On Trails (46 page)

here's a message for those to come

why not read some old lines

I like to imagine this maxim scrawled onto the wall of an abandoned hut in the village. How baffling it must have seemed to passersby. On the one hand, the words are slightly absurd: writing that people should read more is like using your one magical wish to wish for more wishes. But in the end he's right: What else do we have to guide us through this life but—in Han-shan's perfect phrase—these “old lines”?

As Nietzsche once wrote: “The happiest fate is that of the author who, as an old man, is able to say that all there was in him of life-­inspiring, strengthening, exalting, enlightening thoughts and feelings still lives on in his writings, and that he himself now only represents the gray ashes, whilst the fire has been kept alive and spread out. And if we consider that every human action, not only a book, is in some way or other the cause of other actions, decisions, and thoughts; that everything that happens is inseparably connected with everything that is going to happen, we recognize the real
immortality
, that of movement—­that which has once moved is enclosed and immortalized in the general union of all existence, like an insect within a piece of amber.”

We are born to wander through a chaos field. And yet we do not become hopelessly lost, because each walker who comes before us leaves behind a trace for us to follow. The full span of trail-making on earth, in its broadest sense—all the walks, all the stories, all the experiments, all the networks—can be seen as part of a great communal yearning to find better, longer-lasting, more supple ways of sharing wisdom and preserving it for the future. Ultimately, Han-shan's genius, born from a life spent wandering and pondering trails, was to realize that inherited wisdom can take us far, but only so far. After that, we must explore all on our own.

When I started this book, I wanted to know what hand was guiding me along the Appalachian Trail. The answer, like the trail itself, expanded to planetary proportions and stretched back to earliest prehistory. I came to realize that I was being guided not by an invisible hand, but by a visible
line: a path inscribed by trillions of living things, all setting forth, leading, following, veering off, connecting, finding shortcuts, and leaving their marks. The history of life on this planet can be seen as a single path made in the walking of it. We are all the inheritors of that line, but also its pioneers. Every step, we push forward into the unknown, following the path, and leaving a trail.

An old legend, passed down through the centuries, tells that Han-shan was last seen stepping into a crack in the face of Cold Mountain, which miraculously sealed shut behind him. At last, he had become one with the mountain he called home. All that remained of him were the lines he left behind.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

A
S WHITMAN
once wrote, this book is intended as “an exploration, as of new ground, wherein, like other primitive surveyors, I must do the best I can, leaving it to those who come after me to do much better.” Everything in this book is, to the best of my knowledge, strictly factual. The order of the events, however, has been rearranged for clarity and narrative effect; the chapters, for example, do not flow in chronological order, nor do the sections. With any errors that you happen to encounter, please feel free to report them to
[email protected]
, so that over time the book can continue to improve.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

E
VERY BOOK,
like every trail, is the result of a collaborative effort, but I would venture that this axiom is even truer of this book than most. Though I owe a debt of gratitude to hundreds of people who contributed to its completion, unfortunately, I only have space to thank a few. The elephant's share of thanks must go to Jon Cox, a truly tireless and perspicacious editor. Moreover, I am enormously grateful to have found my way to Bonnie Nadell, my agent, who shepherded this odd duck of a book from a fuzzy ball of ideas to a fully feathered, flight-ready manuscript. Also, to my publisher, Jon Karp, whose faith in my ability to complete this project seems, in hindsight, truly astonishing. To the other editors who have shaped pieces of this book, both large and small: Karyn Marcus, Robyn Harvie, Melissa Smith, Will Bleakley, and David Haglund. To my friend and sage legal counsel, Conrad Rippy. To my many advisors: Ted Conover, Robert Boynton, David Haskell, Robert Levine, Chris Shaw, Bill McKibben, Janisse Ray, and Rebecca Solnit. And to my friends, for their careful reading of an endless series of drafts over the years: Andrew Marantz, Sandra Allen, Will Hunt, and Ferris Jabr.

Throughout this process, I have reached out to hundreds of people with questions large and small. This is but a small sampling of those who have generously taken the time to respond. My thanks to: Iain Couzin, Jeff Lichtman, Ronald Canter, Steve Elkinton, Robin Sloan, Amy Lavender Harris, Matthew Tiessen, Elizabeth Barlow Rogers, Diana James, Sarah Wurz, Lawrence Buell, Robert Proudman, Jeffrey S. ­Cramer, Signe Jeppesen, Reidun Lundgren, Toni Huber, Peter Cochran, Eustace Conway, E. O. Wilson, Judith Dupré, Stephen Budiansky, Ken Smith, Andy Downs, Jim Gehling, Ben Prater, Tracy Davids, Margaret ­Conkey, Basia Korel, Gary Snyder, Paolo Mietto, Bénédicte Jouneaux, Vincent Fourcassié, ­Lorraine Daston, Eva Williams, Mary Terrall, Rebecca Stott, Robert ­MacNaughton, Thomas Trott, Dan Rittschof, Marc Ratcliff, ­Charlotte Sleigh, Walter R. Tschinkel, John Bradley, Richard Bon, Ken Cobb, Eric Sanderson, Peter Coppolillo, Laurie Potteiger, Jordan Sand, Brandon Keim, Anthony Sinclair, Valerius Geist, Juliet Clutton-­Brock, Jack Hogg, Fikret Berkes, Ted Belue, Andrew George, Martin Foys, J. Donald Hughes, Jason Neelis, Jennifer Pharr Davis, Justine Shaw, ­Jennifer Mathews, ­Rodney Snedeker, Carrie Gregory, James Cleland, Claudio Aporta, Thom Henley, Erick Leka, Lee Alan Dugatkin, Eric Johnson, A. J. King, Peter ­Devreotes, Rhonda Garelick, Bob Sickley, Peter Jensen, Arne Helgeland, Sivert Øgaard, Charlie Rhodarmer, Alexander Felson, and Bram Gunther.

Special thanks to: Virginia Dawson, Brett Leavy, Kelly Costanzo, Jake Stockwell, Simon Garnier, and Chris Reid.

Thanks to A. Laly, for her excellent work translating Bonnet's baroque French.

Thanks to the Middlebury Fellowship in Environmental Journalism, for helping fund the research for this book.

Thanks to Eva and Bob Morawski, Julia Morawski and Stephane Kowalczuk, Sue and Bill Guiney, Tami and Jerry McGee, Aysegul Savas and Maks Ovsjanikov, Louisa Bukiet and Peretz Partensky, David and Triss Critchfield, Ben and Emily Swan, and everyone else who housed and fed me during the many itinerant phases when this book was composed. Also, to all the drivers brave enough to pick a up mysterious stranger on the roadside and give him a ride to the next trailhead.

Finally, a great wave of love and gratitude to my family: Beverly, Bob, Alexis, Lindsay, Adrienne, Matt, Brook, all the Buntings, and all the rest. Thanks to Andy and Chris, who greeted me at the trail's end. And most of all, thanks to Remi, my co-adventurer, who always says yes to jumping in, no matter how cold the water.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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Copyright © 2016 by Robert Moor

Han Shan excerpts on
page 300
, translated by Gary Snyder, from
Riprap
and Cold Mountain Poems
. Copyright © 1965 by Gary Snyder. Reprinted by permission of Counterpoint.

Han Shan excerpts on
pages 328
and
335
, translated by Red Pine, from
The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain
, Revised and Expanded. Copyright © 2000 by Bill Porter. Reprinted with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc., on behalf of Copper Canyon Press,
www.coppercanyonpress.org
.

M. J. Eberhart poem on
page 310
reprinted by permission of the author.

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First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition July 2016

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ISBN 978-1-4767-3921-2

ISBN 978-1-4767-3924-3 (ebook)