In Which I Get Sick and Wind Up in Brooklyn

Sick! Again! For the second time in a 30-day span! For several days I toughed out what I thought was allergy-related post-nasal drip (because ALL the grasses in Pennsylvania and New Jersey have been having glorious, glorious grass-sex), and then I said something about it to Tigger. “You’re not getting sick again, are you?” he asked with concern. Tigger was on hand for Typhoid Sherpa Part One, when the hills of Shenandoah National Park rang out with the sound of my hacking cough.

“No, I think this is just allergies,” I assured him. The next day, as I hiked, the post-nasal drip thickened and got down to business, bringing its friends Headache and Exhaustion and proving me and my “just allergies” theory wrong, wrong, wrong. By the time I got to my destination for the night (some shelter in a giant park in New York) I decided it was time to get off the trail, hole up somewhere, and give my immune system a chance this time by sleeping a lot and drinking pineapple juice. When I got sick last month, my strategy of trying to ignore it and put down the big miles I would if I were well didn’t seem to work very well. So I got out my trusty Droid, which has service even in the “remote” parts of mid-Atlantic AT states, and called my old high school buddy Eric, who lives in Brooklyn. I’d planned on taking a train in to see him when I got to the NY-CT border anyway. “Eric, I’m siiiick,” I croak-whined when he answered the phone. “Can I stay with you? How do I get there?”

Just like a good old high school buddy, Eric jumped on it. “Where are you? If you get to Bear Mountain tomorrow, it looks like you can take a train in from Peekskill. I’ll meet you at Grand Central Station. You can stay here as long as you like. No, no, no, you aren’t going to sleep on your air mattress. You need good rest to get better–you can sleep in my bed and I’ll take the floor,” he said. Eric is quite a guy.

So the next day I packed up, taking my time, and pounded out the 16 miles to the Bear Mountain Bridge. It turns out that, even when I’m feeling crappy, I can put down reasonable miles if there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. The terrain was a lot less rugged than my first day in New York (rock scrambles! Nobody says anything about rock scrambles in New York!), and although the first part of the day was typical AT, there were some really pleasant surprises over the last seven miles or so. Most notably, the trail up and down Bear Mountain is amazing and beautiful. The first section of AT, laid out in the 1920s, went through that area, but was relocated numerous times due to high use and erosion issues. The ATC and NY-NJ TC are nearing the end of a multi-year project in which they’ve relocated the trail along its original route, installing stone steps, cribbing filled with crushed stone, and sometimes “paving” the trail using large, flat stones, so as to mitigate erosion issues. The rock work is really incredible. Although much of the labor was done by an army of volunteers (someone’s gotta quarry the stone and belay it and buckets of crush on steel highlines), they were directed by trail and masonry professionals from around the country. The result is remarkable and led to Hazard joking, “If Bob Peoples was in charge of the trail in Pennsylvania, it would all look like this.” (A joke, because Pennsylvania is known for its rocky, rugged trail.)

On top of Bear Mountain I found Tigger and Hazard eating hot dogs and talking with the Trail Angel grilling them on a propane grill on the back of his truck. This man turned out to be none other than the famous Paddy-O, who’s been helping hikers in New York for over 10 years. He drives all over the state with his pickup (known as the Paddy Wagon) and sets up wherever he thinks hikers might be. When I met him, he was grilling hot dogs and bacon, pouring Power-Ade, and blasting a great old country mix. It was exciting to meet another trail celebrity, especially because folks become trail celebrities because they are just such great people. The assholes may become trail legends (usually the butt of jokes and derisive stories), but aren’t generally found anywhere near the trail very long.

Tigger, Hazard, and I contined down the mountain. I fell behind, and found them with Arthur Dent and Portrait enjoying beer and fried food at a snack stand at Bear Mountain State Park. They walked off while I ate an ice cream cone, which at that point I was too congested to taste but nonetheless appreciated its texture, temperature, and caloric value. As I walked through the park towards the Trailside Zoo, I met Heinrich and Craig, two Germans who were getting off the trail. Bear Mountain was as far as Heinrich planned on going this year, and Craig had two sprained ankles and decided to leave the trail with his hiking partner. They’ll come back another year to finish up. I wished them luck, then walked quickly through the zoo. Hikers joke that if you don’t see bears anywhere else, you’ll see one at the zoo, which contains specimens of animals native to the area. I finally saw bears within the last few weeks: A mama and cub gobbling blueberries in New Jersey, for all the world like in the childrens book Blueberries for Sal, and another cub on the day I crossed from New Jersey to New York. Good thing, because I didn’t see any bears at the zoo! I don’t know where they were–maybe inside, eating their dinner–but they weren’t out in view of the public.

After that I crossed the Bear Mountain bridge and considered how I’d get to Peekskill. It’s a long road walk on a dangerous highway. I consulted with Heinrich, Craig, Portrait, and a fourth hiker who walked up; they were bound for Peekskill as well, it turned out, for a going-away party for the Germans, who planned on taking the train to NYC the next day. We considered calling a cab, but they wanted an outrageous fare ($45 to go 4.5 miles!), so we decided to try our luck hitching, although chances didn’t seem to be good for five hikers at a busy highway junction in New York. Luck was on our side, though, and a local Trail Angel named Steve, who owns a chain of drugstores in the area, drove by and picked us up. Although he wasn’t going to Peekskill, he agreed to take us in, so we squeezed our packs and selves into his SUV (thank goodness Portrait’s an ultralighter or our packs never would have fit!) and off we went.

Getting on the train and meeting Eric was no problem, and I’ve spent several days recuperating in the apartment he shares with his college friend Thomas. Both men are gracious hosts and they’ve made me feel very much at home. Today I felt well enough to go for a walk, so Eric and I wandered his neighborhood for a couple of hours, tracking down ice cream and talking to an energy company rep about wind energy. Hazard asked me what part of Brooklyn Eric lived in, and I replied, “I don’t know, but he’s got an air conditioner and a bed,” and that’s still just about all I know, but I like it here from the little I’ve seen. Tomorrow Eric’s escorting me back to Grand Central bright and early (which is good because I might otherwise become hopelessly lost), and I’m getting back on the trail. Although…I’m wondering if a sinus infection might be settling in. I could be back here very soon. Eric says that’s fine, and I know I’d say the same if the situation were reversed, and I’m so grateful that my friends are real, and many have been my friends for well over a decade. It’s sad that we’re spread all over the country now, and I don’t get to see them very often, but I know we’ve all got each other’s backs.

All the same, I’m glad to get back to my trail tomorrow. I’ll be in a new “bubble” of people, although I expect there may be some familiar faces. My 30th birthday’s in a few days, and I’m excited to pick up my maildrop. It looks like I’ll be in CT and although I once envisioned going to town and having a little hiker party, all the towns on the trail there are really, really expensive, so it’s a trail birthday for me, and probably very similar to every other day on the trail…which, really, is how I envisioned it all along, and there’s nowhere I’d rather be for my milestone.