Day 11: Final Day, Final Thoughts

I awoke from my sleep with a start, snapped conscious by a tumultuous dream  as full of ups and downs as the prior day’s trail.

More on that dream in a bit. The intensity of it, though, packed the punch of a couple of espressos. I quickly reached for my phone; ideas and questions were buzzing through my brain.

Need to jot them down quick!

I opened the notes app on my iPhone and went to work.

Outside the tent, the sun was just coming up. Our final morning. In just hours, Robbin would be here with the car. And it all truly would be over.

My note-taking was accomplished in less than 15 minutes. More on those notes in a bit, too. I stumbled out of the tent for the final time, no more graceful than I’d been the morning of Day 2.

We gulped down our breakfast, a special treat of freeze-dried eggs and bacon. Not so good, it turned out. We fortified the yellow mush with leftover oatmeal and Cream of Wheat.

We inventoried the remaining food, dumping it in a pile on the table … some energy bars, a few beef jerkies, some leftover Skittles that I’d been using for an occasional sugar kick. Some dried fruit, too. But not much was left. I’d take it home.

Our hike this morning would be about an eighth of a mile, if even that, to the campground’s main parking lot. Not a hike at all, and so an official total of 142 miles over 10 days. There we planned to sit at a picnic table until our ride arrived.

Just as we finished packing up, a big guy with a dog no taller than his boots walked up, the pup on a leash.

He and his friend were out for their morning constitutional; they and his wife had spent the night in a nearby RV.

He asked about our hike … where we’d come from and how long we’d been on the trail.

Impressed by our answers, he remarked that he’d always wanted to have that kind of adventure. But he was a retired plumber.

“Going up and down those ladders all those years did a real number on my knees,” he said. “I just can’t do that kind of walking anymore.”

He didn’t say this in a sad way. It was more an acknowledgment that his job needed doing, and some sacrifices had to be made. 

But he did seem nostalgic, perhaps thinking of younger days.

It’s hard not to be self-satisfied during such a conversation.

You can check this hike off your bucket list, I told myself with some relief. Your knees held up.

***

Folks familiar with my phone-texting prowess know I move with the speed of a sloth. But my note-taking that morning seemed rapid-fire – an urgent series of jotted reminders of things related to the hike to consider, to write more about, to pursue.

·      “Would I do this again? Not next year. Two years? Maybe.”

·      “You have to really describe what it’s like to walk in a root-rutted trail at 3 mph.”

·      “Your pain, this morning, at the end: Start at the bottom … heels, big toes, stiffness across all toes, ball behind the right big toe, upper legs, gluts, lower back – always the lower back – left and right shoulders, wrist from the fall.”

·      “Lack of wildlife except on first night … flushed a lot of grouse, saw a toad, saw many tracks … cat, deer. Deer in hiding – they know the season.”

·      “Describe how you use the poles … all angles, up hill, down hill. Stability – often what keeps you from going over the edge.”

·      “Compare irony of road vs. trail – road faster but boring – and lakeshore hiking vs. inland hiking – prettier, but those damn fallen trees.”

·      “Knife … visions of fending off a bear, but used it for just two things – to slice open the shrink wrap on the jerky, and to whittle two sticks to roast hot dogs. Both tasks helped satisfy the stomach, so the knife’s purchase was well made.”

·      “Blog title?  ‘And Then We Went for a Walk.’ ”

So they were a scattering of musings.

But a few topics deserve more attention here:

We three

As I noted in a prior post, the fact that Bill, Bruce and I walked this walk and did not utter one foul word in anger or frustration at each other says much about our personalities, I think. We’re low-key kinds of guys.

That said, I believe there’s more power – and more elbow room – in three hiking a trail than two or even one. This was confirmed for me after the hike, when Bill and I attended a hikers’ club meeting in Traverse City. The speaker was one of two guys who attempted to hike the entire length of the North Country Trail, starting in North Dakota and heading east to New York.

They gave up in Michigan.

Although there were many reasons why they stopped, he admitted that the two grew tired of each other. Going it alone, or with three guys, might have been better, he said.

Our threesome was a perfect match. Yes, we were cool, calm and collected. But when there are three hikers around a campfire, the possible lines of conversation multiply exponentially. And if one of us wanted to simply stay mum for a bit, that was OK, too. Talk didn’t need to stop.

And there were other, more practical reasons. Flexibility with job-sharing, for example.

In short, we were a civil, respectful, supportive bunch – three legs of a stool that stood up damn well.

I’ll be forever grateful to Bill and Bruce for their friendship, patience, accommodations, hearty optimism, and all-around good cheer during the trip. Oh, and also for their strong hands up when I fell on my butt.

My tumbles

I thought a lot about this during the hike … why I kept falling and the other guys didn’t topple once.

In fact, the topic was the longest entry in this morning’s notes frenzy – a burst of frustration, rationalization, theology, and pseudo-science. The highlights:

·      Pack positioning: “If a backpack is not tight to the shoulders, the center of gravity is behind you, not centered above the feet. It now seems that my pack was more separated from my shoulders than the guys’ packs – so the weight leaned backward, behind me. That explains the two slip-ups … feet shot ahead of me. Though not the two stumbles over fallen trees. Next time, tighten the shoulder straps.”

·      Just the way I am: Here, my notes speculated about my physical construction. “My feet are smaller than theirs. Or maybe I’m just not as strong. Or maybe less coordinated. Or perhaps my vision is narrower … my glasses a problem? Or maybe because I’m not as tall; my legs are shorter. It was always physics at work.”  

·      God made me do it: And then I offered the Norman Vincent Peale perspective. It was destiny that I would fall, totally out of my control, so think positive about what happened. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, basically. “Maybe it was just meant to be,” I wrote. “God’s way of allowing me to fall as a test of the ability to pop right back up again.”

Maybe all of these things came into play in some form – although honestly, I think God had bigger fish to fry while we wandered our 142 miles.

But if not, then I wonder about the need to bop me on the head with a mighty fist four times?

Twice would have done the trick.

Sleep

I haven’t really shared details of the quality of sleep during our journey. It’s a critical topic, with a hike of this distance. Just like good food, good sleep makes all the difference.

I did a lot of research before the hike into the components of a good night’s sleep on the trail – a proper tent, effective sleeping mattress, a warm sleeping bag.

I spent more money than I expected on the equipment. But the result was more than good. I’d rarely slept better. I know it added to my ability to tackle each day’s hike.

In fact, my hardest night sleeping was indoors at the Grand Marais hotel. Perhaps it was the beer and pizza.

In the tent, though, I slept more soundly than a black bear in January. Each night, I’d jot my notes and douse the lights by 9 p.m.; I wouldn’t budge until the alarm sounded at 6:30 a.m.

Warm, comfy, dreamless sleep.

Dreamless until the last day.

The dream was a strange one. Typically, I don’t dream much. But this reverie was full of contradictions and disconnects – vivid and sharp in a wispy, murky sort of way.

It was a person … but not. And it was talking to me without speaking. It wasn’t scary, but it also wasn’t warm or inviting. I think that I knew this thing; we’d met before somehow, somewhere. Maybe.

Whatever, we flew off side-by-side in a tunnel … up and down, all around, twisting and turning. Lights flashed by us, although the path ahead always remained black. It was like riding Disney World’s Space Mountain but without the fun – more ethereal, otherworldly.

And as we flew, I felt a deepening sense of melancholy and sorrow … of old things passing.

Suddenly, this thing, this specter, reached toward me and touched my shoulder – gently, even kindly – then pushed me hard, away. And in a flash, it was gone.

I woke up, startled, my eyes damp.

“Wow!” I whispered. “What the hell was that?”

I wasn’t sad, though. I was buoyant, energized, like I was the Ancient Mariner who had finally shed his albatross. I looked around the tent and realized again that I would soon be home.

Thoughts zipped through me, things I just didn’t want to forget about the hike. I grabbed my iPhone to take notes. As I’ve explained, I wrote much about many things in a short time.

But surprisingly, of the dream, I only wrote this:

“Sleep … usually blissful, but this time shattered by an endless, wild dream. An ending. A good-bye. To what?? Wistful, but it’s done. ”

I don’t know what the dream meant, nor have I tried much to decipher it. But I do know the feeling it imparted that morning.  

I told Cindy later, “It was like my soul opened and all the garbage fell out.”

Perhaps that’s what the trail does best. It frees the soul.

“There is a way out of every dark mist, over the rainbow trail,” wrote American painter Robert Motherwell.

***

We hiked our short walk to the picnic table, packs on our backs as usual. And we sighed in chorus as we dropped the still-heavy loads on the table’s seat.

The weather and surroundings were magnificent – white puffs of clouds moving slowly across a blue sky, enormous trees showing off their brilliant oranges and reds; behind us, the Tahquamenon River quietly rolling east, calm now after descending the Lower Falls.

We sat patiently on one side of the table, facing the parking lot; our packs sat on the other.

We were like three birds on a wire, our heads silently shifting to take in the view. We didn’t talk much. We were just happy to sit, our arms folded against the cold.

Robbin’s Subaru eventually came into view. Bill jumped to his feet in greeting. We all shouted a welcome. We were ready to go home.

We had left extra clothes with Robbin, thinking we would change before the drive downstate. But Robbin did a quick smell test and told us not to worry about it. If necessary, we could crack some windows.

We stopped for lunch at Clyde’s Drive-In in St. Ignace, where we inhaled cheeseburgers, fries and shakes.

And, as we did 12 days earlier, we drove across the big Mackinac Bridge, although this time south. Waves danced below us, white caps along the Upper Peninsula bidding their good-byes.

And we sped through Mighty Mac’s beginning  … our rainbow’s end.

###

To see photographs of Day 11, click here.