionals to discuss and evaluate writing, progressing technology has certainly been spurring this fear of formulaic mentality in the process of writing.  We word dorks often hold out as the bastion of interpersonal education like it’s the last stand on Fiji.  Writing, we claim, is about meaning, and unlike factual recall and math problems, we can’t be automated.  Except, that’s not entirely true.  More and more, years of five-paragraph modeling and the codification of writing conventions has led itself to a proliferation of algorithmic assessments of writing.  The more we can objectify the rubric, the more we can program a reader or a computer to look for certain qualities.  According to David Labaree’s “The Five-Paragraph Fetish”, our love of the five-paragraph model has mutated into the gold standard for academic writing: students can’t break out of it even when we implore them to do so.  So writing a sensible 5P becomes the gold standard, with predictable structure and transition, all of which allows the distinct and provable possibility that a student (or an essay generator) could craft a work of writing that is completely devoid of actual meaning but fits the formal conventions.  

TL:DR? You can vomit certain words and put it in the right form and still get a grade that moves you on to the next task.  (Don’t believe me?  Try the Babel essay generator here). This is the very definition of the gate-keeping mentality in education.  All tasks are designed to give a student entrance to the next level, not necessarily to learn or master content.  We all have seen this in the students perfectly content to get a grade devoid of a skill, who subvert the intent of learning and still finish an assignment, a student who cheats in spirit, whose fixation on a grade frustrates their ability to have the joy of learning for learning’s sake.  Master the formula and move on.

 

To be honest, AP does better than most people give it credit for avoiding this formulaic write-by-numbers approach by hiring live reading and giving students great latitude to be proficient, (That’s really all I can say on social media about the super-squirrely-sworn-to-secrecy process), but this general trend—toward standardized writing evaluation and the continuing devaluing of long-form print media—has caused me to scrutinize the purpose, value, and trajectory of my own profession—not in a way that will make me walk the desert sands as an educational apostate, but it may make wander through the valley of the shadow for a while while I consider what direction we will take next.  As a writing teacher, I’ve always thought of the idea of writing as a tool of discovery that organizes thought as one of the primary purposes in its inclusion in the academic pantheon.  If it can be reduced to a rote exercise, what value am I actually adding to the human experience by continuing its instruction? How am I advancing the fate of the human race? If I’m just teaching rote exercise, what is it all worth?

 

I had already been thinking about all of this before I got on the plane to Tampa and ended up sitting next to Ed Winters.  Early in the flight-long conversation, I decided that I would talk little and listen more as this guy regaled me with tale after tale of his years working in the military.  (It’s not super secret.  It’s up on Wikipedia.)  From a decision to join the SEAL’s at a young age to his justification for what it was all for, I got a broad picture of his professional life from beginning to end, one in which we often have to reconsider what our life’s work means.

 

Look, I have my political opinions, but I generally feel like a noob discussing matters of military movement with people who have actually been in the military.  Ed was very generous with his time and knowledge, and I greatly valued his openness about being in the place where the hard decisions were made, where things could’ve gone either way. Regardless of the incident—from re-capturing a highjacked cruise ship to negotiating with the Iraqi government—Ed seemed to have a clear idea of why he did what he did, what should’ve been done differently, the difficult choices needed to move the stream of the human race forward.  By committing himself to the path of a soldier and a SEAL, he often found himself in positions where he had to make decisions; now as he had retired, it seemed he was taking the time to work through and discuss what those actions meant, to reflect on the meaning of his career, his profession.

I wondered in my own indecisive malaise if he had any moments like mine, where he looked on the field of battle and wondered what it all was worth, if the shifting winds had changed beneath him, forcing him to re-assess and recalibrate his life in his profession.  This thread lead me back to one of the most famous warrior epics in human history, The Bhagavad-Gita (or “The Bhag” to my HL peeps).  The story opens with Arjuna, a general, surveying the battlefield where he is soon to go to war.  In trying to see the big picture, Arjuna is paralyzed with indecision; knowing his action will lead to unfortunate outcomes (the death of many good men) as well as not knowing if his action will lead to any benefit, he slumps in his chariot, incapable of action.

It is here that Lord Krishna (disguised as his lowly charioteer) intervenes, and drops a few points relevant to my meandering through the wilderness. 

1. Arjuna, like all humans, is in capable of understanding the complex operations of life in the universe, and trying to manipulate our actions for grand outcomes is often a futile act.
2. Arjuna should go into the battle to win because he is a general and he has duties to fulfill in the position where he finds himself.

This is by no means an iron-clad life philosophy.  Putting the class implications and the propagandistic ideas of where “duty” comes from aside, however, there is a molecule of wisdom in this for me in my existential wanderings.  At some point, predicting and shaping the future—what it will be and what needs people will have—is a maddening and absurd prospect perhaps far beyond my grasp. For whatever reason, I’ve found myself in the role of an educator, and in many ways that defines the tools I will use to engage in the flow of time.  In the cosmic scheme of things, I can never know exactly how any given lesson or essay scored will change the destiny of myself, any other person, or the human race as a whole.  That realization can land with a deterministic thud.

And yet, we crave this meaning.  Without meaning, any long-term endeavor can become stale and routine.  For those of us who stay in a profession for any substantial amount of time, the story we construct about this is often part of the meaning we create in our life.  It’s definitely a paycheck, a means to an end, but it’s never exclusively that, as some jobs are.  The story helps shape our understanding for how we fit into the grand stream of the world.  And sometimes, because of new experience, we have to revise and edit our stories.  Stale teachers grow jaded, like Principal Vernon, think the kids just get worse and worse, growing old and bitter because they refuse to change.  Ed claimed that young guys enter into the military full of bravado and heroism, patriotism and bluster.  But as year slides into year, this meaning can become thin.  Not all acts fit those noble initial justifications, so we revise the story or risk disillusionment.  By the end of it all, Ed said, he believed ultimately that his work—mediating conflicts, imposing security, brokering peace around the world—was in the service of humanity, in the best interest of the human race.  Despite any political or ethical quibbles about the actions our military may or may not undertake, this is the belief that unifies his work, gives him context and meaning, as he retires and reflects.https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Zsae1i9vEwQ

Ultimately, I’d like to believe that about my teaching life, that it is in the service of the human race as well.  And while the interpersonal connections with my students and the formation of a strong professional community seem like proof of this belief, I also question that truth when I observe the grinding expectations, the mental health concerns that blossom like fungus in the system, the idea that schools often reflect the values that society wants students to have (as James Baldwin claimed), and that many of these values seem suspiciously destructive..  I, too, find myself in Arjuna’s chariot, now removed from the fray for the summer but knowing the next battle is looming, uncertain of the impossible knowledge of how my molecules merge into the entire stream of life and move it in some hopefully worthwhile direction.  I have no doubt that when the battle resumes, I will rejoin the fray, but at least I have a couple of months to stand in the chariot with Krishna to consider the vastness of the universe of possibility—in my instruction, in my approach to teaching writing, in my educational philosophy—before I go charging down that hill once again.