The Long Trail, long overdue.
August 29, 2010 (Journey’s End Camp)
Welcome home to me. LT day 1 (or T minus 1). Met great guys, with good people, ready to kick some mountain ass!
August 30, 2010 (Jay Camp)
And what a welcome it was! I’m so sore. Energy is good, except during the huge climbs, when I can only count on my endurance. My back is sore, my feet started to raw, I stink. Overall, I dove in head first to a new trail and it couldn’t be going any better, unless there was more water. So that challenges my planning. Camaraderie is good: three is a great number for independent long distance hikers, because there’s usually someone to talk to if you want that, and no one to get their feelings hurt when you want to be alone. MudD is the common thread, and he handles that with ease, and ever so slowly Derek and I understand each other. I know my brain is still scattered and I’m still impatient. Soon, the woods will slow my mind, ease my step, and simplify everything else.
August 31, 2010 (Tillotson Camp)
Great hiking day. Hard. But rewarding. Lots of peaks, including Haystack, in under 12 miles. My mind wanders while I hike, tumbling and exploring at great speed over many subjects and concepts, admiring friends and pondering trysts, examining how once inside the green wild I never seem to connect to anyone outside of it. On the days to come, I hope my mind wanders into better catchy songs (I had “Fancy” by Reba McEntire, or actually, two lines from “Fancy” stuck in my head on replay for hours today “I might have been born just plain white trash but Fancy was my name / She said ‘here’s your once chance Fancy, don’t let me down’”). Charlie Brown is at the shelter- just hearing him harshed my mellow- I knew from his voice he was lonely, talkative, and not interesting. I decided that that assumption shouldn’t have such power, so I gave him a chance. Let me play it out for you.
With a few remaining miles to the day, and for all of us, barely any water, we took a long break at the first stream in hours. A serene babbling brook in the lush col between two mountains, there was plenty of good seating and a deep enough stream for all of us to pump at separate pools. After filling my camelbak I pumped a liter into my nalgene and added a nuun electrolyte tablet. I chugged the cool mountain water, the best water on the planet (I swear, it’s all about the water, that faraway look backpackers get when you talk about one of their trails, they may say it’s the memories of the people or the views or the exertion, but it’s triggering the trace memory of drinking water filtered out of the land, pure and clean, exquisite), while we talked about our sore muscles and the heat. I know the power of the heat by hydration best: on a day like today, when you sweat so much you smell the liquid fat excreted through your pores, when my eyes fill with sweat if I blink too slow, and then drip drips off of my chin, when I drink a liter of water in under five minutes, hoist a 25 pound pack onto bruised shoulders, and start walking without getting a cramp, that’s when I make a mental note to chug another liter once in camp and again after dinner. That is heat. With that heat comes immense gratitude for the dependable water source at a shelter. Expecting that water was ahead very simply determined that we could continue to live out here. Rumors of water scarcity met us via Northbounders. I dissected the rumors and examined them like a detective. A hiker could lose all credibility for false water information.
And so, full of water but most comfortably so, I was dawdling into camp, with a happy spring in my step, singing “Fancy,” surprised to see the privy first and the shelter roof next, I thought ‘oh joy of joy I’m done for the day! And what a glorious day it was! Tonight my friends and I will dine with a view over the northwoods landscape, and discuss our highlights, our frustrations, and rest easy on tired bones.’ Then I hear the voice.
“You guys must have just started, eh? Yeah, I did the whole trail myself, the wife is picking me up on Wednesday, I’ll be taking my time to finish, you know, might as well make it last, am I right? See, guys my age, we aren’t out here for the exercise. No sir, we’re here to get out of the house…” And I stopped listening because I knew the boys were there, they were ahead of me, and they would be smiling for someone else to be doing the talking, but I was not interested in this man. I heard in his voice, his tone and his easy sentences the hum of a recorded tape, a worn repetition for a lonely man with little to say. These guys are all the same, I practically said out loud, instead let escape a loud sigh, just feet from camp. He waits for company, the captive audience of tired hikers, to pontificate all his predetermined sentences and stories, jumbled together without form or connection, using us for our ears but never really caring about our parallels, our shared footsteps or histories. They’ll ask you a question, sure, but they’re waiting to give you their favorite answer. And then I paused. I walked in and greeted my friends and coolly introduced myself to the man who had not yet ceased to speak. An older adult, he was wearing shorts and crocs, and his eyes were full of me. He had the hair of a snorer, so I pulled out my tent and looked for a flat area in the piney clearing on the other side of the trail. The courage and confidence that comes from pitching my tent is hard to describe. Like these gentlemen who miss something long gone, I am guilty of nostalgia, when the reenactment of my routine mitigated my tension and reminded me of one great lesson of the woods: not all people are as they seem. And so, when Charlie Brown walked over to watch me pitch my tent and talk to me, I listened.
“So you’re hiking with those guys, eh?”
“Yup.”
“Yeah, I did the whole trail myself, the wife is picking me up on Wednesday.”
“That’s exciting.”
“Yup, I started the 6th of August, and let me tell you, it’s been a hell of a trip. You think you’ve been working hard, the miles to come are, heh, well, because you’re a lady I’ll watch my tongue, but you’re looking at pretty bad trail.”
“You didn’t enjoy your hike?”
“Of course I enjoyed my hike! What are you thinking? I’ve been thinking of what I’m going to do next year. See, out here I haven’t met many people. There’s my buddy Andy, he should be getting here soon because we were in town together two days ago and I lost him in town and so I’ve been waiting for him to catch up, he’s a younger guy, you know and so it should be no problem for him but I haven’t seen him yet and figure it’ll be tonight that he catches up, but anyway, lots of people going your direction, from time to time I get a shelter to myself of course, but that’s why you go out here, right? To be alone. They say it’s hard and it is, now, I also carry a lot more than you young kids but let me tell you something you should know: Don’t go to the grocery store hungry. That’s something to remember. I did that in Johnson, had to unload all this extra food outside of town, see, because I bought too much. So don’t do that. That ground doesn’t look too flat right there. What did you say your name was again?”
Well, maybe he has some good stories at least. Stay positive.
And eventually he walked away. At dinnertime he gave us the gift of a fire. Then he started talking about doing the PCT.
“Yeah, I’ve been thinking about doing that next year.”
“Do you go off on a long-distance hike every year?” I asked.
“No, not every year. I did the AT in 2003, and I’m finishing the LT now, so, no, this has been it. My wife doesn’t really understand, she’s supportive you know, let’s me go from time to time.”
“Oh.”
“But I think for next year what I’ll do is go out there and my wife can follow me in an RV. I can hike and she can meet me at all the roads and have water and food ready.”
“Wow, that would be really nice of her.”
“Well, that’s why you get a bride.”
I scoff. MudD and Derek are both suddenly consumed by their food.
Charlie Brown laughs at his reflection, his fortune, and leans a little closer to the fire and myself. The low flames danced and cast a shadow into his smile lines.
“That’s why you get a bride!”
“Oh, is that it?” I finally manage, an attempt to freeze over the fire between us.
“She doesn’t really understand why I do this, you know? She doesn’t like this sort of thing, ‘why do you want to live in the woods?’ she asks me.”
So maybe I was right after all.
We also met some very nice older ladies, and I found myself cutting them off with my own observations. I need to slow everything down.
September 2, 2010 (Bear Hollow Shelter)
I totally forgot to write last night! It was a big day, 15 miles, which I felt pretty good for most of. And we went swimming in Belvidere Pond, which was my highlight. At Corliss Camp, we ate and swatted mosquitoes, then looked into the woods until Derek’s friends Shelly and Anastasia met us with cokes, snickers, and energy.
Today was terrific! Almost 3 miles per hour! And Laraway Mountain was so beautiful, a steady climb, I felt terrific, and it has a lookout that was a great rock outcrop, hazy but good view, where we took Backpacker cover shots. The name of the mountain is beautiful to my ears, I exclaimed to the boys, with the emphasis on the first syllable, the word floats off your lips like a soft breeze: laraway. They were very polite.
We were in town by noonish, resupplied wicked efficiently, then hung out at the library, where I got the shits and spiraled into a deranged headspace. Is something wrong with me? Did I contract giardia? How? That could take me off the trail if it persists. Just like Hellbender and Stud the Dud in Colorado. Then we went out for pizza and beer with Shelly and Jamie and Alyssa, Biscuits’ (Derek has a name!) friends.
At the restaurant, I happily guzzled a pint of local brew and ordered far too much food. Oh how the prideful fall, when I expected to eat not only my deep dish heavily cheesed vegetable pizza but help my friends with their doughy charges, we were all left with the heavy leftovers to carry, on account of our shamefully small bellies. The light lost its warmth and a rain shower scuttled over town. Then it was time for a return to our trail. How foreign! The thought of leaving this quiet town, filled with happy pizza chefs and inquisitive camp counselors, grocer and post office down the road, for the winding corridor of protected woods, exposed lean-tos and rugged mountain passes. Then to be dropped off on an old logging road, sure we were in the right place but unsure of the condition ahead, rekindled a bold fear, the discomfort of intrepid travelers, who are at the mercy of more elements than most, with more than enough stubbornness.
My pace slowed with the extra burdens I carried. The woods around us were green and lush, a dense undergrowth covering the forest floor below towering birches and oak, maybe? As though aware of their flourish in the purpling sunlight, ferns extended perfect fronds among cabbages and shrubbery. My pace seemed to tug at the hands of time, warping how far I thought I’d gone. The shelter was so far, so high up, beyond me ever beyond. Any restless joys from a luxurious day were imminent and due at the sight of a sign. Along the rolling green trail, restlessness resembled discomfort until that destination.
Sign!
Tonight we’re at Bear Hollow Shelter. My shirt smells so bad. Bolt is here, his two companions just quit the trail. But he’s really cool. Looking forward to hiking tomorrow! I’m so strong!
September 3, 2010 (Taft Lodge)
Probably the hardest day, but I feel great now! I go back and forth, feeling strong and able, or fantasizing about a slight enough injury to take me off with pride intact. I think about my trip to California and regular life- things I crave and what I don’t. That means, I suppose, that the trail is getting inside me. Which is good. Just north of here the trail decided to take on a most impressive angle, requiring trail crews to build almost a mile of rock steps taking these dainty and impressive switchbacks up the beginning of Mansfield. We were in no hurry, and I could hear the boys sweating enthusiastically above me on the stairs. Every quarter mile or so they would sit, and open their ziplocks of skittles and munch. I did the same and gladly, as we have accepted the candy as our most favorite crutch. Like Pavlov's dog I salivate at the sound of opening ziplocks, with that little question mark bubble "skittles?" materializing above my raised eyebrows.
Tourists with daypacks passed us and my pride sunk.
Kevin, the caretaker here, is really nice. He passed around the whisky, yum! I’m loving everyone I meet. All good news!
September 4, 2010 (Buchanon Lodge)
14.2 today, got the shelter all to ourselves. Ups are still so hard for me- I can’t go fast, I can barely go, and my muscles burn in protest. It’s been 6 days living in the woods, we’ve gone 80 miles, and tomorrow we’ll be a third done with the trail. I had a realization today, that I will finish the book, that I have the will (as this trail must prove!) to get it published. I should look into the website Biscuits told me about for a part time job. Looking at the trail book, at first thinking about how tired I am, thinking about being done, I almost started to cry- for mourning this trail. The miles we covered today included the famous Mansfield bust, from forehead to neck. Because we woke up at dawn, and on the scalp, waiting for clear skies was vetoed two to one. The mountain was covered in wispy fog and opaque, too, hanging heavy against the wind that blew an illusion at the summit: for all its blowing, the clouds still hung like paintings on the curves of our irises, these ethereal strands of milky gas. But did they whip! We had no view and didn’t miss it. The slick volcanic rock on the forehead demanded all of our attention. We traversed a rock garden lost in time or place. For all we knew the wardrobe had been the lodge, and we set out into Narnia, a landscape more fairy than modern.
This is going to be interesting: over before I know it, I can tell.
September 5, 2010 (Bamforth Ridge Shelter)
I would have shit my pants today if the Richmond town park didn’t have a public restroom. Camping tonight, a little under 4 miles from the summit of Camel’s Hump. Today I lost track of the boys, they took a scenic view I didn’t notice, and just flew into town. Then they weren’t there. I’d asked some guys at the shelter 2 miles back if they’d seen them, who said no, and I knew that must mean I’d passed them but I couldn’t believe it. So I texted MudD and moseyed along, found a spot to sit and sat. Then he called.
“Where are you??”
“I’m at the road, didn’t you see my message? Where are you?”
“At the road? We went by the road!”
“You went into town?”
“No, we checked the road and went back to camp.”
“You went back to the shelter?!”
“Yes. We were so worried. I thought that guy with the stupid dog killed you. I was sure.”
So they were 5 miles back. He sounded pissed and relieved. They ran to where I was waiting, and we went into town, where I purchased enough food for 5 days, which turns out to be what I need, in addition to a quart of fruit puree. I ate an apple and drank the green goodness while we packed our bags. Then we went to the Bridge St Café, and I ate a bacon cheeseburger with two eggs and toast. Then we walked to the park and I talked to my parents for a while, until I realized I needed to, as Snarl would say, make boom boom. Panic seized hold, nearly, as I walked past families with small children playing in the playground, laughing on the swings, running across the open green field, the stone building looming towards me, a storage facility, or maybe, just maybe, a public restroom that could maybe, just maybe, be unlocked. I walked up to the building, aware of my exposure, planning an embarrassing and disastrous plan b. The cattails at the edge of mowed park? The café there, no it’s not open! One house after another on the same street? It must have a restroom. But! Would it be locked? No! Hooray! I said that out loud: ‘Hooray!’
The hike to here was beautiful and steep in parts and ambling in others. My pack is heavy with high protein food, but I’ll manage, and regardless of my shameful pace, I sang and made excellent time. I really like this life, when it all comes down to it, but I’m excited to channel the goodness that comes from living simply- my calmness, lack of rushed speech, eye contact, confidence, assuredness, presentness (I was totally in the hiker zone today. The trio hiking pack we are allows hiking alone every single day. I treasure this time, and wish I’d had more of it on the AT)- excited to channel it into my life back in Mass, imbue my routine with these efficiencies, simplify my life with these lessons. Because this backpacking must be the thing in between things. It cannot be the main thing. I look forward to making my other lifestyle better. Now I have to get an LT AT tattoo.
100 miles tomorrow!
It just occurred to me, getting into my tent, that as an adult, since I was 18, this tent is the only shelter I’ve considered home- loved as my own, looked forward to for privacy, slept well in, whatever home means to me, this is it. Whatever am I going to do about that?
For now, sleep in my home.
September 6, 2010 (Birch Glen)
Hard day. I struggle to find reason in these miles. Maybe today was grueling for all of us, but I worry our morale is in trouble. MudD was tired today, which doesn’t help- I’m concerned about Biscuits because he’s quiet (is he a quiet guy or upset into silence?) and I’m expending my energy in making the miles. My brain as leader is suffering. I’m in the odd limbo between presentness and mania. Or maybe not mania, but hyperactivity. The minute after I stop moving I’m smiling and joking and can form sentences. But not the minute before. My mind is slowing, slowly. There’s a powerful nagging that wants to be done already. I don’t care about the miles after the Long Trail Inn (except thinking about telling someone whether I did the whole thing or quit). MudD and I talk about the Inn whenever we talk. We certainly need a day off. Maybe after a zero we’ll be refreshed. Yes, that must be. Refreshed and ready to do the easier miles. Hooray! Oh, Camels Hump today. Gorgeous.
We got to the top before 9 am, before the tourists, after the clouds had undressed the summit, leaving a hard wind and a gorgeous view. I made a bagel, cheese, and sausage sandwich sitting behind a large rock for cover. We took some pictures, looking cool against the wind, standing tall with the gray spine of the Green Mountain Range winding behind us.
September 7, 2010 (Battell Shelter)
Much better day. Went only 12 miles over the Lincoln Ridge, morning was raining. Tomorrow is our biggest day yet, over 16. Then Thursday we’re going 20. I’m thinking of calling Bob to see if he wants to do Trail magic Thursday. I’m hungry. The family who’s staying here at Battell is eating tons of food in front of us, my stomach is going to start rumbling. What’s better about being supported? I would feel ashamed with all that assistance and smelling of Tide. Anyway, these new plans will put us at the Inn by the early afternoon, which will be the beginning to a much-deserved day and a half off. Sunday starts biggish days, just 17 or so after a big Patrick breakfast. I’m counting on the last days to fly, because the most interesting section may be done. Or, I can hope for a little heatwave, to make all the ponds more attractive.
Something happened to morale today. It was exactly what we needed. Today we laughed and made jokes and giggled and played games and smiled to each other. Maybe it’s all changing. Maybe it was too hard- because we all fell or hurt ourselves today, and it was the best day in a week. Or maybe we’ll be miserable with our huge miles forever. We’ll see.
September 8, 2010 (Sucker Brook Shelter)
Gah. 23.6 miles today, because it was cold. Originally, at 16.2 it was going to be our longest day yet. Then it was 12:30 and we’d gone 12 miles. And it was so cold. The temperature couldn’t have been higher than 60 with strong winds from Hurricane Earl, so taking a break wasn’t really an option. We knew that we had to keep going to stay warm, and when we were done we’d be ready for bed in our sleeping bags. Or, rather, ready for nothing but bed. So someone, can’t imagine who, haha, suggested we go another 7.7 miles. No matter how little I wanted to hike over 20, I knew he had a good point. The day was chilly enough that we wouldn’t get dehydrated (there was literally one spring after 5 miles) so we went. And it was smart, because the original plan was for Boyce Shelter, where the water was dry. So we descended into Middlebury Gap and my knees ached, then we climbed Mt. Worth, which I was done with long before it was done with me.
A mountain meandering along an abandoned ski resort, the trail took us over wooded ridges and tops that felt like peaks every time, rustic and brown like a hermit’s neglected back yard. Following another mile of ridge-walking over densely packed pine forest we observed another rise, and then another. Somehow the trail seemed haunted, the firs were so close on either side the path was shrinking, fighting against the shade and the isolation of old Mt. Worth. When the descent began, we still didn’t know if another rise would appear, but all I could think about were my screaming feet. My feet trembled and ached and throbbed with the impact of thousands of steps. I knew I was lucky nothing else bothered me, that tomorrow my feet would be fine, if a little angry. The irrational fear of a thru-hiker is that they have lost the trail. Where intersections are poorly marked, confusion is possible. However for most hikers, when you think you’ve gone far enough, and there’s no sign of an expected landmark, you imagine ghost trails that trick you into following a ridge walk with no shelter, or an old logging road without water, and sometimes you turn around to check whether you missed an intersection the map just happens to leave out, and at the very least you worry and check the map obsessively.
Pulling the elevation profile out of my pocket, delicately unfolding the sweat-logged paper, I checked how far we had going down. It looked like a few jagged miles. This could not be right. Worrying for Biscuits, who must be quite concerned at how long this is taking, I would call every ten minutes or so, ‘we’re knocking on the door, getting closer, I can feel it.’ The path kept going, like there was no shelter to mark, like it had disappeared or the book was lying and I realized I was half-crazed and quite loopy. And starving. My water was running out. I could tell by the lightening of my pack. And then he called up to me ‘sign!’ and my body burst with relief and began to pump the tiredness through my veins. Down a short side trail to a small shelter, and I ‘caw-caw’-ed to greet MudD, who was pumping water. Water. I had rationed tiny sips every 5 minutes for the last 8 miles. ‘How’s the source?’ I managed. ‘It’s gorgeous!’ He smiled back.
Relief. Going through the motions: unpacking the bag, changing into warmer layers, eating a protein bar, setting up a bed, gathering bladder and nalgene and platypus, pumping water, preparing to cook dinner; these were interrupted with giggles and strange comments that I have no recollection of speaking or whether they were at all funny. MudD made some comment about me being weird. Whatever dregs of caloric energy were keeping my limbs moving and brain completing complex tasks were not familiar vapors. These were the death rattles of exhaustion merging with heavily processed protein supplements. And a body in starvation mode inviting a liter of cold mountain water. I felt strange all night. My feet screamed until the wee hours of the morning. I laid silently in my sleeping bag, aware only of the pain and that I was not asleep. But of course, I nearly was.
The boys compared their blisters that night and I passed around the iodine. The plan for tomorrow is 20.6, and a morning hike into Killington. Wow.
September 9, 2010 (Rolsten Rest)
1 year anniversary of finishing the AT- and it’s bittersweet. Not because of the time, or that I’m missing something out here (in fact, I’m happy to be acquainted again with this ‘otherness’ which gives perspective on my life back home). I just miss it. If I were done with the book it might be different.
Anyway, it rained all day. The only vista that stops my near-run (fighting the good fight to prevent hyperthermia) is that brilliant green of a moss bed drinking the rain and creating its own light source of color. Otherwise I just go. And fast. I’m filthy with mud. Yesterday I saw a fisher! I was wet and cold for most of the day. Then after lunch I put on my tunes and flew! Listening to Yeasayer made me happy, and gave me new energy. We did over 23 yesterday, almost 21 today. I was so tired when I got to the shelter, but the terrain got so much easier that my feet aren’t screaming at me. Tomorrow is the Inn at Long Trail. Can’t fucking wait.
September 10, 2010 (Inn at Long Trail)
Laying in a bed under covers. It’s not ‘til you get close to the way things were that you realize how far out you had been. I love being on my own. I’ve made a new friend, Roxy (what a kickass name), and befriended two sisters who are here grieving their mother and reconnecting. They bought me and MudD and Biscuits a round and I talked to them about hiking and gave some advice about a hike tomorrow. These women carry themselves with the comfort of a favorite couch with perfect ass-grooves. They can settle themselves into new territory with the assurance of vulnerable kindness- a quality from which few people react recoil. I admire their open demeanors and ass-groove confidence.
Even the guys here at the Inn remembered me and called me a celebrity. I’m near tears swelling with happiness. I just don’t get into these kinds of situations when I’m home- like I’m not proud enough of what I do to put myself out there alone. Maybe. Which is why I think I’ll call AJ tomorrow and tell him that I’ve been thinking on the trail, and have decided to try the adult world again, and if I had a choice, it would be working for him again. I’ll do Hanover, whatever; I’m ready for change. Wow. I can’t believe this might happen. Might. With my luck he’ll have already offered it to someone else.
Sleep time.
September 11, 2010 (Inn at Long Trail)
What a day. Talked to Natalie, Erin, Bob, and AJ and Ash. Natalie helped me with my resolve to accept a job from AJ and AJ told me there is no job for now. But, there will be a job, and we’re going to talk about it when I get home. I was disappointed because I got so pumped up about moving and a job and my own place and being close to Brigid and having friends visit me. But this will be a good exercise in patience because if I can get the job it is worth waiting for. It would be a hell of an opportunity for me and it’s likely a place I could make my own. It’s lucky this happened while I’m on trail. I’m so much bolder and more confident. 6 days left in the woods. 106 miles. I have so much to look forward to.
September12, 2010 (Clarendon)
You just can’t beat being back on trail! Got a stomach full of noodles, a brain full of plans (tag sale, building cabinets and a new kitchen table, seeing Anju, etc) and a body fresh and strong. I felt terrific today. We’re going to finish early. The rest of the time at the Inn was splendid, besides losing my underwear. Tom O’Carroll sang such luvly songs, ones I must buy once home: Long Black Veil, Caledonia, Dirty Old Town; and find other music with the ten penny and that amazing goat-skin drum: bodhran. The Seymour sisters are wonderful- they just loved me, happy smiling women off to have a good time, boisterous, friendly.
Then today I proposed we change the last week around and the boys were willing, God love ‘em. I’m so in charge, and I’m good at it. Looking forward to everything!!
September 13, 2010 (Lost Pond)
19.4 miles today, felt great except the climbs. Started in the rain, saw a deer, had a good hiking day, not much to report. Into Manchester tomorrow!
September 14, 2010 (Green Mountain House, Manchester)
Exhausted. Because it’s almost 11. Beth and Bob came into town for dinner and they’re slackpacking us tomorrow. They seemed excited, hoping for the same magic as last year. I dominate the group because MudD and Biscuits are so quiet, and the energy never elevates the way it could with a big group of folks like ‘Sota and Fly-By and Ahab. Not that I wanted to recreate the magic. But I think they miss that flavor that they got as angels to Joker’s Merry Men. Anyway, done Friday, into Boston Wednesday morning. There’s plenty to look forward to! I’m ready to be done with the trail, even though there aren’t any other ways of spending a day I can think of that I like more than hiking all day. That may be significant.
September 15, 2010 (Story Spring)
Interesting day. Ate 2 donuts and a muffin after a slice of pizza for breakfast, hiked way too fast in the beginning of the slackpack, so my left foot screams now all day. Had a blonde moment at a yellow left turn sign and went a half mile out of my way, then backtracked to keep up. Felt much better climbing Stratton. I love going up and over mountains. That’s my favorite. Then Beth met us after 17.5 with Gatorade, chips, cheetos and beer. I ate too much junk and felt terrible- after 3 miles or so I vomited orangey goop. Gross. Then I felt terrific! Old section hikers were at the shelter, just 3 but they took up the whole place with their shit. I made a full meal despite the junk food binge/purge, and ate while the light faded to nothing. Time for sleep. I’m ready to be done I guess, I was in a pretty terrible mood for most of today. Hopefully a full night of sleep here (it can’t be much past 8) will restore my smiles.
September 16, 2010 (Melville Nauheim)
Changes noticed and absent:
-instinct to multitask remains
-ability to multitask gone
-calm in public settings
-eye contact easy across board
-lots more patience, aided by better attention span
-as I read Comfort Me With Apples, it occurs to me that writing, the outdoors, and food are my three great loves (not including people).. And, if I can help it, I would like to backpack at least 3 weeks a year, not split up, to stay in shape and challenge my body and restore my mind.
p.s. I hiked my own pace today, found it to be happiness-inducing, and tonight I’m positively gleeful in the woods.
Having a hard time- well, fighting the urge to go to sleep. Want night to last.
Welcome home to me. LT day 1 (or T minus 1). Met great guys, with good people, ready to kick some mountain ass!
August 30, 2010 (Jay Camp)
And what a welcome it was! I’m so sore. Energy is good, except during the huge climbs, when I can only count on my endurance. My back is sore, my feet started to raw, I stink. Overall, I dove in head first to a new trail and it couldn’t be going any better, unless there was more water. So that challenges my planning. Camaraderie is good: three is a great number for independent long distance hikers, because there’s usually someone to talk to if you want that, and no one to get their feelings hurt when you want to be alone. MudD is the common thread, and he handles that with ease, and ever so slowly Derek and I understand each other. I know my brain is still scattered and I’m still impatient. Soon, the woods will slow my mind, ease my step, and simplify everything else.
August 31, 2010 (Tillotson Camp)
Great hiking day. Hard. But rewarding. Lots of peaks, including Haystack, in under 12 miles. My mind wanders while I hike, tumbling and exploring at great speed over many subjects and concepts, admiring friends and pondering trysts, examining how once inside the green wild I never seem to connect to anyone outside of it. On the days to come, I hope my mind wanders into better catchy songs (I had “Fancy” by Reba McEntire, or actually, two lines from “Fancy” stuck in my head on replay for hours today “I might have been born just plain white trash but Fancy was my name / She said ‘here’s your once chance Fancy, don’t let me down’”). Charlie Brown is at the shelter- just hearing him harshed my mellow- I knew from his voice he was lonely, talkative, and not interesting. I decided that that assumption shouldn’t have such power, so I gave him a chance. Let me play it out for you.
With a few remaining miles to the day, and for all of us, barely any water, we took a long break at the first stream in hours. A serene babbling brook in the lush col between two mountains, there was plenty of good seating and a deep enough stream for all of us to pump at separate pools. After filling my camelbak I pumped a liter into my nalgene and added a nuun electrolyte tablet. I chugged the cool mountain water, the best water on the planet (I swear, it’s all about the water, that faraway look backpackers get when you talk about one of their trails, they may say it’s the memories of the people or the views or the exertion, but it’s triggering the trace memory of drinking water filtered out of the land, pure and clean, exquisite), while we talked about our sore muscles and the heat. I know the power of the heat by hydration best: on a day like today, when you sweat so much you smell the liquid fat excreted through your pores, when my eyes fill with sweat if I blink too slow, and then drip drips off of my chin, when I drink a liter of water in under five minutes, hoist a 25 pound pack onto bruised shoulders, and start walking without getting a cramp, that’s when I make a mental note to chug another liter once in camp and again after dinner. That is heat. With that heat comes immense gratitude for the dependable water source at a shelter. Expecting that water was ahead very simply determined that we could continue to live out here. Rumors of water scarcity met us via Northbounders. I dissected the rumors and examined them like a detective. A hiker could lose all credibility for false water information.
And so, full of water but most comfortably so, I was dawdling into camp, with a happy spring in my step, singing “Fancy,” surprised to see the privy first and the shelter roof next, I thought ‘oh joy of joy I’m done for the day! And what a glorious day it was! Tonight my friends and I will dine with a view over the northwoods landscape, and discuss our highlights, our frustrations, and rest easy on tired bones.’ Then I hear the voice.
“You guys must have just started, eh? Yeah, I did the whole trail myself, the wife is picking me up on Wednesday, I’ll be taking my time to finish, you know, might as well make it last, am I right? See, guys my age, we aren’t out here for the exercise. No sir, we’re here to get out of the house…” And I stopped listening because I knew the boys were there, they were ahead of me, and they would be smiling for someone else to be doing the talking, but I was not interested in this man. I heard in his voice, his tone and his easy sentences the hum of a recorded tape, a worn repetition for a lonely man with little to say. These guys are all the same, I practically said out loud, instead let escape a loud sigh, just feet from camp. He waits for company, the captive audience of tired hikers, to pontificate all his predetermined sentences and stories, jumbled together without form or connection, using us for our ears but never really caring about our parallels, our shared footsteps or histories. They’ll ask you a question, sure, but they’re waiting to give you their favorite answer. And then I paused. I walked in and greeted my friends and coolly introduced myself to the man who had not yet ceased to speak. An older adult, he was wearing shorts and crocs, and his eyes were full of me. He had the hair of a snorer, so I pulled out my tent and looked for a flat area in the piney clearing on the other side of the trail. The courage and confidence that comes from pitching my tent is hard to describe. Like these gentlemen who miss something long gone, I am guilty of nostalgia, when the reenactment of my routine mitigated my tension and reminded me of one great lesson of the woods: not all people are as they seem. And so, when Charlie Brown walked over to watch me pitch my tent and talk to me, I listened.
“So you’re hiking with those guys, eh?”
“Yup.”
“Yeah, I did the whole trail myself, the wife is picking me up on Wednesday.”
“That’s exciting.”
“Yup, I started the 6th of August, and let me tell you, it’s been a hell of a trip. You think you’ve been working hard, the miles to come are, heh, well, because you’re a lady I’ll watch my tongue, but you’re looking at pretty bad trail.”
“You didn’t enjoy your hike?”
“Of course I enjoyed my hike! What are you thinking? I’ve been thinking of what I’m going to do next year. See, out here I haven’t met many people. There’s my buddy Andy, he should be getting here soon because we were in town together two days ago and I lost him in town and so I’ve been waiting for him to catch up, he’s a younger guy, you know and so it should be no problem for him but I haven’t seen him yet and figure it’ll be tonight that he catches up, but anyway, lots of people going your direction, from time to time I get a shelter to myself of course, but that’s why you go out here, right? To be alone. They say it’s hard and it is, now, I also carry a lot more than you young kids but let me tell you something you should know: Don’t go to the grocery store hungry. That’s something to remember. I did that in Johnson, had to unload all this extra food outside of town, see, because I bought too much. So don’t do that. That ground doesn’t look too flat right there. What did you say your name was again?”
Well, maybe he has some good stories at least. Stay positive.
And eventually he walked away. At dinnertime he gave us the gift of a fire. Then he started talking about doing the PCT.
“Yeah, I’ve been thinking about doing that next year.”
“Do you go off on a long-distance hike every year?” I asked.
“No, not every year. I did the AT in 2003, and I’m finishing the LT now, so, no, this has been it. My wife doesn’t really understand, she’s supportive you know, let’s me go from time to time.”
“Oh.”
“But I think for next year what I’ll do is go out there and my wife can follow me in an RV. I can hike and she can meet me at all the roads and have water and food ready.”
“Wow, that would be really nice of her.”
“Well, that’s why you get a bride.”
I scoff. MudD and Derek are both suddenly consumed by their food.
Charlie Brown laughs at his reflection, his fortune, and leans a little closer to the fire and myself. The low flames danced and cast a shadow into his smile lines.
“That’s why you get a bride!”
“Oh, is that it?” I finally manage, an attempt to freeze over the fire between us.
“She doesn’t really understand why I do this, you know? She doesn’t like this sort of thing, ‘why do you want to live in the woods?’ she asks me.”
So maybe I was right after all.
We also met some very nice older ladies, and I found myself cutting them off with my own observations. I need to slow everything down.
September 2, 2010 (Bear Hollow Shelter)
I totally forgot to write last night! It was a big day, 15 miles, which I felt pretty good for most of. And we went swimming in Belvidere Pond, which was my highlight. At Corliss Camp, we ate and swatted mosquitoes, then looked into the woods until Derek’s friends Shelly and Anastasia met us with cokes, snickers, and energy.
Today was terrific! Almost 3 miles per hour! And Laraway Mountain was so beautiful, a steady climb, I felt terrific, and it has a lookout that was a great rock outcrop, hazy but good view, where we took Backpacker cover shots. The name of the mountain is beautiful to my ears, I exclaimed to the boys, with the emphasis on the first syllable, the word floats off your lips like a soft breeze: laraway. They were very polite.
We were in town by noonish, resupplied wicked efficiently, then hung out at the library, where I got the shits and spiraled into a deranged headspace. Is something wrong with me? Did I contract giardia? How? That could take me off the trail if it persists. Just like Hellbender and Stud the Dud in Colorado. Then we went out for pizza and beer with Shelly and Jamie and Alyssa, Biscuits’ (Derek has a name!) friends.
At the restaurant, I happily guzzled a pint of local brew and ordered far too much food. Oh how the prideful fall, when I expected to eat not only my deep dish heavily cheesed vegetable pizza but help my friends with their doughy charges, we were all left with the heavy leftovers to carry, on account of our shamefully small bellies. The light lost its warmth and a rain shower scuttled over town. Then it was time for a return to our trail. How foreign! The thought of leaving this quiet town, filled with happy pizza chefs and inquisitive camp counselors, grocer and post office down the road, for the winding corridor of protected woods, exposed lean-tos and rugged mountain passes. Then to be dropped off on an old logging road, sure we were in the right place but unsure of the condition ahead, rekindled a bold fear, the discomfort of intrepid travelers, who are at the mercy of more elements than most, with more than enough stubbornness.
My pace slowed with the extra burdens I carried. The woods around us were green and lush, a dense undergrowth covering the forest floor below towering birches and oak, maybe? As though aware of their flourish in the purpling sunlight, ferns extended perfect fronds among cabbages and shrubbery. My pace seemed to tug at the hands of time, warping how far I thought I’d gone. The shelter was so far, so high up, beyond me ever beyond. Any restless joys from a luxurious day were imminent and due at the sight of a sign. Along the rolling green trail, restlessness resembled discomfort until that destination.
Sign!
Tonight we’re at Bear Hollow Shelter. My shirt smells so bad. Bolt is here, his two companions just quit the trail. But he’s really cool. Looking forward to hiking tomorrow! I’m so strong!
September 3, 2010 (Taft Lodge)
Probably the hardest day, but I feel great now! I go back and forth, feeling strong and able, or fantasizing about a slight enough injury to take me off with pride intact. I think about my trip to California and regular life- things I crave and what I don’t. That means, I suppose, that the trail is getting inside me. Which is good. Just north of here the trail decided to take on a most impressive angle, requiring trail crews to build almost a mile of rock steps taking these dainty and impressive switchbacks up the beginning of Mansfield. We were in no hurry, and I could hear the boys sweating enthusiastically above me on the stairs. Every quarter mile or so they would sit, and open their ziplocks of skittles and munch. I did the same and gladly, as we have accepted the candy as our most favorite crutch. Like Pavlov's dog I salivate at the sound of opening ziplocks, with that little question mark bubble "skittles?" materializing above my raised eyebrows.
Tourists with daypacks passed us and my pride sunk.
Kevin, the caretaker here, is really nice. He passed around the whisky, yum! I’m loving everyone I meet. All good news!
September 4, 2010 (Buchanon Lodge)
14.2 today, got the shelter all to ourselves. Ups are still so hard for me- I can’t go fast, I can barely go, and my muscles burn in protest. It’s been 6 days living in the woods, we’ve gone 80 miles, and tomorrow we’ll be a third done with the trail. I had a realization today, that I will finish the book, that I have the will (as this trail must prove!) to get it published. I should look into the website Biscuits told me about for a part time job. Looking at the trail book, at first thinking about how tired I am, thinking about being done, I almost started to cry- for mourning this trail. The miles we covered today included the famous Mansfield bust, from forehead to neck. Because we woke up at dawn, and on the scalp, waiting for clear skies was vetoed two to one. The mountain was covered in wispy fog and opaque, too, hanging heavy against the wind that blew an illusion at the summit: for all its blowing, the clouds still hung like paintings on the curves of our irises, these ethereal strands of milky gas. But did they whip! We had no view and didn’t miss it. The slick volcanic rock on the forehead demanded all of our attention. We traversed a rock garden lost in time or place. For all we knew the wardrobe had been the lodge, and we set out into Narnia, a landscape more fairy than modern.
This is going to be interesting: over before I know it, I can tell.
September 5, 2010 (Bamforth Ridge Shelter)
I would have shit my pants today if the Richmond town park didn’t have a public restroom. Camping tonight, a little under 4 miles from the summit of Camel’s Hump. Today I lost track of the boys, they took a scenic view I didn’t notice, and just flew into town. Then they weren’t there. I’d asked some guys at the shelter 2 miles back if they’d seen them, who said no, and I knew that must mean I’d passed them but I couldn’t believe it. So I texted MudD and moseyed along, found a spot to sit and sat. Then he called.
“Where are you??”
“I’m at the road, didn’t you see my message? Where are you?”
“At the road? We went by the road!”
“You went into town?”
“No, we checked the road and went back to camp.”
“You went back to the shelter?!”
“Yes. We were so worried. I thought that guy with the stupid dog killed you. I was sure.”
So they were 5 miles back. He sounded pissed and relieved. They ran to where I was waiting, and we went into town, where I purchased enough food for 5 days, which turns out to be what I need, in addition to a quart of fruit puree. I ate an apple and drank the green goodness while we packed our bags. Then we went to the Bridge St Café, and I ate a bacon cheeseburger with two eggs and toast. Then we walked to the park and I talked to my parents for a while, until I realized I needed to, as Snarl would say, make boom boom. Panic seized hold, nearly, as I walked past families with small children playing in the playground, laughing on the swings, running across the open green field, the stone building looming towards me, a storage facility, or maybe, just maybe, a public restroom that could maybe, just maybe, be unlocked. I walked up to the building, aware of my exposure, planning an embarrassing and disastrous plan b. The cattails at the edge of mowed park? The café there, no it’s not open! One house after another on the same street? It must have a restroom. But! Would it be locked? No! Hooray! I said that out loud: ‘Hooray!’
The hike to here was beautiful and steep in parts and ambling in others. My pack is heavy with high protein food, but I’ll manage, and regardless of my shameful pace, I sang and made excellent time. I really like this life, when it all comes down to it, but I’m excited to channel the goodness that comes from living simply- my calmness, lack of rushed speech, eye contact, confidence, assuredness, presentness (I was totally in the hiker zone today. The trio hiking pack we are allows hiking alone every single day. I treasure this time, and wish I’d had more of it on the AT)- excited to channel it into my life back in Mass, imbue my routine with these efficiencies, simplify my life with these lessons. Because this backpacking must be the thing in between things. It cannot be the main thing. I look forward to making my other lifestyle better. Now I have to get an LT AT tattoo.
100 miles tomorrow!
It just occurred to me, getting into my tent, that as an adult, since I was 18, this tent is the only shelter I’ve considered home- loved as my own, looked forward to for privacy, slept well in, whatever home means to me, this is it. Whatever am I going to do about that?
For now, sleep in my home.
September 6, 2010 (Birch Glen)
Hard day. I struggle to find reason in these miles. Maybe today was grueling for all of us, but I worry our morale is in trouble. MudD was tired today, which doesn’t help- I’m concerned about Biscuits because he’s quiet (is he a quiet guy or upset into silence?) and I’m expending my energy in making the miles. My brain as leader is suffering. I’m in the odd limbo between presentness and mania. Or maybe not mania, but hyperactivity. The minute after I stop moving I’m smiling and joking and can form sentences. But not the minute before. My mind is slowing, slowly. There’s a powerful nagging that wants to be done already. I don’t care about the miles after the Long Trail Inn (except thinking about telling someone whether I did the whole thing or quit). MudD and I talk about the Inn whenever we talk. We certainly need a day off. Maybe after a zero we’ll be refreshed. Yes, that must be. Refreshed and ready to do the easier miles. Hooray! Oh, Camels Hump today. Gorgeous.
We got to the top before 9 am, before the tourists, after the clouds had undressed the summit, leaving a hard wind and a gorgeous view. I made a bagel, cheese, and sausage sandwich sitting behind a large rock for cover. We took some pictures, looking cool against the wind, standing tall with the gray spine of the Green Mountain Range winding behind us.
September 7, 2010 (Battell Shelter)
Much better day. Went only 12 miles over the Lincoln Ridge, morning was raining. Tomorrow is our biggest day yet, over 16. Then Thursday we’re going 20. I’m thinking of calling Bob to see if he wants to do Trail magic Thursday. I’m hungry. The family who’s staying here at Battell is eating tons of food in front of us, my stomach is going to start rumbling. What’s better about being supported? I would feel ashamed with all that assistance and smelling of Tide. Anyway, these new plans will put us at the Inn by the early afternoon, which will be the beginning to a much-deserved day and a half off. Sunday starts biggish days, just 17 or so after a big Patrick breakfast. I’m counting on the last days to fly, because the most interesting section may be done. Or, I can hope for a little heatwave, to make all the ponds more attractive.
Something happened to morale today. It was exactly what we needed. Today we laughed and made jokes and giggled and played games and smiled to each other. Maybe it’s all changing. Maybe it was too hard- because we all fell or hurt ourselves today, and it was the best day in a week. Or maybe we’ll be miserable with our huge miles forever. We’ll see.
September 8, 2010 (Sucker Brook Shelter)
Gah. 23.6 miles today, because it was cold. Originally, at 16.2 it was going to be our longest day yet. Then it was 12:30 and we’d gone 12 miles. And it was so cold. The temperature couldn’t have been higher than 60 with strong winds from Hurricane Earl, so taking a break wasn’t really an option. We knew that we had to keep going to stay warm, and when we were done we’d be ready for bed in our sleeping bags. Or, rather, ready for nothing but bed. So someone, can’t imagine who, haha, suggested we go another 7.7 miles. No matter how little I wanted to hike over 20, I knew he had a good point. The day was chilly enough that we wouldn’t get dehydrated (there was literally one spring after 5 miles) so we went. And it was smart, because the original plan was for Boyce Shelter, where the water was dry. So we descended into Middlebury Gap and my knees ached, then we climbed Mt. Worth, which I was done with long before it was done with me.
A mountain meandering along an abandoned ski resort, the trail took us over wooded ridges and tops that felt like peaks every time, rustic and brown like a hermit’s neglected back yard. Following another mile of ridge-walking over densely packed pine forest we observed another rise, and then another. Somehow the trail seemed haunted, the firs were so close on either side the path was shrinking, fighting against the shade and the isolation of old Mt. Worth. When the descent began, we still didn’t know if another rise would appear, but all I could think about were my screaming feet. My feet trembled and ached and throbbed with the impact of thousands of steps. I knew I was lucky nothing else bothered me, that tomorrow my feet would be fine, if a little angry. The irrational fear of a thru-hiker is that they have lost the trail. Where intersections are poorly marked, confusion is possible. However for most hikers, when you think you’ve gone far enough, and there’s no sign of an expected landmark, you imagine ghost trails that trick you into following a ridge walk with no shelter, or an old logging road without water, and sometimes you turn around to check whether you missed an intersection the map just happens to leave out, and at the very least you worry and check the map obsessively.
Pulling the elevation profile out of my pocket, delicately unfolding the sweat-logged paper, I checked how far we had going down. It looked like a few jagged miles. This could not be right. Worrying for Biscuits, who must be quite concerned at how long this is taking, I would call every ten minutes or so, ‘we’re knocking on the door, getting closer, I can feel it.’ The path kept going, like there was no shelter to mark, like it had disappeared or the book was lying and I realized I was half-crazed and quite loopy. And starving. My water was running out. I could tell by the lightening of my pack. And then he called up to me ‘sign!’ and my body burst with relief and began to pump the tiredness through my veins. Down a short side trail to a small shelter, and I ‘caw-caw’-ed to greet MudD, who was pumping water. Water. I had rationed tiny sips every 5 minutes for the last 8 miles. ‘How’s the source?’ I managed. ‘It’s gorgeous!’ He smiled back.
Relief. Going through the motions: unpacking the bag, changing into warmer layers, eating a protein bar, setting up a bed, gathering bladder and nalgene and platypus, pumping water, preparing to cook dinner; these were interrupted with giggles and strange comments that I have no recollection of speaking or whether they were at all funny. MudD made some comment about me being weird. Whatever dregs of caloric energy were keeping my limbs moving and brain completing complex tasks were not familiar vapors. These were the death rattles of exhaustion merging with heavily processed protein supplements. And a body in starvation mode inviting a liter of cold mountain water. I felt strange all night. My feet screamed until the wee hours of the morning. I laid silently in my sleeping bag, aware only of the pain and that I was not asleep. But of course, I nearly was.
The boys compared their blisters that night and I passed around the iodine. The plan for tomorrow is 20.6, and a morning hike into Killington. Wow.
September 9, 2010 (Rolsten Rest)
1 year anniversary of finishing the AT- and it’s bittersweet. Not because of the time, or that I’m missing something out here (in fact, I’m happy to be acquainted again with this ‘otherness’ which gives perspective on my life back home). I just miss it. If I were done with the book it might be different.
Anyway, it rained all day. The only vista that stops my near-run (fighting the good fight to prevent hyperthermia) is that brilliant green of a moss bed drinking the rain and creating its own light source of color. Otherwise I just go. And fast. I’m filthy with mud. Yesterday I saw a fisher! I was wet and cold for most of the day. Then after lunch I put on my tunes and flew! Listening to Yeasayer made me happy, and gave me new energy. We did over 23 yesterday, almost 21 today. I was so tired when I got to the shelter, but the terrain got so much easier that my feet aren’t screaming at me. Tomorrow is the Inn at Long Trail. Can’t fucking wait.
September 10, 2010 (Inn at Long Trail)
Laying in a bed under covers. It’s not ‘til you get close to the way things were that you realize how far out you had been. I love being on my own. I’ve made a new friend, Roxy (what a kickass name), and befriended two sisters who are here grieving their mother and reconnecting. They bought me and MudD and Biscuits a round and I talked to them about hiking and gave some advice about a hike tomorrow. These women carry themselves with the comfort of a favorite couch with perfect ass-grooves. They can settle themselves into new territory with the assurance of vulnerable kindness- a quality from which few people react recoil. I admire their open demeanors and ass-groove confidence.
Even the guys here at the Inn remembered me and called me a celebrity. I’m near tears swelling with happiness. I just don’t get into these kinds of situations when I’m home- like I’m not proud enough of what I do to put myself out there alone. Maybe. Which is why I think I’ll call AJ tomorrow and tell him that I’ve been thinking on the trail, and have decided to try the adult world again, and if I had a choice, it would be working for him again. I’ll do Hanover, whatever; I’m ready for change. Wow. I can’t believe this might happen. Might. With my luck he’ll have already offered it to someone else.
Sleep time.
September 11, 2010 (Inn at Long Trail)
What a day. Talked to Natalie, Erin, Bob, and AJ and Ash. Natalie helped me with my resolve to accept a job from AJ and AJ told me there is no job for now. But, there will be a job, and we’re going to talk about it when I get home. I was disappointed because I got so pumped up about moving and a job and my own place and being close to Brigid and having friends visit me. But this will be a good exercise in patience because if I can get the job it is worth waiting for. It would be a hell of an opportunity for me and it’s likely a place I could make my own. It’s lucky this happened while I’m on trail. I’m so much bolder and more confident. 6 days left in the woods. 106 miles. I have so much to look forward to.
September12, 2010 (Clarendon)
You just can’t beat being back on trail! Got a stomach full of noodles, a brain full of plans (tag sale, building cabinets and a new kitchen table, seeing Anju, etc) and a body fresh and strong. I felt terrific today. We’re going to finish early. The rest of the time at the Inn was splendid, besides losing my underwear. Tom O’Carroll sang such luvly songs, ones I must buy once home: Long Black Veil, Caledonia, Dirty Old Town; and find other music with the ten penny and that amazing goat-skin drum: bodhran. The Seymour sisters are wonderful- they just loved me, happy smiling women off to have a good time, boisterous, friendly.
Then today I proposed we change the last week around and the boys were willing, God love ‘em. I’m so in charge, and I’m good at it. Looking forward to everything!!
September 13, 2010 (Lost Pond)
19.4 miles today, felt great except the climbs. Started in the rain, saw a deer, had a good hiking day, not much to report. Into Manchester tomorrow!
September 14, 2010 (Green Mountain House, Manchester)
Exhausted. Because it’s almost 11. Beth and Bob came into town for dinner and they’re slackpacking us tomorrow. They seemed excited, hoping for the same magic as last year. I dominate the group because MudD and Biscuits are so quiet, and the energy never elevates the way it could with a big group of folks like ‘Sota and Fly-By and Ahab. Not that I wanted to recreate the magic. But I think they miss that flavor that they got as angels to Joker’s Merry Men. Anyway, done Friday, into Boston Wednesday morning. There’s plenty to look forward to! I’m ready to be done with the trail, even though there aren’t any other ways of spending a day I can think of that I like more than hiking all day. That may be significant.
September 15, 2010 (Story Spring)
Interesting day. Ate 2 donuts and a muffin after a slice of pizza for breakfast, hiked way too fast in the beginning of the slackpack, so my left foot screams now all day. Had a blonde moment at a yellow left turn sign and went a half mile out of my way, then backtracked to keep up. Felt much better climbing Stratton. I love going up and over mountains. That’s my favorite. Then Beth met us after 17.5 with Gatorade, chips, cheetos and beer. I ate too much junk and felt terrible- after 3 miles or so I vomited orangey goop. Gross. Then I felt terrific! Old section hikers were at the shelter, just 3 but they took up the whole place with their shit. I made a full meal despite the junk food binge/purge, and ate while the light faded to nothing. Time for sleep. I’m ready to be done I guess, I was in a pretty terrible mood for most of today. Hopefully a full night of sleep here (it can’t be much past 8) will restore my smiles.
September 16, 2010 (Melville Nauheim)
Changes noticed and absent:
-instinct to multitask remains
-ability to multitask gone
-calm in public settings
-eye contact easy across board
-lots more patience, aided by better attention span
-as I read Comfort Me With Apples, it occurs to me that writing, the outdoors, and food are my three great loves (not including people).. And, if I can help it, I would like to backpack at least 3 weeks a year, not split up, to stay in shape and challenge my body and restore my mind.
p.s. I hiked my own pace today, found it to be happiness-inducing, and tonight I’m positively gleeful in the woods.
Having a hard time- well, fighting the urge to go to sleep. Want night to last.
posted by Sara Haxby at
8:48 PM
