A modern-day Marco Polo travels the world. On foot! That's me, veteran of a 50-state road trip and 2,000+-mile hike on the Appalachian Trail. O.K., I do take breaks, both to lead tours in NY, DC, Boston, and Philly, and work as a mover's concierge, helping people to organize garage sales, pack, and move. The key is to keep moving. cesarwalks@yahoo.com/ 1-305-444-1932; 14021 sw 109 street, miami, fl 33186; usa; north american continent

Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Trail Days hits the BigTime; The good, the bad...the muddy!
































It was supposed to be hotter than the dickens this weekend but nooooo, as Bill, Becky and I approached Damascus for the annual Trail Days convention the sky just disappeared. Any lofty soft orange clouds that were left by day's end was enveloped by a black sheet of cotton so thick it turned dark within 3 minutes time.

And then it came. The rain, the cold front and the nippiest air....came
in to chill our bones as we huffed down Becky's delicious cheese ball and crackers next to the heater that was now on full blast at the Days Inn in Abingdon, VA.

Becky kept fidgeting to Bill about something. Little mini whispers and
prodding told me something was up. And just as i suspected, Becky was
urging him on to assist me to pass out the packets they stuffed the week before. But i said "no". They are too good to me but i could not let them get involved in a night of chaos. Not too mention get soaked to the bone in this chilly rain.

So i bid them farewell and off i went on my midnight ride into Damascus
to pepper the town and its estimated 600 hikers that descend on it each
year....info....on my talk for Trail Days, my new web site and
basically on myself.

Kamikaze marketing i call it. Others call it Gorilla marketing. Either
way, tonight would turn out to be a doozey of a journey much of which was very reminiscent of my Appalachian Trail (AT) hike in 2001.

Weeks before I had prepared a flyer promoting my world walk, AT book,
and website. I scoured the dollar stores for little goodies like candy,
Easter chocolate (hey it was at 50% off) and tea bags. I also had from my last professional organizing job, a crap load of soy chocolate milk packets.

So I had Becky and Bill stuff this all inside 400 zip lock bags so I could hand them out the night before my talk.

On my way over to Damascus that night I was worried that I had gone too
far. Maybe it was too many years back and my recollection was more tents than were really there. My ambitious side gets ahold of me sometimes and I go too far.

As I arrived in town I soon realized I was probably not only well prepared but under prepared. The power of Trail Days – that of the virtual black plague of hikers that descends on the town – has not died. It is alive and well. Just as a moth is attracted to light, hikers, hungry hikers in particular, are attracted to Damascus from parts near and far.

That’s not to say Trail Days hasn’t changed. In fact I’m sure since its inception in 1987 (begun by local resident Charles Trivett who wanted to honor the thru hikers) the changes have been night and day. But I’m more focused on just the last 6 years. My first trail days was 2000. That year, I must admit I saw trail Days thru a long lens and a bit far removed from the ground view of real AT hikers. I stayed at The Appletree Bed and Breakfast, then the ONLY B&B in Damascus….there are now about 4.

The tents were conglomerated that year along the river bank and in between the Baptist church and the Old mill restaurant. That’s all. Maybe 200 tents. The same was said for the following year and the year after, as I kept returning to give talks and see Trail Days grow.

Growth is a double edged sword. Sometimes and it is my opinion on this event a folksy, small town event like Trail days can grow too big for its britches, and so it was when I entered the now “designated” camping area, way outside of the town square. Now I’m sure the town has its good reasoning for moving the campground area so far away from where all the action is, but the original intent of this festival was to celebrate the oncoming rush and visit and invasion if you will of the very hikers that hike the AT.

Sure during the day there are shuttles that send hikers back and forth from the campground, and sure there are beautiful woods that they now can camp at….but they are no longer (with the exception of the hiker hostel known as “The Place”) an army of tents covering every open area of grass all over town. THE VERY ACT THAT GAVE TRAIL DAYS ITS CHARM!

Now, I cant help but see the hikers as second class citizens. Relegated behind a chain fenced in campground whose only entrance is a Gestapo-like check-point Charlie armed with local police presence night and day. Though the town has provided a trolley shuttle during the day. At night the hikers are left isolated and made to walk a long way to get to and from town. HELLO FOLKS, haven’t they already walked enough to get to this point!

I’ve probably gone too far in saying that but it is my fear that slowly over time events that were born of this folksy embryo grow too corporate, too rigid, too much of a town fundraiser (instead of a hiker homage) and loose the great flavor of a spontaneous fluid arrival of a pack of sweaty hikers taking off from Springer Mtn in Georgia.

Its almost like being in Nebraska or The Dry Tortugas at a certain time of year and waiting for the migratory waterfowl. All the birds will not arrive all at once! They seep in and out of one spot. They land where they want to land. They take over any field.

In any case, my evening began round 8:30 and did not end till about midnight as I sloshed and dipped my feet into unknown mud holes, streams and washouts as I trudged thru the night from tent to tent delivering word of my talk and of my life. In each packet contained a business card, flyer and some trail magic (candy, tea, soy milk shake powder – whatever that is). One by one like Santa Clause I visited each tent and each clump of hikers gathered around several campfires that were lit to keep them warm and dry.

It is at these very gatherings that I would pop in and ask the most ridiculous of questions; “anybody want free chocolate?” That’s like asking a bull if he wants to tear up a red cape! Out came the outstretched hands and the thank you’s....instant friend making technique….not a hard thing to do in a friendly crowd like this, but chocolate makes it all the more easier.

And so I did so and met new friends, faceless friends at that – since it was hard to decipher just who was who in the dim light. As the rain came down in spurts I continued my trollop through the magical farie like woods, into camps named “Ewok Village” and “Miss Janet’s Pirate Park” even “Muddy Hollow”…appropriately named for the massive field of mud that surrounded the tents.

There were little tiki torches leading from one village to the next and small encampments with makeshift sails and seats forming tribal counsels of wize jedi-like hikers named “Coconutty” and “Hot Feet” and “Fashion Foray”.

I would load my bag up with lets say a hundred or more ziplock backs filled with goodies and spread the cheer. Run back to Bill and Becky’s Jeep and refill up the bag and head out into the wet night again. Once I found myself close to the car but in the woods. I decided to take a shortcut and found my newly bought and shiny white New Balance shoes slumped down in a muddy stream. Well previously “shiny white”, now baptized in trail days mud.

By 11:30 I was done and quite chilled. The temperature dipped down to 60 that night. It was a bit insane for such a late day in May. I however was lucky enough to head back to a dry and warm motel room at the Days Inn....further proof that I have indeed become soft, that I am no longer of this AT world….i’m a veteran hiker, aged and withered and not of the hard stock of the true journeymen and women who will be gawked at by nearly 10,000 visitors to the town over the weekend.

Oh well. What can I tell ya. The bed felt great. Rested and refreshed we ventured towards town by 8am and I was proud to show Bill and Becky the town of Damascus as we sped around the narrow streets of which I now know so well. It was my first viewing by day of a town I had first visited 6 years back when I was just a dreamer. Just a kid with a plan to walk 2000 miles. Even then I had the audacity to be part of the speakers series and give a talk on my 50 state road trip….never mind that it had nothing to do with hiking or the Appalachian trail.

I think I was so caught up in the excitement of hiking or of being on the precipice of such an epic journey I felt I wanted to be part of that group instantaneously. “Let me in!” and they did. I guess that once yu take on a journey of that magnitude there is instant respect. “Hey you understand us…here is a temporary membership. Welcome!”

I gave my talk that morning to 20 souls who got up at the (for hikers at trail days anyway) ungodly hour of 9:30 (normally hikers are known to be up before the crack of dawn). It was a great talk. Sold 4 books to very grateful new disciples of thorough hiking and fielded lots of questions and curiosities about a different way to hike.

I find that most folks are hungry for info on doing things a different way. Some of my guests were older and wanted to lessen their load. Others were young and just wanted to not kill themselves. It is very satisfying to help them all.

When my ex-wife and I hiked in 2001 we were looked at a little strange with our ultra light and tiny backpacks. People thought we were cheating. How dare we go light and not do mega miles. We reversed the trend and said, “how bout going light and doing LESS miles?”

Something stuck. Nowadays all the vendors are pushing ultra-ultra-light gear. Nearly every booth at trail days was pushing “light” and at “less cost”….unbelievable. We were way ahead of our times. A few hikers did hear of our term, now firmly adopted; “yeah thorough hiking, we have heard of that. Quite a bit” came the answer to a couple from Massachusetts. That felt good. You see we coined the thorough hiking phrase and have two veteran hikers (12 time AT hiker Warren Doyle and Nimblewill Nomad) to prove it.

In any case, Trail Days is a blast, please don’t get me wrong but something tells me that it may have gotten too big for its britches (so to speak) as witnessed at the local Italian Restaurant Sicily’s. As Bill, Becky and I were exiting, a local resident, who had just sat down to a meal and was asked by the waitress how was his day going, we heard him nastily express the flip side to “The Friendliest Town on the Trail”; “I’ll feel better once these damn hikers get out of here!”

Granted its one guys opinion. And this is a friendly town. And no that guy does not speak for all residents. But with one comment like that yu know there has to be more. We do tend to override the town. The word “Plague” is not too far fetched. It seems to me that probably the best way to celebrate Trail Days is not to bunch up all the activities in one weekend. I mean trail days is a week long but the core things take place on the festivals last Friday, sat and Sunday. So the hikers slow down and at times quicken….all to get to trail days and sit their and in a sense (some of them come with…) feel they should be waited on hand and foot.

Yes, the town is friendly. But the first trail days was celebrated…lets not forget…to honor the hikers that came thru there. That’s quite an honor if yu consider that Damascus is paying homage to burly, smelly, bearded and a genuinely motley crew of society. Its quite something. I just don’t see the hikers (other than with their money) giving back equally but then again that’s not their fault, the town brought this on as they built it up and tried to capitalize on it. I wonder seriously how much of a financial impact does Trail Days present in their annual take? It would be fascinating to know. I’m assuming quite a bit.

But I cant escape the notion that perhaps there should be a return to a more primitive time. A simpler era. In compressing it and attempting to harness Trail Days, has the event or the phenomenon of it all been eroded. Has it peaked? A good question particularly on the heals of a massive New York Times “Escapes” section front page article that really put Trail Days on the map. I wonder how that article was pitched. Hmmmm. I wonder….and better yet….maybe I’ll check.

Stay tuned.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Cesar,
I can see how things change, how you change, but look how your ideas (and Maud's) on thorough-hiking seem to grow and have made an impression on other people. Keep in touch as you start walking again, I'll be tracking you on the map. I love you so much! Mami

7:02 PM

 

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