A Thousand and One Appalachian Tales
part seven
Pony Tales
©Copyright 02001. Fresh Ink. All rights reserved.
The Agnostic Monk arrived at Deep Gap in the late afternoon amidst the pouring rain. He was cold and tired. It had been a long day and his pack felt like it did on his walk from Springer to Suches. The tent was everything, when it came to weight. He had remained mostly dry and was only damp from the condensation built up inside his poncho. But, he was cold, tired, and hungry and his stove didn't work. Furthermore, the shelter was packed full, over stuffed to almost double occupancy. The bags were all laid out head to toe. A small tent village had formed around the shelter. Apparently some had been there since yesterday hoping the weather would clear up. Unfortunately, it was Monsoon season. It reminded him of when he left Hot Springs. It had rained then too. Only this time, if he hadn't had his tent with him, he would have had to sleep out in the rain without one. The tent was everything, when it came to moments like these. "In good weather, Wilburn Ridge with it's rock outcroppings and wild ponies is spectacular."
The 1988 Philosopher's Guide, pg 22.He quickly staked claim to a small area near The Stars and in a flash had Chapel Perilous built. Inside, he was busy taking apart his stove. He spread out all his spare parts and proceeded to match them with the parts he disassembled from the pump mechanism, which he had determined was the culprit. The pump mechanism was a device which fit into the fuel bottle and only connected to the stove when it was in use. It pumped air into the fuel bottle so the resulting pressure would force fuel through the pump mechanism and fuel line to the stove. Somewhere inside something was not working so he was compelled to reverse engineer his Whisperlite or there would be no dinner. He soon found all pieces accounted for except for a tiny rubber ball. As he began to reassemble his stove he looked for where a tiny rubber ball might go. The only likely candidate was at the end which fit inside the fuel bottle. There, in the main housing, was a little red plastic screw which compressed a tiny wire spring inside a chamber. It looked just big enough for a tiny rubber ball. He plopped the ball into the chamber, replaced the coil and then the screw. He inserted the pump back inside the fuel bottle, connected the stove, and gave it a trial run. Within minutes he was boiling water for dinner.
Soon, dinner was served, yet another Lipton Pasta feast. They were cheap, easy to make, and seemed to offer more nutrition than the extravagant freeze dried dinners carried by virtually everyone else. Ironically, by Vermont, everyone was getting so sick of their meals that others, such as Guido, were trading their expensive Alpineairre delights for his Lipton Dinners!
Outside, the rain continued to fall. But within the Sanctum Sanctorum of Chapel Perilous was The Agnostic Monk's Cat's Meow and inside his Cat's Meow, he was warm, toasty, and soon fast asleep.
The next day it continued to pour like it was Noah's flood. With it came the realization, for the many who stayed there for a second day, that they were now faced with a tough decision: get going and get wet or stay and go hungry. If they stayed another day, they would not have enough food to make it to their next food drops. Also, there was a flurry of feet behind them heading this way. Ten, including The Monk, had shown up yesterday and another eight or more were anticipated today. So many were forced to hike on, leaving a good sized group still behind. There was now a spot in the shelter but Chapel Perilous was already up so he stayed put. Folks came by for Java periodically throughout the day. It was like a hip little coffee shop somewhere in the Twilight Zone. At one point Zero stopped by with a special spliff of Polio Weed he somehow acquired. He torched it during the second set of Moon Shadow, by Cat Stevens, as performed by the "singing" Stars, Wandering Star and Lucky Star. They were not actually in the tent with them but they might as well have been. The rain gave The Stars a sold-out show. The sound of a million applauding fans surrounded them and they weren't about to let them down. From the tent next door rang out the muffled encore of Puff the Magic Dragon, by Peter, Paul and Mary.
But mostly things were quiet and people rested. The Monk, however, wired and fired by too much roast and toast, took to writing senseless babblings in his Trail diary, Did Ed Garvey Sleep Here? He could have spent time detailing pertinent time sensitive information for use years later but instead rambled on about the nature of reality and the origins of consciousness.
One of the things he had started to do when hiking was to create characters in his head and have them talk to each other. After a while he began to believe he had developed a right brain-left brain dialog, a kind of universal frame work for communication between various aspects of his conscious and subconscious. Many times it was the characters themselves that seemed most revealing and he would find himself laughing as if from a distance. He called this the metaprogrammer. It was the metaprogrammer who began to see the impermanence of all things and the no-thing to which they all pointed, the jewel in the lotus. The characters came and went, yet there was always that which remained.
The next morning, rain remained a steady constant as did the weary regulars, who returned for another session with Turkish Brew and semi-pseudo-enlightened conversation. This time there was considerable discussion about mind over matter, telekinesis and weather modification. Zero was playing Devil's advocate by wondering if what happened in Damascus really happened.
Or, was it just a fluke? He asked, baiting the crowd.
Maybe they didn't really stop the rain before and it was just a coincidence. All of their years of education and indoctrination told them they were delusional to believe they had anything to do with making the rain stop. But then, nothing could have prepared them for what they had seen and learned on the Trail. It overloaded and short-circuited all preconceptions. They were discovering that many of the things they had taken for granted before, were now seen to be based on errors of interpretation or outright fallacies of the mind and it's desire to live in a safe and easily quantifiable world. More to the point, they were discovering, to the contrary of their collective cultural mythos, that the so-called "material world" was not separate from mind, but was, rather, imbued with it! Why then should the mind not affect the weather?
Eventually the conclusion was reached that for something to be real it had to be verifiable and to be verifiable it had to be repeatable. They concluded the only way to repeat what had happened before was to do it again.
By this time, everyone else had broken camp, except for the brew crew Pablo and Mom, Zero, and the Agnostic Monk. Even Steve -n- Jerry, who had been there three days, trudged off mightily into the rain. So the four of them sat around inside Chapel Perilous and once again concentrated on stopping the rain. Again, almost immediately, the rain eased then stopped. Again, this time slowly, as if in time lapse photography, the clouds broke up and sun came out. It was like watching something occur from outside of time. Within the hour, once soaked tents and ponchos were drying post haste in the warm, late morning sun.
By noon, it was a spectacular day! Standing there like a dumb, half naked ape, The Monk gave thanks with unhinged jaw and silent spellbound amazement. It was the mighty magic of the Trail, he concluded. It was real, palpable to the flesh, and it was all around them. By one in the afternoon, they were off. It was a beautiful day, and they were part of it!
Along this section were a good many pastures and a good many fences separating them. Many were of sharp razor wire which thru-hikers had to cross via something called stiles. In some instances this was a precarious plank leaned up against another plank on the other side and fortified with a third or fourth plank, so that the other planks wouldn't fall down. In other cases it was more elaborate crossings. Most often, the stile was wide at the base on either side, rising up to a point where it straddled the fence. Sometimes the stiles were rather perilous, like a ladder which runs out at the top, right where you need it most.
On the far side of this particular stile, was a fresh spring and an old acquaintance, the Insufferable Drunken Hog From Hell. As it turned out, he had left early during the last episode of rain and was still not completely dried out. As they stopped to camel up, he told them how he had slipped going over that last stile and had become caught in the wire. Due to his re-built hip he was unable to simply extricate himself. It was painful just to listen to. Eventually he had managed to get hold of a stick which he used like a pole to climb up and disentangle himself with. He was still a bit shaken from the ordeal.
Everyone empathized. Then Pablo had a brain storm. He thought it would be a good idea to spend the night on the ridge somewhere and added that the IDHFH should join them. They arranged to meet at the stile separating the George Washington National Forest from Jefferson National Forest, at the entrance to Grayson Highlands State Park. They figured this would give everyone plenty of time to see what all the fuss was about concerning the wild ponies mentioned in the Philosopher's Guide.
They left the 'Hog and soon reached the side trail to Mt Rogers(5,729 ft), the highest point in Virginia. There, Pablo and The Monk decided to learn about ridge running first hand with a race to the summit of Mt. Rogers. Mom decided to wait.
"Y'all be careful now, you here?" She called to them as they were leaving.
"Yes, Mom." They replied.
After a time, they returned, out of breath, fully loaded with endorphins from the run, and with an amazing story to tell. As they were approaching the summit of Mt Rogers they entered a rare and fragile Canadian Forest. An earthly magnetism permeated everything and they were duly affected. They became quieter, and stepped more softly. It would have been quite unnatural for them not to do so. Then, near the summit they spotted a fawn suckling its mother. It made them feel connected to the Trail like nothing had before. They had not interrupted the scene but had come upon it quietly enough that they had not disturbed it. The Agnostic Monk felt truly in harmony with the Trail at that moment, one with it, in a way forever beyond words. It wasn't anything anyone other than another thru-hiker, or perhaps maybe a Buddhist, would understand. It was like the realization of emptiness as expressed in the Mahayana Tradition. The sense of 'I am here' or 'I am experiencing this' was gone. There was no 'I' no sense of self separate from no-self, no object separate from observer. Everything was a wonderful wholeness, inseparable and complete, eternal. If they were lamas, this would have been Samadhi. They watched in amazement for a timeless moment then, quietly, turned and departed, back down they way they came.
Along the way to Rhododendron Gap they passed three fawns huddled close together as if they had just been born. Not wanting to scare the mother off, they quickly pressed on, fearing that if they stayed, their mother might abandon them. They were beginning to wonder where these so-called wild ponies were. It seemed they had seen everything but. But then, when they rounded another ridge, there, looking down, they saw them dotting the landscape, like so many specks of brown and gray. There were dozens, maybe thirty or forty. It seemed like hundreds. They were beside themselves with excitement and maybe even a little scared. The Trail went right through the whole lot of them! The question immediately arose, just how wild were these wild ponies? It suddenly occurred to them that they wouldn't be called wild ponies if they weren't wild, right? Maybe they shouldn't get too close; maybe it was dangerous. But the ponies had already spotted them and as it soon became apparent, they were delighted to have guests. Soon the three of them were surrounded by ponies. It was an equine festival. They turned out to be the friendliest wild ponies they had ever seen. It seemed the entire hillside was filled with a tremendous benevolence, and they stood at it's epicenter.
As the afternoon progressed it became clear that water concerns would make a compelling argument for where they would spend the night. It seemed their late start, the run to the summit of Mt. Rogers, and their time among the ponies meant they would not make it as far as they had indicated to the Insufferable Drunken Hog From Hell. If they did not press on to Hurricane Campground for the night they would need to find water elsewhere. Thankfully, Pablo and Mom had guide books for this section of the Trail.
The Agnostic Monk didn't have the money to purchase all the guide books for the Trail. He had hoped he'd be able to purchase them along the way, as he needed them, but that didn't work out. Happily, as he was finding out, the Data Book and the Philosopher's Guide were a good bare minimum. This was fortunate because he just didn't have the money.
Luckily, he was not alone. That is, fortunately the Trail had something of a built in support system. It did what it could to help the other thru-hikers out along the way. In some instances The Monk was able to work for his stay in hostels. As for food, there always seemed to be a little extra along the way. There was free Coleman fuel at the Place and at Fontana and extra at many others. Often a group would chip in on a half gallon and leave the rest behind. That was the biggest strength of the Trail, it's community. Taken as a whole, the Trail was a strong and vibrant being. It's various multi-colored strands were as one cloth woven of a strange but symphonious blend of oddity, determination, and heart. Everyone was in it together, each helping the others in many seen and unseen ways. The Appalachian Trail was more than a twenty-one hundred mile footpath, it was a tightly knit international community, a heartfelt hug of a hike.
That afternoon on the ridge was one of the most spectacular moments on the Trail. It was as if the universe had labored 15 billion years for just that moment. There on the beautiful rolling hills and rocky ridges of Virginia, life was indeed good on the AT.
However, there was quite a crisp wind in the air. If they could not find a spot out of the wind, they would be in for a cold, windy, night. Then, as if all they had to do was ask, they came to a spot which spoke to them without words. Beside it, tucked into it's hollow, was three heavenly beds carved into the living rock and covered with thick mossy grasses. It all seemed exquisitely crafted just for them, as if it wasn't there a moment ago and it wouldn't be there tomorrow, as if Ed Garvey himself had installed this spot just for them. Immediately they knew, they had found home for the evening.
The only concern now was water.
Pablo pulled out his map and guide book and scrutinized both thoroughly. He determined that a short backtrack was in order. He calculated it was about four tenths of a mile back to a side trail they had missed the first time. They decided this was approximately a ten minutes walk. The Monk set his watch and Ken calculated the distance in steps. Then they set off back along the Trail, keeping an eye out for any Insufferable Drunken Hogs From Hell which might be wandering about. They saw none. In the last ten seconds of time, The Monk counted down. When he reached zero, Pablo, who was in the lead and had been counting his steps, stopped. There, magically, a side trail appeared. It was so over grown with tall grasses and shrubbery, that they might never have noticed it had Pablo not stopped at that exact spot when the countdown reached zero. It looked seldom used, to say the least. A few years later they would build the Thomas Knob Shelter near there and finding this spring would, presumably, no longer be a problem.
Back on Wilburn Ridge, the sun was setting magnificently and there was tremendous mojo in the air. They watched it set over dinner, then watched as the stars came out. A chilly wind began to slice through the air and the temperature dropped considerably. But they found that when they lay down on their soft, tailor-made beds, they were out of the wind completely. It whipped icily by, mere inches above their noses. The rocky crags of the ridge had been elegantly crafted so as to carefully channel the currents up and over them. There, warm and cozy, they spent the night gazing up at the stars in irreverent awe of life, the universe, and everything.
After a beautiful night under the stars, the trio awoke to a thoroughly spectacular day. Though it was still a bit brisk, there was not a cloud in sight and the sky was a brilliant shade of blue, full of Reich's Orgone. As they lay still in their bags eating breakfast, a newfound vigor consumed them. They could spend the rest of their lives there but they could not stay a minute longer. The brisk coolness of the morning air helped expedite their chores. Soon they were all packed up, too quickly it seemed, for so magical a spot. They stood one final time, in silent awe of the breathtaking vista before them. Then, they were gone and not a trace remained.
©Copyright 02001-02002. Fresh Ink. All rights reserved.
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