Posts Tagged ‘appalachian trail’

Night 43: Night Hiking Mousilauke and Dreaming of McDonalds

Thursday, March 24th, 2011

McDonalds In Lincoln New Hampshire

McDonalds In Lincoln New Hampshire With My Tricycle Outside

Saturday July 17, 2010

17.8 Miles, 1788.6 Miles to Springer, 390.5 Miles Hiked

I slept sound after a day of emotional highs (McDonald’s Hot Fudge Sundae, Sarah’s texts, being alive)  and lows (Thinking I was going to die, being frustrated with this whole endeavor, feeling like what I was doing wasn’t worth the risks, the solitude, the sacrifice.) that had broken me into a million tiny pieces. I felt better this morning. In fact I felt a hundred times better than I had when I was in that rocking chair, in that basement that smelled like my grandparents house, crying while the laundry machine clunked in the background.

My morning started around 8:30 A.M. None of the normal bikes remained in the garage as other hikers had taken them out so I used what I would describe as a giant adult tricycle which you rode while sitting. My bike ride down Lincoln’s Main Street was like a scene out of a bad 80′s or early 90′s movie. I headed right for McDonald’s.  I pedaled down town with my metallic sunglasses covering my eyes, a bandanna on my head, and my Danskin short shorts riding up my thigh, and I felt like a bad ass. If it had been a movie the song playing would have been “Born To Be Wild.” I was sweating by the time I got to McDonald’s and I could tell it was going to be a hot one.

I was feeling ambitious and ordered the McDonald’s Big Breakfast which included, three pancakes, a sausage paddy, a biscuit, and scrambled eggs, and I ordered two milks and sat down to enjoy my feast after the people working there gave me more than a few looks for the outfit I was sporting.

Everything was amazing. Yes, my McDonald’s breakfast was amazing, except for the eggs. They were dry, and crusty, and the opposite of amazing.

I turned my phone on to see if I could get a hold of Sarah before I headed out and right when I turned it on I got a text from her saying, “Bib 3 is lee Robertson.”

“I don’t know who that is, but you are going to do great. I love you so much and can’t wait to see you. I’m sorry I was so down yesterday.” I texted and shut my phone off and left McDonald’s in the same bad ass fashion I had arrived there.

When I returned from breakfast I called the shuttle service. Bishop, myself, and a NOBO hiker named Snickers all shared the cost of the ride back to the trail head at Franconia Notch just past the Flume visitors center.

Before I loaded into the van Chet rolled out onto the driveway and each of us thanked him and gave him whatever donation we were able to and said goodbye.

“Thank you so much for taking me in last night. You have no idea how much I needed a night off the trail, and you can’t imagine what you’ve done for me, for my hike.” I said.

“Sure thing man, no problem.” He said as though he’d heard the same thing from thousands of hikers before and he’d been saying the same thing in return to each of them each time.

As we drove back to the trail we passed a huge water park that was already crowded at only 10:30 in the morning.  Snickers informed us that he planned to stay in Lincoln another day because his birthday was tomorrow. He said he was going to Whale’s Tale Water Park, the one we had just driven passed to celebrate and that he was going to ride every single water slide and float in the lazy river until the park closed. It sounded like a pretty awesome birthday to me.

We also passed a place called Clark’s Trading Post that looked like the ultimate tourist trap.

As we drove passed the trading post, our driver, a different man then the man the who picked me up the night before, but equally obese as that man, began to tell us about Clark’s.

“They got trained black bears in there that do all sorts of tricks. They also got a train that rides through a covered bridge and along a stream, real nice place. Tourists love it. I heard they even got bears riding on segways that play basketball now. One hiker even told me he saw a bear on a unicycle with violin, but I think he was lying.” Our driver said.

“I want to go to there.” I thought.

The idea of spending a day watching bears shoot basketballs while riding segways  and going on fun and relaxing train rides sounded way better than hiking up and down mountains in blistering heat. It was just a pipe dream though and I would be hiking in the heat today. I hoped though that I might see a bear and I would have been especially pleased to see a bear playing basketball with beehive or something, as long as that something wasn’t my head or the head of another hiker.

Bishop and I stuck together the first few miles and stopped at Lonesome Lake Hut hoping to score some leftover breakfast. We were given a pan of baked eggs with sliced tomatoes on top of them that looked promising, but the eggs were downright vomitous. These were by far the worst eggs I had ever eaten, and the thing is, I still ate all of what I was given, but I did turn down the offer for seconds.

I ended up spending two dollars to buy some almond coffee cake and a piece of chocolate cake. I ate them quickly and I left on a sugar high with the contented feeling of being full. I was sad that this would be the last hut I would visit and that from here on out through the remainder of the trail I would never run into anything like the hut system of New Hampshire again. This was the end of the huts, but it also meant that this was almost the end of the Whites and that was something I was extremely happy about.

As we approached North Kinsman my pace picked up and I was well ahead of Bishop by the time I had reached Kinsman’s peak. I was flying through these hills and I was eager to be off all the peaks before the stormy looking clouds all joined forces and unleashed hell as my experience told me was likely possible.

I was listening to a small AM/FM radio I found in the hiker box at Chet’s place and I felt like such an idiot for not thinking of this earlier. Hiking with music made the miles fly by. ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ came on the radio and I literally felt like I was bounding down the mountain to the beat of the song. Music was the best thing to happen to my hiking experience in weeks.

I stopped at Eliza Brook shelter, a decent sized, well maintained shelter that had two wooden tenting platforms nearby. The shelter was located just up and away from a strong flowing stream. I refilled my water at the stream and sat at the shelter for a late lunch around 4:00 P.M. During my break Bishop caught back up to me and told me he was spent and was staying here for the night.

“I’m going to push on to the next shelter nine miles away, the one that’s halfway up Moosilauke. That way I won’t have to tackle all of Moosilauke tomorrow.” I said as I packed up my gear and headed off back out onto the trail. I ran into some NOBO hikers who assured me the nine miles to the next shelter weren’t terrible.

The nine miles weren’t terrible, but they were the usual ups and downs the A.T. always offered.

The nine miles wasn’t anything hard, but it absolutely wrecked me this late in the day, on a very hot day. I felt finished at just under eight miles into my final nine and desperately did not want to hike that last mile.

When I finally reached the road at Kinsman Notch I still had 1.1 miles to go to the shelter, but I was dead and the 1.1 miles I had left would be straight up Moosilauke.

I sat on the guardrail of the road and turned my phone on. I got service for a couple minutes and called Chet hoping he would let me come back for one more night at the hostel. I was getting weak for the comforts of home. He said I could come back, but that it would make more sense just to find a flat spot at the base of Moosilauke and set up my tent for the night and then I could tackle Moosilauke with fresh legs in the morning.

Chet was right and I was crushed. All I wanted was to be back inside for another night and back at McDonald’s for dinner and desert and breakfast again tomorrow. I would have done unspeakable things to be sitting in a McDonald’s eating a Big Mac with an unholy sized soda that I would refill multiple times, but I knew that was not going to happen, and that if I did go back tonight I would want to go back every night for the rest of the trail and if that was the case I might as well go home for good.

I crossed the road and I took a break at the picnic table by the parking lot at the base of the mountain and ate a pouch of sweet and spicy tuna and talked to Sarah about her triathlon the next day. She sounded so excited and also so nervous and I was so excited for her. I wanted to be there to watch her first triathlon and I wished I could have been there to calm her nerves, and cheer her on, but I’d just have to do my best over the phone tonight.

My side of the conversation went much like this;

“I’m psyched for you! I can’t wait to hear all about it. I know you’re going to do great!….. All I want right now is McDonald’s, you cannot imagine how bad I want McDonald’s in my mouth at this moment…… You’re going to have a blast, you’ve been training really hard and you’re going to wreck it!……. I would kill anyone who crossed my path if it meant I could have another hot fudge sundae…… The run won’t be that bad and you can take breaks if you need to, plus you’ve training so hard on the bike that you’ll already be way ahead……I need you to teleport here with a platter of everything that is on the dollar menu……..You’ll be amazing. I love you.”

I meant every word I said.

By the time Sarah and I had finished talking and I was ready to start hiking again it was 8:30 P.M.  Hiking under the cover of trees as the sun began to vanish made me anxious. I got my headlamp on and read the sign at the base of the mountain which read, “This trail is extremely tough. If you lack experience please use another trail. Take special care at the cascades to avoid tragic results.” I became even more anxious. I instantly began to doubt my decision to start this hike up the last and what some consider the most formidable mountains that made up the Whites.

Then my mind flashed to the other option, camping at the base of this mountain which was less than a half mile from a parking lot that spit right onto N.H. 112 a fairly heavily trafficked road.

That was when I remembered the most recent of the nine  reported murders that have occurred on the Appalachian Trail since 1974. Given this most recent murder occurred over a decade ago it still sat in the back of my mind because to this day the crime remained unsolved and the murderers remained on the loose. Two young women were found in their tents in the Shenandoah with their arms bound, mouths gagged and throats slit. One was found in their tent, the other just outside hers and their golden retriever was found roaming outside the tents unharmed.  There was an article in The Washington Post about the murder that said the FBI believed that this crime may have been done by two or more people, not one.

I pictured myself setting up my tent at the base and falling asleep easy enough after a long day of hiking in the hot sun. I then pictured myself waking to the sound of a pickup truck rolling into the parking lot with it’s headlights off. Then I’d hear the sound of heavy, black, leather boots walking through the woods toward my tent crunching on sticks with each step. I’d call out “Hello,” but there’d be no response. I’d here two sets of boots each heading in different directions around my tent. Then I’d listen even more closely and it would be dead silent. I’d wait for the boots to move again and then there’d be a slash through my tent with a huge blade and that would be the end.

I decided I’d take my chance hiking up Moosilauke in the dark. I didn’t think a murderer would waste his or her time doing the same, and my imagination was far scarier than a hike up this mountain in the dark could ever be, so I began to hike. The ascent wasn’t bad and would have been beautiful in the daylight as the trail paralleled a streaming waterfall almost the entire climb up (the cascades, where tragic results could occur according to the sign.

By 9:15 P.M. it was pitch black and I was tripping and stumbling even with the aid of my headlamp. At 9:40 P.M. I saw a sign indicating I was a quarter mile away. My pace quickened and my stumbling and falling did too.

I heard the sounds of dogs barking. I was close to something or someone if not the shelter. “Keep on barking so I can find the shelter.” I thought as I fumbled down the trail in the dark. When I arrived at Beaver Brook Shelter there were already six day hikers and not a single thru hiker inside. This was somewhat enraging to me because A.T. shelters are meant for thru hikers only and even though this shelter was made to fit ten people, these hikers had spread their things all around the shelter and there was currently no room for me in the shelter. I was pissed.

After I asked the day hikers inside, they moved their things and squeezed together to make room for me and I hungrily and angrily devoured a packet of oatmeal in one quick gulp as I got ready for bed.

As I wrote in my journal the sky was lit by flashes of lightning. It was heat lightning and it was beautiful in it’s own violent terrifying way. Within a half hour winds were gusting at intense bursts of up to 40 miles per hour and rain began slamming against the tin roof. Lightning flashed like clockwork every couple seconds and the roar of thunder now accompanied the lightning. I was glad to at least to be under the roof of a shelter with other humans and not tenting by a road by myself where I might get murdered, and murdered while wet in the middle of a terrifying electrical storm.

I was beginning to see the good in even the worst of situations. Maybe I was beginning to find a way to survive this hike. Maybe I would be able to see the positive in the worst of what the trail had to dish out. Maybe my mindset was all that needed changing for me to get through this thing with some sort of sanity. Was I being brainwashed by this trail lifestyle? Was I being tricked  into thinking that just because I wasn’t dead things were pretty great?

I don’t know but I was beginning to think that maybe just being alive regardless of whatever else was going on in my life was something pretty amazing, something I should be over the moon excited about.

I think I’m going crazy, but I was happy to be right where I was, but I still would have killed anyone in that shelter for a Big Mac, a large Coke and a hot fudge sundae.

Rose – Talking with Sarah about her triathlon and joking about how much I wanted McDonalds.

Bud – Officially being out of the White Mountains.

Thorn – Hiking up Moosilauke in the dark and thinking about getting murdered.

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Night 42: Ink Smudges Lie and Hot Fudge Sundaes Can’t Fix Everything

Monday, March 14th, 2011

Fog through the Franconia Ridge

Fog on top of South Twin Mountain or North Twin Spur

Friday 7-16-2010
20 Miles Hiked, 1806.4 Miles To Springer

I woke when my watch alarm sounded at 4:45 A.M. Bishop woke too. It was still dark as we started reloading our packs. I grabbed some coffee and gobbled down the giant sugar cookie one of the crew members had given me last night and tossed two Advil down my gullet. I took out my good book and my permanent marker and wrote down the mile markers for the day on my forearm. With my pain meds down, my map on my arm, and food in my body I was ready to go. I was back on the trail just a bit ahead of Bishop and energized by another great hut breakfast.

The climb up my first 4,000 footer of the day, Zeacliff, wasn’t bad at all. The summit was what I had come to expect from any summit in the Whites. It was cloudy,  misty, windy, cold and looked like it would storm any moment.

At the top of Zeacliff  I noticed a man walking aimlessly through some pine trees next to the trail. He was a NOBO named Dwayne. That was both his trail name and his real name as he would explain to me. As we talked the sun came out and the clouds began to scatter. I realized I had heard about him from a few NOBO’s early on in my hike. They said he was a total oddball and that when he started his thru hike he was carrying a huge axe because he assumed there would be a lot of stuff that would need axing. Apparently there wasn’t enough stuff that needed axing because the axe was no longer on him. I was glad.

“You going to stop at Zealand Falls Hut for breakfast?” I asked.

“Yeah, if I can stay on the right trail. Damn near got lost a minute ago. Is that the A.T. you comin’ from?” He asked.

“Yeah, that’s the A.T. If you eat breakfast there don’t eat the oat meal. We had to pick bugs out of it for our work for stay last night.” I said.

“Hell, I’ll eat the shit outta sum bugs.” He said.

“Okay, then do eat the oat meal.” I said. “The trail is really smooth from hear down to the hut and a little further, enjoy your hike.”

I continued onward and upward over both South Twin Mountain and North Twin Spur. Both mountains were shrouded in thick clouds and at nearly 5,000 feet. The sunlight from earlier had gone back into hiding. The wind was ripping, and it was cold.

By the time I reached Galehead Hut the sun was out again and Bishop had caught up to me. The hut crew guy at Galehead, Mike, offered us the remaining pancakes which he said he’d have to add to the soup for the night if we didn’t finish them. I couldn’t imagine pancakes dissolving into a broth very, but I guess it was possible. We gladly devoured the pancakes like wild dogs. We drenched them with maple syrup, not real maple syrup, but some sort of imitation syrup and together we each ate seven pancakes and split one. We hit the trail again, this time stuffed to the brim and re energized .

I led the hike briefly, but then Bishop passed as I was messing with my tape recorder to try and take some notes.

The next summit I hit was Mount Garfield. I got to it just after I passed Garfield Ridge Shelter and campsite. Garfield offered a nice place for a lunch break. I sat in the insides of what remained of the base of an old fire tower and ate my fruit snacks, snickers, and crackers and watched as beautiful, non threatening, fluffy white clouds passed over the ranges before me. From where I sat I could see Mount Lafayette, Mount Lincoln, Little Haystack, and Liberty Mountain all of which made up the famous Franconia Ridge Range. I’d been hearing about it for days. Hearing about how the views from the ridge were the most spectacular views of the whole trail.

I wished only that I’d get to hike this section free of clouds and storms so that I could enjoy at least one section of the Whites.

I turned my phone on while I ate just to see if I’d get service. The bars came and went and came and went again, and then a text from Sarah came in that she’d sent that morning.

“ONE MORE WEEK!” It read. I was beaming, smiling so wide if someone had found me they’d think I was deranged. I felt on top of the world, and literally I was. I was laying down, basking in sunlight, protected from the wind by the ruins of the old fire tower eating fruit snacks and a snicker bar and fantasizing about being home and being with her again. I would be seeing her in less than a week and we’d be together, dancing, and laughing, and kissing and celebrating at our friends wedding. I couldn’t wait.

The text was what I needed and I knew in that instant that I could tough it out for one more week. I could hike through storms, I could be scared, I could be hungry, and smelly, and uncomfortable, because in a week I’d be home. I’d be with Sarah. I’d be with my family. I’d be safe.

After lunch was done around 12:30 P.M. I started my hike toward the ridge with a new energy in my step. The climb up wasn’t anything brutal just the steady uphills I’d grown accustomed to in the Whites and Maine.

They sky began to grow cloudy, and not the previous unscary type of clouds either. These ones were dark and threatening. The clouds now enveloped the entire ridge line. Each time I’d think I’d reached the peak  of Lafayette the clouds would move just enough to reveal a bigger even higher peak. This happened to me about four times before I actually reached the peak of Lafayette.

I was dead tired by this point so I sat down on a boulder and ate the last of my snickers and gulped down my last remaining half liter of water. Three NOBO hikers walked past and said, “I’m glad I’m not over there anymore,” and pointed toward the mountain I was headed to next that had severe black clouds overhead.

I got my pack back on and began walking. I had seen Bishop on top of the next mountain about ten minutes before and figured if I really pushed it I could catch him and then at least I wouldn’t be caught on the top of another mountain in another storm by myself. I don’t know why, but just having someone there eased my fear and anxiety so much.

I had hiked about a half mile from Lafayette which put me halfway to the summit of Lincoln.

CRACK! A loud burst of thunder echoed through the air with deafening sharpness.

I wanted to be home. I wanted to be home. I wanted to be home.

A rush of adrenaline squirted through my body and fear spread with it.  I looked at my arm where I wrote the different mile markers in permanent marker that morning, but all the moisture from the clouds at high elevation and my sweat had made it smudgy. I thought it looked like Lafayette was at mile 368.3 and the next stopping area, Liberty Springs tentsite was at 370.1, and if I turned around it would be a mile and a half back to the closest Hut. I figured I could run 1.8 miles to safety before things got really bad .

Unfortunately, my eyes and the smudges had deceived me. Lafayette was actually at 366.3, 3.8 miles to safety and I was in deep shit on the top of an exposed ridge line in the middle of an electrical storm. Oh, and my hiking poles were two metal lightning rods held in each hand, but they were the only thing helping me stay on my feet on the uneven terrain, so I decided they were worth the risk.

The violent cracks of thunder continued like a whip being snapped right by my ear every couple minutes. My mind reverted to primal instincts, it was flight or fright time. I was no doubt frightened out of my mind, but flight won out, and I started running.

I jumped from boulder to boulder, jumping down four foot drops with little care if I landed or fell down them as long as I kept moving forward. My balance was tossed side to side with my quick movements due to the forty pounds of extra weight strapped to my back. I was moving recklessly on these sharp rocks, but all that mattered was that I catch up to Bishop and not die up here alone. If I was going to die I’d have someone by my side, yes, that was all that mattered.

The thunder continued cracking and at closer intervals. Things couldn’t be worse.

Then the sheets of sideways rain came. The drops fell hard and were ice cold. The temperature must have plummeted twenty degrees in five minutes. The wind came roaring and was now blowing at a sustained thirty miles per hour easily. The rain cover for my pack became like a parachute and the wind filled it and dragged me to the left hard. I fell, stood back up and kept hiking this time being more careful with my balance.

I was wearing my glasses because my contacts had been bothering my eyes the last few days.  Both lenses were covered in water and I couldn’t see through them. The thunder and rain raged and I kept running without the slightest idea what was more than three feet ahead.

I stopped for the first time since I’d started running. I took my glasses off and tried to wipe the lenses so I could see better.

Both lenses popped out and fell to the ground.

I picked up the lenses.

CRACK!

I shoved them in my pocket and kept running, now actually blind. My heart was racing. I was praying to see the tops of trees to let me know I could take cover below the treeline soon. *(Treeline is the line where trees no longer grow on the tops of mountains due to severe weather conditions that make it impossible for a tree to grow)

“God, please get me out of this, I promise I won’t put myself in any more stupid situations, just please let me live through this. My Mom is going to be so mad.” I kept saying over and over and over in my head.

I’d been full on sprinting across slippery, wet boulders in the middle of a thunderstorm for about 45 minutes when I saw something better than trees, I saw people. A family, a father, a mother, and two young boys. If I was going to die up here at least it wasn’t going to die with this family of strangers.

“How far to the treeline.” I shouted through the gusting wind with water dripping down my face.

“About two minutes that way.” The father shouted back.

“Turn back now and get under treeline with me!” I shouted to the whole family. “It only gets worse the higher up you get.”

“Okay, let’s go.” The mother said to her husband and the the two boys.

We got below the treeline and I felt safe for the first time in about an hour.

“Will I be below treeline until that next campsite?” I asked.

“You come back above for about five minutes, but that’s it.” The father said.

“Okay good. Where are you guys trying to get to?” I asked.

“Greenleaf Hut, about four  miles away.” He said.

“There’s no way you’ll make it in this. It’s way too dangerous, just wait it out here below treeline or head back to your car until it clears up.” I said.

“Have you seen a young guy about my age recently?” I asked.

“No, you’re the first person we’ve seen out here.” They said.

“What had happened to Bishop?” I thought.

“Okay thanks. I’m getting out of here now, but whatever you do don’t go out above treeline in this, it’s terrifying.” I said as I quickly turned and started running again.

I made it to the shelter about a half hour later, refilled my water and sat down on the ground thanking God for getting me off that mountain alive.

By the time I reached the main road it was 5:05 P.M. So I headed to the visitor center, at the Flume or something, and was hoping to use the phone. My cell had no service and I wanted to call Chet, a guy in Lincoln who runs a free hiker hostel called One Step At A Time. I called to make sure I could stay there tonight and Chet gave me the go ahead. I called a local shuttle service, I was in no mood to hitch after my near death experience and I would have paid any amount to be taken somewhere safe.  The Shuttle Connection van came to pick me up about fifteen minutes later.

The guy who picked me up in the white shuttle van was morbidly obese and told me he had never once climbed anything around here, even though he’d lived here his whole life.

“Why would I hike somewhere when I could just drive there.” He said as he drove me. He knew exactly where Chet’s house was, pulled into the driveway and let me out after I paid him.

Chet came out from his garage. Much to my surprise, in a wheel chair and rolled toward me with a smile and an outstretched hand.

“Thank you so much for taking me in tonight. You have non idea how glad I am to be out of the White Mountains for a night and somewhere safe.” I said with actual tears welling in my eyes. I was an emotional wreck. I don’t think Chet could tell though. Besides being in a wheel chair he was almost completely blind and had two service dogs, one of which was half wolf half German shepherd. It was the coolest and most massive dog I’d ever seen. Chet had the most bad ass guide dog in the world.

“No problem, right on, right on, glad I could help you.” He said.

After I got my things situated in a bunk in Chet’s converted garage, Chet gave me the name of a good pizza place, Elvio’s. I walked from Chet’s house toward down town. It was no more than a ten minute walk. The walk took me past this crazy house that was painted in all sorts of wild colors and had all sorts of crazy sculptures. When I asked about in town they told me the owners had experimented with drugs and liked the way the visual effect of everything the house offered. At Elvio’s I ordered three slices of pizza. Each was the size of my torso and a 24 ounce soda that I must have refilled eight times with every soda flavor they had.

I talked to some locals and they asked me where I was staying.

“Chet’s place.” I said.

“He’s a great guy isn’t he.” The local man said.

“Yeah he’s been great to me so far.” I said.

“You hear about how he ended up in that wheel chair?” He asked.

“No.” I said.

“He was preparing for his own thru hike years and years back. He was practicing using his stove. It was some gas stove or other that lit by being pumped and the thing exploded right in his face. Nearly killed him. Right as it exploded he lifted his hands to cover his face which is why he isn’t horribly disfigured, but he also inhaled right as the explosion occurred. His lungs were essentially incinerated. He only has thirty percent lung function or something crazy. He holds some record for being the only person to survive an accident so severe.” The local man said.

“That’s terrible.” I said.

“Yeah, the company that made the gas canister settled with him. No one knows what company it was, part of the settlement said the name can’t be released and he can’t talk about it, so no one know’s for sure what really happened. It turned out he wasn’t the only person this happened to though, just the only one to survive and file suit.  Rough deal for him, but he’s set for life, that’s how come he can help you hikers out. He’s a hell of a guy.” He said.

“He sure is.” I said, thinking how amazing it was that this man was even alive. It was so cool that even though he would never get to do his hike, he was going to make the best of his circumstances and help as many people as he could achieve a dream he wouldn’t be able to. Chet had just become the most interesting person I’d met on the trail.

When I returned to Chet’s I asked him if I could borrow one of his bikes to go exploring through Lincoln.

“No problem.” He said.

Just before I left again I noticed that Abraham was sitting on one of the bunks.

“Abraham, where the hell did you disappear to on the ridge. I saw you in front of me, and I tried to catch you, and then you disappeared during the storm.” I said.

“When the storm hit I started climbing down the side of the mountain looking for somewhere to take cover. I found a little cave, crawled in there and waited out the storm while I rolled and smoked a cigarette. It was a really great hiding place, kept me dry and safe.” He said.

I wanted to kill him. Not sure why, but I had hoped he had been as scared and miserable as I had been. In fact I was angry that he hadn’t been fearing for his life the same way I had.

I had officially gone off the deep end. I was angry that someone else had been safer and in better circumstances then I was.

“I’m headed into to town and I’m stopping at McDonald’s, you want anything?” I asked, as if this would make up for my insane thoughts.

“Nah, I’m good, I’m going to head into town a little later, but thanks.” He said.

As I explored Lincoln I realized this town had everything I would need or want. A book store, a movie theater, a McDonald’s, a grocery store, a moose tour company, an ice cream shop and an outfitter. McDonald’s was the most important of these. I have come to crave fast food on the trail like nothing I’ve ever craved before and McDonald’s is usually the thing I think of most.

I stopped at the McDonald’s and got myself a hot fudge sundae and the world seemed right. I wasn’t so flustered anymore and I certainly wasn’t thinking I was going to die, not today at least. Today I was sitting in a McDonald’s eating a hot fudge sundae and I most certainly wasn’t on some high up mountain in the middle of a lightning storm.

On my bike ride home I bought some ice for my ankle and as I rode past the movie theater I contemplated going to see the new Twilight movie. I couldn’t bring myself to go see it alone, even if it would have been a great distraction from reality.

I ended up back at Chet’s a little after 7:00 P.M. I showered and put my clothes in the wash then talked to a flip flopper (Someone who starts in the middle and heads to one end, then goes back to the middle and heads to the other end) named Speaker, and a group of NOBO’s who were also staying there and who had dubbed themselves The Traveling Circus, with individual names of Lightening, Monkey, and Ringleader.

After talking to them I tried calling Sarah and walked around the yard trying to find a place with stronger service, but had terrible reception and we kept getting disconnected. I was really upset on the phone because today had been really rough and all I wanted was to talk to her about it. I could hear how upset it was making her that I was having such a bad day, and that we kept getting disconnected. I kept my phone on, but no calls came through, not that they could, my service would stay for a second and be gone for thirty minutes.

I walked down the cellar steps into Chet’s basement where the laundry machines were and I sat in an old rocking chair under the glow of a fluorescent tube light. A new text came in from Sarah. “I love you, I hope you’re ok.” It read. I sat in that rocking chair, in that musty basement, that smelled just like my grandparents house and my eyes welled with tears.

I cried because I was alive, because I was safe, because I had people out there who loved me, because I wasn’t sure I could do this anymore, and because I didn’t know how much more of this I could put my family through, put Sarah through, put my friends through and most of all I wasn’t sure how much more of this I could or wanted to put myself through. I cried for everything I hadn’t and should have been crying about for the last 42 days.

Monkey of the Traveling Circus came walking down the stairs. I wiped my eyes before he saw me and made small talk with him for the next fifteen minutes or so pretending everything was fine. Everything wasn’t fine.

Rose – McDonald’s hot fudge sundae.

Bud – Hiking in non thunderstorm weather.

Thorn – Being stuck in an electrical storm on an exposed mountain top and missing Sarah and home.

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Night 41: Four Priests Are Walking Through The Woods…..

Sunday, March 13th, 2011

The view of Mount Washington from Zealand Falls Hut.

The view of Mount Washington from Zealand Falls Hut.

Thursday 7-15-2010
18.8 Miles Hiked, 1826.4 Miles To Springer

I left the hut just after six this morning and watched the sunrise as I hiked my first mile of the day over Mt. Franklin and on through some of the most beautiful mountains I could recall. It was a clear morning and I felt alive, beyond alive, I was hiking with a vigor I hadn’t had since the first days when this whole venture seemed so worthy, so worthwhile, so important to who I would be for the rest of my life. I was finally glad to be hiking again. I hoped to catch up to or at least run into Abraham and Bishop as I had no idea where they had gone off to since I last saw them at Madison Hut.

When I reached Mitzbah hut the guests had eaten and left and the crew offered me the leftovers from breakfast with no strings attached, I wouldn’t have to clean dishes or anything, well there was one thing. One of the crew members was doing research for some sort of grad school paper on thru hikers and he asked if I wouldn’t mind filling out his survey. I was more than glad and got to it right after I checked the register and saw that Abraham and Bishop had stayed here last night. I knew they wouldn’t be far ahead and hoped to run into them by the days end.

One of the questions on the survey asked “In the average year how many days do you normally hike?”

My answer was zero. I hadn’t been hiking since 2005 when I was finishing up earning my Eagle Scout. I recalled that I hated the heavy pack, the smelling bad, the eating crappy food, and the being uncomfortable, I hated everything about hiking the last time I went and that was perhaps why I hadn’t gone since.

Another question asked “What was your longest overnight hike before your thru hike?”

I realized I had never done an overnight hike. I had hiked from my campsite somewhere and hiked back, but I’d never hiked somewhere and slept there. My answer was again frightening, especially to me. I was not at all prepared or qualified to be doing what I was doing.

You may be surprised that this was the first time it hit me, but it truly hadn’t hit me until this moment that I was an absolute and complete novice in the world of hiking. I had no business doing what I was doing, and doing it by myself was surely a death wish.

I left Mitzbah Hut thinking for the first time that maybe I shouldn’t be out here. Maybe I had hiked a lot of trail and realized that this was total insanity. Maybe I had so many great things back at home and it was time to go back home.

This whole thing WAS crazy after all. What was I doing out here? This shit was for mountain men, for people who liked bugs, and dirt, and scary animals, and smelling like a sweaty asshole. I didn’t like any of those things. Why was I out here?

I had no idea. I’m lying, I had some idea.

I was out here cause this sounded like the coolest thing one could do after college, and I was desperate to avoid getting a job right after graduation, desperate to not get sucked into the corporate world, and I was desperate to hold on to my youth, to stay young a little bit longer, and this hike served as a six month excuse to not grow up.

I realized that I was on the trail because I didn’t want to grow up, I wanted to be a kid still, to adventure, and search, and see things I’d never seen and probably never would see if I let myself become a grown up too soon.

This hike was about giving myself time to be me, to just be me, be a kid again, and find out if I was ready to grow up or not. I realized that was why I’d never questioned my total lack of experience, my hatred for so many aspects of hiking and the outdoors, because I knew deep down that this was what I needed for me, right now.

Mount Jackson and Mount Webster weren’t anything bad compared to my near death experiences on Madison and Washington. Nice weather can make such a difference. The descent down Webster toward the Saco River was frighteningly steep and slick from last nights rain. I took my time and found it a completely reasonable descent.

Just before I got to the river I ran into four young men all about my age, all wearing khakis and white colored shirt with the same embroidered logo on the breast. They were from Mexico, California, Nebraska, and Chile and all of them were studying at a local seminary school to become Roman Catholic priests.

“What’s your name?” The young man from Chile asked me after I told him I was Catholic.

“Justin.” I said giving him my Christian name as opposed to my trail name. I was named after St. Justin, whose saint day is three days before my birthday, but decided to leave that out of our conversation.

“Justin, we will pray for safe travels throughout your journey.” He said after I explained what I was doing out here.

“Thanks, my Grandma would appreciate that and I do too.” I said as I hiked.

“God bless.” He said.

I couldn’t have walked more than fifteen feet away when I my foot got snagged on a root sending me straight to the ground. I scrapped my hands, and knees, and cracked my sunglasses down the middle.

I evaluated my situation. I had just been blessed by a group of priests in training less than 15 seconds ago and here I lay in the dirt, scrapped and bleeding. I guess it had been a while since I’d been to confession or even church for that matter, but this seemed a bit much. What am I saying, I don’t believe in a spiteful God, I believe in a loving one.

“Well, nothing is broken and I can still walk and see straight, I guess those prayers must have worked after all,” I said to the priests as they looked at me on the ground with concern, and I brushed myself off and kept on keeping on.

I walked about a half mile further down the trail and ran into 9 more of these young men.

“Let me guess, Catholic priests in training?” I asked.

“How’d you know?” One of them asked.

“God told me.” I said with a laugh.

“What?” A different one asked, looking truly puzzled.

“I ran into your friends up ahead.” I said.

“Oh, oh, yes, we see. Well that makes sense” Said a different one in a very serious tone. These were clearly going to be the type of priests that lacked a sense of humor.

“There’s a lot of you out here, and I thought the church was having a hard time getting new priests.” I joked.

“It’s a hard struggle, but we’re fighting the good fight.” The same young man said in the same serious tone.

“Yeah, good for you, that’s an amazing commitment.” I said. “I’m headed to the river for a bath and lunch but it was great to meet you guys, good luck with everything.”

“Same to you.” They almost all said in unison, which was nice, but also slightly creepy.

I ate lunch while standing in the river, soaking my feet and splashing my chest and arms to cool down. The water felt amazing. Just past the river the trail crossed U.S. 302 at Crawford Notch and I walked across it toward the trail head. I filled  my nalgene up underneath a railroad bridge and just sat and drank as a train passed overhead. I finished one whole nalgene and filled it again and then began my final 7.7 miles to Zealand Falls Hut where I hoped I would be spending the night.

Those 7.7 miles were the easiest miles I could remember doing in weeks. Most of the trail was almost completely level and in some sections it was perfectly flat for a mile or more, I’m talking you could have held a level on this ground and it would have been perfect. This had to have been a road or something. I found out that night that the trail leading to Zealand Falls Hut had once been an old railroad track and I had been hiking on what would have been the old tracks, now long gone.

I had walked those last miles so fast that I realized I was going to arrive at the hut well before 4:30 P.M. as it was only 3:30 P.M. at the moment. I stopped a mile before the hut and just waited. I ate some fruit snacks, looked around, and felt some sprinkling rain though the sky looked clear. I’m not sure where it was coming from. An immaculate rain perhaps in honor of the priests I had encountered? Probably not. I got back to hiking just before four and pushed the last bit to the hut.

As I walked up the steps leading to the hut I caught site of Bishop sitting on a bench on the hut’s porch.

“Shit.” I thought. “He and Abraham got the two work for stay spots and I was going to be out of luck.”

“Hey.” I said as I walked closer.

“Hey.” He said.

I walked inside the hut and asked the a camp counselor of the kids staying there if I could get work for stay, thinking she was a member of the crew. She looked at me like I was crazy and then told me she didn’t work there.

I found someone who did, a girl named Leah. She was the huts naturalist, whatever that meant.

“We’ll probably be able to take you, but I’ll have to ask Tobin. We usually only take two, so we should be able to take you.” She said.

“There’s already two here, do you ever take three?” I asked.

“Sometimes, I’ll check when Tobin gets back.” She said.

I walked outside and sat on the bench next to Bishop who was finishing rolling a cigarette and had started smoking.

“Did you get work for stay?” He asked as he exhaled a puff of smoke.

“Don’t know yet. Where’s Abraham?” I asked.

“Well.” He said taking his cigarette from his mouth and pausing. “We got to the road at Crawford Notch and he told me he wanted to go back home to Louisiana.”

“What! No, he’s already walked so far and we’re almost done with the hardest part.” I said, truly shocked that he had quit.

“Yeah, I asked him if it was the terrain or me, something I did maybe, but he said he just didn’t feel like hiking anymore and wanted to go home.” He said.

“So he just got on the road and hitched out?” I asked.

“Yeah he’s gone, headed to the airport I suppose.” Bishop said.

“Crazy. I’m sorry man.” I said, and I was sorry. Bishop and Abraham were close friends before the hike, so it wasn’t quite the same as when Mud and I separated. I mean before the hike I barely knew Mud, but I still missed his company when we separated and I knew Bishop would miss Abraham to a greater extent.

“So, what does this mean for you, still going all the way?” I asked.

“Yeah, when we left home for Maine we both said even if one of us dropped out the other would still finish.” He said.

“That’s good.” I said, still shocked that Abraham would quit after the toughest 345 miles on the trail were already hiked. I realized if it could happen to him what was to stop it from happening to me? Once you let that doubt crawl in, that thought that it would be really easy to go home, that it made sense to go home, that people at home loved you and wanted you home, it was over.

I decided I would never let that doubt in and never question that I was going to finish again. I was going to finish if it killed me. I pray I’m not foreshadowing with that last comment.

Apparently one of the hut guests had found a black headed worm/beetle creature in their oat meal this morning. The crew master, Tobin, explained that our work for stay would be to sift through a three foot deep by three foot wide bin of oat meal. We were told to take it out in hand fulls, spread it on the metal baking sheets he gave us, and pick out any bugs we found.

Bishop and I turned it into a competition to see who could find the most bugs.

I decided after Bishop was off to an early 2-0 lead that this was a competition I wasn’t truly interested in winning.

By the time we had sifted through the entire bin we had found eight living worms, and one dead one. We also found a dozen or so tiny black bugs at the bottom of the bin that looked like fleas. We were told to make sure we squeezed the worms with our gloves before we threw them in the trash can, these were the same gloves we were touching all the oat meal with.

“What should we do with the oatmeal now that we sifted the bugs out?” I asked.

“Dump it right back in the bin.” The Crew Master said.

I can tell you I have no doubt I probably missed several of the worms, I wasn’t looking that closely, they were the same color as the oat meal, and I really didn’t care if some rich yuppie staying at the hut got some extra protein with his oat meal. I did however decide that I would no longer be partaking in a morning serving of oatmeal at any of the huts.

After we finished our work another one of the hut crew members offered Bishop and me a PBR (Pabst Blue Ribbon) after he finished saying, “That was the worst work for stay I’ve seen dolled out in a long time.”

I poured half the PBR into a glass for myself and gave Bishop the other half in the can.

The crew headed upstairs and went to sleep, shutting off the lights as they went.

Bishop and I set our stuff up on the dining room tables and swatted away mosquitoes as they landed and bit us in turn.

I looked over at Bishop, who I could just barely see in the moonlight, raised my glass and said, “To Abraham, and to us finishing the rest of the trail.”

“To Abraham.” He said and we both finished our drinks and continued to fight off mosquitoes until sleep won out.

Rose – Getting closer to Bishop.

Bud – Getting to Lincoln, a real town with real fast food.

Thorn – Abraham leaving the trail.

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Night 40: Mount Washington

Sunday, March 13th, 2011

Me at the summit of Mount Washington, and I'm alive!

Me at the summit of Mount Washington, and I'm alive!

Wednesday 7-14-2010
7.1 Miles Hiked, 1845.2 Miles To Springer

I met a NOBO hiker the previous night named Nefus, his name had something to do with being in the Air Force. He was great company and we were the last two thru hikers to leave the hut as no one else was interested in staying for breakfast, or more accurately, no one else wanted to wait around for the guests to eat so that we could then eat and then do dishes and then get back on the trail.

“How come you aren’t in the Air Force anymore?” I asked.

“We were flying somewhere and I got a scrape on my foot while we were grounded. I didn’t think anything of it and it seemed to be healing but then it got really badly infected and it ended up spreading into my bone. They ended up amputating one of my toes and some other bones in my foot. Once the infection gets to the bone there’s no other choice.” He said. “The Air Force doesn’t want anyone with defects either so that’s why I’m not in it anymore, but I loved it when I was.”

“I’m really sorry.” I said.

“Yeah.” He said with a shrug and a smile. “The trail and finishing it has been my rehabilitation.”

“That’s a really cool rehab.” I said.

“I think so too, once I finish I’m thinking about applying to some nursing schools, right now I’m thinking Colorado. ” He said.

Nefus and I spent the rest of breakfast in silence devouring the left over blue berry pancakes and oatmeal with peaches and I chugged the cranberry juice that remained and had a quick couple cups of coffee with cream and sugar.

I ended up back on the trail around 8:45 A.M. and it looked like the clouds might give way to some sun after the thunderstorms that raged last night.

The clouds quickly returned after about ten minutes of sunlight as if to laugh in my face for thinking they would go away and stay away.  These weren’t fluffy pretty white clouds either, they were dark ominous ones. It looked like it might start storming any minute, which I believe is the way it always looks when hiking in the White Mountains.

I arrived at Thunderstorm Junction, an area where four different trails, including the A.T. all converge and split off in different directions. The four signs on the old wood post all pointed in different directions but none of them pointed to any of the four trails, they were all slightly off and pointing in between each of the trails.

The A.T. sign pointed in between two of the trails. One of these trails was marked about fifty yards down with another sign that read, “For Appalachia.” I made the immediate, and I would quickly learn unwise assumption that this sign meant it was for Appalachian Trail hikers, it did not mean that, it meant this was for the Appalachia side trail, a different trail then the A.T. altogether. The cairns through this section were topped with white rocks and I assumed those were in place of the standard white blaze used to mark the A.T., wrong again.

I hiked 1.1 miles almost completely straight down before I realized I had gone the wrong way and was now lost. After realizing the terrible mistake I made I looked through my camera photos cause I knew I had taken pictures of a map of this section since I didn’t have an actual map of my own.

I had the option of taking a side trail .6 miles that would connect me back to the A.T. but would also mean I wasn’t technically on the A.T. and would mean that I had skipped a small minuscule section of this mammoth trail which I had set out to hike in its entirety.

This was the moment I realized I was a purest. A purest is the type of dumb, stubborn, and imbecilic hiker who must hike every step of the A.T. because that is why they are here, it isn’t enough for them to simply walk all the way from Maine to Georgia or vice versa, they must make the trek entirely on the A.T. taking no short cuts, easier side trail, or safer alternative routes. I was a purest.

I climbed straight up 1.1 miles to where I had gotten lost in the first place and it immediately became obvious to me which trail was the A.T. once I was back on at the junction. I got back on the trail and the wind began to blow hard.

I was exhausted and pissed that I had added an extra 2.2 miles to my day and it had put me right back where I started. My anxiety rose and rose as the clouds became darker and darker and the wind harsher and harsher. I still had five miles to Mount Washington and if a storm hit there were no trees to hide beneath, and if I did happen to find a cave  or large rock to hide under I’d heard that lightning is attracted to caves and cave like crevices in mountainsides so that would only increase my chance of being struck. I pushed on.

I ran into a group of campers who were slightly less bratty than the kids I had shared the hut with last night. They were turning around from their side trail hike because they heard on the radio it was going to be a bad storm today and it was  supposed to hit anytime now.

I kept pushing on, scared to death, to the same extent I had been the night before when I was enveloped in clouds. Except today even more so because Mount Washington has such a storied history of hikers disappearing never to be heard from again, it even has a list of the hoards of people who have lost their lives to this wondrous terrifying wilderness. In fact, just days from now I would learn that a young man just a year older than me, who had survived cancer would die after slipping from a ledge and cracking his head open.

I ran into two older men walking in the opposite direction as me who I found out were section hikers.

“How much farther would you say it is from here to the summit?” I asked.

“About three hours.” The fatter of the two men said.

“How’s the weather heading toward the summit?” I asked.

“Looks like this, probably a little more stormy looking, I’d say it’ll surely be storming by the time you get there. If I was you I’d just get your tent fly out and crawl in your sleeping bag, wrap yourself around with the tent fly and find a rock to hide under for the night, cause honestly, I don’t think there’s a chance in hell you make it to Washington before the storm hits and hits hard.” He said, and walked away as though nothing he said would have been terribly upsetting to me.

As if my inner voice of panic and terror that was constantly telling me doom was impending wasn’t enough I now had this fat man’s words to push me over the edge. I was in over drive and thought I might drop dead at the mere sound of thunder.

I began hopping from boulder to boulder and running whenever it was feasible.

As I got about 1.1 miles from Washington I ran into an older couple my parents age and in similar physical condition, which is to say not good physical condition. They told me they were headed to Madison Hut which was 6 miles from where we stood. My panic for my own safety changed to fear for these older people. They instantly became my parents and I would never have wanted them to head out in conditions like this walking at the slow pace they were and in such low visibility. I begged them to turn around and come back toward Washington with me. The man’s wife clearly wanted to, but he insisted he thought they would be fine, after all they had their trash bag ponchos with them.

I realized I was not going to change the man’s mind and my safety once again became my top priority. It had been almost four hours since I’d finished my water, in fact I hadn’t seen flowing a water source since Pinkham Notch. On top of being scared I was getting tired and thirsty.

Up ahead through the mist I heard the sound of a train. The sound of the cog was beautiful, not really, but just beautiful to know I must be close, very close to the top. It was the encouragement I needed for the last stretch to the top. The trail took me straight across the raised tracks of the cog railway. After looking both ways I crossed. The final half mile to the summit of Mt. Washington was a cake walk. When the observation building came into view through the clouds every bit of fear and nervousness drained from my body. Nothing was more comforting then walking through the misty White Mountains and seeing a structure in which you could take cover.

Once in the building like any thru hiker would I headed straight to the cafeteria. I got myself a slice of pepperoni pizza, a bowl of clam chowder, a 20 oz. Sunkist soda and a Nutty Buddy ice cream for desert. Everything was bland and kind of a let down compared to the feasts I’d been enjoying at the huts.

I called Sarah and we got into a fight, well less of a fight and more of a she-hung-up-on-me-for-being-an-insensitive-jerk-and-not-thinking-before-I spoke type of thing.

I had told her about how pretty the girls at Carter Hut were and I guess after not talking to me for two days she did not want any of the conversation to be devoted to how pretty girls who weren’t her were. This was one of the dumber things I think I could have said to her, and I just wasn’t really thinking I guess, and after she hung up I realized I deserved to be hung up on.

It made me sad though, cause I realized I had fucked up today’s conversation, and after fearing for my life the last two days I really just wanted some encouragement from someone I loved, from my biggest fan, but I’d have to be my own cheerleader for at least another day. I tried calling back a few times but to no avail.

I decided I would take away from this that the only girl I would mention anything about to her would be her, she deserved that for standing by me and being there for me through this crazy, dangerous, and yes, selfish journey of mine. This journey was all about me, I knew it, she knew it, and she still said she wanted to support me the whole way through. She deserved the same in return and that was what I would try and give her from now on.

I sat on a bench with my head hung in exhaustion and self pity and looked out at the clouds that surrounded me, a real panoramic of grey and white that would have made even someone who wasn’t down on themselves feel damn depressed.

A NOBO hiker, and older man with white hair and beard named Love-It-Or-Leave-It sat down next to me and offered me an orange. I think he could tell I was feeling down because everything he said was upbeat and positive. He told me that I had done the hardest of the White mountains and that the rest would be a breeze.

It worked, I did feel instantly relieved.

I took this new found hope and bought some post cards and sent them out before I packed my things up and got back on the trail. L-I-O-L-I told me he was spending the night at the Lakes of the Clouds Hut too and had just come up to the tower to see if there was anything interesting. He left and I told him I’d see him down there and hung out up top a few minutes longer.

Just before I left I turned my phone back on and sent Sarah a text. “I’m sorry I upset you. Just because I say someone is pretty or attractive doesn’t mean I think they hold a candle to you. I always have and always will think you’re the most beautiful woman in the world. I’m sorry. I probably won’t be able to call you again until I get to Lincoln which is 40 miles away so two or three days.”

She texted me back, “Good luck I love you very much.” It felt good to know that she was at least not so angry that she was going to ignore me.

I texted in response, “Love and miss you more than you now.”

And she replied, “I just felt bad because I sit here day after day missing you terribly and thinking about you every second and I don’t want to hear about you talking about other girls.”

“Okay I’m sorry.” I said.

“I know, I’m sorry I made you feel bad.” She said, and I left to finish my remaining hike happy that Sarah was still cheering me on.

The 1.5 mile hike from the summit to the Lakes of the Clouds hut was easy and all downhill. Right as I got to the hut I even got a little view as the clouds began to clear and continued to clear for the next hour.

The hut crew was friendly and told me I could do work for stay even though I had arrived at 4:00 P.M. and most crew’s will tell you to keep hiking unless you show up after 4:30 P.M. I was relieved and glad to be done for the day even if I had only made it seven miles, I was just glad to be somewhere I could sleep with a roof over my head and walls around me.

I had some time to kill so I climbed towards Monroe to get some sunset views while all the paying hut guests ate their dinner. The sunset was glorious as the rays broke through the clouds. It looked like what I imagine heaven must be like.

Once dinner was over for the real guests I returned inside to eat the leftovers and there was plenty. It was glazed ham night and the warm meat was a nice break from the tuna in a pouch I had come to depend on for protein the last month and a half. They had a bean soup that was so hearty and so tasty and they had fresh homemade bread that tasted like no bread I’d ever had before.

If there is one item I will say the huts make better than any other it is there homemade bread. Something about bread baked in the White Mountains at the high elevation in the rustic kitchens of those huts can’t be beat or even matched. For dessert I ate a baked apple and some sort of cake with a jam frosting. I was stuffed.

After dinner my work for stay was supposed to be cleaning the grease trap for the stove, which sounded like it would be my worst work for stay yet. Much to my luck, the hut girls, who I will add were far less attractive at this hut had filled all three of the giant sinks with hot water and were bathing in them, four girls in total, and there was not any hot water left for me to do my job. Never have I been so glad to see so many half naked, disgustingly hairy girls, I mean hairier than most men you’d meet on the street or even the trail bathing in the same tubs the dishes I had eaten off were being cleaned in.

Saved from degreasing duty my work for stay became much easier and much less labor intensive. My job was to fill up all the salt, pepper, sugar, creamer, cinnamon, and hot coca containers that were put out at each table during breakfast.

With my work done I walked outside to look at the stars since it had cleared and I turned my phone on to see if I had service. I did.

“Got service at the hut. I just wanted to tell you I love you. Shutting my phone off for the night will text you tomorrow if I get service.” Nothing came in return, I figured she was busy, but I decided to leave my phone on for another half hour in the hopes that I’d get something.

After my work for stay I met some more NOBO’s all people in their fifties or older. There was a woman named Nature, short for Mother Nature’s Daughter and a guy named Frost who was section hiking. Everyone was fairly tired and we didn’t talk much, but in the short time we did Nature informed me that she had thru hiked last year and was thru hiking this year as a result of an accident of sorts.

“Yeah, I thru hiked last year, and then I’m thru hiking this year on accident.” She said.

“How did you start thru hiking this year on accident?” I asked, immediately assuming her to be insane.

“Well, I told a friend who wanted to hike Georgia that I would hike it with them, and then I didn’t stop when they did, I just kept hiking, and kept hiking, and here I am in New Hampshire.” She said as though this was the most normal thing anyone could do.

I feel it is necessary to say there is no such thing as thru hiking on accident. Thru hiking is something that requires effort, planning, toughness, and a mentality that never gives up. If you’re going to thru hike it’s because you have it in you and you want to do it for whatever your reason is, it doesn’t just happen on accident. Sure that’s why she was saying she was out here, but people thru hike for all sorts of reasons and she had to have had another, a real one, but if the one she wanted to sell was “accident,” then I would let her sell it.

Her accidental thru hike made me wonder if by the end of the trail my mind would be so altered, disturbed, and warped that I might ‘accidentally’ hike the trail again next year. I couldn’t see this happening, I am much too level headed, but then again why was I out here in the first place, because of a dream, because I wanted to prove I could, because I thought it would be cool. Maybe it would be so cool by the end it would be all I’d ever want to do. Nah, don’t see it happening. I sure as hell hoped not, cause at this point in my hike I’m not sure my body or mind will make it to the end, let alone make through this whole thing another time.

I decided she must be insane, anyone who hikes the trail more than once must be out of their damn mind.

I set up my sleeping pad and bag on one of the dining room tables. I made sure my head was facing away from the windows after the ghost story I’d heard at Carter Hut and I desperately hoped I would sleep through the night without waking up to a tapping on the window and a ghostly child just behind the glass pointing at me.

My phone vibrated.

“I love you more than life.” Is what I read and I shut my phone off with a smile on my face thinking how lucky I was.

As I closed my eyes and said my usual prayers for family and  friends, I added an extra one for myself. I asked that I would get through this thru hike and not become as mentally deranged as some of the thru hikers I had met, or that I would at least still be somewhat the person I was when I started because I’d grown to like that person, to love that person, and the people around me had too, and I was scared of what or who I might become out here in the woods by myself. I was scared I might not like me, or worse that the people I loved might not like me.

Rose – The text from Sarah.

Bud – Getting away from Mount Washington and hoping for clear weather.

Thorn – Having Sarah hang up on me and getting lost and thinking I might die alone…..again.

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Night 39: Thank God For Madison

Saturday, March 12th, 2011

Tuesday 7-13-2010
13.7 Miles Hiked, 1852.3 Miles To Springer

After the guests had been fed breakfast I got to eat the leftover cheesy scrambled eggs, cinnamon corn bread made in a cast iron skillet and oat meal with canned sliced peaches. Did I mention these hut people really knew how to fucking cook. When I finished I did all the dishes and then Mac, the man in charge of the hut handed me the bleach bucket, yes the one in which the mouse was killed the night before and the rag that had been in the bucket during the mouse murder and he told me to get to work wiping down the pantry shelves.

I wiped the counter down, said goodbye to the hut crew and they sent me off to the next hut with a hut pass of sorts that was supposed to get me stay at any hut even if they already had their two allotted work for stays. The pass was written on the back of a torn off piece of a somoas girl scout cookie box and read, “Yo Homies, Triple P. is rad. Treat him with goodness & hospitality & good vibes will ensue. Much Love CATA.” and also a “Woah” was written arrowing to a $1.00 off coupon also on the back. I tucked my cool kid hut pass into my pack and started hiking with no worries about where I would be sleeping once I got above the treeline because I after all had a written note that would get me in anywhere.

By the time I had finally hit the trail again it was 8:33 A.M. and I was moving with the same intensity and purpose I had been the day before. I had good weather and I wasn’t going to wait around until it got bad with a 50 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. I tore across Wildcat Peaks A through D and on the peak of D there was a ski lift and several tourists. I was stopped by an older couple who asked if I was thru hiking.

” I thru hiked in 2003.” The white haired woman said proudly. “And I have the distinction of being one of the only thru hikers to have been attacked by a rabid animal.” She said even more proudly as she put her ankle toward me revealing the scars of an animal bite still there some seven years later. I was impressed that this woman had thru hiked as she was now I guessed in her late sixties at best which meant she was up there in years when she did it and she did it after being attacked by a rabid animal to boot.

“What happened?” I asked, genuinely interested.

“Well, I sat down at a picnic table at a shelter in New Jersey. The other hikers I was with were off getting water and while they were gone a raccoon strode up to the picnic table from behind me and first bit me in the butt. Then is went under the bench and bit into my ankle and kept biting. I tried to get it off and tried to get away, but it just kept on biting. I screamed and screamed for help but the other hikers were a ways away and didn’t get to me until it had bitten me all over. It got me on my hands too, when I tried to hit it off my legs.” She said and showed me some scars on her hands as well.

“How were you able to finish the trail if this all happened in New Jersey. Aren’t rabbie shots something you get over a long period of time?” I asked.

“Yeah they are. I went in and got the initial shots and then planned ahead. I called doctors offices in the states I was headed toward and once I got to them I’d go in for my shots and get back on the trail to hike to the next place I’d be getting my shots. I wasn’t going to let a rabid raccoon ruin my thru hike.” She said with a laugh.

She was a bad ass. I think if I got attacked by any sort of rabid animal I’d have called it a wash and tried again some other time or probably never. Who am I kidding, I’m the most stubborn and unreasonable person I know, I would have done exactly what she had. I was glad to meet her and I let her know that and kept on hiking toward Pinkham Notch visitor center.

The descent to the visitor center was steep as hell and I was suddenly aware that the Whites would not just be challenging, they’d be potentially deadly. When I did finally make it to the visitors center I called the White Birches to see if they could bring me my real pack so that I could get back to real hiking.

“No one’s here and I don’t think we’ll be able to bring your pack until around 10:00 P.M. If you really want your pack now you better try and get a hitch,” said the woman who dropped me off at the trail the day before.

I certainly wouldn’t have slack packed that section if I had known I would be held hostage by her schedule and I felt I should have told her that someone obviously was there if she was talking to me on the phone, but I decided to just get on the road and start hitching. N.H. 16 was a highly trafficked road and I figured a hitch would be easy. It was surprisingly not easy. I waited twenty five minutes before I finally got picked up and my arm was dead tired from being held out so long.

The man who picked me up was a balding Jewish man from New York who shared my last name and was the most negative and sad person I had met on my hike up to this point.

“Very odd Jewish name.” He said as he introduced himself.

“Yeah, you don’t meet to many Jewish Andersons.” I said.

He told me how he loved New Hampshire and how he comes here alot, alone, and just goes hiking for a few miles every day. He told me people will often make fun of him because he hikes in jeans and a leather jacket. I felt like telling him he deserved to be made fun of for his poor choice in hiking clothing, but he seemed so down on himself that all I could say was, “People can be jerks.”

After the fifteen minute ride back to the White Birches he said he would be glad to just wait in the parking lot for me to grab my pack and then he could take me right back to the Pinkham Notch visitors center. I paid up with the owners, bought an iced tea and some Doritos for the road and got back in the car and headed back to Pinkham.

Within the first minute of our drive back he asked me if I wanted to hike Mount Adams with him.

“Is it on the A.T. ?” I asked.

“No, but it’s one of the highest mountains in New Hampshire.” He said proudly as if the fact of it’s height would entice me.

“I’d love to, but I don’t have the energy to be hiking mountains that aren’t apart of the A.T.” I said.

“I understand.” He said with a shrug of his shoulders that implied that he was stupid for asking cause why would anyone want to do anything with him. His whole aura was so down, so self deprecating. Maybe people had turned this man down so many times he believed he deserved to be turned down, believed he deserved to be alone. I would have loved to throw him a bone of kindness, but I was on a schedule and raising a forty year old man’s self esteem was not in the cards today.

“That’s okay. He said. “Are you married?” He asked.

“No.” I said with a laugh thinking what an absurd question to be asking someone my age.

“I wish more than anything that I could find someone to marry and have kids with and be happy with.” He said with an air of desperation. “But I don’t think that will ever happen.” He added.

I wanted to tell him it most certainly wouldn’t unless he changed his attitude or managed to find someone equally as miserable, but I said this instead, “Hang in there, you’ll find someone, you’re a nice guy, and you cared enough to help me, a complete stranger, so I’m sure karma will bring it back to you. You should try match.com or something.”

“No.” He said.

“You really should, one of our families good friends met his wife that way, and they already have a baby on the way.” I said.

“Maybe.” He said.

I got out of the car, said goodbye and told him I would send him a picture when I reached the finish to let him know he’d helped me achieve my dream.

Just as I got out of the car I ran into Bishop and Abraham who had just finished eating lunch at the visitors center cafeteria. They instantly became my motivation to blast up mount Madison. Even though I had the hall pass I didn’t want to take any chances so I decided I better make sure I got to Madison Hut before Abraham and Bishop did.

I sat on a rock just outside the visitors center and downed my Doritos and my raspberry Arizona iced tea. Abraham and Bishop had a five minute head start on me.

Within ten minutes I had overtaken them. The first couple miles were a breeze and I was feeling great before I hit Low Bald spot. I ran across the suspended bridge over the Peabody River and it swayed as I ran. I walked straight past Osgood tentsite and I was determined to get up to Madison Hut as quick as possible. I did not want to be on top of that mountain in the dark and though it was only 4:00 P.M. with a chance of showers and thunder storms it could get dark quick and early.

I developed a new method of hiking that I decided I would try up Mount Madison to make better pace. This method involved never letting both feet rest. If one foot was down the other was moving. It may sound simple and much like you would think any normal person would walk but it’s a difficult task when hiking and it kept me from taking rests, and I kept to it for twenty whole minutes and then had to stop for a fruit snack and water break. A side note, fruit snacks are my favorite and if I could survive on them they are all I would eat.

I broke the treeline around 5:00 P.M. and I was huffing and puffing, even though I now stood above treeline I still had 1.5 miles to go before I would be at the hut. And now that I was above treeline I could see that the ridge I would be walking on was just one endless heap of sharp boulders and rocks with nothing soft on which falling would not hurt. It became evident that if I did slip or fall I would very likely break something or be knocked unconscious and left for dead. As I began navigating my way over these jagged rocks that looked like the surface of some alien planet or a giant asteroid I could see dark heavy storm clouds looming over Mount Washington in the distance. Mount Washington was over ten miles away though and I would be safe and inside Madison Hut by the time those clouds got anywhere near where I was.

Just as this thought that I had ample time to do my last mile and a half the wind started gusting and was blowing at a sustained speed that had to be close to twenty five miles per hour. It got cold fast and I was still in my shorts and didn’t want to dig through my pack to get my warmer stuff because time was of the essence.

Within twenty minutes the dark clouds surrounded me. Literally they were surrounding me, I was walking through clouds and could only make out what was five feet in front of me. I couldn’t see the next carin that would mark where the trail headed so I stood still, not sure what to do. I felt lost even though I hadn’t moved anywhere that could have made me lost. My mind started racing and I started thinking about how people die in the White Mountains all the time, even in the summer, it almost always starts like this. Clouds close in, they become panicked, they become disoriented, and they just start moving, get off the trail and never get back to it and they die alone and cold and scared.

I did not want to die up on this mountain alone. I should have just stayed at the tentsite a few miles back and tackled Madison the next morning. There was even a sign at where I broke treeline warning of this exact scenario. If I did die up here maybe I deserved it. I wished more than anything that I could be at the hut.

There was a momentary clearing of the clouds and I started running across the rocks. I saw the next carin and ran towards it and right by it was a sign saying that I only had 0.5 miles to go to the hut. I started running recklessly down the jagged knife like rocks toward the hut. I wasn’t going to get stuck on this mountain less than a mile away and die of hypothermia just steps from safety. For the first time since I began my journey on my own I truly wished Mud was with me, wished anyone was with me. If I was going to potentially die in the whites, I didn’t want to die alone.

When I got to the hut the crew there was more than happy to take me in along with any other thru hiker that might come through. They took eight of us in that night. It was too dangerous for them to turn us out in the Whites especially at this elevation cause there was no where safe to camp and the weather could be extremely deadly even in summer.

My work for stay was pre rinse in the dish washing assembly line. This job was not disagreeable and since I was on pre rinse I got to pick off some of the still very appetizing food items that the guests barely touched. I did this even after I had eaten a ton of leftovers. I realized I no longer had standards, regarding just about anything.

The hut was crowded that night, well over forty guests. It was mostly kids, some sort of camp group. They were so damn obnoxious. They were the most unpleasant people I had encountered up to this point. They stayed up til well past midnight talking about their sexual escapades and it made me sick, 12 to 14 year old children should not have sexual escapades to be sharing, and I did not want to hear about them while I tried to fall asleep on a picnic table, make that the bench of a picnic table.

A NOBO hiker named Redman slept on the actual table while I was on the bench below since there wasn’t enough tables for each of us. I lifted my head to ask the kids talking just feet away if they would please be quiet and at the same time I raised my head Redman unzipped his sleeping bag to give himself more wiggle room and revealed unintentionally that he was sleeping naked as I got a full frontal view of his frotch. I was ready to be out of this hut and on to the next one.

The kids finally quieted down and dispersed to there bunks and as uncomfortable as I was on the bench I slept just fine.

Rose – Reaching Madison Hut Alive.

Bud – The view from Mt. Washington.

Thorn – Bratty kids at the hut.

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Night 38: Carter Hut Angels & Ghosts

Tuesday, March 8th, 2011

Monday 7-12-2010
15.2 Miles Hiked, 1866  Miles To Springer

I woke up early and ate a pop tart and some oat meal and watched an old episode of Boy Meets World. It was the one in which Corey and Topenga get married. In the wedding episode, Sean, Corey’s best friend and best man says in his toast that he knows he and Corey will never be best friends again and that’s the way it should be because from now on Topenga is Corey’s best friend. It made me think how once people get married all the friends and acquaintances that once meant so much kind of just fade into the background or fade out of your lives and are only heard from in Christmas cards, or birth announcements, and finally death notices. I wanted to keep my friends around when I got married, but is that really possible? I know for a fact that I don’t know any of my parents friends who they were friends with before they got married. Were all my friends just going to become a part of my past as soon as I said “I do?” That didn’t seem right, but it also seemed realistic, and maybe that’s just part of growing up.

I used the knock off icey hot on my ankle and knee and packed my stuff into the small day pack the hostel had loaned me to slack pack for the day. The small back pack was formerly the hostel owner’s daughter Ashleigh’s and her name was embroidered on the back pack. I put the small pack on and it, combined with my very short women’s dance shorts and with my bandanna on, it appeared that I may be a woman in transition to becoming a man or a man in transition to becoming a woman, either way the look wasn’t very flattering and I thought it might get me into trouble if I ran into any backwoods folks, but this was New Hampshire, liberal land, so I felt a little more at ease.

The woman who ran the hostel told me she was ready to go and could drive me back to where I got off the trail. She dropped me off and I walked down the road and across the street to where the trail disappeared back into the woods. Walking down the street I had to pass a crew of construction workers, and I was dreading the potential gay taunts or slurs, but was surprised that no one said anything and one of the workers even waved and said hello.

The two miles to that first shelter were a complete breeze. It was the flat mulch path I had always dreamed the whole trail would be. With my new short shorts and my ultralight back pack I felt like a completely new man/man wearing women’s shorts. My ankle and knee didn’t hurt in the slightest. Even the climb up Mt. Mariah wasn’t too bad, but right as I reached the summit it started thundering.

My mind went into instant panic mode and I pictured myself in one of those morgue drawers being pulled out so the family could identify me, but they can’t cause I’m charred to a crisp and I’m still smoking since this is my imagination. All my mom can say is, “Why was he so dumb to be hiking through an electrical storm,” and then the morgue guy makes some bad joke about whether anyone else smells chicken and my whole family starts laughing, it was a terrible vision and I needed to get off this exposed mountain top to at least put my mind at ease.

My descent was hurried and I was moving down this mountain as close to running pace as one can get without falling off the mountain. As I moved I heard a loud rustling in the trees to my right. I stopped in my tracks and the rustling grew louder and whatever it was in those pine trees was moving closer to the trail and closer to me. Whatever it was was now close enough that I could make out that it was massive and covered in black and brownish hair. It lifted it’s head up and I saw it’s glassy eyes through the branches.

“Shit, it’s thundering and now I’m going to get mauled by a bear.” I thought.

The rustling stopped.

I could still see it’s shining eyes through the thick pines. I decided to make a run for it. As I ran forward the rustling began again and what was rustling began running and broke the treeline out onto the trail in front of me. I stopped, and a very large mother moose with her baby calf at her side ran right in front of me. I was relieved it wasn’t a bear but I heard momma moose can be dangerous if they feel their calf is threatened. I stood very still, waited til both mother and calf were back into the woods on the other side of the trail and began running again.

I ran right until I found myself behind to older women.

“Are you running from that bear too?” They asked.

“No, I’m running from the thunder and some moose.” I said.

“Oh yeah we saw those moose too, but we’re moving to get away from that bear we just saw, you didn’t see him?” They asked.

“No.” I said.

Now I was running from the bear, and the thunder, and the moose. By the time I reached the next shelter the dark clouds had moved on and I no longer heard the rumblings of thunder. I decided at 1:30 P.M. that it was way too early to be stopping especially with how good I was feeling.

On my way out of Imp shelter I ran into TLC and Piece of Work, a retired couple who were nearing the end of their northbound thru hike. They informed me that I had four SOBO hikers ahead of me, two were thirty minutes ahead and two were one hour ahead and they were all headed to the Carter Hut, the same place I was headed. This wouldn’t have been bad news except that the huts will only take two thru hikers in for work for stay a night and right now I was number five. For those who don’t know, the huts are cabins in the White Mountains, they have fully equipped kitchens and staff and running water, and bunk houses. Rich people or normal people too I guess, pay 90-100 dollars a night to stay in these huts and sleep on a wooden bunk bead, but thru hikers get to sleep on the floor or kitchen tables for free in exchange for doing dishes, mopping, cleaning the pantry, and other odd jobs, hence the term work-for-stay.

I got back on the trail and booked it into full gear hoping to pass all the SOBO’s in front of me so that I could get the work for stay. I knew Abraham was still feeling sick as of yesterday so I really hoped he’d be slowing Bishop down too. I had no idea who the other SOBO’s might be.

I ran up N. Carter, W. Carter, and S. Carter mountains. I began seeing wet footprints on the boards laid down in the boggy areas. I knew I was close to someone. Within five minutes I’d passed Abraham and Bishop. Two down.

I got to Carter Dome and ran into a SOBO sectioner with no one with him, he couldn’t have been the other pair ahead of me. I started sprinting with only a mile to go. I’m a damn idiot, my ankle is busted so is my knee and I’m sprinting down and up this rocky mountain. I didn’t care though, I needed to get to that hut cause I didn’t have my tent in the small pack on my back and weather reports were calling for rain tonight.

As I made my final descent after the dome I could see the green tin roofs of the Carter Hut complex. I heard voices just ahead of me and they weren’t from the hut they were much closer. Just 30 yards ahead I saw two people, it was Monkey and Giggles.

“Hey Monkey and Giggles!” I shouted, hoping they’d stop to talk to me and then I would run passed them to the hut. Does this make me a bad person? I wasn’t sure, I mean if I got there first was there any argument as to who deserved it or who was good or bad?

“Hey! You’re back on the trail and you’re flying!” They said as they saw me running toward them full speed.

“Yep, feeling great.” I said knowing that as I passed them the work for stay was mine.

I busted through the huts front door and was greeted by two girls named Mary Anne and Uli, who I kid you not could have been runway models, and it wasn’t just my trail eyes making me think this, these girls were beautiful and the fact that they were living out in the woods all summer long only made them more beautiful.

Uli was Amazonian, tall, toned, had dark brown short hair, and piercing blue eyes. Mary Anne would have made Mary Anne from Gilligan’s Island look like a walking turd. She was thin but not too thin, wore a vintage sweatshirt that hung off one shoulder and short Sophies. She had golden hair, naturally rosy cheeks, and beautiful smile.

“What the hell is going on?” I thought. Trail girls are supposed to be ugly, it’s what they do best.

These girls would have made most men leave wives, leave girlfriends, at least consider being unfaithful, but the one thing these girls had going against them for me was that they weren’t Sarah. They didn’t have her laugh, and it’s a unique one, her smile, her attitude, her ability to know just what to say to make me smile or want to pick a fight. They didn’t make me want to be a better version of myself, and they didn’t make me crazy like Sarah did. I admired their beauty, but that’s all they were to me, two very beautiful girls and I’ve become sure that in this life beauty will fade, and it fades fast, and it definitely won’t be enough to make someone worth spending forever with. Boy Meets World has really made today a day of serious thinking.

“Can I get work for stay?” I asked the two girls. “I really need it cause I’m slacking this section and don’t have my tent and this is my first day back on after spraining my ankle.” I fibbed the truth a little hoping some sympathy for an injured hiker would seal the deal.

“Yeah, I think that’ll work.” Uli said.

A wave of relief flushed over me.

“Just go put your stuff in that shed over there.” She said.

I thought about hiding in the shed so I wouldn’t have to see the disappointed and perhaps angry faces of Monkey, Giggles, Bishop, and Abraham when they found out there would be no work for stay for them. And hide was what I did. I hid for ten minutes in the pantry shed and then I remembered that I was 23 years old and I’d really done nothing wrong except hike faster so I came out of hiding and decided I would face them.

It helped ease my conscience that I was the last work for stay because it meant that they couldn’t have taken two people and both couples I passed would only have taken it if they could have both stayed.

Abraham and Bishop arrived about an hour after me and about thirty minutes after Monkey and Giggles had already left. They were very unhappy to be turned away. The racist I spent the night in The Barn with showed up an hour after Abraham and Bishop and so did a Frenchmen. I felt bad for them, but mostly I felt lucky and grateful as I watched each of them head back to the trail while I got to stay put.

I waited outside with a man named E****, a NOBO who got the other work for stay for the night. He told me he was married, which shocked me because he was a young man, thirty at the oldest and I wondered how his wife was okay with him being gone this long.

“You must have a pretty cool wife to have her be okay with you doing this.” I said.

“I was going no matter what, so it didn’t matter if she was cool with it.” He said.

While I thought his wife must have been cool I now thought he sounded like a dick.

He then started telling me about how he was planning on doing another long hike next year too. It sounded to me like he was a man in an unhappy marriage and things weren’t going to get better, more likely things were going to end or he’d just spend the rest of his life walking through the woods avoiding his marriage, is there a difference?

I didn’t understand why this man was married if all he wanted to do was hike through the woods away from his wife. If I was married my wife would be with me, we’d be doing these adventures together, but he made it clear he didn’t want his wife there even she had wanted to be there with him. He made me sad. I didn’t ever want my life to be like his was.

After the five guests of the hut finished eating me and E**** were called in to eat the scraps the guests hadn’t finished and they were damn good. These hut people knew how to cook.

After we ate E**** was put on dish duty and I was told I would be in charge of taking all the cans out of the pantry and wiping down the shelves the next morning. I looked at the can filled pantry I’d be tackling in the morning and a mouse ran out of the sea of cans and had jumped onto the spoon leading into the bowl of grits. Mac, the cook and the head caretaker at Carter Hut grabbed the mouse by the tail and took it over to a bucket of bleach and dropped it in.

“When I take him out tomorrow all his hair will be burned off. It kills them pretty much instantly.” He said.

I didn’t imagine it killing it instantly. I figured the bleach probably filled the mouses lungs and it would struggle to stay afloat as more bleach poured into lungs until it’s body was filled with bleach and it was drowned and then it’s fur and any other identifying features would be burned off as it sat in the bucket over night. I felt so bad for this mouse. We were in his environment after all.

One of the hut girls who was visiting from another hut, Ashley, was here just for the night to hang out and had some great stories about the huts.

“A few years ago they found the preseason caretaker for the Lakes of the Clouds hut underneath the sink in the kitchen, pale as a line, clutching an axe in his hands and shaking. He hadn’t eaten in days.” She said as she dumped the remaining food into the compost bucket.

“What happened to him?” I asked.

“They didn’t get the story until a few days later when he was re hydrated and coherent.” She said.

“What did he say happened?” I asked.

“Well, it all started on the anniversary of the cog car crash. The cog is the train going up to Mount Washington and it got out of control and crashed killing everyone on board. It happened a long time ago, just around when the huts were being built. The night of the anniversary the caretaker, who was getting the hut ready for opening heard a knock at the front door right around sunset. He went to the front door and there was a man standing about ten feet from the door. ‘Come in.’ The caretaker said from the doorway. The man just stood there and said nothing but he stared directly at the Caretaker. The Caretaker walked back inside rightly spooked. About ten minutes later he heard another knock. This time when he went to check there was a woman standing next to the man, and again neither of them responded to the Caretaker when he asked them to come inside. He went back inside the hut and by now it was pitch black outside. Ten minutes later he heard another knock and went to check. This time no one was outside. The Caretaker was freaked out and barricaded the door shut. After the door was barricaded he heard another knock, this time it came from the window. He looked towards the window and saw a little boy starring through the window and pointing at him. He heard another knock at one of the other windows and there was a little girl doing the same. Every ten minutes or so there would be another knock and a new person standing in each of the windows until every window was occupied. That’s when he lost it and climbed into the cupboard under the sink. The spooky thing about Lakes of the Clouds is that the number of windows in the Lakes of the Clouds hut is the exact same as the number of people killed in the cog crash and that’s why each window was occupied by one of the victims of the crash.” She said.

“That’s too scary.” I said. “Next day at sunrise I would have booked it out of there.”

“I mean, it’s really not that big of a deal. All the huts have ghosts that haunt them, cause almost all the huts have had someone die near, in, or around them. Usually the ghost ends up being one of the longtime caretakers.” She said nonchalantly. “Carter hut is haunted by Red Mac. He’s got red hair and he usually only comes around if the hut isn’t clean or the site isn’t being maintained. He’ll swing the front doors open and stomp his boots on the wood floor.” She said.

“There’s a lot of ghosts in every hut and the dry river area of New Hampshire is mad haunted, there’s even an old Indian burial ground around there.” She said.

I decided the Northeast was too Stephen King kind of creepy for my liking.

After dinner E**** and I got settled on our respective kitchen tables and ready for bed. While we got in our sleeping bags Uli and Mary Ann got ready for a night raid on Mitzba Hut. The huts have different items in them that the other huts will try and steal from them and bring them back to their own huts. The most valuable hut item is a giant rowing oar. Other items that trade hands often are a butler named Jeeves who belongs technically to Carter Hut, a sword, and a painting at one of the huts. A night raid is simply where you sneak into one of the other huts at night and steal their stuff. Besides night raids their are also power raids which are done in broad day light. A power raid happens when an entire crew from one hut goes to another hut and binds them up with tape and rope and in a power raid you can take anything you want. In a night raid if you get caught it’s over. During night raids the raiders will often bring beer with them which they will give to the thru hikers who often wake first since they sleep on the floor and tables and the beer is a bribe to keep them from alerting the crew of the hut being raided.

Mary Ann and Uli leave around 10:30 just moments before I pass out.

“Raid the shit out of that hut.” I say with a laugh and fall asleep before the door can swing shut behind them.

They returned from their hut raid around 3:00 A.M. and they were successful in their efforts. They carried Jeeves in and set him on the kitchen counter.

E**** and I congratulated them and they both headed off to their bunks.

I went back to sleep and rose about thirty minutes later having to pee. I headed out towards the shed just twenty yards from the hut, unzipped and peed for what felt like five minutes straight. Just as I zipped up I heard something coming from behind me.

“Hello.” I said shakily.

I didn’t have my headlamp on but I could make out that it was a figure that was walking toward me. All the ghost stories of the night came rushing through my mind.

“Hello.” I said even more shakily and more quietly. Still no response.

The figure stood directly in ten feet in front of me now.

It was Uli dripping wet with a small towel wrapped around her waist. It was just long enough to cover anything that might have changed a movies rating from PG-13 to R.

“Oh hey.” She said. “Just takin’ a shower, felt so gross after the raid, ha.”

“Oh, ha, I thought you were Red Mac.” I said.

“Oh no, no, don’t worry, he won’t bother you.” She said.

We both walked back into the hut and I fell back asleep.

Rose – 1st Hut Experience

Bud – Getting Closer to being over Mount Washington and done with the White Mountains.

Thorn – Seeing my SOBO friends turned away.

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Night 37: Did I Piss The Bed?

Wednesday, October 27th, 2010

Sunday 7-11-2010
0 Miles Hiked, 1881.2 Miles To Springer

Before I went to bed last night I searched through the junk in the lower level of the barn to try and find something I could soak my ankle in. I found an old styrofoam cooler filled with dead bugs and cob webs. I rinsed it out and filled it with the ice I bought from the gas station across the street and soaked my foot in it. It was so cold it hurt to keep my ankle submerged. After about a half hour of soaking I pulled it out and my ankle no longer throbbed or looked as swollen, but it felt like a joint in my knee had been tightened or displaced and it now hurt to bend my knee. I need to catch a break.

While I iced my foot I worked on a surprise that I was going to send to Sarah. A bunch of pictures that I had written letters on the back of. The letters and pictures I had written and would be sending were heavy though and I had no idea how many stamps to put on the envelop and the post office was closed the next day so I knew I wouldn’t be able to ask them. I figured I’d poll a few people in town the next morning.

When I finally went up into the dark attic to go to bed I sat down on my mattress and one sheet barrier and spread my sleeping bag across the bed. I had filled a zip lock bag with ice and wrapped it around my knee with the ace bandage I had from my ankle. I stared up at the barn ceiling and at the wall at the other end and watched as the moonlight crept through the spaces between the boards that made up the walls. As I gazed at the rays of moonlight I wondered where my life was headed and was unsure, and I fell asleep thinking about who I was supposed to be in the post college adult world I was entering.

I woke up in the middle of the night and was soaking wet from my waste down.

“Shit, I pissed myself in a hostel bed. I’m fucking 23 years old, how am I pissing myself.” I thought.

I reached my hand down, touched the wet sheet beneath me, brought my hand to my face and smelled it. (Please no judgment, I don’t know why I would have wanted to smell my piss covered hand when I assumed I had wet the bed but I felt it was the only way to know for sure.)

I qiuckly realized I had not pissed the bed, but had in fact rolled over onto the ice filled ziplock bag on my knee, which had melted and popped. The melted ice left both my legs, and the sheet covering the mattress soaked.

I got my headlamp on to see just how wet the mattress had become and I saw a big orange yellow stain on the white sheet.

“Had I actually pissed the bed?” I thought again. “It didn’t smell like urine?”

I got completely out of the bed and took my sleeping bag off the sheet, and lifted up the sheet exposing the bare mattress and what was on it. I had not pissed the bed. The mattress was in fact covered in dark yellow, orange, red, and brown stains and the water from my ice pack mixing with the mattress had brought all those stains to the surface and allowed them to be absorbed by the white sheet.

“Ghhh….uggh.” My gag reflex activated as I thought about the fact that I had touched that with my hands and brought it to my face.

I spread my sleeping bag back over the mattress and laid on top of it for the remainder of the night. I had no intention of sleeping on those sheets now that they were covered in who knows what. I imagined what those stains could have been caused from a variety of gross things: period blood, sex juices, urine, poop, throw up, dirt, and sweat. I was ready to be out of this barn attic with the odd racist man who was currently my only companion.

I woke up early that morning wanting to get packed up, and get out of the barn before the racist man or the European girl was up to see my mattress was wet and that my white bed sheet was stained with what appeared to be blood, urine, and poop juices. I figured even if I told the truth it would be assumed I had wet the bed and I didn’t need my trail name to be changed for a false assumption two people I barely knew might make. I grabbed my sheet off the bed, balled it up and shoved it at the bottom of the hamper of used sheets and towels. I was out of the hostel by 8:00 A.M. never to return.

I knew I wouldn’t be hiking today with my semi bum ankle and now bum knee. I walked around town until I got to a park and then set my sleeping pad up on a park bench and laid down to take a Sunday morning nap. I felt like a hobo, and I loved it. I woke up from my nap around noon as the park I had set up shop in was hosting the towns bimonthly town yard sale/ flea market. I decided to head to the gas station to get some more stamps and to ask some people how many stamps my letter would need.

“I think five should get the job done for sure.” The forty something woman with a bad red hair dye job said.

“Thanks.” I said and I decided to walk back toward the fast food section of town. On the way to McDonalds I stopped at the post office and dropped my letter to Sarah in the mailbox.

At McDonalds I ordered a Big Mac combo meal, a McDouble, and a hot fudge sundae. I ate my food slowly while I charged my phone and scoped out the restaurant for a potential hitch to the White Birches Campground, another hostel in town that I had heard was cheaper and nicer than The Barn, but a good three miles from where I was.

During my time scoping out potential rides I watched a little boy take a hot fudge sundae off the counter from an old man. The little boy thought it was the one his mom had bought him, which I had already seen his mom grab off the counter. The old man was so shocked he didn’t know what to say, and just watched as the little boy walked away with it. I had just seen the old man set it down on the counter so he could grab some napkins before the boy took it, I thought about intervening but figured this might be the most entertaining thing that would happen to me today and I would let things get a little further along before I said something. The boys mother eventually told the boy she already had his and he came back to give the old man the one he had taken.

By the time I had finished my high calorie feast most of the clientele that was there when I had arrived had left. The boy who stole the hot fudge sundae and his mom were still there. I walked up to his mom.

“Are you heading down the road that way, toward the White Birches Campground?’ I asked.

“Yeah, we are, do you need a ride?” The young-beautiful-probably-had-her-kid-in-high-school-aged-mother asked.

“Yeah, I would really appreciate that.” I said.

“I’d love to help you out.” She said.

I followed the young mother and her son to their white SUV. They moved a bunch of cardboard boxes out of the backseat to make room for my pack. She had explained they were moving into a new house because she and her husband had just divorced. I felt it was a bit of an over share but didn’t really care. She dropped me off at the White Birches and I got out, thanked her and walked toward the front office door.

I checked in with the man who owned the campground and lived in the barn buildings first floor with his wife and daughter, Ashely. I paid for a bunk space in the upper level of the barn area which was much nicer than the barn attic area at The Barn. I also paid for a towel to use when showering.

I walked up the outside stairs to the attic area of the barn and opened the screen door. Inside I was shocked to see Abraham and Bishop.

“What are you guys doing here? I was laid up for 11 days in Andover with a sprained ankle, what’s your excuse?” I asked.

“We’ve been watching the World Cup games, been here since the 6th.” Bishop said.

“Yeah, plus I got sick and was throwing up for a few days.” Abraham said.

They both answered me in a somewhat trance like state. They were captivated by the television as the championship game of the World Cup between Spain and the Netherlands had just started.

I watched the first half with them and dozed off towards the end of the half. At halftime I woke up and went outside to the pool that sat near the trailer park section of the campground. I soaked my foot and there was a radio playing nearby. I soaked up the rays shirtless and listened to the radio. It brought back memories of life guarding at hot pools all summer long during my teenage years.  I hung out by the pool for more than an hour and headed back figuring it would be close to over when I returned.

When I walked through the screen door I saw that the score remained 0-0. The game ended in overtime on penalty kicks around 5:00 P.M.  Just as the game ended and Spain claimed the title of World champions, the rain started pouring and pounded hard against the tin roof of the old barn.

While the rain pounded Abraham and Bishop packed up there things and got ready to meet the old man who lived in the trailer park who would be shuttling them back to the trail. I was glad it wasn’t me that was heading back to hiking in the rain.

The rain eventually cleared and I headed back to the pool to swim and soak my ankle more. No one else was at the pool so I took my shorts off and swam around in my black mesh boxer brief underwear. It felt so good to be swimming and my ankle was pain free swimming around and my knee felt great too. I swam around by myself until 8:15 P.M. and then headed back to the barn. On the way back I called my family. Each person I talked to and told my ankle was acting up told me they thought it was time for me to come home, time to give myself a break, someone even suggested that maybe it just wasn’t mean to happen for me this year. I was furious.

“I’ll be back when I have to come off for my friends weddings like I always planned.” I told them agitated.

After talking to my family and getting aggravated at what I viewed as their lack of support and faith in me I took a 25 cent shower in the first coin operated shower I’d ever used.  I thought a quarter for five minutes of hot water was perfectly reasonable since I’d paid five dollars for a shower at other hostels.

Once I was out of the shower I put the underwear and shorts I had swum in in the dryer and I headed back upstairs to warm up a can of soup someone had left behind in the hiker box.

While my clothes dried I wore my Danskin short shorts and walked around the trailer park while I called and talked to Sarah.

“I bought some women’s short shorts from Walmart, I’ll send you a picture of them.” I said.

“Oh my gosh you weren’t big enough to wear the shorts from the women’s section so you had to get them from the girls section, didn’t you?” She asked after receiving the picture.

“Very funny.” I said. ” But I did make the old lady who worked in the women’s clothing section wait outside the changing room and tell me how I looked in the three different colors I tried on.” I said.

“The thing is I don’t doubt that you did that.” She said.

We both laughed.

We talked about her day, her trip back from my aunts house, and missing each other. Missing each other seemed to be the big topic of every conversation and it seemed it didn’t matter how much closer I got to seeing her again, to getting back home because she knew I’d be going back and leaving her again.

The mosquitoes started biting and I was tired, from what I don’t know, I hadn’t done anything all day, I think my body was just spent. I ended the conversation and headed back inside the barn. Back inside I sat in front of the television watching Myth Busters and I began rubbing some Thermosil (Ben Gay equivalent) that I found in the hiker box all over my ankle, knee, and thighs. The thighs were a mistake, a huge mistake, they burned all night.

Sarah texted me pictures of dresses asking me which one she should wear to our friends weddings coming up soon. Sarah could have worn a trash bag and put every woman in the room to shame and I told her she’d look beautiful in whichever one she chose, but she wanted more participation than that on my part. I told her the one she liked best looked great, which she jokingly said upset her because that one was out of stock, and then I climbed onto the bottom bunk, which was not stained with anything and I fell asleep, looking forward to getting to dance with her in whatever she wore.

Rose – Swimming in the pool, talking with Sarah.

Bud – Slack packing/Freedom Hiking the next section.

Thorn - My family telling me to come home.

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Night 36: Welcome To New Hampshire

Wednesday, October 20th, 2010

Lost bird

This bird is no doubt dead.

Saturday 7-10-2010
11.8 Miles Hiked, 1881.2  Miles To Springer

When I woke up this morning the view from the shelter of the mountains in the distance was just as glorious as it had been the night before. This morning though things looked slightly more ominous as heavy gray and black clouds began rolling in over the mountains in the distance. I could see the sheets of rain as they fell from the clouds far away and I knew it wouldn’t be long until they reached the shelter.

‘Maybe I shouldn’t have flicked off Maine last night.’ I thought.

By 6:00 A.M. rain drops the size of dimes began falling from the sky and pounding on the tin roof that covered the shelter. I really didn’t want to hike in the rain, hike up and down slippery rock faces, fall down slippery rock faces, and walk in wet shoes, but I did really want to get to a town and nothing was going to stop me with only 12 miles separating me from McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Burger King and a Chinese food buffet.

I got my rain gear on and hung around the shelter while I ate my cold oatmeal and drank my cold instant coffee. Two weekend hikers with a heavy duty weather radio informed me rain was expected all morning.

‘Great,’ I thought. I figured I better get a move on if I planned to make it into town by mid afternoon and I left the shelter.

By 6:32 A.M. I was on the trail heading south. I filled up my water in a stream that the rain had flooded and started my climb. I trudged through puddles, mud bogs, over slippery rocks and roots, but I was determined to get to Gorham and get dry, and comfortable.

By 9:15 A.M. the rain had decreased and become a light mist, not that it mattered. At this point my boots were soaked, my socks filled with water and my shorts wet from rain and my shirt wet from the sweat my rain jacket induces. I wasn’t stopping to look at anything and I blelw right past Moss Pond and Dream Pond.

I stopped for a few food breaks and kept pushing toward the sound of traffic and the idea of civilization.  Every time I felt tired and I’d hear the roar of a car driving on a road somewhere I couldn’t see, but could only imagine my spirits would immediately lift. With about three miles to go I was more than ready to be done hiking. I wanted to be in a building, taking a shower, and doing laundry. I wanted to be off the trail. With about a little less than a few miles left til I would reach Gorham, NH I heard the sound of what I believe was the town’s fire station alarm.

The sound let me know I had to be really close. I was elated, not about the fire in town but that I was getting close to the town. I headed down Mt. Hayes and had to walk down a large slab of rock that was both wet and slick. I tried to be really careful placing my feet on the mossy patches I could find and grabbing onto tree branches when there were any to grab hold of and help me maintain my balance.

As I neared the bottom of the rock slab it broke into tiny rock segments with gaps in between them and became more treacherous. I took a step too quickly and lost my balance. I was on my ass and my packs rain cover acted as an accelerator propelling me further down the slab and taking me straight toward the field of boulders with gaps in between them.

My right leg led the way and got caught right between two boulders right below the knee cap. While my right leg stopped the rest of my body kept moving forward with the momentum the initial fall and slide had created.

The way my shin felt I thought I’d broken something. I gently pulled my right leg out of the crack it had become wedged in. My shin was scrapped and bleeding but as I tested my range of motion I was relieved to find that nothing seemed broken.

After I had recovered from the fall and started moving again the trail went steadily downward toward Hogan road. When I got to Hogan road someone had left a box of Koshi granola bars. I grabbed one of each flavor bar and had a little roadside snack.

As I left Hogan road I noticed a sign for a missing parakeet attached to the telephone pole. Looking at the picture of the bird and thinking about the wilderness I’d already been through I had no doubt that bird was dead.  I crossed the Androscoggin river and walked by the abandon hydro electric plant to my left that sat right on the river.

Once I passed the plant, U.S. 2 curved right. I took my pack off to get ready to starting thumbing. I took off my water soaked boots and switched into my Teva sandals hoping to give my feet a chance to dry. It took about twenty minutes for someone to stop and pick me up. It was a husband and wife and their teenage daughter in a white pick up truck. I sat in the back with the daughter and made small talk until they dropped me off at The Barn, also known as the Libby House on Main Street in downtown Gorham. I thanked them for the ride and they drove away.

When I walked inside the barn, which was a barn style garage attached to a big bed and breakfast there was an Eastern European girl in her early twenties who greeted me wearing a bikini and an apron. Her outfit and poor English had me thinking mail order bride.

“It will be 20 for night, that include shower, another 5 if you want wash dry.” She said.

“Okay.” I said as I handed her the cash thinking this place was a little pricey for getting to sleep on a stained mattress with one bed sheet covering it in the attic of a hot barn garage.

I said goodbye to the young lady and headed down the street toward the Gorham commons in search of Pizza Hut, I hoped to hit up their lunch buffet if they had one. I called Sarah on the walk there since it was about a half mile down the street.

“Hey. How are you doing?” I asked.

“Pretty good.” She said.

“Are you still planning on heading to Aunt Mimi’s for Gram’s 93rd birthday party?” I asked.

“Yeah, probably around noon. I don’t know if I’m going to spend the night though. I have to get back to Williamsburg early tomorrow morning, so I can either leave tonight and then I won’t have to get up early or I’ll have to get up really early tomorrow.” She said.

“Yeah just do whatever works better for you. I’m sure my family would love to see you for as long as you can stay but they’ll understand if you have to leave tonight because of the drive. What are you doing about the bridge?” I asked.

“Claudio is going to be at Kelly’s on Kent Island and he said he’d drive across the bridge to meet me and drive my car over for me.” She said

“Well that works out, that’s really nice of him.” I said.

“Yeah.” She said.

“I’m so jealous you get to go to the party. I really wish I could be there with you and the whole family, but instead I get to stay here all alone.” I said.

“You should be jealous, I can’t wait to see your family.” She said.

“I know, I bet it’s going to be so much fun.” I said. “I just got to Pizza Hut so I’m going to go in and get lunch and I’ll talk to you later, okay?” I said.

“No, don’t go yet. We never get to talk.” She said.

“I know, and I know this sounds lame, but I’m starving, I haven’t had lunch yet, and I still have to hitch a ride to the Walmart and back and then I have to get in contact with Ashley Green about her possibly meeting me in Hanover to give me a ride to the train station in Manchester, but I’ll call once I get everything done.” I said.

“Fine.” She said.

“I’ll talk to you later. Tell everyone at Gram’s party I say hi.” I said.

“Okay.” She said.

When I got inside I found out the buffet was only for salad and though I did crave vegetables I wasn’t going to pay for all you can eat salad. I ordered 10 bread sticks and a pepperoni personal pan pizza and devoured all of it along with three Pepsi’s in just over thirty minutes.

“Does the soda have refills?” I asked the waitress. She looked at me as though I was a crazy homeless person and I could tell she feared if she said there were refills that I would hang out in here all day, smelling like a dumpster, covered in dirt, sipping Pepsi after Pepsi until the place closed.

“Well, you can have two or three refills but it’s not unlimited.” The Waitress said.

‘What the hell type of Pizza Hut is the place?’ I thought. I had come to a fast food place for a few reasons. First to gorge myself on greasy, high calorie, and fattening food. Second, to enjoy food in the comfort of air conditioning. Third and lastly to drink as much damn soda as I pleased. I felt cheated that this Pizza Hut only delivered on the first two of my three wishes.

After I left Pizza Hut I headed to the road to try and hitch to Walmart. I ran into the guy who had offered me 151 the night before I sprained my ankle. He informed me that there was a bus service that ran through town every thirty minutes and for two dollars you could ride it unlimited all day. With this information I kept walking with him down toward the bus stop.

I spotted a McDonalds along the way and headed inside for an ice coffee to take with me on the bus. By the time I had reached the bus stop I had already finished the iced coffee and it and the Pizza Hut food had apparently shot right through my system.  I had to go and I had to go immediately.

“What’s your name?” I asked the 151 distributor.

“I go by Pneumonia.” He said.

“How come?” I asked.

“I got pneumonia and was in the hospital the last week and a half.” He said.

“Oh no. Well I’m  glad to see you’re doing better now. Do you happen to know when the bus comes?” I asked.

“It’ll be here in five minutes.” He said.

I ran to the gas station next to the bus stop knowing I would not make it another five minutes and a bus ride to Walmart without pooping in my pants if I didn’t take care of business now.

I got inside the gas station. There was a line of two people before me. My mind had already told my body when I walked into the gas station that I was going to get to go in the next minute. Things had started moving.

I waited in line trying to think of anything but going to the bathroom to help slow things down. The two people in front of me seemed to take forever. The last woman ahead of me got out just in time. I ran in, dropped my shorts and started going not a half second after they were down.

I made it back to the bus stop before the bus arrived and got in when the female bus driver pulled up. Pneumonia wasn’t coming with me, so it was just me and the female bus driver.

“Hiker?” She asked.

“Yep.” I said.

“You must be interested in traveling then?” She asked.

“Yeah.” I said.

“I wanted to travel the country when I was your age.” The forty something woman said.” So I got my CDL (Commercial Driver’s License) and became a trucker and got to drive all over the country. I kept driving until the day I delivered each of my first two kids. It was great, my husband and I got to see every inch of America.” She said.

“Sounds pretty cool, I don’t think I could do it though.” I said.

“Sure you could, you’re still young, you don’t have anything tying you down.” She said.

I thought of myself as a free spirit, but I wasn’t that free. I wanted to be stationary most of the time. I wanted to be able to still see Sarah, see my family, see my friends whenever I wanted and I knew a life of non stop moving would make that impossible. The bus driver sounded like she loved her life but I knew it wasn’t what I wanted. I had officially crossed off cross country truck driver from my list of potential professions. I knew I couldn’t do it.

I got to the Walmart and finished my food shopping relatively quickly. I still wanted to find a pair of shorter shorts to replace the long cargo shorts that hung over my knees and caught on my knees every time I had to take a big step up.

There was nothing in the men’s section that didn’t hang over my knees. I headed to the women’s section and asked one of the employees to help me find some very short women’s athletic shorts. The older lady gave me a strange look and then helped me. I ended up trying on and loving the way a pair of black women’s dancing shorts called Danskins felt. I bought them and then walked around Walmart trying to find someone I could ask to drive me back to Gorham since the bus was no longer running at this time of the evening.

I met a woman leaving the pharmacy section who said she and her husband could drive me back. The couple drove me back to the hostel and waved goodbye as they drove off.

After I loaded my food things into my pack I talked to a man in his mid 40′s named T*******ack who was from Utah and as I found out was born in the same hospital I was in Virginia.

“I could never live in Virginia.” He said.

“Why” I asked.

“Living in Utah I know I’m way less likely to get shot up by any black boys. I just feel more comfortable there being around mostly white boys.” He said.

Given this was one of the first things he said to me I could tell any conversation I had with him would involve me bring highly uncomfortable and offended so I decided to tell him I had to leave to get to dinner before the restaurant closed and hoped to not return until he was asleep.

I headed down town to the Dynasty Chinese food buffet and tried calling each of my four siblings, my mom, my dad, and my three siblings in-law and Sarah so that I could wish my grandmother a happy birthday. No one answered their phones. I felt really alone and sad. I figured everyone was having such a good time that they were too busy to answer.

I entered the restaurant at 9:15 P.M. and I was the only person there. They had even shut off the heat lamps on the food and were cleaning the table tops with a wet rag while half the employees were eating dinner in another section of the restaurant.

The feeling of isolation in my stomach grew bigger and the greasy, half warmed Chinese food wasn’t capable of filling it. The rest of dinner I felt terribly lonely. One wall of the restaurant had mirrors and when I looked over and  saw myself, not looking like myself and eating all alone a thousand miles from home I realized my new life wasn’t as glamorous as I had hoped it would be.

I could barely eat the rest of the food on my plate. I spent the remainder of time there picking at my egg roll and starring out at the pool of the Motor Inn Motel across the parking lot watching as a family splashed and laughed with each other.

I left the buffet both unsatisfied by the food and sad that I wasn’t with the people I loved and that I wasn’t with anyone. I was alone and I realized I may very well be alone for a long time to come.

I opened my fortune cookie on the walk home. It read ‘bread today is better than cake tomorrow.’  I took it to mean that I should be thankful for what I had today instead of upset about what I didn’t and I walked back to the hostel alone.

Rose – Pizza Hut and getting dry

Bud – A full day off.

Thorn – Feeling so alone.

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Night 35: Mahoosuc Notch, Not So Bad

Monday, October 11th, 2010

In between the crevices is ice that stays through summer and a couple moose skeletons which I never did find.

Friday 7-9-2010
14.7Miles Hiked, 1893.0 Miles To Springer

I had planned on an early start, but got caught talking with Farm-A-Sea while I finished my breakfast and loaded up my backpack. He was unloading his backpack and I found out he was carrying speakers with him and had a ton of extra food, his pack had to be at least twenty pounds heavier than mine. He pulled out an extra pop tart and offered it to me. I took the pop tart which made me feel obligated to stay longer and talk with him while I ate it.

“So you’ve really never smoked?” He asked as he loaded and puffed on his metal pipe.

“Never.” I said.

“That’s awesome dude. I can’t remember a day where I didn’t wake up thinking I needed drugs to make it through the day.” He said.

“Yeah, it just never appealed to me.” I said. “Do you have any idea what you want to do once you finish the trail? Think you’ll head back home?” I asked.

“Hell yeah, but I don’t know what I’ll do once I get home, I was a janitor at the high school I went to for two years and they pay $13 an hour but I can’t go back to doing that.” He said.

“You seem pretty sharp to me, you ever think about going back to school?” I asked.

“Sometimes, but high school was so fucking stupid. I could never do pointless shit like that again. Maybe a trade school or community college.” He said.

“Yeah, any type of school is a good idea in my opinion.” I said.

He put some more of the resin he had scrapped out of his broken pipe a few days earlier into his metal pipe.

“I know there’s fucking tiny pieces of broken glass in here, but fuck it man.” He said.

“How long have you been smoking?” I asked.

“Since like sophomore year of high school.” He said “I paid some doctor $200 to say it’s legal for me to smoke to get my mom off my back. That means I can grow up to six plants with three budding at any time. I’m thinking of telling him I’m giving up smoking cause if you’re eating the weed then you can grow up to 20 plants.” He said.

“Sounds like a pretty genius plan.” I said.

He reached into his bag to pull some more food out and two razor blades fell on the wood shelter floor.

“What are those for?” I asked.

“Snorting coke.” He answered as if I had asked him the time of day.

I decided it might be time to hit the trail and leave Farm-A-Sea behind. I liked Farm-A-Sea and didn’t really want to be alone, but I also thought he might be more of a liability than I was willing to take on.

“Thanks for the PopTart, I’m heading out.” I said.

Mahoosuc Arm was a steep rock face and I slipped and fell on my tailbone about two dozen times heading down. The rocks were wet from a light mist the previous night and they were extra slick. Water also appeared to be flowing down the rock face, from where, I have no idea. I listened to my tape recorder music on the way down and fell down every few steps. Falling was the way I hiked this entire section.

I entered the much talked about Mahoosuc Notch around 9:15 A.M. Every SOBO I had met up to this point had warned me of it’s difficulty as though there were dead hikers all along the trail in this  section.  It was like walking through a giant air conditioned jungle gym. Between several of the rock crevices were pockets of ice that remained solid even in the summer heat. I passed an older man who had no traction on the bottoms of his shoes and was struggling on the rocks, getting up a little ways and then slipping back down.

“I’m getting my new shoes as soon as I get to Gorham.” He said.

“Looks like you better.” I said as I passed him.

I did my best to stay on top of the boulders and had almost no trouble. I made it through the Notch in just over an hour and was unsure what all the fuss was about. I was disappointed in both how easy it was and that I didn’t see any of the moose skeletons I heard were lodge between some of the boulders.

The climb up Fulling Mill Mt. after the notch was almost void of white blazes. I stopped half way up for lunch and the older man I had passed earlier now passed me. About a half hour later I ran into the older man walking back down the mountain.

“I haven’t seen a white blaze anywhere in the last thirty minutes, I’m heading back down.” He said as he walked back down the mountain past me.

“This seems too much like the AT to me to not be the AT, I’m going to keep heading up.” I said.

“Good luck.” He said as he went on his way.

The remainder of the climb was in fact almost void of white blazes with the exception of one I saw painted on a rock on the top of the mountain and one more I saw at the bottom of the mountain just before Full Goose shelter.

I sat at the shelter eating my usual snickers and peanut butter and the old man showed up.

“Guess that was the AT, I walked all the way to the bottom and realized it was the only possibly option.” He said.

“That sucks.” I said.

Before I left the shelter the old man I had passed who I found out was named, Coal Cracker, told me that his weather radio had said there was a storm coming in and a chance for flash floods. I left Coal Cracker behind and headed up Goose Eye North. The views from up top were gorgeous and Goose Eye East was also beautiful, but less impressive then the former.

Mt. Carlo was nothing to write home about and Carlo Col shelter, the only water source for miles was a 0.3 excursion off the trail and straight down hill, but I needed the water to make it the last 5.5 miles to the shelter which stood a half mile past the Maine and New Hampshire border.

When I did reach the Maine/New Hampshire border I started shouting at the top of my lungs. “YES! YES! YES! ONE STATE DOWN THIRTEEN TO GO!” I shouted. I was alone in the middle of the Maine/ New Hampshire wilderness shouting until I was hoarse.

I was thrilled to be out of Maine, to cross a state off of my list, to feel like I’d finally accomplished something on this thru hike. I kissed the border sign, took a step into New Hampshire looked directly at Maine and flicked that bad ass state off. I put my middle finger away and I walked into New Hampshire vowing never to step foot in Maine again.

My first challenge in New Hampshire was called Mt. Success, fitting considering how accomplished I felt for finishing Maine. My phone had service when I got to the top so I left Sarah a voice mail and texted my family to let them know I had finally finished a state, and was feeling much better, physically, but mostly mentally, I was back in the game and I felt reinvigorated for my thru hike.

The climb down toward Gentian Pond Shelter wasn’t easy, at least for me at the moment. When I arrived at the shelter it had the most stunning view of mountains and fluffy clouds colored pink and orange as the sunset. Walking toward the shelter I saw two moose swimming in the pond next to the shelter.

I talked with two NOBO hikers, one from Leesburg, VA and one from England. They told me neither of them were purists when it came to hiking, meaning they didn’t care if they were hiking on the AT the whole way, and both of them were encouraging me to take a blue blazed trail that led to a road I could walk on straight into Gorham that would cut ten miles off of tomorrows hike.  I  hadn’t decided yet if I was a purist but I had decided I wasn’t ready to start taking short cuts at this point in the trip.

“Did you guys get water from the pond?” I asked.

“Hell no, there are moose swimming in there, which means there are moose shitting and pissing in there, I’m not trying to get giardia.” The man from Leesburg said.

“Probably good thinking, is there anywhere else to get water?” I asked.

“Yeah, there’s a stream a little past where you came in.” He said.

The shelter was a little off trail and I was tired and not looking to do more walking so I decided the water could wait for tomorrow morning and began getting ready to be settled in for the night.

The two NOBO’s had occupied the floor of the shelter so I was left with the loft area up top. I climbed up top and got settled in my sleeping bag. It was too hot to stay in the bag so I just slept in my silk liner.

I kept waking up feeling hot, unable to breath, and my legs were itching like crazy. I decided it was the loft that was making me feel so hot so I climbed down and squeezed into the open space on the shelter floor between the two NOBO hikers. My legs kept itching like crazy though. I scratched and scratched until I couldn’t take it anymore. I decided to get my headlamp and see if I had a rash or bug bites.

I turned my headlamp on and didn’t see any rash. What I did see was far worse. There were 50 or so tiny little black and brown bugs no bigger than the head of a needle crawling all over my legs and up and down the hairs that covered my legs. I started brushing them off in a panic. I felt disgusting. I felt filthy and now I couldn’t go back to sleep. I kept thinking of everywhere on my body they might be. I figured if they were on my legs they had probably crawled up toward my crotch region, and most likely I had some in the hair on my head too.

Even though it appeared that I had gotten them all off I figured they were still in my sleeping bag sense that is where my legs first started itching. I got out of my sleeping bag and out of my liner and laid on top of both. I was now cold but I felt a little cleaner and I think I managed to get a couple hours of sleep.

Rose – Mahoosuc Notch, Finishing Maine!

Bud – Getting to Gorham, New Hampshire, First Fast Food!

Thorn – Flea or Lice infestation inside my sleeping bag.

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Night 34: Speck Pond & Will

Sunday, October 10th, 2010

Speck Pond, highest body of water in Maine.

Speck Pond, the highest body of water in all of Maine at 3,500 feet.

Thursday 7-8-2010
6.9Miles Hiked, 1907.7 Miles To Springer

I left Bladpate lean-to and The Beer Poet behind at 6:35 A.M. I was looking to get a big day in when I set out this morning. Old Speck Mountain had different plans in store for my sore ankle than the dreams I woke to. I made it easily the first 2.3 miles to Maine 26 and I was in good spirits even though I still wished I had someone to hike with.

When I reached Maine 26 Old Speck Mountain came into view. The entire top of portion of the mountain was covered in fog. I couldn’t see how high it rose but I knew one thing for sure and that was that I’d be hiking straight up, because I was still in Maine, the land of no switch backs. Before I started the hike I stopped in the parking lot at the base of the mountain to eat some breakfast bars and peanut and then I started up.

As I started up the mountain my quads, knees, and ankles were not willing and were becoming unable to keep hiking. I had to stop to rest every fifteen minutes just to catch my breath and regain some of my energy. As I went further and further up I ran into a father and son from Alabama who were section hiking the entire AT.

“The peak of Old Speck is about 0.3 miles off trail but there is a fire tower you can climb up and the views are definitely worth the extra hiking.” The father said.

I decided I’d take the excursion and do lunch atop the tower. I didn’t want to take my pack the whole 0.3 miles so I left it 0.1 miles in and took out my food sacs and water. When I reached the tower it was tall and the only way up was a completely vertical ladder. I threw my food sack around my shoulder and moved up all 36 rungs one step and one hand grip at a time. I was worried the whole way up that my sweating hands would lose grip or my ankle would give out right as I placed it. Neither of those things happened and I enjoyed my lunch with a spectacular view of the surrounding mountains partially covered by the clouds.

The climb down was even scarier, but I just took my time and didn’t look down and I was fine.

Old Speck Trail had sufficiently kicked my ass and I believed I may have re-injured my ankle as I started to get a limp in my step as I hiked. I arrived at Speck Pond Shelter around 12:30 P.M. and decided with the limp in my step and the burn in my quads that I was done today and that there was no way I was going to make it down Mahoosic Arm or through Mahoosic Notch in the condition I was in.

The campsites’ caretaker wasn’t in and I was the only one around so I walked to the pond and soaked my feet in the cool water. I decided since I was the only one around and since it was such a hot day that I was going to go for a naked swim. The water felt soothing and it was freeing to be swimming through the highest body of water in the entire state of Maine. I began to miss my old life as a swimmer and began to wish I could go back, I began to wish I was the swimming obsessed person I had gone on this trip to get away from.

After lounging on a rock while dangling my bad ankle in the water I went back to the shelter and pulled out my sleeping bag. I decided I had earned a nap. I slept until around 3:30 P.M. when three NOBO’s stopped in the shelter for a snack break. We talked briefly. From our conversation I had gathered that all but one of them had stopped enjoying the hike.

When they left, I was glad to see them go, everything they had to say about the Whites in New Hampshire and the remainder of southern Maine had me feeling down and nervous about what was to come.

Not too long after they left the campsites’ caretaker arrived. I walked up to his tent to find out if I’d be able to do some work for stay since this campsite was run by the Appalachian Mountain Club and had an eight dollar fee to stay the night.

As I approached the tent I saw that he was young, about my age, perhaps younger, my height, and he had red hair and blue eyes.

“Hey, how’s it going? I asked as I stood outside his tent.

“Hey, good, I’m Will, this is my first day working this site. I took a side path up here so it wasn’t as bad with my 80 pound pack and axe.” He said.

“Why is your pack 80 pounds?” I asked.

“I bring my food up for the week I’m up here, and I bring food I like, not just the lightest stuff.” He said.

I noticed his shorts were black and said Army on the right thigh.

“Were you in the Army? I asked.

“Yeah, I signed up when I was seventeen right after high school.” He said.

“Did you like the Army?” I asked.

“Yeah, but after the first two years it became like any job and I began to think of it as a prison term and was pretty much counting down the days til I was out.” He said. “I don’t think I’d ever go back into the military.”

Will’s shirt was off and I noticed he had several tattoos.

“What are the tattoos for?” I asked.

He pointed to the one on his left arm, it was a big Pabst Blue Ribbon logo above which were the words ‘Powered By.’

“I got that one when I was 17, couldn’t even legally drink or get a tattoo then,” He laughed. “Love PBR.” He said,

“What’s the one in your armpit?” I asked.

“Well I was getting out of the Army in a couple months and I had a friend that did tattoos. I gave him $100 and said, ‘Do whatever you want.” He googled ‘pink eye and gross vagina,’ and used a combination of images to come up with what I’ve got in my armpit.” He said as he lifted his arm to reveal what looked like a warn out wizards sleeve of a vagina with an infected red, puffy, and pussing eye staring out and his armpit hair growing out of all of it really added to the overall grossness.

“Tattoo in your armpit hurts like hell, my lymph nodes swelled to the size of peaches for about a week.” He said.

“That sounds like it hurt a lot.” I said.

“Yeah I couldn’t even lift my arm above my head.” He said.

“Ouch,what’s that other one for?” I asked as I pointed to the large black silhouette of the state of Massachusetts on his forearm.

“Well, I’m from Massachusetts and the ’508′ inside the state is my area code and the heart inside the ’0′ stands for home is where the heart is.” He said.

“That’s really cool. I was meaning to ask, is there anything I can do for work for stay?” I asked.

“I think I’ve got something.” He said.

I spent the next hour sawing the limbs off a fallen pine tree and dragging them to areas the AMC was looking to reforest and wanted to block off to hikers.

As it got later and the day became night Farm-A-Sea rolled into camp. We didn’t talk too much as it was pretty late when I finished my work and I headed to pond right after I finished and listened to some music on my tape recorder while I journaled. As the sun completely vanished I stared out onto the pond as the mist rolled by.

With no one to talk to by the pond I just thought and I realized I was really going to be alone and I wasn’t sure I wanted to do this thing alone, or maybe I just wasn’t sure I could.

Rose – Lunch on the tower.

Bud – Mahoosic Notch.

Thorn – Ankle acting up again.

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