Bipedal Stories

I pulled down an unpaved road deep in the pines. I parked in a gravel lot at the southern tip of the Delaware Water Gap, where the Delaware River cuts through a ridge in the Appalachian Mountains. I took two water bottles from the trunk of my car, put them in my pack, and set out on a stretch of the Appalachian Trail for Mt. Minsi.

The December weather was uncharacteristically clement. After 20 minutes, I was sweating through my moisture-wicking textiles. I stuffed my pullover in my pack. The trail was a series of steep steps on stone and timber, short descents on mud, and steeper ascents on quartzite outcroppings. My legs were sore, my breathing heavy. The trail was empty. What if I twisted an ankle? Or encountered an extra from The Deer Hunter, Michael Cimino’s 1978 Oscar-winning film about rural Pennsylvanians traumatized by their service in Vietnam?

I sat down, drank from my water bottle, ate some chocolates. The sun poked through the baffle of grey clouds. I shuffled out onto a ledge. I was both in the middle of nowhere and within shouting distance of Interstate 80, which rolled west on the other side of the Gap.

I reached the summit of Mt. Minsi. Cloud cover was thick, but I could see the outlines of Mt. Tammany on the New Jersey side. Some 1,500 feet below, the Delaware River flowed toward Philadelphia, Wilmington, and the Atlantic Ocean. The summit had the bleak beauty of the Northeastern U.S. in late fall. The deciduous trees were barren. Their decomposing leaves painted the paths and fields in a mulchy brown. The spiky evergreens stood sentry over the emptiness.

The forecast called for rain. I retraced my steps to the gravel lot.