Trail Magic – dreaming of the Appalachian Trail and the PCT

Wild Cheryl Strayed

In these dark winter days thoughts return to long summer walks. At night I watch videos made by hikers on America’s Appalachian Trail  – with the hiking season kicking off in April it’s at this time of year that people reflect on their thru-hikes and others start to plan their epic trek along the 2000 mile trail.

I’ve just started watching videos from the Pacific Crest Trail, a 2659-mile long path that stretches along the western spine of the US from California to Oregon and Washington – skirting the Mojave Desert, crossing the Sierra Nevada, and scaling the Cascade Mountains, through desert, snow and forest. The nearest I get to Sierra Nevada is through a bottle of the delicious Pale Ale bearing its name that I buy from the corner shop.

The longest trail we have in Britain is the South West Coast Path at 630 miles. We’ll have to wait for the completion of the England Coast Path in 2020 before we have a challenge on the scale of the AT. Locked into the domestic routine of a stay-at-home Dad the idea of life on the trail is amplified by how distant the possibility of spending 6 months walking actually is – a distance I can measure in years rather than miles. In the meantime I satisfy my wanderlust with my excursions around London, in themselves a hangover from my twenties backpacking years, and nightly binges on YouTube hiking videos.

I have also just opened Cheryl Strayed’s Wild, an account of her PCT trek (my discovery of the AT came after reading Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods bought at the end of a walk to Ilford in the howling wind). A guide to the Ridgeway sits on my desk as well that sings to me at night. There are a few more winter months to while away, day-walking, watching, reading, plotting, and then … who knows what the summer will bring.

 

Here are 5 of my favourite YouTube Hiking Channels – in no particular order

Hiker Trash Video – Seven out chasing Hikers and ‘safety material’ on the AT

John Zahorian – beautifully produced videos with stunning vistas and practical advice on ultra-light long-distance hiking

Homemade Wanderlust – Jessica (Dixie) is a great guide to life on and off the trail and a good source of practical information. Also love that she hiked the AT with her dog

Will Wood – hiking everywhere across the US, always on the trail. Zpacks team member

Neemor’s World – there’s a gentleness to Neemor’s videos out on the PCT and the AT and also some good gear reviews and tips.

 

 

‪London protest for ‪90-year-old Arrested For Feeding Homeless‬ – Trews Reports (E6)‬

I went along to the US Embassy last Saturday for the first of what will become a regular peaceful demonstration in solidarity with Arnold Abbott and against homeless hate laws. This is an issue not just in the US but increasingly in London.

There’s more info about the regular Saturday 2pm protests on Streets Kitchen.

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Walking in Los Angeles — video

I’d forgotten about this short video I made in early 2010 after a trip out there. I was following Will Self’s footsteps on a walk through Downtown LA he’d written about in GQ – which is why I dug out the snippets of audio from summer 2008.

I’d only stumbled across the clip because I was clearing space on my hard-drive for footage I’d shot yesterday on a walk out to Crayford Ness and funnily on the way had been thinking about Will Self’s description of Grand Central Market in L.A.

Interesting how walking unifies all these threads and riffs just by putting one foot in front of the other.

Into the Los Angeles Urban Wilderness

you don’t see this in the Lea Valley

Yesterday morning I headed up into Runyon Canyon along with a friend and one of his year-old twins strapped onto my back.

The canyon rises just two blocks away from the glitz of Hollywood Boulevard and is managed as ‘Urban Wilderness’ by the City of Los Angeles. The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy describes it as, “a rare example of wild chaparral with its drought-resistant evergreen trees and shrubs only a stone’s throw from the hustle and bustle of the Hollywood community.”

an irresistible cliche

As the movie industry goes into decline being eclipsed daily by the Games world the Hollywood sign starts to look like even more of a relic of a by-gone era. In the week I’ve been here I’ve had more conversations about games than I have heard mentions of films.

The hazards of urban walking are somewhat different in LA to London. It’s amusing that this warning is near the top of the ridge of the canyon at the end of the most treacherous stretch of the trail.

There was a brown crust of smog sitting atop the city laid out flat like a printed sheet.

The urban fringe of L.A more the domain of dog walkers and personal trainers than psychogeographers.

london

Landor’s Tower on Sunset Boulevard

Went wandering this morning and ended up in Book Soup Bookstore on Sunset Boulevard.

The first book that caught my eye just inside the door was Guy Debord’s The Society of the Spectacle. I took this as a sign to have a further rummage.

I held Kenneth Anger’s Hollywood Babylon in my hand for a while – it has a nice feel to it – but eventually put it back.

I flicked through the pages of Mike Davis City of Quartz but with only two days left in LA I can’t see me cramming much of this opus of Los Angeles cultural history into my still jet-lagged head.

On my third circuit of the shop, at the back, on a bottom shelf in a dark corner where the discount books are hidden, I find Iain Sinclair’s Landor’s Tower, priced $4.98. It was meant to be. The book genie had led me here to one of the few Sinclair works I don’t already own.

I purchase the book (along with a copy of Knoedelseder’s history of the golden era of 70s stand-up in LA – partly as a momento of the brilliant team of comedy writers I’ve been working with here).

Back in my room, now, I open Landor’s Tower at the page where the shop assistant has placed a bookmark – a message from the book genie will possibly emerge from the page:
“The world had been stood on its head: landscape was a scum of dancing particles, rocked in a soup bowl.”
A description of Los Angeles and a reference to the shop where the book was found.

Never lose faith in the book genie.

Walk to Brooklyn

On my two previous visits to New York I had failed to venture beyond Manhattan, it seemed more than enough for me and I had little idea what lie beyond it. This time I had a motivation to cross the water – to interview Joe at the Perogi Gallery for my ongoing documentary about Bob and Roberta Smith. This was also a chance to cover a bit of ground on foot beyond my habitual drifting.

Downtown from SoHo all is quiet, sun out, an April like the first time I came here in ’98. As warned Brooklyn Bridge was heaving with walkers – at once a brilliant and heart-sinking sight. Is this what the pedestrian highways I once proposed to Wycombe District Council would look like – a sweating mass of agitated perambulators.
From the bridge I got a very different sense of what New York appears to be – I think it’s often easy to forget that many cities are defined by what is at the periphery; so caught up are we by the buzz around the urban core. Maybe that’s the city dweller’s fear of nature – the force in that water so evident when looking down from the bridge; we scamper inland to cower behind bricks.

On the other side of Brooklyn Bridge I am without bearings for a bit and follow my nose. I have a strong image of Henry Miller wandering round here implanted by several readings of Tropic of Capricorn.

I want to find the apartment that Bob lived in on 3rd Street and amble in that direction.
Smith Street is a real hive of activity – loads of heaving cafes – people really lunch here eh? I go into Book Court and literally the first book I see is Alfred Kazin’s ‘A Walker in the City’ – “When I was a child I thought we lived at the end of the world”, he writes of Brooklyn.
The literary version of Brooklyn I’d built up was of somewhere rough-and-ready work-a-day and I see straight away how out of date that has become because at times I feel like there must have been a mass photo shoot for American Apparel in the neighbourhood. It’s a nice vibe though, a comfortable place for a wander.

I turn into 3rd Street and the mood soon changes – becomes run-down industrial, deserted except for a few cyclists. I stand on the bridge over the Gowanus Canal and suck in the rust. I don’t find Bob’s apartment – must have been knocked down. I move on round the corner to Perogi on 9th Street, hungry and stiff legged now.

This is the Brooklyn of my imagination.
The American Legion club, people milling around outside Liquor Stores. 177 9th Street is a locked industrial unit. I ring Joe, “North 9th Street Williamsburg” he corrects – miles away – but only about 4 subway stops from my hotel it turns out. I laugh, my walks are always wild goose chases – mis-guided excursions following after lost scents. People had very kindly offered to show me round Brooklyn but I know at heart that I need to get lost to find what I’m looking for.

I jump on the subway back to Manhattan then over to the gracious Joe who gives me a great interview at Perogi, complete with accounts of the show he did in Bob’s shed – The Leytonstone Centre for Contemporary Art. Strange how a walk round the corner from my house in London one evening led me here to Brooklyn.