Please Read

By Don DeFreeze

Please Read
By Don Defreeze.

If you feel the need to shake off todays worries by flinging to the far recesses of the Applachian Mountain Trail, youve come to the right place. Come along on the trek to seclusion.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 6, 2009
• ISBN: 9781462813919

Book preview

CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 1

All of the pieces of the puzzle are now fitting together, a work of art. Not knowing the unique final result when first started, the final product is. Pictured in the mind, the backpacking superstructure is beginning to take on shape with the personality of reality just several strides from the trailhead. All that tedious energy normally devoted to the everyday path monotony is now free to construct this support engine needed for the next two days. This house is coming to order.

An aluminum frame backpack provides the structural gantry to which all the auxiliary modules and equipment are attached. Although out of vogue and not as comfortable as today’s flex packs, it has served me well throughout the years, and its ability to be the structural anchor is proven and familiar. Besides, why pay for a new model when my old Chevy is well maintained and fully functional. Many times I’d glance over at the backpack while positioned against the living room wall and postulate its contents to soften the aggravation of stepping up my day-to-day duties so I could get out on this trip. Some of its contents remain with it at all times, except during major cleanings such as the shell blackened pot used for boiling water. But it’s those dual use items that begin to make it into the pack a day or so before the trip, a shirt for example, that help to serve as a tap on the shoulder; the countdown has begun.

Fully powering up this service vehicle’s main compartment with the goods I think I’ll need has already been done earlier today. This morning’s haste could only allow for a quick but serious consideration in balancing the items I’d like to bring with the physical demands of the trip. It’s not only the camping essentials that make the camping trip, but it’s also those extra amenities that offer variety and comfort such as binoculars and coffee. I sure would love to take an 8" telescope along which would either bump out most of the initial payload or be abandoned a half hour down the trail.

The seesaw of pack balance is dominated by the bulk size of the considered essentials. They can be either slimmed down to allow for more non-essentials or expanded to assume some non-essential characteristics in themselves. One critical element is the food or fuel ration needed. On a longer mission I might bring packaged dried meals that require water and boiling, such as the well known broccoli, rice, and cheese dish, which are very light to carry but as exciting as putting one’s socks on. Considering that I’m staying one overnight, I’ve decided to include the ready to cook, frozen, aluminum foil wrapped turkey drumsticks. Constructed several days earlier, those deliciously spiced gadgets have been embedded in several plastic bags, a dual use item, and rolled into a designated compartment just before departing home. There they will slowly thaw throughout the day, keeping them from spoiling, and will be ready to be thrown into the hot coals of tonight’s campfire.

Topping off the volume of items on my mental checklist of what should be contained in the main compartment needed to make a go of it are what I consider bailout goods. These goods may never be used, however if an emergency, difficulty, delay, or unforeseen problem arises, they may become invaluable. Although awfully warm for April and in a drought, a heavy sweatshirt to protect against an unexpected drop in temperature and several large garbage bags, which can act as a lightweight and cheap way to protect against rain, have been added in case the weatherman or woman is wrong—HA! Between experience and envisioned possible scenarios, items such as scissors, tape, twine, and more have been included in the smallest entities thought needed to overcome a snag to belay my worries. I’ve packed spare high energy and durable food such as canned tuna and nuts with the realistic part of my mind demanding restraint in their quantity. I must take into account that I will be the pack horse humping this service vehicle up the trail.

I feel it a privilege to assemble the backpacking superstructure or BPSS. Unlike the purely mechanical, thoughtless, eye-hand only coordinated chores of home which provide simple satisfaction in their finality such as getting the dishes done, even the smallest hand maneuver now becomes magnified and fills me with a frayed joyous glee. That whole system and accompanying burden that we call living doesn’t matter anymore. As I begin to fiddle with the bands that bind this launch vehicle together, I might bet that it won’t be but wonder when it will carry me away for the last time.

The BPSS is most easily assembled on the trunk lid of my car. The rectangular metal frame on the back side of the main compartment lies flat at bench height allowing easy access in securing stretch cords which will bind the whole integrated structure together. The frame, by design, has two metal hoops separated by the main compartment which beg to accommodate additional modules at both top and bottom. Traditionally, the sleeping gear is attached to the top hoop and portable housing in the form of a tent is placed at the bottom.

The unusually large bedding module makes it a little tough to secure it to the top rung. The module is packed in a spiral consisting of a foam outer pad shell wound around a common sleeping bag. The sleeping bag rolled up conceals a couple of tiny travel pillows which, if placed the right way, not only make sleep more comfortable but for me are near essential. Although I have plenty of roofing jobs notched into my work belt, I can also claim a pile of wrenched backs at morning wake up and sleeping on the hard ground or shelter floor could provide an ingredient for pains sometimes bordering on disability. Although having the bulky girth of and resembling a large tree stump on its side, this module comes comparably light.

The tent, unlike most of the other equipment, is usually left in the trunk of the car during downtime. Besides being in a place always known, if a major vehicular malfunction occurs, heck, I have a shelter at hand if stranded. Always packaged and ready to go, this module fits nicely at the bottom of the superstructure. The binding cords, decidedly left in place after previous voyages attached to a crossbar of the gantry frame underneath the service compartment, are easily stretched across the bottom end of the metal frame, around the module, then back up and latched to the same crossbar. Being a necessary component of the support engine, the tent is attached with no thought as to the added weight, but I can not ignore the thud as this small but dense log is thrown onto the nearly complete pile.

The final module attached might make someone scratch there head and ask why? Why would I strap a small, nearly empty backpack the size of a book bag to the large mass already erected with all the essentials in mind? But this small addition represents the technical difference as stark as that between, say, the sailboat and the steamship, the wagon and the car, or the Mercury rocket and the Apollo. This module, with its straps slipped under the top bands of the BPSS, is the key link of a new evolutionary leap; it is an extension that is as significant and meaningful to me as the emancipating feat achieved when an ancient water-locked creature using newly acquired means of mobility first lumbered onto dry land.

Stashing the other piece of this new evolutionary system about twenty minutes ago, it rests near a campsite at the dead end of a remote gravel road. The site, discovered several years ago, is a favorite frequented at least once a year. The gravel road ends there simply because the local stream’s nearly vertical walls narrow to the point where a road bed would entail enormous slicing of soil and bedrock. That secluded location is one of many I have enjoyed and still do since I moved to a city a mere 45 minute drive from this very spot. Being completely primitive with a clean source of water, locating that challis has clearly become a milestone in my venture for outdoor adventure.

Turning that spot into a familiar area and enjoying the site’s local trails is fine in itself but the real prize lay far up the slopes and high on the ridge above. Some trails do wind up the creek beds and ascend ridges to the final zenith, as I have found. It is, however, that one trail reached at the top, running perpendicular to the ascent, historical and awe inspiring, whose legendary passages are somewhat elusive. This, of course, is the granddaddy of all East Coast trails, the Appalachian Trail or simply known by those that traverse it as the AT.

Short pieces and day hikes along the AT are enjoyable but also add fuel to the curiosity of the larger sections, more remote, with little accessibility between road crossings. Upon arriving to this area rich in outdoor resources a good decade ago, the popular, well known, frequently trampled, local trail attractions have served me well as a foundation to begin learning the general geography of the area opening the seemingly endless doors to the seemingly endless mountains. Seeing the views offered by these trails for the first time, observed by many on almost a daily basis, still seem nothing short of spectacular. But how many times can one take these day hikes and rise to the peak before there is a want for what lies beyond them and further down the road?

Some sections of the AT extend over a full day’s hike or more between road crossings. It is in these lightly traveled, deep wooded sections that one can really taste the meat of the wild, unattended and undisturbed existence. But how does someone like me with limited resources conquer and gain ground in such a realm, digest its features, and add more distance to my AT total I pride in? Sure, with the BPSS I could hike a couple of days and reach the next road crossing but then what? Should I turn around and hike back a couple of days over the same trail to my car? I don’t think so!

The obvious solutions to the problem are to either have someone pick me up or have another vehicle waiting at the trail’s end. The former option is unworkable. Unless I hire someone to do so, I don’t know anyone I’d expect to drive nearly an hour to an assigned rendezvous when the scheduled time to meet probably won’t be nearly congruent to my arrival. The latter solution has its own inherent dilemma. The thought of leaving two autos, if I had two autos, at each end again invokes the problem of needing two drivers unless, of course, the extra driver is also a back country hiker. What a beautiful solution with company on the hike plus added help on top of the mutual ride sharing, how can there be a problem with that? I’ve made acquaintances with several packers since I’ve resided in the area and likeable enough to be easy candidates. I sometimes wonder why, out of the hundreds of thousands of people that live in the area I do while nestled in and surrounded by beckoning panoramic views of the Appalachians each and every day, are not even the remotest trails packed? So relatively few feel inclined, and even less obligated, to do so. Even if a fraction of those around me had the ingrown, natural, un-ignorable hunger-thirst I feel for this adventurous exploration, an exuberant willing participant could be easily found and immediately taken from the impoverished hungry hiker herds picketing the city sidewalks with signs flashing Take Me There.

But, alas, if I am to have company I must try to work a schedule and correlate