Crowded Mountain

I sometimes go to hike at a local state park called Crowders Mountain. People who go there for solitude will mainly look in vain because its nickname is "Crowded Mountain" for good reason. Not only are there almost always a lot of people there hiking, you can never really get away from the sound of automobile engines due to the park's proximity to major roadways, including Interstate 85.

So I don't go there very much. (Only when I'm desperate.)

Similarly, I no longer go on extended hikes on the famed Appalachian Trail. It was never really a place to find true solitude. There have always (in my experience) been too many people hiking on it to find any real silence and peace. However, when I was younger you could travel it at certain times of the year and find yourself alone for a day or so. But as the years have passed I've found that this is no longer the case, with literally hundreds of people using stretches of it on any given day.

The last time I hiked a multi-day trip on the AT I swore would be my last. This is because I found it to be just way too crowded. Groups of people hiking together. People hiking with their freaking dogs. Camping areas and shelters packed to bursting with humans. The stench of human feces blasting for many yards in every direction at overused pit toilets. Bothersome creepy through-hikers with their annoying nicknames bugging the crap out of you.

This was not the Appalachian Trail of my youth.

But occasionally I would still venture there to day-hike. Sometimes I'd even find myself alone on the Trail with complete silence all around me and no pesky humans to bug me. This year I even entertained the idea of an overnight backpack on a section of the AT where I figured I might find some solitude if I went when the weather was cold.

But something is about to happen that I've feared for some time. The long-rumored movie to be produced and starred by Robert Redford is going to hit the screens. Yes, Bryson's excellent A WALK IN THE WOODS is going to be seen in movie theaters and home systems in the near future. After that, everyone who ever had even the slightest inclination to backpack the Appalachian Trail is going to go out and buy equipment and hit the Trail. It's going to be one long wait at the mountain range's checkout line. Yes, your local REI and Dick's Sporting Goods are going to rack up massive sales, but any chance one might have to enjoy the Trail are going to be gone. At least until the coming fad withers away.

Oy.

May of 2011 on the AT on Unaka Mountain. Actual solitude. I saw not one other hiker.

On the AT, same day. Soft grasses and cool mists. No voices.

May 2010. My last multi-day backpack on the AT. Everything I hate about what the trail has become. Dogs. Crowds (there were, eventually, about three dozen people at the shelter). Annoying folk. Fecal stench. No thank you.

And here come Redford and Nolte to compound the problem. Alas.

Actors Tough Enough to be Hemingway's Pal

There's always a place for the genuine bad ass in Hollywood. And I'm not talking about some wuss actor who can pretend to be a tough guy. I'm talking about the guys who really are tough, who were tough. The guys who weren't completely pretending to beat the shit out their opponents when they were outnumbered.

The following are my list of the toughest of the tough. The real bad asses. Ernest Hemingway would have respected these guys:

Steve McQueen, the #1 tough guy in all of Hollywood history, as far as I'm concerned. Certified cool.

Yeah, Robert Mitchum was a close second. He beat the shit out of Marines in real life.

You had to like Lee Marvin. He really was a Marine and got shot in the ass by machine gun fire in Saipan. Most of his platoon was killt, but not Marvin. Yeah, that's tough.

Hell. Anthony Quinn. He was siring babies when he was in his seventies. And playing the great god Zeus around that time. It fit. As a young man he boxed professionally to earn extra money and was friends with Frank Lloyd Wright. Well, shit! It just cain't get much cooler than that!

Jack Palance. Yeah, one tough bastard. He was once 15-0 as a heavyweight pro boxer with 12 knockouts. He finally lost a close decision to a ranked contender and called it quits and was drafted. Burned in a training accident as a paratrooper, he had reconstructive surgery on his face which left him with the gaunt look we came to know on screen. The funniest thing I ever saw in a movie was a fight between him (as Toriance) and Charlton Heston (as Ed Bannon)--we were supposed to believe that Cheston could beat Palance. Right. For Palance, that was some real acting.

Well, I have to include a couple of modern actors. I don't think I need to elaborate too much here with Nick Nolte. Shit. Yeah, we've all had a laugh at his arrest mug shot. OK, OK--it's funny. But nobody as honest as this guy can be anything other than a total badass. He's got my vote for that. Damned good actor, too.

Sean Penn is not only one of our great modern actors, he's also got a toughness that's not just projected. It's real. Has to be. It takes guts to go against the grain of the status quo, which he does frequently. Viva Chavez, baby!