A Changing World

Delaware Water Gap, PA
Mile 1280

A week of record temperatures has afficted this area of Pennsylvania near the NJ state line. In a few generations this forest will die, in fact has already started dying, as the interglacial period continues into its warming period. Whether or not the warming is human-related, it (and the impending energy crisis) will be a test of how well we have built our culture. Can we adapt in a changing world? Can people live and do without, or will they savage each other for the last pint of Ben & Jerry's? I like to think that people are generally nice, but I'm pragmatic enough to steer clear of the freezer section.

In any case, this is the hardest part of the trail so far. The grade is gradual (although the chaotic landsape of sofa-sized boulders makes things interesting), but hundred degree temperatures combined with Florida-esque humidity makes walking a torment, and dangerous. Pouring sweat, even when sitting, combined with very sparse watering holes, means you have to slow down, or risk suffering through a voluminous textbook of heat-related maladies. The heat is much worse for you than the cold, it seems.

Well, that's not quite true, but death by cold is quicker, more merciful. The heat toys with you like a physical interrogation. It makes you think that YOU are the weak one, YOU are the one so out of shape that you need to stop every hour. I'm not making you lie down on that cold rock, says the heat. You're the one that's stopping. Like a prisoner, the hiker must always remind himself that the heat is responsible, not himself. The heat is what makes him weak and nauseated- the heat makes it necessary to cool the body core against a rock. The heat is the enemy. It is trying to trick me. It will not defeat me.

In spots the mosquitoes are as bad as anything in the Everglades. We are not even in the serious bug country yet, the swamps of New Jersey and New York. Staying in shelters is no longer an option; sleep would be impossible without bug netting. Between the bugs and the awesome heat, I feel like I am doing a dramatic interpretation of At Play in the Fields of the Lord. Any moment I expect curious Yanomamo to peer through the tent door, speaking strange words and asking for cargo.

Tonight the heat is supposedly going to break a little bit. Until then, I will be at the DWG's hiker potluck, sponsored by the local Church, where locals bring vats of food and watch in horrified fascination as we eat. We eat a lot. There's no polite way to say just how much is a lot, but I'd like to say that I have never before seen "horrified fascination" so clearly expressed in people's faces.

Speaking of which, the Sycamore Grill here in town has a hamburger that has knocked the current #1 trail burger, the Hillbilly Burger at the Barn Restaurant in Sugar Grove, VA. The current top three trail burgers are now:

1) The Bar Angus at the Sycamore Grill, DWG PA
2) The Hillbilly Burger at The Barn in Sugar Grove VA
3) The Wesser Burger at the NOC in Wesser NC

Congratulations to the Bar Angus!

Pardon this somewhat scattered log entry, but I daresay that the heat is affecting my concentration as an essayist. Time to loiter somewhere air-conditioned!