HUMANITY HIKER

A passing motorist stopped to warn us about a coming storm, in defiance of the red sky that greeted our first evening in Kansas, allegedly an indicator of “sailor’s delight” and good weather.  Dusk found us chatting with a rancher and gaining permission to set up our tent on his land.  I secured the tent as well as possible, battened down the hatches so to speak, to protect us against the looming southwest Kansas dust storm.

I have protected ourselves successfully from all manner of mountain weather with my tent, but the fierce winds across the open Kansas plains bent our tent poles down to near their breaking point.  By morning the inside of our tent was coated with dust, as were the inside of our nostrils.  We had to shake the dust out of the tent the best we could as part of breaking camp, gaining an appreciation for what the Dust Bowl truly meant.

During our first Kansas town stop in Syracuse I gave talks at both their Lions and Rotary clubs.  The Lions Club meeting was held at the Methodist Church and the pastor allowed us to sleep there that night.  We also attended the Community Friendship supper held at the same church once a month.  Attendees donate most of the food for the supper, they then use the collection at the supper for needs such as people’s fuel bill.

We learned at the Lions Club meeting about a fascinating entrepreneurial effort that the club wanted to encourage others to emulate.  Like many southwest Kansas towns Syracuse is aging, but one native son became disenchanted with city and corporate life in Denver and returned home at age 33.  After the meeting we took a field trip to witness Matt Gould’s plans for renovating a depressed downtown property he acquired “dust cheap.”

Matt combined his interests in hunting, photography, brewing and raising bison in his creation of The Loft.  Downstairs, The Loft will be a restaurant that features Matt’s bison and beer.  We toured the finished upstairs, which can hold up to eight guests.  Matt will lead guided hunting tours in season and house his clients in The Loft.  His photography will be displayed, and available for purchase, on both floors.

Matt’s entrepreneurial spirit contrasted starkly with another Matt we met in Utah.  We had partied with Utah Matt and his buddies in their neighboring campsite to ours.  They treated us to a feast that resulted from their hunting trip, a trip designed to ease Utah Matt’s pain from recently being laid off.  They also supplied plenty of beer and in an inebriated state Utah Matt went on an emotional rant about the evils of corporations.

We got along well until I suggested to Utah Matt that he use his skills in concrete or hunting to either become or work with a proprietor.  He then defended how necessary corporations are for things like pensions and health care.  Kansas Matt escaped the clutches of corporations for a return to small town life; Utah Matt succumbed to the clutches of the corporations he hated.

Having pensions and health care contingent on employment gives corporations a large competitive advantage over proprietors and small businesses, and that is just the tip of the iceberg.  Over the past few decades bankruptcy laws have tightened for small businesses, while bailouts are saved for the corporations “too big to fail.”  The cost of higher education has escalated to the point of making graduates indentured servants to the corporations that most readily can provide gainful employment to pay down student loans, rather than risk entrepreneurial endeavors.

Still, Utah Matt was the more blatantly bitter person from feeling he could not escape corporate employment, while Kansas Matt displayed refreshing energy in his innovative zest to overcome the hurdles.  Plus Kansas Matt was better poised to be a contributor to the health of his community.

Somebody hit and dented Ky’s bumper again while we attended the community supper, just a week after the previous accident to her parked car.  Once again she took the news admirably well, even though this time the van could not be left somewhere for a week to be repaired.  Fortunately, by this time I had received word from our Kansas City friends we met in Frisco.  Ardie and Gretchen arranged an itinerary for me with four speaking engagements in the area.  Ky contacted them for a place to get her car repaired again during our stay in Kansas City.

Our next town stop was Lakin.  We did not meet any new friends here, however the town has a policy of providing a motel stay for wayward travelers, for which we qualified.  Lakin’s population was only slightly larger than my home town of Norfolk, Connecticut but because of the wide open spaces and sparse populations out west, places like Lakin could be considered a city, while Norfolk is a quaint village.  A sign revealed that Lakin had a different church denomination for about every 150 residents.

We arrived at Garden City in time for Halloween.  We first stayed at the United Church of Christ (UCC), where the next morning I spoke at their church service and played guitar for their offertory during their Mission Sunday.  The last UCC church that hosted us was in Auburn, California.  We had a natural connection with this denomination, the same as our home church who vouched for us throughout the journey, but we were very ecunemical in where we laid our sleeping bags at night.  Any church floor would do as we crossed the plains.

We talked for a long while after church with Pastor Mike Lake and wife Mary about the kindness and friendships met along the way.  I confessed the bittersweet feelings I had in making good friends only to part from them in such a short time.  Mary shared that she often found herself in that situation as a pastor’s wife and would tell people upon leaving:  “Thank you for being a part of my life.”  I would use that parting as we traveled farther along.

After coffee hour, we moved to the home of Dale and Debra Bolton, which became our home base while we slackpacked the next two days.  That Sunday evening the Boltons threw their customary dinner party.  We recalled our first night in Kansas and the futility of securing ourselves from the dust storm.  That led to a host of stories around the table about the Dust Bowl years in southwest Kansas, when people placed wet cloths around all the windows and cracks in their own futile battles against the dust.  I am not sure anyone can fathom the futility these stories convey unless they experience ahead of time like we did.

Debra worked for the Cooperative Extension of Kansas State University and shared with me an interesting finding from her research:  the diets of immigrants are healthier in their homeland than after they move here.  Health also was on Debra’s mind for Halloween, as she handed out toothbrushes, donated by dentists, to the 1600 kids that came by that evening.  Meanwhile, we learned that Halloween back home had been cancelled due to an early snowstorm that dumped 18 inches in Norfolk, even more in some other places.

We left Crested Butte packed for a five day stretch that would bring us to Leadville, the highest town in the United States.  Already while hiking in Colorado we met more people than in the whole states of Nevada and Utah.  Though Barrett hiked with us for awhile in the same west-east direction, we encountered no long distance hikers coming the other way, on the ADT or any other trail.  Indeed, we met very few hikers going either way at any distance; most of our backcountry encounters were with ATV users.

That changed our second day out when we spotted a person heading westbound who appeared to be a long distance hiker, considering his gear, gait and conditioning.  I walked right up to him for a handshake and declared:  “You look like a long distance hiker, the first one we have seen coming from the opposite direction.  Let me shake your hand!”

Given the remote area where we met, we knew each other to be ADT hikers and sat down to chat for a spell.  I discovered I already knew about Mark’s former hiking partner while planning our journey.  His partner publicly declared himself to be hiking the ADT the year before us for a clean water cause.  Mark’s partner had dropped out and Mark took the winter off before resuming the hike in 2011.

Unlike with Barrett, our encounter would be a once only occurrence before resuming our hikes. We stretched out our chat as long as feasible, but cold weather and an approaching storm sent us moving on in our opposite directions.  Mark was not likely to encounter any other ADT distance hiker for the rest of his journey.  Only a handful of people thru-hike the ADT each year and most go in the same direction as Mark, the direction in which the ADT guide was written.  No one would be starting towards the end of summer from Point Reyes to go eastbound, regardless.

We were more likely than Mark to encounter another long distance hiker, but not for many months, as distance hikers usually avoid hiking throughout the winter.  We could not expect to bump into anyone else like us until the next calendar year, when we would hike through an Appalachian spring.  Speaking of winter, the weather had a wintry feel when we parted with Mark.  As our chat with him already held us up, we shortened our day in preparation for the likely storm coming.   

Whether by design or accident (I do not remember which now) we landed ourselves after only ten miles at Goodwin-Greene Cabin.  The cabin is part of the Braum hut system, which is much like the AMC huts of the White Mountains in New Hampshire.  When we first arrived, father and son from the state of Washington were there for the muzzle loading season, which had started after the bow season ended.  We trusted muzzle loaders similarly to bow hunters, equally adept at their craft and hospitable to hikers.  After eating supper they left the whole cabin to us while they camped out and scoped for game.

Inside the cabin we weathered a storm that dusted the higher elevations with snow, less than three weeks after we weathered a sandstorm in the desert.  We slept on mattresses near a wood stove and took advantage of the kitchen’s butter pecan syrup for our oatmeal in the morning.  We did not mind at all discovering we were a little bit sidetracked from the official ADT route.

Rather than backtrack the next morning we headed out cross country to rejoin the ADT at a high pass.  Orienteering to stay true to an obscure trail below treeline frustrates me, while orienteering over wide open high country invigorates me more than any other type of hiking.  How do I convey such a feeling?

Imagine your youthful desire for exploration, at least for those of us fortunate enough to grow up near natural landscapes.  First you explore your neighborhood, then the woods beyond your neighborhood, then perhaps the other side of the hill beyond those woods, increasingly expanding the boundaries of your freedom and curiosity.  Hiking cross country over alpine and subalpine lands extends these boundaries to their most independent, wild and beautiful limits.

The day started and ended with cross country work over high country, with a dip down in the middle to a mountain reservoir where we cooked lunch.  We met only two other hikers the whole day, a couple who were former NOLS instructors.  That gives you an indication of our remote location.  In fact, the alleged trail to follow near the end of the day disappeared through lack of use, which explains why we headed cross country over a 13,000’ pass.

Crossing the pass placed us on the eastern side of the Continental Divide, which we would cross two more times before permanently heading east away from the mountains.  The approach reminded me of another one coming from the other direction, not far away but 26 years ago.  After resupplying in Leadville, while staying in the firehouse during ten degree weather, the expedition I organized to hike the Continental Divide Trail left town to cross the divide.

Recent snowstorms presented about two feet of soft snow around between us and the pass, making the trail impossible to follow.  For some reason we were the only people crazy enough to be heading over the pass under these conditions, which meant we had to posthole a route up to the high altitude pass. As the leader I took on that grueling responsibility.  The image of looking back occasionally at my zig-zag path with the rest of the group determinedly following, remains vivid decades later.  On the one hand a very satisfying memory of cohesion and determination; on the other hand a memory that explains why we had just hiked through the Great Basin desert during the heat of summer.

That memory also recalled how Cindy could not keep up with me trudging up through the snow; nor could she keep up with me now on our cross country ascent.  Cindy had the most flawless stride of anyone I had the pleasure to hike behind.  Her efficiency enabled her to keep up with us taller folk effortlessly on mild terrain such as the desert, but climbing a mountain takes a good deal of lung power as well as leg power.

Twenty-six years ago we sat on our large packs and glissaded down the other side of the steep, snow-covered pass, a fun reward for our labors during the ascent.  Once we reached a level area we made camp before darkness approached.  That night Cindy and I kept our boots in our sleeping bags to keep them pliable during a night that dipped below zero.  The next morning my boots were fine while Cindy’s were stiff, despite having the same sleeping bag model.

Twenty-six years later the descent from our 13,000’ pass was instead the worst part of the day.  With still no obvious trail and no snow for glissading, we took a knee-shocking route down towards the treeline.  An added challenge was guessing where, once we came upon forest, the trail might finally appear.  Still, we had a satisfying day with a satisfying camp that evening … and our footgear did not freeze during the night.

When we reached Leadville I headed for the fire station, with hopes to revive the memory of the hospitality our Connecticut Continental Divide Expedition received in 1985.  Times changed and they declined to host us this time around.  However, on the way across town to the fire station a man out in his yard stopped us to find out what we were doing.  John Nicholas offered for us to stay at his place, but at the time we declined.  He then offered us twenty dollars but we declined that as well.  As we headed away he ran up to us, shouting that we dropped something.  In my outstretched hand he placed a twenty dollar bill and ran back before I could say anything.  We obviously had a place to stay when the fire station fell through.

While in Leadville I presented to my second college gig at Colorado Mountain College but, as was often the case during our journey, I received more information than I gave about kindness and community.  We also attended the vibrant community meals luncheon hosted at the St. George Episcopal Church.  I interviewed the director to discover why this program worked so well.  Ali Lufkin shared with us the three ingredients, plus the most memorable quote of our journey.

The community meals program worked to get people from all demographics attending the luncheons.  The mayor attended regularly; college faculty attended, as did students.  They also worked to get people from all demographics involved in the preparation of the meals, those well off and those downtrodden.  Finally, they required those preparing the meals to join those coming to eat the meals.  She summed up their philosophy with this quotable gem:

“We try to confuse who is giving and who is receiving.”

I see that now as the difference between community involvement, which has been waning in our country, and volunteerism, which has grown in response to the shrinking middle class and growing problems of poverty.  With volunteerism people are doing things for others; community involvement tackles similar goals by doing things with others.

As we continued across the country I inserted this quote into all my talks.  Colorado continued to feed one of our reasons for walking across the country with glowing examples of kindness and community.  I just hoped that when winter arrived our most important reason would not be undermined by the cold we had yet to face, which would affect Cindy more.