99% Invisible - 549- Trail Mix: Track Two

Episode Date: August 15, 2023

Welcome to our second episode of short stories all about what may be the original designed object: the trail. If you haven’t heard the first episode yet you should totally go back and listen. It’s a lot of fun.Take this episode with you on your next hike!Trail Mix: Track Two

This is 99% Infisible. I'm Roman Mars. You're listening to our second episode of short stories all about what may be the original designed object, the trail. If you haven't heard the first episode yet, you should totally go back and listen to it. It's a lot of fun. We're going to kick off this second episode with another conversation with author and trail expert Robert Moore. Robert wrote an excellent book called On Trails. I cannot recommend it highly enough. If you listen to the previous episode,

you heard him explore the origins of trails and the way they're shaped by culture. Today, Robert Moore is back to talk about his first hand experience, hiking and learning about one of the longest, most iconic trails in America. So Robert, your book begins with you talking about this huge challenge of hiking the Appalachian Trail, otherwise known as the AT.

Can you describe what the AT is and why it's such a massive undertaking to hike it? The Appalachian Trail is a roughly 2,000 mile path that basically follows the spine in the Appalachian Mountains. So it goes from Georgia to Maine, takes about three to six months to walk. I did it in about five. And it's five months of continuous hiking on a trail that follows a very rough route. A lot of other hiking trails, nowadays, have been graded for horses so that they will never go above a certain incline. The Appalachian Trail is much older than that. It's America's

oldest, very long trail. And so even though the mountains of the Appalachians are not as high as what you'd find in Colorado or California, it's just really arduous on a day-to-day basis. I think for that reason, it's become a kind of American pilgrimage. And you write in your book that the Appalachian Trail, it really started out as this radical idea. It was the first really long trail in the US, but it also has a lot of philosophy and high-minded

sort of notions about its existence. Could you talk about the origins of the trail itself? Yeah, so the person who came up with the Appalachian Trail as a guy by the name of Benton MacKai. And he had a dream of this wilderness space that would mirror the industrial belt way of the East Coast. And so it would be a place where the workers of the East Coast could escape to go up into the mountains, kind of refresh their spirits. And so, oddly, his original notion was not that people would be walking the entire trail in one go. That wasn't really something that was on his mind.

He was seeing it as a way of connecting a variety of recreation centers, even a kind of sanatorium, work farms, all of these outdoor sources of mental and physical health that he wanted to run all the way up these coast. And the funny thing that happened was people love the idea of the trail and not so much the rest of that other stuff. So that stuff kind of withered away

and what was left was this continuous line that people still to this day follow in a way that Benton Mekai had never intended. And what do you think it didn't take off in that way? I don't think Mekai properly anticipated how the culture of the Appalachian Trail would evolve. I don't think he knew how popular long distance Trail would evolve. I don't think he knew how popular long distance hiking would become, and I don't think he knew how this era of heroism or a sort of epic nature of the Appalachian Trail

would congeal in the American imagination. I don't think he could have known that until a guy by the name of Earl Schaefer went and hiked the entire trail in one go. When Earl Schaeffer did that, people didn't even believe him. He had to prove that he'd done it using photographs and his diary. And so I think that Benton McCuy was actually in an odd way looking at the Appalachian Trail in a way that's very similar to how we currently look at wilderness, which is as as a kind of source of mental and physical health, almost in a medicinal way, but also in a utopian way, a place where

we could go to form community and to improve the civic spirit. That is something that the American form of wilderness travel is not really worried itself with what we've worried about is going out as individuals into the wilderness proving our metal having sublime experiences of these beautiful mountains and forests and that is what the hiking aspect of the Appalachian Trail provided. person to hike the whole, like, original AT in one season. And he, he wrote, like, I almost wish the trail really was endless that no one could ever hike its length. And what is that desire? You know, like, I think a lot of people think of trails as maybe getting from one place to another. But there seems to be this alternate desire to extend and extend and extend and never have the man. Well, a funny thing happens when you finish the Appalachian Trail, which is you feel kind

of sad, you know. You think that it's going to be this joyous moment. And as I was approaching Katad and I remember every day, I would have the thought, oh, what if I twist my ankle? What if I fall and I can't hike anymore? And I would knock on wood. You know, thankfully there's a lot of wood around on the Appalachian Trail.

But I was doing this multiple times a day, literally knocking on wood multiple times a day, thinking I just want to get to the end. I just want to get to the end because I don't want to fall short of my goal. And then when you get there, you realize that, you know that there's no more trail. You've come to the end.

And there's a sadness. And I think anyone who's read a really great book knows that feeling where you get to the last page and you think, I wish it kept going. And so there are people who do all sorts of things to try to extend that experience. They'll walk from Georgia to Maine and they'll turn around and go back to Georgia. Or they'll walk the Appalachian Trail every year. It's like we want to be able to continue on the pilgrimage without it ending because it is such a beautiful experience. So after you walk the entire length of the Appalachian Trail, it's 2,181 miles. You yourself decided that you wanted to extend that experience and you went on to walk something called the International Appalachian Trail.

So what is the International Appalachian Trail? Basically a guy named Dick Anderson who lived up in Maine was looking at and maps one day and he realized that the logic of the Appalachian Trail is that it follows the Appalachian Mountains. And yet the Appalachian Mountains don't end at Mount Catadon. The Appalachian Mountains. And yet, the Appalachian Mountains don't end in Mount Kitatin. The Appalachian Mountains keep going up through Canada. So we thought, well, why not make the trail longer? Why not just keep going as if the border doesn't exist? And in that way, it was kind of a subtly political act as well,

to go beyond borders, to imagine a world without borders. And so that's exactly what he did. He extended the trail farther and farther. And then as soon as he got to Newfoundland, he started talking to geologists. And the geologists said to him, well, you know, the Appalachians don't really end in Newfoundland either. The Appalachians are also over in Europe because when the Appalachian Mountains formed, they were this kind of seam that split along the coast of North America on the east side and then the west side of Europe. And so you could continue following the Appalachian geology if you really wanted to down through all of Europe into North Africa.

And that was a really mind-blowing idea that I think Dick Anderson really likes. We are now entering this weird post-modern realm where a trail becomes a kind of text, you know, where a trail is aligned on a map, a trail is an idea, a trail is a story, a trail is a collection of scientific data surrounding geology, it becomes really tricky to pin down what a trail is if we're going to say that you can walk from Georgia to Morocco. But at the end of the day, I think a trail is a story. A trail is a story we tell ourselves about why we're following a certain route and why we're taking that journey.

It's what gives the journey significance in some sense. It's a kind of myth, we tell ourselves. Yeah, yeah. I think originally when I was walking on trails I had this feeling that there was something slightly conformist, you know, that I should have been this pathbreaker. I should have been someone breaking new ground. But after writing this book, after spending all this time, thinking about what a trail really is, now when I walk a trail I see myself as taking part in this collective creation of meaning,

really the making of meaning out of chaos, which is the most fundamental thing that we as human beings do. And there's something really, really beautiful in that. Fans of the show who have read our book, the 99% visible city co-authored by Krakow Stead and myself, know that desire paths are trails created not by design, but rather carved out by foot traffic as people take the path they desire and wear them in over time. Hollowways, or simply one word, hollowways, are desire paths gone wild, reflecting centuries or even millennia of informal use. They often start as flat paths and they get carved into the ground by things going over

them again and again and again. Some of them are so deep, they look look like long sunken half-pipes. Many hollowways and places like Europe have been eroded over the centuries by a combination of foot traffic, farm animals, laden carts, and rivers of water. The word hollow way itself has been traced back to the old English hollow-wegg meaning sunken road. Many of the actual half tunnels though are thought to date all the way back to Roman times. They are often particularly deep in places where the ground is soft, containing high amounts of sandstone and chalk. Today's some holoays have been made more official, you can find an especially long network of these sunken paths in Germany. But across the world, many holoays are doing just what they've always done, forming themselves slowly and steadily under our feet.

For our next trail story, 99PI producer and editor Kelly Prime recorded her journey on a bike trail that begins not in a remote forest or a mountain range, but in one of the most densely populated urban centers in the country. I am on the Empire State Trail, which is this insanely long, like 750 mile long trail you can take from New York City to Canada, Albany to Buffalo, and you know you think a trail needs to be, you know, in wilderness, pastoral, but actually you've got trails in the city too, at least partly. It can get you surprisingly far on two wheels. We're gonna keep going on this trail all the way up to Crotten Point

which is about a almost a 50 mile bike ride from New York. One eternity later. We're in Crotten Point Park right now. Little campsite with some swimming just finished our coffee. We are packing up camp. We biked for many hours yesterday So what I'm looking at we've got two tons set up for bikes leading up against a tree pennier stuff with stuff I think we're all feeling a little tired,

little sore after yesterday, but we are about to start our return into the city, coming back the way we came. Like how are you feeling about our trip back in New York. Pretty pumped. Just hoping you had your rain back. Yeah. 12 seconds later. It's raining. How's the feel back there? I'm flashing. Refreshing! 5 points and waiting area. Yes, that's your goal. Congratulations. Thank you for your collaboration. Started raining really hard. Got this old bike.

The brakes are not working right. So we are going home on the Metro North, which will take us from Austin, up here, down to 125th in Harlem. But it's been a good trip so far We can see the convenience of that train on the trail That has room for bikes And it was free time we need to go. It's amazing. It's almost like a trail of its own.

You haven't seen that? One might say that. For a podcast. Oh, it's a suit. Frequent campers and hikers probably know the word gorp, but for those who don't, it's spelled G-O-R-P, all caps, and it's another name for trail mix. This mix of oats, nuts, chocolate raisins, and other ingredients for on-the-go energy dates back over a century, though the term trail mix wasn't popularized until the 1960s and 70s. In other places, these mixes go by other names too, like Scrogan in New Zealand and Australia.

That's my personal favorite. In America, trail mix has become a useful generic, but Gorp is still a popular shorthand for those in the know. But where did that strange name come from? According to recreational equipment ink, better known as REI, Gorp might stand for good old raisins and peanuts, or maybe Cranola oats, raisins and peanuts, but there are other possible explanations too. A century old definition for the word Gorp suggests that it meant to eat greedily, and if

that's true, that would make gorp a backer-nam. As in, an acronym created after the fact based on letters already in an existing word. Like almost every government program that spells something like the CARES Act is a backer-nam. Whatever the origin, the word gorp has more recently been incorporated into a portmanteau tied with another aspect of trail-centric lifestyles, wilderness chic apparel. Here to tell us all about that is Avery Trophiman. Hello.

Avery is the host and creator of Articles of Interest and today she's here to talk about Gorp Kor. So Avery, can you tell me what Gorp Kor is and where it came from? I feel as though sort of post quarantine, we all sort of emerged from our hideaways and everyone was like, what's going on? Guys, what are we all wearing? And the answers were like, no, core, Barbie core, bistro core. It's like, what is going on? But

one of the earliest cores, this was 2015 was was Gorb core. And it was coined by, I believe, Jason Chan in the cut. And it's this concept of looking like you're going hiking when you're not. When you, you're wearing, you're wearing hiking shoes, you're wearing archerics, you know, sweat wicking windbreakers, you are wearing shorts that look like they should be rolled up

with carabiners all over them. And you are just like walking your dog. You are dressed way more severely than you have to be. And I'm sure we'll talk about this, but there's a lot more gorp in all of our lives than we might know. And so this is both in people's everyday where they're wearing gorp gorp,

but it's also like reaches the heights of high fashion as well, correct? Yes, yes, yes, especially, you know, again, like just before the pandemic, I mean, there was this moment where Virgil Abo showed up at New York Fashion Week wearing a Arcteric windbreaker, you know, to like sit front row at a runway show. And there have been all these collaborations between some high fashion brand and some outdoorsy brand. And they're just getting wilder and wilder. I believe it was a North facing Gucci and fashion world loves it. So Gorp Chor is a fairly new term. But this idea of dressing for the wilderness, even

if you aren't going to be in the wilderness is an old one. Can you tell me a little bit about the history of Gorp Kor? What Gorp Kor is depends on the era, right? But if you go way back in time and think about, you know, Teddy Roosevelt and what we thought American outdoorsmen looked like, that was kind of a form of Gorp Kor, which is to say, it was sort of a form of cosplay. And what I mean by that is like, there was this idea that the rugged American frontier man

wouldn't buy anything. He would make all his own stuff and he would find a deer and skin a deer and tan the leather and make his own suit. And that was like what real outdoorsy dudes did. And there were all these outdoorsmen magazines that were talking about how important it was to not buy your stuff pre-made and make it all yourself.

When most of those guys also did not make it themselves. Honestly, Teddy Roosevelt bought his buckskin suit from an indigenous woman, because that was who made those clothes. And so this idea that rugged Americans have always gone shopping, like our experience with the great outdoors has been mediated by buying stuff.

And ever since, over the course of, especially the 20th century, but really, you know, as early as the 1850s, really ever since the rise of mass produced clothes, the idea of like, can you buy the right stuff? Do you know what to buy has been a marker of experience and authenticity and expertise in the American outdoor leisure space. It's, it seems to me like from the very beginning, like right now, when you think of Gorpkort, you think of these high tech fabrics and they're always new when they're always stretchier and they're always like moisture wickier and all kinds of things are going on.

I believe that's the technical term. It's the most real clear. But it really is a fashion that's been obsessed with technology from the very beginning. Like it's always about the newest way to keep us from dry and comfortable. Can you talk about that from the start of it? Yeah. I mean, arguably, a huge part of Gorpkourt is the footwear. And I think nowadays it's most notable with what I think,

sorry, are these really ugly shoes that everyone's so into, like these marbles and these salmons and these things that look very strange. And that really started in the 1920s with the L.O. Bean duck boot. That was considered the height of technology, this idea that before that, outdoorsmen were wearing moccasins

and it's like, oh my God, what if you went duck hunting and you could weigh it in the water and your feet would get less wet? And it's interesting because in early LLB catalog, they're really specific, they're really for the outdoorsmen, and they're really overtly about hunting.

And I believe the LLB catalog is like, second only to your gun, the most important thing for the outdoors is like your bean boots. And yes, that's sort of the origin of this idea that like there is a better way. You could be comfortable. Why wouldn't you just be more comfortable outdoors? Yeah, and a lot of these things that we recognize today got started sort of selling that

outdoorsy aesthetic. They were all sort of concentrated around this vibe with the outdoorsmen, like the whole scene in the stores and everything in the catalogs, can you just describe what they were going for? Yeah, I mean, one of the interesting things is like, Abercrombing Fitch was founded in 1892 and in 1904, they launched this multi-story headquarters in Manhattan and it is full of taxidermy. It is just like antlers everywhere. It is supposed to be a place for rugged outdoorsmen to get together and hang out.

And the interesting thing about Abercrombie and Fitches, as opposed to sort of the early outdoorsmen who are like, oh, you're supposed to make everything themselves, even though they very hypocritically did not actually do that. At Abercrombie and Fitch, one of their selling points was like, our salespeople are the best. They are all hunters. They are all hunters. They are all outdoorsmen.

You should come to us and we will help you have a better outdoor trip. And this is the place to come and swap stories and swap tools and get kidded up for your next adventure. Which when you think about it, it was like the epitome of luxury. This is really before the National Park System expands to go to nature from New York City, even though it was probably really like the Bronx back then. You needed a car, you needed time, and you needed to have like many days. It was an incredible luxury. So this was

just considered the epitome of wealth. This was like the swanky thing. And so you can see this, this archetype of like the outdoor gentleman as this aspirational thing in late 1800s, early 1900s. And it's like on the cover of all the catalogs around this time, like the early Abercrampian fish catalogs, they're all illustrated. And it's always like a guy wrangling a fish with a jaunty pipe. You know, he's like a gentleman, outdoorsman, and that is considered like the ideal.

And you know, he's got a punch, like he's a comfortable and outdoor guy. I'm not sure you can wrangle a fish. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you should see that I should send you some of these illustrations. They are like a man like actively wrestling with nature in some capacity, like leaning out of his canoe to like grab a fit, you know, because sure he may be a gentleman hunter, but these stores were all incredibly niche.

These were incredibly rare. So anyone who was actually going out in nature did have to be sort of well versed and sort of experience. And that's part of why the knowledge of how to do all this stuff was just like the ultimate flex, you know, to say that you know how to how to defend for yourself out there in the wild was like, damn, you've done this a couple times. It's very impressive. Yeah, and I think it's interesting because the term Gorp Core is fairly new, but the need for this aesthetic and the high-tech underpinnings of this aesthetic has been around for a very long time, almost from the beginning, and this desire to constantly improve and make it

service better goes back to the very beginning of what could be considered gorp core. I mean, the funny thing is now arguably, I think. I mean, say whatever you want about gorp core is a fashion trend. I don't partake, but philosophically, I really like that it is saying that the city is also nature. We also want to be dry and comfortable walking the dog or going to buy eggs at the corner store. Like we also live in the environment, the man-made environment, but it's still, it's not like we have this fancy costume change to go out and take a walk. It's, I kind of, I think that's a bit more

start-torially honest. Well, I'm totally fascinated by this history and I take it, you have been fascinated by this history too. I take it, this is a part of a new series. You guessed correctly, this is going to be the next multi-part season of Articles of Interest, and it is so fascinating. Yeah. It goes way beyond Gorpcore. It's like all of our clothes. Awesome. Well, I can't wait to listen to it. Thank you so much, Avery. Thanks, Roman. This is fun. Our final trail story, at least for today, is after the break.

Our final trail story of the day is about something many of us can relate to, longing to get back on a favorite trail. Here is 99Pi producer Jason Dillion. I spent the first few months of this year curled up on the couch with my dog Hazel. She's my first dog, a spirited 60-pound black German shepherd mix with a stick-lush coat and these pearly white markings on her chest and paws. Normally, Hazel is a pretty active dog. She loves chasing rabbits out of the garden and playing keep away with me in the backyard.

Hey, no, drop it. Drop it is. But back in February, Hazel had to go on crate rest. A neurologist diagnosed her with a rare birth defect in her back, and she needed surgery. The operation left her with this gnarly scar that stretched from the base of her tail up into the middle of her torso, nearly 8 inches of tissue that got sliced through, and then stitched back together like the seams of a baseball. At night, my wife and I took turns lying down next to her. Sometimes, Hazel would be stretched out on her side, loudly snoring.

Other times, she'd be running in her sleep. And it's this little twitch of the paws that gave me and my wife some relief, because we both knew exactly where Hazel was dreaming of running. Hi, Lowe, let's go! Oh, here they come. Stella gets very jealous when everybody goes in plays in the water and Sinanchi can't get to them. This is John Burnett, but honestly I only learned that recently. For over a year we refer to each other by our dog's names, so to me John was Stella, Arlo,

and Freddie's dad. It's actually Arlo Guthrie, Freddie Mercury, and Stella like from street cars. Stella! John is one of a dozen or so other dog parents that I've gotten to know while walking Hazel on her favorite trail. It sits about a mile down the road from us on the south side of Providence, Rhode Island. Before the surgery, Hazel and I used to come back here every morning. The main entrance has this dark brown wooden bridge that leads to a series of paths which

run parallel and butt up against the river. At first, the whole thing looks pretty unexceptional, overgrown with knotweed, brambles, and a few decent sized patches of poison ivy. Most of it is unmarked too, and so for the uninitiated, it may not seem like much of a trail at all, but for the neighborhood dogs these paths are everything. So this is now our thing every, basically every day. We're in here and sometimes twice a day. Caroline brought the dogs out last evening to go for a swim.

John told me that over 60 years ago, the entrance to the path used to be a paved walkway to a local business where residents could rent canoes and go rowing. But once that closed down and the pavement got ripped up, the trail became less a way to get from here to there and more the destination itself. If the trail is the destination, the dogs are the reason for the trip. There's nothing quite like seeing six, seven, or even on a good date, 10 dogs just ripping it through the woods.

The first few times we brought Hazel to the trail, she'd cross the bridge with her nose to the dirt, trying to smell the other dogs up ahead. In the summer, the beach is usually where her nose leads us. A spot where two paths converge is usually where her nose leads us, a spot where two paths converge on the Patuxet River and form a little patch of land for the dogs to fetch sticks in the water. The rivers named after the Patuxet band of the Narragantid tribe, who for generations lived in this area and found nourishment in these waters. But the land was colonized, and before long chemical plants and other upstream polluters started dumping ungodly amounts of noxious waste into the river. The people who lived in towns along the banks of the Patuxet spoke of a dark, foul smelling

deposit that washed up on their shores. For a long time, it was known as the dirtiest river in Rhode Island. Somehow still managing to be exceptional, even in a state chock full of polluted waterways. While there's still a lot more work to do, it's true that over the last few decades, the water quality has improved. And that's in large part thanks to the people in the area who've become stewards, not only of the river, but of the past that have been carved all around it. People in the woods here, a lot of people just kind of do their thing.

They don't talk about it, and they don't ask for feedback or affirmation. They just come along and they'll trim a tree or pick up some trash or clean out some garbage because it's just the right thing to do. In addition to walking his dogs back here, John is also one of a group of people who helps keep the trail and walking shape for the rest of us. When I caught up with him, he was trimming back some invasive plants that have made a tiny canopy on the root to the water, which honestly looked kind of nice, but John reminded me that it was a mega hotbed for ticks. So this is kind of a

hands-on thing that I I can do and feel good about and I know that other people in the woods really value it. It's the least I can do to take care of a place that I care so much about. In the months Hazel spent recovering from surgery, I hadn't gone to the trail once. Neither had my wife. We missed talking with John and the rest of our trail friends, and we really missed the dogs. We wondered whether some of the older ones like Ozzy had made it through the winter, whether Hazel would still be able to wrestle with her best friend Bowie the way she used to. And one morning in the

late spring, after Hazel built herself back up, it was finally time to find out. The three of us piled into the car for the short drive to the trail. As we got closer, I could see in the rear view Hazel's eyes beaming. Her tail wagging, almost twitching with anticipation. When we arrived and opened the car door, Hazel bolted out, running towards her friend's Bowie and Ozzie. Oh, there she goes. My goodness Ozzy you're excited.

These days we're back to walk in the trail every morning and Hazel cannot be more thrilled. to walk in the trail every morning and Hazel cannot be more thrilled. Hazel! Here's a U-swimming! Oh, look at that, it's doing a little water therapy. She's once again running up and down this path that's been worn in not only by generations of people who've walked through, but by the way to the love that we each carry for our most loyal friends. 99% Invisible was produced this week by Jason Dillion, Lashma Dawn, Jacob Maldonado Medina, and Kelly Prime, edited by Kelly Prime, who would like to note that her friends Nina

Loro and Michael Samson did very valiantly end up biking the Empire State Trail through the downpour all the way back to New York City. Only she went out and took the train. Sound makes by Martin Gonzales, music by a director of Sound Swan Rihall. Delaney Hall as the senior editor, Kurt Colstead is the digital director. The rest of the team includes Chris Barrupe, Emmett Fitzgerald, Vivian Leigh, Joe Rosenberg, Christopher Johnson, intern Anna Castanero, and me Roman Mars. The 99% of his logo was created by Stefan Lawrence, an extra special thanks this week to Dr. Parsley, who helped get Hazel back on the trail.

We are part of the Stitcher and Sirius XM podcast family, now headquartered six blocks north in the Pandora building, in beautiful, uptown, Oakland, California. You can find the show and join discussions about the show on Facebook. You can tweet at me at Roman Mars and the show at 99PI org. We're on Instagram, Reddit, and TikTok too. You can find links to other Stitcher shows I love, as well as every past episode of 99PI at 99PI.org. you