Backpacker

BACKPACKER.COM 69living the party—and wearing a gold lamé f lapper dress, poised to walk witha Great Gatsby-themed group in Trail Days’s annual parade. She invokesMacKaye, the trail’s progenitor, saying he actually wanted people to have funon the trail. In his long-ago journal ar ticle, she notes, MacK aye didn’t call on hisreaders to become ascetics and hermits; he called on them to build communitiesof like-minded folks linked by the trail.The word “community” is repeated throughout MacKaye’s treatise, Miss Janetstresses. “The idea,” she says, “was for people to get to know one another.” TrailDays in Damascus, a town that swells to welcome all AT lovers, might be the truestexpression of that sentiment—and Riff Raff among its most ardent practitioners.Miss Janet knows everyone in Damascus. As we’re chatting, people keepcoming up to our table to hug her, or to clutch her hand and reminisce beforeasking if she’ll pose with them for a photo. Soon, she is spirited outside, into theparking lot, where the hiking multitudes are staging for the parade beneath abrooding gray sky, their costumes so outlandish and bright that in time I losesight of Miss Janet and her gold lamé dress in the havoc.And then I stand on the sidewalk and watch the procession. At first, the hikersare divided by year of AT completion. Here’s the class of 1982, represented by asingle jolly, white-bearded fellow in an indigo kilt. Here are the classes of 1994,1997, and 1999—a few earnest souls who looked like they’ve stepped from thepages of a vintage L.L.Bean catalog. Next come some jokesters; the banner reads“No Class of 2001. Hiker Trash.”Then, eventually, come the Riff Raffers, nearly all of them wearing skull-and-poles T-shirts with their trail names—Irish Charm, Wolfpine, Pound Puppy—printed on the back. Disney is wearing an orange-and-purple necktie over hisT-shirt, and he is passing out shiny Mardi Gras beads. Everyone in Riff Raff issinging at the top of their lungs, but the sound of their a cappella chorus is so dis-cordant, and so undercut by the spontaneous hollers of bystanders, that it takes mea minute to discern they are singing “The Star Spangled Banner.”The Classes of 2016 and 2017 follow Riff Raff, and in this sea of humanity,everyone is weaving all over the road, or taking selfies, or raising their arms highand hooting for joy as Nerf footballs loft through the sky. I watch as a young manin green polka-dot tights toots a red plastic bugle, inexpertly.When the parade ends, rain comes down in sheets. A few miles away, on thetrail that binds each of these celebrants, it is quiet, and the green leaves glistenwith rainwater. It’s a reminder that even the biggest party on the AT is fleeting.Soon, Riff Raff and others will clean up their camps and depart, leaving the great“wooded wilderness” of Appalachia as quiet as it ever was. n``````Bill Donahue lives in New Hampshire and is a regular contributor to themagazine. He was not offered a Riff Raff shirt.``````unattended coolers that invite wild-life and litter.)Meanwhile, the Trail Days partycontinues to rage. As evening falls,my attention is drawn to a blaze—“Miss Janet’s Bonfire,” everyone callsit, because it happens directly in frontof her regal, 10-person tent. I reachthe fire at about 9 p.m. and find aplace in the huge crowd. It feels likeit’s about 150°F where I’m standing.There are legions more people closerto the burning logs, forming a tightring. Some are pounding on drums.Others are traipsing—not dancing,really, but moving in a slow, dazed,hypnotized shuff le—around thef lames. When a couple of guys throwa giant tree branch onto the pyre,sparks dance and everyone cheers.In time, a slight guy emerges fromthe crowd wearing nothing but a redski cap and black Speedo with a packof cigarettes tucked into the waistband. His body is Magic Markeredwith words—Thug Life, 2 Time, NoRegrets—scribed by his friends,and he is beating a snare drum. Hethrashes it maniacally, leaping everynow and then into the air, to let loose abloodcurdling scream. The crowd echoes each time witha howl of its own.TRAIL DAYS IS AN opt-in affair, but it’s gettingharder to opt out of its party scene. I’m sittingat the $5 bacon-and-eggs breakfast at theDamascus Fire Department when this becomes clear.It’s me and one young female thru-hiker. We sharea tacit smugness to be among the living in the near-empty concrete-f loored expanse, the rest being laidlow by hangovers. Opting for anonymity, she speaks ofRiff Raff in unkind, questioning tones. “Late last night,when I was two or three beers in,” she says, “I was inWonderland, and someone points and whispers, ‘Thatdude’s from Riff Raff.’ It was like something out of ‘WestSide Story.’ I find out that Riff Raff is exclusive—thatyou need to prove yourself to be one of them. It seemedjust like a college fraternity to me.”But when the Riff Raffer gave her a plastic bracelet,she slipped it onto her wrist without reading its inscrip-tion: “Peace, Love, Trail Magic ♥ Riff-Raff!”“I woke up this morning wearing the bracelet andit felt weird,” she says. “This group’s name was on myperson.” She removed the bracelet before breakfast. “I’mready to leave,” she says, clearly regretting having comein the first place.After she’s gone, I have to wonder: In the spirit of fun,does R if f R a f f rea lly need to spill so much noise into thewoods? Miss Janet, for one, is sick of such questions—and of purists who complain that partying has ruinedthe AT. She has no official authority on the trail, andshe really doesn’t hike much, but she likely interactswith half of all thru-hikers each year, and she brings toeach meeting a wise sensitivity she honed in her firstcareer as a child development expert. Most of the critics,she says, are middle-aged hikers who, a generation ago,“built pyramids out of PBR cans by the riverbed. Nowthey’re turning around and saying the AT is supposed tobe a solitary experience?” she asks, incredulous.When I meet her at the Subway in Damascus, she’s``````Thru-hikers march by classand camp during the paradeon the last day of Trail Days.