I’ll start by describing how Henry was outfitted to hike 14 miles with us: he sported a pair of leather boots that looked better suited to square dancing than to hiking, wore a cotton t-shirt under full-body Canadian tuxedo (denim jacket + jeans) and over his shoulder he slung a duffel bag stuffed with bamboo prayer mat (for sleeping?), a mason jar full of silver tequila, flannel blanket, more clothes, and no food whatsoever. Henry was geared up for his stint on the Appalachian trail the same way a 13-year-old gears up to run away from home.
Henry’s my bosom buddy from high school, now a proud resident of Brooklyn. Mikayla and I picked him up at the train station in Peekskill NY and hitched 5 miles back to the ball field at the Graymoor Friary, where we’d set up camp near a shelter. It’s an awesome place to spend a zero (zero: a day spent hiking exactly 0 miles) thanks to the awesome amenities the friars had thought to build into and around the shelter: some electrical outlets, lights, port-a-potties and a free-standing cold shower. Bells chime the hour all day, and the benches and tables practically beg you to play a few games of Magic: the Gathering on their flat, clean surfaces.
We built a fire that night and drank tequila (a word to the wise–don’t do this during the day because the Friary is also a rehab clinic. At 1 PM the rehabbies come down to the field to lift the benches and grunt and sweat, and to exercise), and the next morning we were up at 9 eating poptarts and drinking tequila. We headed off for Bear Mountain before the recovering addicts of NY arrived for their daily exercise.
Henry’s mason jar was still more than 2/3rds full, so we swigged as we hiked up and down New York’s hilly terrain. During this time we discussed trail names (trail name: a thru-hiker’s official Appalachian Trail nickname), and how the funnier/cruder names are better–except when you’re introducing yourself to a day hiker, police officer or Trail Angel (Trail Angel: someone who invites you into their home out of the bounteous kindness of their generous heart, asking for nothing in return). Though Henry’s nickname had been Marbles for about one year in high school, on the trail he became Breastfeeder.
We ran into Rick and Eleanor Clarkson as we were walking along the highway, right before crossing the Bear Mountain Bridge that spans the Hudson River. They had parked their car and were sightseeing along the river–I can’t exactly remember what sparked conversation between our party and their’s, but we became fast friends and they gave us their phone number, promising to put us up when we were in southern Jersey. Spoiler alert: the Clarksons turn out to be amazing, generous, lovely people. Rick can fry a mean pancake. Here we are right after:
Jub Jub and Breastfeeder chillin’ on Bear Mt Bridge, the Hudson behind them
Henry introduced himself as Henry, and Mikayla and tacitly agreed not to mention his new trail name. Here we are atop Bear Mountain:
We had plans to meet up that night with Juan, another high school bosom buddy of mine, at a visitors center where the Appalachian Trail crosses the Palisades Interstate Parkway. I imagined this visitor’s center would be a building akin to a warm/hospitable ranger’s station where tired hikers could sit on swinging wooded benches on a wide porch overlooking virgin New York wilderness. Instead it was an austere building made of concrete that lay smack in between the northbound and southbound lanes of the loudest part of the Palisades Hwy. It lacked any kind of overhanging roof that might have served as shelter from rain, hail or snow. Instead we crouched under the informational sign/bulletin board out front, under whose tiny roof we cooked up some ramen while Henry called up Juan on the visitors center’s payphone (some interesting graffiti on the payphone kiosk caught our eye: “I SUCK -JEFFREY” followed by a phone number. Poor Jeff has low self esteem). Life was looking pretty bleak, but then we noticed a bill posted to the bulletin board under whose roof we crouched that advertised a Native American Pow Wow at Anthony Wayne Recreation Area. This turned out to be a lice little state park with a campground only 2/10ths of a mile down the highway–in fact, it was the next exit. It was here we met Juan and camped for the night.
Juan brought a case of beer and we sat around a barbecue fire swappin stories, telling jokes and playing harmonica. We were out the next morning before the Pow Wow got started. At this point, I wish I could make fun of Juan as much as I’ve made fun of Henry in this particular post, but I can’t. That morning he drove us all to breakfast, Henry back to the trainstation, and Mikayla and I back to the trail. Plus, his tent was legit. Bye Breastfeeder and Juan!
splelling eror!
New York state’s public water spigots spat out liquid that tastes of pond scum. This was true of the water we filled our bottles with at Bear Mountain, the visitors center, and Anthony Wayne. On top of this, this state (and New Jersey) is severely lacking in springs, lakes, and streams. Water management becomes an issue, so local Trail Angels often provide rows of gallon-jugs filled with water at road crossings. John and Susan of Tuxedo NY are two such Trail Angels–and they leave their phone number on cards right next to the jugs. Mikayla and I called ’em and they put us up one night, feeding us chicken Tikka Masala and French toast, letting us use their shower, and providing us with loaner clothes while we washed our filthy hiker duds in their laundry. They put up three other hikers the night we stayed: NoBos by the names of Morning Joe, Roots and Animal. Needless to say, John and Susan were our favorite New Yorkers. Some other residents of the state were less than welcoming, and its roads are tough to hitchhike, partly because hitching is illegal and partly because time is money people! Of course some of my favorite memories of the AT were made in NY, like the time that one guy said, “You need to carry a gun. You need to protect yourself.”
Behind frenemy lines
My brother Lachlan joined us in Vernon NJ. Joe and Elaine, my aunt and uncle, picked him up at Newark airport and dropped him off at a park where Mikayla and I had sniffed out a free meal. We had chosen the perfect night to spend in Vernon–it turned out to be the Vernon Night Out, the town’s annual hotdog and ice cream free-for-all. We brought Thespian with us, a NoBo friend we had made earlier at the Hostel-in-the-basement underneath St Thomas Episcopal. Here we are enjoying our food:
fate nate and thespian
Lachlan has been hiking with us for over 200 miles! He’s made tons of little watercolor landscapes and portraits and drawings and other things. Maybe he will mail you one. Maybe.
Sadly he’ll be leaving us in about 80 miles. Of course he’s a fantastic hiking brother: both my brothers are. Let’s hope Oliver turns out as good when he joins us in October!
one pea in one pod
By the way, Lachlan is still without trail name. I’ve been Fat Nate since Maine, and Mikayla’s been Jub Jub since Hanover NH. Lachlan, though, has vacillated between Lackochan, Rise of the Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Dingus (my favorite), and Watercolor. I’ll let you know if he ever works it out.
Anyway, I’d lightly sprained my ankle somewhere around southern Connecticut and I re-rolled it on a loose rock after a hamburger in Gyp’s Tavern along US 206, which had been quite an eventful hamburger. Jub Jub, Rise of the Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and I were sitting around a table on the back lawn of Gyp’s (which happens to be on a beautiful lake. Lackochan painted a watercolor of it) when we were approached by a shady character who introduced himself as Picklejar.
“What happened to your face?” I said. The white of his right eye was bright red, and he was sporting about 12 stitched along a gash on his cheekbone.
In a North Carolina drawl: “Some Puerto Rican’s baby mama threw a picklejar at my face. That’s why they call me Pickejar!”
This had allegedly happened when he was taking some zeros at this Puerto Rican’s baby mama’s house in Yonkers. Pretty sure it was a lie though. He wore filthy bluejeans. He said he averaged about 6 miles per day. As the conversation wore on, it became clear to me that Picklejar was hella sketch, and when the topic of music came up, he found an excuse to drop the N word.
“I’m just puttin it out there,” he said, after a long silence. The long silence continued. When he lit up a cigarette, Jub Jub asked him if he’d smoke somewhere else. He left, and we were all a little bummed to have met the 0.01% of AT Hikers who we don’t like.
We were out of Gyp’s about a half hour later, hoping to get to the next shelter to avoid having to spend another second with Picklejar. This was when I re-rolled my ankle. As the sun went down and the sky grew dark, it became clear to Dingus, Jub Jub and me that in the dark we had overshot the shelter we hoped to camp at. We ended clocking a good 22.5 miles that day–a record yet to be broken.
I like the way they spell “sacerfice”
The next day we hiked about 3 miles to Crater Lake, where we spent the majority of the day painting, reading, eating, and swimming. I was hoping my ankle would heal a bit. Then we camped on beautiful ridge. The next morning we woke up to see a decently large bear sniffing around the area in front of the tent. I’ll let Jub Jub describe the events of that morning because she’s definitely the protagonist of that story–I’m nothing but a supporting character. That day we hiked until 10am, when we called up the Clarksons.
The Clarksons! Amazing Trail Angels
Rick and Eleanor Clarkson took the three of us into their home, fed us delicious pancakes with eggs and maple syrup and hot sauce on top, gave us beds to nap in, washers and dryers to wash and dry our clothes in, and took us to the post office. We spent the rest of the day playing their CDs over their living room speakers and lounging on their couches. They’re really interesting people–we had these long discussions about music and their experience filling the stages of Knowlton RiverFest with awesome musical acts for 13 years. Rick told us stories about booking Gandalf Murphy and the Slambovian Circus of Dreams, John Jorgensen, Kepa Junkera, Shooglenifty, Stanley Jordan and Yerba Buena. Eleanor is an artist–some of her pieces were up on the living room wall. We were insanely lucky to meet them. Rick and Eleanor are the bomb.
NEEW SHOEES!
Chillin on Rick and Eleanor’s back porch
Then we crossed into Pennsylvania, and there were rocks. Wolf Rocks, Bear Rocks, Lookout Rocks, Knife’s Edge Rocks, Pinnacles, Pulpit Rocks, Table Rocks, Hawk Rocks. Northern PA is rocky, and it took a toll on my already-injured-back-in-CT ankle. 63 miles after staying with the Clarksons I had to rest it, and so I called up Isabel Cylinder.
Before I go into the awesome generosity of Isabel and her parents Lisa and Scott who put me up for 4 nights, I will mention some events of interest that happened in the 63 miles between the Clarksons’ doorstep and the Cylinders’. For example, Robin Williams died. We heard about it on a terrible talk show on a TV that was turned up loud in a pizza restaurant in Palmerton PA. Palmerton is also the home of the famous Jailhouse hostel, where we stayed a night. Here’s a photo from when we hitched a ride into town:
Watercolor in a truck riding into Palmerton PA, flute in hand. it’s a Pokeflute.
That night in the hostel (which used to be a jail) we played Magic: the Gathering with a NoBo named Catchup who, once he learned we played, just HAD to play a game. He taught us about tournament rules! He wrote out the correct order of play on a piece of notebook paper and included his phone number to call if we ever had any MtG disputes. Catchup is awesome. One of the other members of his party (an old dude by the trail name of Bard) is awesome too because he left us some tasty coffee and a nice filter. The other member of Catchup’s party was a real buzzkill–a guy named SourPatch who kept all the inhabitants of the hostel awake with his loud banging and drunken music making.
The day after Palmerton the pain in my ankle became too much despite the ankle brace Rick had provided me, so I hit up Isabel. Her boyfriend Alex is yet another one of my bosom buddies from high school, and through several of my summer visits up to Portland to visit them, I’ve gotten to know her. She was awesome enough to ask her parents–who were at that moment driving home from an art show/vacation up in Maine–to pick me up from the trail and take me home until my ankle felt better. The Cylinders picked me up where the AT crosses RT 309.
It’s hard to describe just how much I needed a good home to rest up in. Scott and Lisa Cylinder’s house was like Rivindell to my tired Hobbit feet. It was like when Tom Hanks sees that ship in Castaway. Sure I was without my Wilson (in this case, Lachlan and Mikayla who went on to hike another 25 miles) but damn was that Elf bed comfortable. I’m mixing movie metaphors it was so comfortable. And, like Bilbo, I would have liked to have spent 6 or so years there just eating the delicious food that grows in their garden and holding/stroking the awesome modernist handmade jewelry that they craft in their workshops like they was my precious. Check out their website! Scott and Lisa‘s stuff is really awesome. And their line of Chickenscratch Jewelry is also awesome. And read their blog!
YAY!
Then Scott picked up Jub Jub and Dingus and the Cylinders fed us all delicious food and beer, and we all talked about art and “making it” on your own. We couldn’t have asked for a better halfway house.
We decided to “yellow blaze” the next 37 miles of AT south of Port Clinton, and Scott and Lisa were nice enough to drive an hour from their house in Oley and drop us off at Swatara Gap (yellow blaze: to skip a section of Appalachian Trail by car. “yellow blazer” is a pejorative term among thru-hikers). We took it easy that day, and ended up at a shelter after only six miles of “white blazing” (to “white blaze” is to hike the AT. White strips of paint 6″ tall and 2″ across mark trees at 100 yard intervals along the AT; these strips are called “blazes”). We shared this shelter with a 300 lb ex-army ex-marine dude who was 4 ft tall when he slept on his side. His snoring that night drove Jub Jub and I out and into our tent 50 yards away, where we could still hear him. Lachlan’s Pokeflute failed to get rid of him. We dubbed him “Snorlax.” I recorded some of his greatest hits on my phone–I’ll try to post them to my next blog post.
me with some ruins
me with some more ruins!
We met up with Mama Bear in Duncannon PA on the 20th. Linda! My mom! She’ll be with us until Harper’s Ferry in West Virginia. The day she flew in she had to hike to a shelter 4 miles uphill over rocks in the rain. The next day we had planned 21 miles over flat steamy Pennsylvania farmland, but we ended up doing only 17 before calling a shuttle to take us into town (Boiling Springs). Mom was pretty beat up after that, so she took our packs to Pine Grove Furnace State Park where she hung out all day. We slackpacked the 19 miles from Boiling Springs to Pine Grove Furnace carrying only water and lunch, and now we’re all here at the state park, approximately halfway between Maine and Georgia. I am feeling extremely grateful to my Mom for being here, to the Cylinders for being my Rivindell, and for being halfway there and for livin on a prayer. Thank you!
Holy wow, this was a novel of a blog post. It was 366 miles since my last one! I promise to update the old blog sooner. Time for Fat Nate to please out. Wait–Is it please out or peace out?
nathanturczan 