A Thousand and One Appalachian Tales
part five
Chalet Parking
©Copyright 02001. Fresh Ink. All rights reserved.
At Clyde Smith Shelter, The Agnostic Monk awoke refreshed. It was May 12th, Day 37 on the Trail. After a quick breakfast, The Monk packed up and began a steep ascent through hardwoods into a dazzling wonderland. Although it was a partially cloudy day, the rhododendron were all starting to bloom. The Trail was thick with rhododendron and laurel as it sliced its way along the ridge to the cliffs of Little Rock Knob. Often the ridge seemed to simply fall away as the rhododendron, in contrast,leaped into the air leaving only the narrowest thread of Trail below. It was like tightrope walking through a massive bouquet.
A sweet floral fragrance filled the air. It was intoxicating, as if laced opium. A strange perspective engulfed him. It was as if the angles were wrong, or the sizes of things askew. The Monk felt as if he was Alice and this was Wonderland. The clouds broke and the sun came out and everything brightened considerably. The flowers burst forth in a radiant glow and so did he. It was a dazzling, even overwhelming experience.
From the ridge, a quick descent brought him to Hughes Gap. The Monk crossed the road and continued on. From wonderland, he entered Cloudland!
"the high point of this section, both in elevation and in scenic splendor, is the Cloudland rhododendron gardens on Roan Mountain."Appalachian Trail Guide, vol 9 Tennessee - North Carolina, pg 105
After a steep ascent, The Monk emerged upon a vital vista via a short side trail to the south. From that vantage, he could see that a thick cloud had moved in ahead and Cloudland was, well, in cloudland. He chuckled at the synchronicity of it all, as if the stagehands of the world rushed behind the scenes to make it just so.
He continued on over the summit of Beartown Mtn (5,481 ft). From there he descended through beech woods to Ash Gap. Then the Trail ascended into dense rhododendron and fog. At the summit of Roan Mountain (6,150 ft), The Monk emerged into a barely visible, grassy alcove. There, the Trail disappeared, into a cloud no less. After a bit of searching he emerged onto a paved road which led to a parking lot. Beyond, he found the infamous Cloudland gardens and some drinking fountains. He stayed for a bit to camel up and enjoy the Cloudland, in more ways than one.
In retrospect, he would have loved to spend a day exploring the southwest end of the mountain, which terminates at Roan High Bluff (6,267 ft). This was an area filled with the dazzling and enchanting beauty of Catawba rhododendron. It was a floral labyrinth one could easily get lost in.
However, the next day was Saturday. AT's relatives had arranged a weekend get-away at their chalet, for him and a few of his friends, and The Monk had been invited. Even though he was alone at that moment on Roan Mtn, he expected to meet up with AT sometime at or before reaching US 19E which was still roughly 14 miles away.
As it was still early afternoon, he decided not to spend the night at Roan High Knob Shelter. This was the highest shelter on the Appalachian Trail, which held significant value in and of itself. But The Philosopher's Guide mentioned The Barn (Overmountain Shelter) as having a loft with great views. Also, the movie The Winter People was filmed there in 1987, so it sounded interesting. He decided to press on to Overmountain Shelter for the evening.
From Carvers Gap, he ascended directly up the open slope of Round Bald (5,826 ft) passing slightly to the left of the summit. He continued on to the summit of Jane Bald (5,807 ft). There he caught up with AT, Zero and Trailnameless finishing up a late afternoon siesta. The clouds of Cloudland had passed and it was looking like it was shaping up to be a perfectly clear starlit night. They decided to continue on. As it was also shaping up to be a beautiful sunset they decided to forego both Roan Highlands Shelter and Overmountain Shelter, preferring instead the summit of Yellow Mountain (4,907 ft)and it's spectacular views. That night, they slept out under the stars.
The next day was an easy hike down to US 19E where they rendezvoused with AT's relatives for the weekend. They were absolutely wonderful people and their chalet was spectacular. It was like a vacation within a vacation. It was very nice of them to pick up AT and a few of his fellow thru-hikers. Everyone was very thankful.
After long hot showers, AT's relatives treated them to a wonderful home cooked meal. Afterwards, AT and Zero reminisced with Düg and Steve about Strider and they all wished he were there. Everyone had a favorite Strider story to tell. Like how he could remember every little detail about the Trail all the way to Maine, or how he could topple tall dead trees with his bare hands. Strider was the stuff of legends, a living myth.
May 15th, AT's relatives dropped the four back at the trailhead where they had left off yesterday. There they slackpacked to Dennis Cove and USFS 50 for an 18.6 mile day. This was The Monk's biggest day on the Trail so far but not so for Steve Trailnameless. Steve was a seasoned Marathon Runner prior to becoming a thru-hiker. He ate hikes like this for breakfast.
The hike itself was rather uneventful. It was a good place to slackpack through. The most interesting part was that almost all of the water through this section was contaminated. Near the end of the day they were rewarded with fine views from the firetower atop White Rocks Mtn (4,105 ft). From there it was a hop, skip and a jump to Dennis Cove Rd where they were picked up and treated to a second night of luxury at the chalet. It was like a stitch in time, a still life in which they went charging through, yet somehow managing not to disturb anything. AT's relatives were the sweetest, kindest folks they had ever met and it was sad that soon they would be saying goodbye. The whirlwind was moving on.
The next few days flew by quickly. Back at Dennis Cove Rd the four said their final goodbyes to AT's relatives, thanking them again for their wonderful hospitality. Then, the thru-hikers pointed themselves north and started walking. They quickly spread out according to pace. Steve Trailnameless was gone in a flash, leaving the others to put out the fire behind him. It was an easy hike to Laurel Falls. From there, the Trail passed through the wild and rugged gorge of Laurel Fork.
"With its sheer cliffs and wooded slopes, its rhododendron and mountain laurel, waterfalls, rapids, and its ever-changing direction and appearance, the gorge possesses natural beauty perhaps unsurpassed along the entire A.T."Appalachian Trail Guide, vol 9 Tennessee - North Carolina, p65
This was an exquisite paradise breathtakingly preserved in intimate detail. It seemed to exist wholly outside time and space. Time itself hung suspended in the air like a Dali painting as The Monk wound his way through an ever-changing Escher-esque landscape of Eldritch energy. Far too quickly, it soon passed and was gone.
From Laurel Fork it was an easy hike up and over Pond Mtn (2,400 ft) and down to the Shook Branch Recreation Area. The Monk pushed past the Watauga Lake Shelter to the Watauga Dam where he was afforded fine views. Then, another 5.3 miles brought him to Vandeventer Shelter for the evening.
Somewhere around these parts Zero managed to pick up a stray. Her name was Eileen but she called herself Noel. She was a young woman in her early twenties who seemed somewhat surprised to be there, as if she wasn't sure how it all happened. There was an air about her as if she were running away from something but wouldn't say what. However whatever her cause or reason for being there, she was an enigma ill prepared for the rough conditions of the Trail. Naturally, Zero elected himself responsible for helping her.
The next day the Trail followed the long ridge of the Iron Mountains, past Iron Mountains Shelter, to Nick Grindstaff's grave and stone monuments. One monument bore the inscription, "Uncle Nick Grindstaff - born Dec 26, 1851 - died July 22, 1923 - lived alone, suffered alone, and died alone." According to the guide book, "an orphan at the age of three, Nick Grindstaff was robbed and beaten when 26 years old on a trip to the West. Disillusioned, he became a hermit and lived the remaining 46 years of his life on Iron Mtn with only a dog for a companion."
The Monk stopped to pay his respects then continued on to Double Springs Shelter for the evening. There, in the Register he read with interest the growing fanfare surrounding The Appalachian Trail Days. This was a three day festival put on by the entire town of Damascus. It was sure to be an event that was not to be missed. He was excited to note that he was right on schedule. Synchronicity, he said to himself.
Steve Trailnameless sped on ahead to Damascus with AT while The Agnostic Monk took it easy and spent the night with Zero and Noel at Abingdon Gap Shelter. The Monk was excited. Tomorrow, he would be in Damascus and tomorrow the Appalachian Trail Days Celebration would begin. It was all coming together and he could hardly wait. But Strider had written, go slow, go far and he had learned to listen to strider's advice.
The Agnostic Monk awoke at Abingdon Gap Shelter on Thursday, May 19, 01988, and strolled an easy 9.8 miles into town. Damascus. He had been reading about this town for weeks in the Trail Registers. But nothing could have prepared him for the festivities to come.
Roll-call: Zero, Noel, Rebecca -- AT Hike for the Homeless, Chris and Beth -- The Great Descenders, Beth and Chandra, Aiko, Grateful Jeff, Steve -n- Jerry, Rawhide, Buddy Bear and Bare Bait, The Insufferable Drunken Hog From Hell, The Laughing Buddha, Ken Bushpig, Ken and Carrie, Rick and John--The Sandbaggers, Steve Trailnameless, Foster, the "singing" Stars -- Lucky Star, Wandering Star, and Shining Star -- Herb Smalls, Pacer, The Lemondrop Kid, Phoenix, The Preacher, Dufflebag Tim, The Traveler, Rhode Island Red, The Laughing Buddha, Snowball, Toothpick George, WingFoot, SoarFoot, Longhorn, Maineak, PeaceLoveandHappiness, The Mad Norwegian, Mr. Rogers and many, many more.
Pretty much everyone was staying either at the Methodist Hostel known as The Place or on or near it's property. There, a large tent village had formed. Thru-hikers from all over were condensed into a super concentrated mass of pure mountain madness. It was amazing. The Agnostic Monk quickly went to the PO but it was closed. He decided to spend the night in The Place and stop back in the morning.
That night, the town of Damascus treated everyone to a free dinner and talent show at the Damascus Elementary School. It seemed everyone age 6-13 participated. The show was classic. There was such inspiration in their numerous performances! It was a precious moment that will always be treasured.
Afterwards, many thru-hikers discovered that the dry counties were long behind them. In short, they discovered Dot's, the local pub. In return, Dot discovered carbo-loading.
Later that night, The Place rocked like nothing The Agnostic Monk had ever seen or heard before. He swears he saw the floor separating from the walls as it seemed people were literally trying to stomp the house down. Afraid for his life, he refused to stay in there a moment longer. He grabbed his gear and squatted on a patch of lawn until morning.
May 20th, he went to the PO and fetched Chapel Perilous. This was a 12+ pound Timberline Eureka with Vestibule. He had shipped it home from Suches but then decided to have it shipped to Damascus.
He named it Chapel Perilous for three reasons: with the Vestibule it looked like a chapel, by sheer weight alone the tent was perilous and Chapel Perilous was where you went during the Long Dark Night of the Soul. This is an enigmatic journey as described by one of The Monk's favorite authors, Robert Anton Wilson, in his largely autobiographical book, Cosmic Trigger: The Final Secret of the Illuminati.
In many ways, the Appalachian Trail wound it's way through the very heart of Chapel Perilous. The Trail was but a section of the path which The Monk, as Düg, had begun long ago, years before he had ever even heard of the Appalachian Trail.
Back in 01984, a friend and next door neighbor had violently taken his life in a terrible, gruesome suicide. In many ways, he did this to hurt his father. But, like using an atomic bomb to swat a mosquito, it did far more than hurt the man. It killed him, destroyed his family, and devastated the lives of all who knew him as well.
It is something Düg will never forget. In the end, he could not simply return to college and pretend nothing had ever happened. He had been disillusioned with "higher education" to begin with. He could not find satisfaction with recording/regurgitating someone else's stale curriculum. He needed fresh data. He needed to see things for himself. He needed to lose himself in the world.
One of Düg's early talents, or so he might on occasion aver, was something he referred to, for lack of a better word, as prescience, which he freely borrowed from Frank Herbert's Dune. This was a type of guided imaginative journey through a kind of mental landscape. In it he would take as a point of departure an event and see it diverge into two separate events, each in which something different occurred. With this simple form of guided meditation, he found that he could follow these various outcomes to just about anywhere. He could see the outcome of various possibilities even before they became possibilities. It was all so wondrous and yet it happened so quickly that often, later, he could remember very little.
Eventually, it came down to, what did he want to do and where did he want to go? Some part of him answered, a part so deep it never faltered, and in an almost blinding flash he saw all the many choices that led there. It was a dizzying array of jumps and hoops, labyrinths and lucky breaks, with odds as improbable as he was. And it was just a vision of what could be, it was not what was certain to be. There were no guarantees. In a moment he saw what he had to do. He had to enlist in the military.
His vision had shown him that his grand vision quest began with him enlisting in the United States Air Force. To fulfill the events in his moment of prescience would not be easy. It required him to step out of the consensus reality he had known and lived in all his life. It required of him his highest commitment and dedication. He needed to learn what that meant, what that was. Paradoxically, and perhaps even a little ironically, the military provided him with the opportunity to accomplish all this and more.
The Air Force sent him overseas to Europe. He spent two years in Germany, at Ramstein AFB. There, he traveled all over Europe, visiting Paris, London, Amsterdam, west and east Berlin and many other cities. He was moved to tears at the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam. The suffering he felt in those rooms dwarfed all the hardships which brought him there. It was devastating.
Next, he spent a year and a half at Lackland AFB, in San Antonio, Texas. There he joined the Latin American Assistance. This was a small organization dedicated to bringing peace and justice to Central America. Then, suddenly, inexplicably and without forewarning, he found himself a northbounder on the Appalachian Trail. Sometimes he could not remember how he got there. In many ways, it was this same vision-quest which, having begun four years earlier, had led him to the Trail, and which, in so doing, brought him there, to that exact moment in time, to Damascus.
Also at the PO was a care package from his friend Mark. This included several Trail tapes. This was especially fortuitous as, also mailed with the tent, was a walkman cassette player. Synchronicity struck again.
Mark had, for most his life, been a musician, a major player in Albany's alternative music scene. Naturally, much of the music was from him and his own private collection.
It was the day of the Big Parade. The entire town was having a big Appalachian Trail Days Parade in honor of all thru-hikers past, present and future. Back in tentville, as The Agnostic Monk began setting up Chapel Perilous, he discovered a gathering of thru-hikers preparing a little something special all their own.
It seemed one of the thru-hikers was brewing a special batch of tea for any and all who were interested. From the size of the gathering, it seemed quite a few people were. For those that were there, the event came to be known as the Damascus Tea Party.
Of the people who partook of that strange brew many soon found themselves floating, both figuratively and literally, down the center of town. In the midst of the Big Parade, on the officially sanctioned, parade-authorized thru-hiker wagon, they saw and were witness to things no one else could see. On the float was a tent, a stuffed bear, a simulated fireplace, and about a dozen or more out-of-their-minds thru-hikers attending a parade of a different sort altogether. It was quite a crazy moment to be sure.
But one didn't need to drink any special tea to participate in the craziness. For example, all of the Bushpigs got together with the Sandbaggers and tied their bandanas with two knots in the front to look like horns. This was the Bushpig helmet, symbol of all that was Bushpig. It was just plain silly. The Bushpigs marched in the parade with an almost singular solidarity. The townsfolk didn't know what to think. Afterwards, everyone wound up back at Dot's where they drank and carbo-loaded until closing.
©Copyright 02001. Fresh Ink. All rights reserved.
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