The Virginia Blues

I am now 850 miles into the trail but would first like to clear the air or the water as the case may be.

I recently received a comment froma  reader that I decided not to post. Yes, I have the absolute power or censorship but have not exercised that power until now and admit I anguished over the decision to do so. A fellow thru-hiker (I presume) whom I will call “poo” (because it is the only name I could glean from the comment) was, shall I say, less than happy about my characterization of Bluewater in a previous post. Having hiked 100 miles with the man, Poo wrote that I clearly didn’t know him…and that I should not buy into trail gossip. To Poo I say, A) you are right I don’t know Bluewater and B) you are also right I shouldn’t buy into trail gossip. What I will also say is that this is simply a blog of my experiences and as my multiple experiences withhim were markedly negative I make no apologies for my reporting. As for the other information, it was presented as speculation though I do not pretend this ia unbiased journalism. I remind poo that this is a trail of big-egos, long miles and tall tales. Storytelling is part of the culture unfortunately I continue to hear stories of encounters similar to mine. I appreciate your desire to lay this rumor to rest. Thank you for that. I welcome critique and criticism which I am happy to post as long as it is not offensive or a personal attack. On to the trail.

I did something the other day which I haven’t done since my second day on the trail; I took a walk. After hiking 19 miles I set up camp, ate dinner, and a took a walk around the area. Though my feet throbbed and my knees ached it was the most enjoyable moment of my day. Free from the endless white blazes, unreliable water sources and the shackles of an overweight pack I was free to roam at my own leisure. There was no pressing destination, no threat of dehydration and I realized there is a substantial difference between hiking and walking. Even the pace of my mind slowed from a flood of thought to a slow meandering crawl of ideas. This is less a romantic walk with spring as it is an inexorable march to the finish. My trail mentor Big Shanty, a previous thru-hiker, was section hiking with his mother when I ran into him recently at a particularly difficult stretch of trail. After the treacherous climb his mother asked him, ” We aren’t going to have another hard day like this one are we?” to which he replied, “Every day is hard. If its not the climb its the heat, if its not the heat its the bugs, if its not the bugs its the monotony.” Nothing could have better described my feelings.

This leads me to the topic of the Virginia Blues, a condition that afflicts many hikers struggling to clear the 500 miles of rocky terrain, nearly 1/4 of the AT. The VA blues are normally attributed to the sheer distance between state lines that fails to provide any sizable benchmarks of progress. I believe this is a more complicated affliction. The terrain up until now has been repetitive and predictable like traversing a washboard. I would climb out of a low cow pasture to the top of a ridge only to descend into the next valley of cows. Injuries develop or worsen. I know of 4 people who have left the trail in the last 100 miles due to injury. The crowd is thinning not only in volume but over distance and we are hiking around fewer and fewer people. Without Trail Days or much trail magic to look forward to, it is simply about who can wake up and hike 20 miles in oppressive 95 degree heat. Also as I sit here drafting this post in a public laundromat wearing nothing but a hotel towel the gravity of my homelessness hits me.

Fortunately I have beens surrounded by good company if only seen sporadically, including a father son team from Rhode Island, and a lesbian couple living and working a farming commune in Virginia. Recently I camped with a man who is a professor of music at a prestigious university and a hiker whom I hold in the highest esteem. When asked how he got the name Fifer he said it was because he carries a Fife and offered to play us some music that evening. Now for those of you unfamiliar with the fife, it is a shrill irritating instrument when played well, perhaps the musical equivalent of an ice cream headache which is usually reserved for civil war reenactments and military processions. This is not the calming voice of an acoustic guitar or the melancholy buzz of a harmonica. As I was sitting in my tent listening to the 18th century version of Yankee Doodle, I smiled and thought to myself these are the Virginia Blues.