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Devil Stairs
You actually have to descend after the ascension but I'll say it like this anyway--I went up to Big Devil's Stairs this week. There was a Lexus SUV with Maryland plates in what is the only parking space and so I had to park in what turned out to be an illegal spot. Coming back to the spot later I would think briefly about becoming an outlaw again or depending on your definition, for the first time, and going on the lam to avoid any dealings with that lawman with initials for a first name who had left his card in the bottom right hand corner of my driver's side window, tightly inserted behind the weather-stripping. The card had a hand written message that said--Please Contact Today! Had it not been for the Please and the exclamation point I would have jumped the nearest boxcar out of here. I hope it is a sign of maturity and not weakness that now makes me give the law its due credit and consideration for politeness.
I was trying to do nine miles before sunset and I was getting a late start, a slurpable go-cup full of black-eyed peas my lunch in transit, and four one-slice peanut butter sandwiches my hiking fuel. And a bottle of water. No drugs, but if that's true, why even mention it? Because you couldn't get 'em lit is why, you punk ass, ill-prepared sissy. No drugs is better though and I am for one brief instant being completely straight with you. Even though it's only an opinion and therefore debatable. Or because it's an opinion it's not debatable, I get mixed up, but I don't want to linger on this point, I'd like to get back with minimal delay to this obliquely sincere version of my view on the moments that make up my day.
I took the horse trail shortcut because I wanted to by-pass the camping shelter with the log book I can't resist reading but that makes me sad because of the predictability of the human emotion it contains. The happy scribblings make me think of that animated short that ends with the big claw foot of Godzilla squashing flat on the forest floor the short lived Bambi.
Snow from last week is still on the trail and unlike previous snow hikes this time it's only me leaving human tracks, parallel to or on top of the deer and cat and crow feet. The snow is good, not too soft and not too crunchy. I have waterproof hiking boots this year and five dollar socks so I'm really well equipped from the ankles down. I still wear jeans though and a brown leather work jacket that was left behind at M's house in New Orleans. She did not know who's it was or what was the history behind the jacket before it ended up stashed at her house but the details behind the origins of it are perhaps inauspicious. I will here just have to leave it to the scholars of modern juvenile hijinks what these details might include. You can have it if you need it she said to me.
I took it and all its undeclared history with me when I left New Orleans.
A couple of weeks ago I was on this same trail (which is in Virginia, not New Orleans) when a surprise rain storm caught me clueless without a poncho and I had to use the jacket like an umbrella. After it dried out it looked really good, even better than before, so I don't know about this idea that water is bad for leather. It has plenty of pockets and in the pockets I have stashed a water bottle, four cellophane wrapped single slice peanut butter sandwiches, a very small 2mega pixel digital camera, a 5gig Mp3 player, and curiously, because I have no film camera, an old plastic film container. I wear a knit cap and brown cotton work gloves that keep me warm enough to leave the jacket open to expose my thrift store outer shirt which is open to expose my faded navy, paint speckled under shirt. The zipper is busted on the jacket.
I passed the Maryland couple on the way up (they hadn't hiked far enough to mess up any of the snow) and they were dressed more appropriately than I. Hiking is a ga-billion dollar a year industry and there does exist a wide array of proper hiking clothing and gear. We exchanged hearty hellos, which is optional, and I admired the fabric, buttons, functionality, and style of their garb, which they wore as they should, unselfconsciously.
I got to the cliff over the chasm which is the payoff of the Big Devil's Stairs hike and it is a good one if you are into all that depth of field beauty inherent to foregrounds that drop a thousand feet and multilayered, undulating, blue-green, black-shadowed, snow-dusted mountains as background.
With all that majesty before me and certain death a misstep away I thought about my doctor's appointment the next day, the first in ten years, which at this writing has already happened--and proven my procrastination fueled but understandable fears to be baseless, (and given bolder credence to the words of that gypsy at last year's Christmas party: that I'm going to live long, in fact longer than some will appreciate)--but hadn't happened then and so was still a weighty thought, heavier than the lofty and dizzying sense of freedom and flight one might ordinarily feel at cliff's edge. I waited, but perhaps not long enough, for an epiphany that did not come.
Back at my truck after the hike, the card from the cop stuck in my widow as a reminder that a nine mile hike intended to ease one's mind can sometimes be followed by a sharp stick in your eye. I debated about calling the cop but not too long did I kid myself about not calling the initialed officer. Back home I tarried a bit by checking my email and then I practiced my gender neutral phrasing, and made the call. It was a man who answered and I identified myself as the missing hiker. The officer sternly but politely gave me some advice about parking and I assured him (was I too obsequious?) that in the future his advice would be that which I followed. But I think I'm done with that hike for awhile and will look around for trails that lead elsewhere.