I met a genuine dirt bag on Monday!
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Sunday was a nice ten miles on the Midstate Trail with my new hiking buddy Samia and her boyfriend Chris P. We ended up at a true gem a small federal park called Barre Falls. The Army Cops of Engineers designed a pretty cool frisbee golf course around the dam area, and we met a ton of golfers there.
No court on Monday, so I went up the Kinsman Ridge via Fishin’ Jimmy. I was in shorts and a t-shirt, but still spent the majority of the day hiking on snow, some as deep as thigh-high. It will be another two weeks before the monorail disappears, I would bet.
Anyhow, on the drive up Monday morning, I was listening to a 2012 podcast where the host Fitz Cahill opined that he hoped at some point in each person’s life, they lived out a vehicle. In part to discover how little they need to get by, and in part to have the adventure of going where the roads takes them.
I get off the trail at a the end of the day, and across from my car, there’s a gent sitting on the tail of his truck, and perhaps because I was so spent from the postholing and sliding and putting the microspikes only to take them off a few minutes later (which I must have done at least a dozen times that day), I asked him what he had hiked.
He didn’t know! He said, “I went up that trail over there until I topped out.” The trail was Falling Waters, and he had topped out on Little Haystack. The aspect of the tail was such that it got a lot more sun than what I had done, and the man, whose name I later learned was John, said the trail was pretty well baked and mostly clear of snow.
“I’m not from around here,” he explained. It turns out that John had gotten divorced, sold his house, and everything he owned was in his truck. He had driven down the West Coast, then across the country. “It’s a lot easier out West,” he said, “BLM land is easy to camp on.” I noted we had too much population in the New England for that.
He noted the sign in the parking lot saying no overnight camping. I tried to direct him to the Hancocks campground, not that far away. $20 a night.
“No,” he said, “I refuse to pay for camping.” I knew of a federal campsite nearby, but figured it wasn’t worth the effort to direct him.
I asked him if he had every listened to the Dirtbag Diaries. He had no clue about podcasts. No need, really, he was living it, after all. I noted that I had just heard the host talking about living out of a vehicle and how little one needed. John pointed out the bins where all of his life’s belongings resided. “You don’t need a lot,” he explained.
“Where are you going next?” I asked. John was a bit loose on geography, but the general gist was that he was going to head as far north up the Eastern Seaboard into Canada as he could go.
I never had that phase of my life, of not knowing where I was going or where I wanted to be. My entire life I have been Establishment, planning, publishing, goal-oriented. Sure, I can talk the talk, and I have been gifted with a love for the outdoors that allows me to swap stories with pretty much anyone I could meet at a trailhead pretty much anywhere, and in the end, that love is what binds us, I suppose. But the unattached, like John, who can’t tell you what they just hiked or where they are heading? No, I will never be that person, although I am glad they exist.
View attachment 7054
Sunday was a nice ten miles on the Midstate Trail with my new hiking buddy Samia and her boyfriend Chris P. We ended up at a true gem a small federal park called Barre Falls. The Army Cops of Engineers designed a pretty cool frisbee golf course around the dam area, and we met a ton of golfers there.
No court on Monday, so I went up the Kinsman Ridge via Fishin’ Jimmy. I was in shorts and a t-shirt, but still spent the majority of the day hiking on snow, some as deep as thigh-high. It will be another two weeks before the monorail disappears, I would bet.
Anyhow, on the drive up Monday morning, I was listening to a 2012 podcast where the host Fitz Cahill opined that he hoped at some point in each person’s life, they lived out a vehicle. In part to discover how little they need to get by, and in part to have the adventure of going where the roads takes them.
I get off the trail at a the end of the day, and across from my car, there’s a gent sitting on the tail of his truck, and perhaps because I was so spent from the postholing and sliding and putting the microspikes only to take them off a few minutes later (which I must have done at least a dozen times that day), I asked him what he had hiked.
He didn’t know! He said, “I went up that trail over there until I topped out.” The trail was Falling Waters, and he had topped out on Little Haystack. The aspect of the tail was such that it got a lot more sun than what I had done, and the man, whose name I later learned was John, said the trail was pretty well baked and mostly clear of snow.
“I’m not from around here,” he explained. It turns out that John had gotten divorced, sold his house, and everything he owned was in his truck. He had driven down the West Coast, then across the country. “It’s a lot easier out West,” he said, “BLM land is easy to camp on.” I noted we had too much population in the New England for that.
He noted the sign in the parking lot saying no overnight camping. I tried to direct him to the Hancocks campground, not that far away. $20 a night.
“No,” he said, “I refuse to pay for camping.” I knew of a federal campsite nearby, but figured it wasn’t worth the effort to direct him.
I asked him if he had every listened to the Dirtbag Diaries. He had no clue about podcasts. No need, really, he was living it, after all. I noted that I had just heard the host talking about living out of a vehicle and how little one needed. John pointed out the bins where all of his life’s belongings resided. “You don’t need a lot,” he explained.
“Where are you going next?” I asked. John was a bit loose on geography, but the general gist was that he was going to head as far north up the Eastern Seaboard into Canada as he could go.
I never had that phase of my life, of not knowing where I was going or where I wanted to be. My entire life I have been Establishment, planning, publishing, goal-oriented. Sure, I can talk the talk, and I have been gifted with a love for the outdoors that allows me to swap stories with pretty much anyone I could meet at a trailhead pretty much anywhere, and in the end, that love is what binds us, I suppose. But the unattached, like John, who can’t tell you what they just hiked or where they are heading? No, I will never be that person, although I am glad they exist.
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