On The Trail
I don’t want to go too bonkers over this Mark Sanford thing, but to be clear Josh Marshall is on the mark when he observes that to say someone is “on the appalachian trail” actually conveys very little information about that person’s whereabouts. The trail is over 2,000 miles long. If I said “I’m somewhere in the Boston-Washington corridor” that would arguably describe a narrower range of possible locations.
Actually walking the whole trail is something people do, I think, but it’s obviously a sort of idiosyncratic endeavor that’s not compatible with being Governor of South Carolina. Normal people who want to do a few days of hiking and camping will normally be taking trips to a specific location on the trail. In the summer of 1995, for example, I went to Mount Washington in New Hampshire. The following summer I climbed Mount Katahdin in Maine. IIRC, at other points in my life I’ve been to the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area and also part of the Appalachian Trail that’s in New York State. But in any case, if you were taking any of those trips you’d tell people where you were actually going, not just gesture vaguely and thousands of miles worth of hiking possibilities running across the entire east coast.
66 Responses to “On The Trail”
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June 23rd, 2009 at 9:35 am
Bill Bryson’s book about his attempt to hike the entire Appalachian Trail is a near classic (he didn’t get very far).
June 23rd, 2009 at 9:42 am
I assumed being “on the appalachian trail” involved referred to a young woman with a peculiar nickname.
June 23rd, 2009 at 9:44 am
Not to defend this guy or anything, but when I lived in NJ and hiked the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area portion with my brother on several occasions, we told people “we were going on the Appalachian Trail for the day”. No one thought we were driving to Maine or Georgia.
June 23rd, 2009 at 9:46 am
I know a guy who is walking a longer, tougher route than the appalachian trail right now. He started earlier this year at the US-Canadian border, up in the Rockies (I don’t know exactly where he started or what route he’s taking). He’s hiking to the border with Mexico.
I’m pretty sure he did the Appy trail a year or two ago, so he needed to find something harder.
June 23rd, 2009 at 9:46 am
Not to mention that very little of the Appalachian trail(if any) is located in South Carolina. Something is obviously up with Sanford. He’s also toasted any chance of the Republican nomination in ‘12.
June 23rd, 2009 at 9:47 am
It should be mentioned that there is no cell phone service in many parts of the trail.If someone needs to reach you in an emergency , they may have to wait a few days, depending on where you are.
By the way, I would agree with ED at comment #1.A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson is one of the best books writtten.
June 23rd, 2009 at 9:47 am
I read this last night, and Josh Marshall’s article said things much more significant than what’s focused on here. He indicated that in the past, Sanford has never been completely out of contact, and that they have been tracking his cell phone usage to try to find him (i.e. they are using investigative techniques to find the guy). This whole discussion about the phrase “on the appalachian trail” is secondary to those facts. If he said he were in the Mall of America, and then dropped completely out of contact and his handlers were using cell phone records to try to find him, this would be equally troubling (and murky).
June 23rd, 2009 at 9:51 am
I think he was just joining in on the annual tradition of Naked Hiking Day, celebrated by some on the Appalachian Trail.
June 23rd, 2009 at 9:52 am
Actually, none of the Appalachian Trail is in South Carolina. If he was last tracked in Atlanta, I’d expect he’s probably going to be doing some of the trail in North Georgia or, more likely, North Carolina & Tennessee.
June 23rd, 2009 at 9:53 am
This is just flat ignorant by Matthew. “Hiking the Appalachian Trail” generally means getting on the trail at some point and then just going. You don’t go to a specific loacation – you start at one place on the trail and hike in a direction. I would certainly have an idea of how far each day, where you plan to stop hiking, etc., but that’s not required.
(Not that I think Sanford is actually hiking the trail – seems to me to be an excuse.)
June 23rd, 2009 at 9:53 am
What the hell is with government spokespeople cautioning they’re “Fairly certain he hasn’t been the victim of foul play”? If he’s hiking and assured at least a few people that was what he was up to why the hell does anyone feel the need to address foul play issues? Also, a political spouse with the experience of Mrs. Sanford surely knows better than to answer a question about his whereabouts with “I have no idea”. No idea? Even if it’s true you obfuscate a bit, deflect the question somehow. “Yes, I’m aware of what he’s doing and where but it’s a private family matter. There is no reason to be alarmed, he’s safe and enjoying a bit of time away from the demands of office and family. He’s done this before and I support him in however he chooses to take a break from what is a very taxing position. Thank you for your concern and we all look forward to Mark’s return.” Geez, get an aide with some political savvy and prep for your press appearances.
June 23rd, 2009 at 9:58 am
Ya know, God forbid something bad has happened to the guy.
And if there is some scandal behind this, then it will surely come out.
But SOMEBODY really should speak up for the idea that anybody — even the governor of a not especially cutting edge state — should be able to take a few days off without making a Federal case out of it. Maybe he found a trout stream someplace, and wants to catch that big bastard before anybody else finds out what the hell the hatch is.
Look — SC is not California, and Sanford is not Schwarzenegger, in the middle of a fiscal crisis. The SC legislature is out — why shouldn’t he just take a few days off? Anybody in his position is on call 24/7 — so what if he decided unilaterally he wanted to make it 359 instead of 365?
And, hell, wouldn’t it be a GOOD sign if a Republican like Stanford decided to take a week to sort out whether he needs to re-think his whole approach to public life?
Sure, if there was a natural disaster that required the South Carolina governor’s authority to act, but there isn’t, now is there? It’s all “what ifs” — and it’s not hurricane season, South Carolina is not known for earthquakes, it’s pretty early for forest fires (and there ain’t any, either).
I’m not sayin’ there isn’t some oddness here — but I AM speaking up for the principle that just maybe, where he is and what he’s doing is none of our damn business.
June 23rd, 2009 at 10:05 am
There’s nothing wrong with him taking a few days off.
However, if he’s going to take time off, he should tell his Lieutenant Governor that he’s leaving and roughly how long he’ll be gone. If a problem does come up, then people will be able to figure out if it can wait a couple of days or if the Lieutenant Governor needs to step in and deal with it immediately.
June 23rd, 2009 at 10:07 am
The idea of Mr. Yglesias hiking from Georgia to Maine is hilarious. I wonder what Mr. Yglesias would do if he met a aggressive and hungry black bear? Probably try to placate it by burbling about nonviolent civil disobedience and pacifism.
June 23rd, 2009 at 10:08 am
Moreover, there’s a difference between “taking time off” and “slipping his security detail”. If he did the second, that’s just selfish. One assumes they’re professionals, and will take his disappearance seriously, which means an expensive and time-consuming search for him. I imagine the state has other uses for that time and money.
However, planned (even on short notice) vacations while things are slow are of course perfectly reasonable.
June 23rd, 2009 at 10:09 am
I have no idea what to think about this situation in general. But I agree that when someone has been missing for several days, to say that he is supposedly on the Appalachian Trail somewhere does not the support the claim that he has been “found”.
June 23rd, 2009 at 10:10 am
Yeah, when you’re the governor of a state, you can’t just go into retreat when you feel like it and leave no way for people to contact you. Governors deserve vacation, but they remain responsible to the people, and to their duties. They should take their time off through formal channels, not just up and disappear. Where Sanford is right now *is* the people of SC’s “damn business.”
June 23rd, 2009 at 10:12 am
I wonder what Mr. Yglesias would do if he met a aggressive and hungry black bear?
If I recall from my experiences in the Smoky Mountains, the vast majority of black bears don’t have any interest in coming close to humans. Those few that are aggressive are usually ones that have been repeatedly fed by ignorant campers and have made an association between people and food that they otherwise wouldn’t. Such bears wouldn’t be found on the 98% of the trail that’s not next to a popular tourist camping ground, and they’re generally put down by rangers as soon as they’re discovered.
Perhaps you’re thinking of polar bears?
June 23rd, 2009 at 10:13 am
Also, speaking as a resident of Mr. Sanford’s fine state, the more time he spends “hiking”, the better. Even the Republican legislature has often wished over the past year that he’d just go take a hike. Looks like he’s taken them up on it.
June 23rd, 2009 at 10:14 am
I call BS on his entire story. Papers are reporting that his cellphone was last picked up near Atlanta. The southern most trailhead of the AT is significantly north of Atlanta and if one were traveling from Columbia as Sanford would be it would take him 60 more miles to get to the southern most trailhead of the AT via Atlanta then if he went via Greenvile.
June 23rd, 2009 at 10:18 am
It’s been reported (at TPM and elsewhere) that a cell tower “near Atlanta” picked up a signal from Sanford’s phone. It’s been assumed, then, that Sanford began his hike on a section of the trail in Georgia. If you look at a map of the trail in Georgia, this seems a bit odd, because the Georgia trailhead is over 60 miles north of Atlanta.
At any rate, I question the guy’s judgment. You don’t go solo backpacking in a wilderness area without informing people where you’re hiking and how long you’ll be out. Experienced backpackers know this.
Experienced backpackers also know you should sign in if there’s a trailhead ledger. Perhaps a journalist down that way should get some maps of the trail and begin checking those ledgers?
June 23rd, 2009 at 10:19 am
Fires like the one in North Myrtle Beach on April 23rd of this year?
June 23rd, 2009 at 10:28 am
Of course he’s not hiking. If he’s been completely out of touch since Thursday, how would his people suddenly know he was on the Trail? Did they discover it through divine revelation or ESP?
June 23rd, 2009 at 10:29 am
Bill Bryson’s book about his attempt to hike the entire Appalachian Trail is a near classic
Utter crap. Assholes like Bryson fuck up the AT for the rest of us who don’t mark our path with Little Debbie wrappers. He’s also not funny (and I know Funny). Fuck Bryson. But I suppose there’s no accounting for taste.
June 23rd, 2009 at 10:30 am
Not to mention, if this were a planned and known camping trip, why didn’t they say that when the press started asking where he was?
June 23rd, 2009 at 10:31 am
Of course an official is entitled to days off, even a few out of out of touch. But not without emergency contact information. If it’s unlikely that something will come up, fine, he doesn’t get called. But Pee Cee’s cite is dead on, and the last thing a state needs is confusion when something serious is happening.
If a CEO pulled this, they’d be fired.
June 23rd, 2009 at 10:34 am
Supposedly he’s been heard from and coming back to work tomorrow: http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/23/a-governor-goes-missing/?scp=1&sq=sanford&st=cse
June 23rd, 2009 at 10:45 am
“I AM speaking up for the principle that just maybe, where he is and what he’s doing is none of our damn business.”
Uh, no. Where you and I are is no one’s business because we’re private citizens. If you’re the chief executive of a state, or even a business, your whereabouts are your constituents’ business. If there were an emergency in the state that, it would be Sanford’s job to coordinate the response. Running off without leaving contact information or delegating authority is completely unacceptable.
I find the whole situation very suspicious. I know it’s obnoxious to speculate, but I can’t help thinking about the media blackout the NYT recently engineered to cover up the kidnapping of one of its reporters. If something sketchy were going on, this is exactly the sort of BS cover story the authorities might put forward.
Of course, it’s also possible that he spent the weekend living it up in some Atlanta strip club, and is currently wandering around the city, hungover, looking for his car.
June 23rd, 2009 at 10:45 am
LOL — I’m just speaking up for the PRINCIPLE of it.
The evidence that this is a bad thing is that his family and the Lt. Governor are mumbling about it.
But, hell, if you were sick and tired of the whole damned thing and just wanted to get your head right, aren’t those EXACTLY the folks you wouldn’t want to talk to?
Just to be contrarian, I hope the guy walks into the visitor’s center at Amicalola this afternoon humming This Land is Your Land (with GOP verses he just made up), meets the CNN crew, and asks ‘em if he can take a shower before he does the interview about what he learned on the mountaintop about the promised land.
Seriously, I hope the guy is okay, and that for once it isn’t a scandal, just a VIP who got a wild hair.
June 23rd, 2009 at 10:51 am
I think we can all agree that parents need some time off too, but that it would not be appropriate for them to take it without informing their families how they can be reached, no matter how much seclusion they feel they need.
June 23rd, 2009 at 10:53 am
It looks like a pretty modest section that runs through SC. So on the assumption he got on the trail there, that puts him a couple days’ walk one way or the other from there — not that big a distance. (Assuming it’s not just BS.)
June 23rd, 2009 at 10:54 am
I wonder what Mr. Yglesias would do if he met a aggressive and hungry black bear?
As he meets aggressive and hungry black men on a daily basis, he should be able to deal with a bear.
He was able to deal with Andrew Sullivan, after all.
June 23rd, 2009 at 10:57 am
Hey, speaking of Appalachian, Matt, why aren’t you covering more Appalachian issues? What about mountaintop removal? Shit’s been going down lately in southern WV; hell, Darryl Hannah’s coming down here today, I think! I wish you’d cover it.
June 23rd, 2009 at 10:59 am
I can imagine the therapeutic effect of 5 uninterrupted days spent lolling about in the grasp of someone not my significant other. It’s enough to make a legislative veto smackdown seem like yesterday’s old news. Throw in a trapeze, a little latex and Wesson oil, maybe a few Whippets and the Holiday Inn will curse you for days.
June 23rd, 2009 at 11:01 am
Give the guy a break. He’s on a walkabout. It’s perfectly normal. If you’re an aborigine.
June 23rd, 2009 at 11:02 am
Perhaps you’re thinking of polar bears?
Thinking isn’t really Hector’s strong suit, especially when killing some pagan bears in a fit of anti-hipster religious ecstasy is at stake. Black bears, grizzly bears, panda bears, whatever. God just wants Hector to kill some random critter in order to prove that Yglesias is a pussy.
“Pussy” is the term you’re so fond of, right Hector?
June 23rd, 2009 at 11:13 am
It looks like a pretty modest section that runs through SC.
Ain’t no AT in SC.
June 23rd, 2009 at 11:24 am
I think it was pure brilliance on the part of his PR flacks to put out something as non-specific and unverifiable as ‘he’s hiking the appalachian trail’. Unspecified location, unspecified time duration, would explain showing up eventually with any manner of cuts and bruises and suggests no witnesses available. Perhaps it’s true, but brilliant in any event.
June 23rd, 2009 at 11:30 am
@2 that would have made more sense if the ‘r’ in ‘trail’ was a typo…
June 23rd, 2009 at 11:33 am
But SOMEBODY really should speak up for the idea that anybody — even the governor of a not especially cutting edge state — should be able to take a few days off without making a Federal case out of it.
Agreed. Everyone settle down. The man just took a vacation.
June 23rd, 2009 at 11:37 am
South Carolina is not known for earthquakes. Just a historical note; one of the worst earthquakes in US history [comparable to New Madrid and San Francisco] had its epicenter just outside Charleston in 1886. They do happen there.
June 23rd, 2009 at 11:43 am
Absolutely nothing wrong with taking a few days off. A governor is a big cheese, but there are no indispensible men.
The first thing I thought, though, when I heard the story was “suicide”. I sure hope I was wrong.
June 23rd, 2009 at 11:48 am
Turns out he did inform his staff where he was going, so that part is just a lie.
June 23rd, 2009 at 11:53 am
re .43
Link??
June 23rd, 2009 at 11:54 am
Through various sources who prefer to remain anonymous, I have been provided a description of a conversation that occurred over the weekend between Mrs. Sanford and the governer’s press secretary James Taggart:
The white face, undone by panic, that confronted her when she threw the door open was James Taggart.
“He’s gone!” he cried.
“Who?”
“Mark Sanford! He’s gone, quit, vanished, disappeared!”
She stood still for a moment, holding the belt of the dressing gown she had been tying; then, as the full knowledge reached her, her hands jerked the belt tight–as if snapping her body in two at the waistline–while she burst out laughing. It was a sound of triumph.
He stared at her in bewilderment. “What’s the matter with your?” he gasped. “Haven’t you understood?”
“Come in, Jim,” she said, turning contemptuously, walking into the living room. “Oh yes, I’ve understood.”
“He’s quit! Gone! Gone like all the other Republicans! Left his Governer’s Mansion, his bank accounts, his mulit-million dollar plantation, everything! Just vanished! Took some clothing and whatever he had in the safe in his apartment–they found a safe left open in his bedroom, open and empty–that’s all! No word, no note, no explanation! They called me from the State Capitol, but it’s all over town! The news, I mean, the story! They can’t keep it quiet! They’ve tried to, but…Nobody knows how it got out, but it went through the blogs like one of those runaway memes, the word that he’d gone, and then…before anyone could stop it, a whole bunch of them vanished! Newt Gingrich, Michael Steele, Senator Ensign, even Sarah Palin! Deserting us, in spite of all the penalties we’ve set up! He’s quit and the rest are quitting and those states are just left there, standing still! Do you understand what that means?”
“Do you?” she asked.
He had thrown his story at her, sentence by sentence, as if trying to knock the smile off her face, an odd, unmoving smile of bitterness and triumph; he had failed. “It’s a national catastrophe! What’s the matter with you? Don’t you see that it’s a fatal blow? It will break the last of the country’s morale and economy! We can’t let Sanford vanish! You’ve got to bring him back!”
June 23rd, 2009 at 11:58 am
Re Matthew’s comment “if you were taking any of those trips you’d tell people where you were actually going, not just gesture vaguely and thousands of miles worth of hiking possibilities running across the entire east coast. ”
————
Unless , of course, you’re holed up in Myrtle Beach in a cheap hotel with three teenage girls and a case of Jack Daniels.
June 23rd, 2009 at 11:58 am
Turns out he did inform his staff where he was going, so that part is just a lie.
Sure. He informed them that he was going hiking, and then for several days when asked where he was his staff responded “he’s working on some projects” and “he’s going to do some writing” and then several days later they all suddenly remembered that he’d actually told them. Mass amnesia like this is perfectly normal. Happens all the ti….Hey, look over there! Seriously, no, really, look over there!
June 23rd, 2009 at 12:00 pm
“Turns out he did inform his staff…”
Better yet, as this trivia is unfolding, he told SOME of his staff….
Not entirely OT, but I’m reminded of one of the better movies that anti-semitic nut Mel Gibson made, “We Were Soldiers”, where the US Army officer — Hal Moore? — whom he played runs a training exercise, helicopters landing troops in combat.
Everybody is all geared up, ready to roll, and the first guy jumps out of the chopper — Gibson appears, shoves the first guy out of the way, and confronts the second guy: “HE’s dead — what do YOU do?”
Later, he lectures all of ‘em — learn his job from the guy above you, and teach your job to the guy below you.
Planned, unannounced absence is a pretty decent management testing technique — John Wooden used to watch his teams practice from the rafters at UCLA, to determine if they really knew what he wanted them to do or were taking cues from him.
But I hope Stanford comes back and sticks with the line, gee, the Democrats TOLD me to take a hike…
June 23rd, 2009 at 12:01 pm
Can’t get over his wife saying she didn’t know where he was. But “wasn’t concerned”. So he takes off without telling her, missing Father’s Day with his 4 sons.. if nothing else it shows him to be rather callous for a “family values” guy.
June 23rd, 2009 at 12:20 pm
[...] Matthew Yglesias [...]
June 23rd, 2009 at 12:25 pm
He started earlier this year at the US-Canadian border, up in the Rockies (I don’t know exactly where he started or what route he’s taking). He’s hiking to the border with Mexico.
That’s the Continental Divide Trail. That, the AT, and the Pacific Crest Trail make up the “Triple Crown” of U.S. hiking. I picked up a buddy of mine from the border crossing near Hachita, New Mexico, when he completed the Triple Crown in 2004.
Also, on the off chance that Matthew actually reads this, yes, in general parlance, if someone says “I’m going hiking on the Appalachian Trail” and they’re somewhere along the Eastern seaboard, generally they mean “one of the nearby sections” unless specified otherwise.
June 23rd, 2009 at 12:27 pm
and this is unusual?
Aren’t Republicans, by definition,
unstable individiuals?
June 23rd, 2009 at 1:30 pm
Yes, but would you go on National Naked Hiking Day?
June 23rd, 2009 at 1:37 pm
If he was last tracked in Atlanta, I’d expect he’s probably going to be doing some of the trail in North Georgia or, more likely, North Carolina & Tennessee.
As others have said, you don’t normally travel through Atlanta if you’re heading from Columbia to Springer Mountain, and especially not if you’re going to the NC/TN bits of the A.T. You go via Greenville. Unless you’re taking a trip to Atlanta for a reason.
If I recall from my experiences in the Smoky Mountains, the vast majority of black bears don’t have any interest in coming close to humans.
Indeed: the one I saw last November was chowing down around a dumpster and couldn’t be bothered with me as long as I kept my distance. Grizzlies are a bit different, but they’re out west. So Hector once more shows how silly he is; perhaps he would slay the beast with his rubber sword.
June 23rd, 2009 at 1:37 pm
OT, but backpackers are reading so I’ll ask: what’s the name of the AT-like east-west trail people are envisioning up in states like Minnesota, North Dakota, etc.?
June 23rd, 2009 at 1:59 pm
North Country Trail?
June 23rd, 2009 at 2:11 pm
North Country Trail, a National Scenic Trail work in progress, and part of the Sea to Sea Route.
June 23rd, 2009 at 2:17 pm
That sounds like the North Country National Scenic Trail:
http://www.northcountrytrail.org/trail.php
More info on others here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Scenic_Trail
June 23rd, 2009 at 2:33 pm
I don’t know. I’ve lived on the Eastern Seaboard for nigh on 40 years. I’ve never heard anyone say they were “hiking the Appalachian Trail” unless they were planning on doing a pretty significant stretch of it. Now a 4 or 5 day hike would probably count in my book.
June 23rd, 2009 at 2:33 pm
My money is on meth binge with male prostitutes in Atlanta.
June 23rd, 2009 at 3:04 pm
and it’s not hurricane season
Yes it is. Beginning of June to end of November. Not that it matters, though, since hurricanes give you plenty of advance warning.
June 23rd, 2009 at 3:07 pm
I’ve hiked a couple hundred miles of the Appalachian Trail and agree that black bears are not normally a danger, although I was recently reading(Day 5 paragraph) about one that tore up a backpack recently in the Smokies.
I live near the trail in VA so will post another comment if I see him. I know Governor Kaine goes hiking on the trail also; I’m not sure what type of itinerary he leaves his staff with.
June 23rd, 2009 at 3:11 pm
If it is a meth binge with male prostitutes in Atlanta then John Ensign owes Sanford a beer.
June 24th, 2009 at 3:18 am
“Hiking the Appalachian Trail” is a well-known euphemism for getting plugged in the buttocks by a transvestite in Atlanta. Let’s stop um, beating around the bush- Mark Sanford is gayer than Lindsey Graham in Amsterdam.
June 24th, 2009 at 3:22 am
Unless , of course, you’re holed up in Myrtle Beach in a cheap hotel with three teenage girls and a case of Jack Daniels.
Or three teenage boys. And yes, um, holed up.
June 24th, 2009 at 9:02 am
LOL — evidently, Sanford was in Argentina.