Tuesday, July 22, 2014

[Pussel-gut] Smelling Katahdin

At this point I really just want to talk about the Whites. Well, first things first, I suppose.

 Leaving that Hitching Post Motel, Mr. Jingles informed me of the extreme value of stopping early. (Hint: mental health is a good thing.) So we only managed 11 that day. We also had heavy packs coming out of town, we got a late start, and I could really list excuses all day if I wanted to. Then I stopped early the next day, and lost him. Which was fine, since I started reading some books I had bought in town. (Most notably Brave New World). A few days later I ended up at Upper Goose Pond, talking to two people. who I think were called Becca and Jake. We started talking about hiking, then the Adirondacks, then Deerfoot Lodge, and finally Nate Masterson. Small world. The pond was also great for a swim. I got interrogated (or had a conversation with) a guy who drove (boated?) by me in his boat while I was floating in the lake. Of course the first thing he said was "Are you a thru-hiker?" (Technically it was "My son wants to know if you're a thru-hiker," but same thing.) (Do we really smell that bad? I was mostly underwater at the time, and he was more than 50 feet away.)

I was in MA at this point, near the end of it. It's a small state. (Every state other than VA, ME, and PA are small states.) I stayed at Tom Levardi's (sp?), who was a wonderful trail angel who lets hikers camp in his backyard. The next two days I hit two more towns. (Cheshire, North Adams) I got my worst injury of the trail in North Adams, due to common courtesy (I think). There were bikes that a trail angel (again, gotta love 'em) lent out to hikers for resupply in North Adams. I took it and walked it across 2, since I hadn't been on a bike much. After I crossed I wiped some sweat out of my eyes (it was pretty hot that day), and started to bike along the road. Some guy in a car yelled out to me, and I turned to look at him. I guessed he asked, "Are you okay?", so I yelled, "Yeah," kinda confused what he would have done if I had said, "No." Because I turned around, I naturally lost control of the bike and scraped my knee against the guardrail. Ow. In retrospect, I think he thought I was crying due to the sweat running down my face and in my eyes. Oh well.

I stealth camped at the first water source in VT, only making it there before dark since I had to apply first aid, and wait for a few hours in the shade at the supermarket for the day to cool off. It didn't. (I also didn't have to wait.) The next morning the AT went along a gravel road for a little bit. I had the feeling I might be lost, but wasn't about to admit that to myself. I can follow this trail, dammit, I've been doing it for 1600 miles (at that point). Then Mr. Jingles shows up going the other way, and asks, "Are we on the trail?" I answer something to the effect of "IDK," but with more profanity. We weren't. Also, getting 0.5 off trail is apparently enough of an excuse to stop the day at 7 miles...

At this point I was considering going to Luke's house for 7/4, but entered a multi-day long dead zone. I got to the top of Stratton on the 3rd, and of course there was no way he could drive multiple hours to the middle of nowhere and impose my stank on his houseguests. So, I went into town again with Mr. Jingles, at the Red Sled Motel on the 5th. VT is muddy, by the way. I got to stay in a barn loft on the 8th for $10, which was convenient, since it rained like hell that night, It also made me feel more like a character from a book, moving around haystacks to find a comforatble spot to sleep. The next day I caught up my journal. I had been trying to do that since the Shenandoahs, basically.

Then the terrain started to get hard. I stayed at a trail angel's house the night before I went into Hanover. In Hanover I didn't stay, but instead called people (some of whom called me back - looking at you, Robbie) and wandered the internet for a good couple of hours. I hiked out later in the afternoon. That night, my phone decided that living wasn't it's thing anymore. Really? It's made it this far, and then gives out? I hadn't gotten it wet in over a week! And then, Moosilauke.

Well, more like the threat of Moosilauke (1st Mt. in Whites, ~3500 ft climb) was keeping me down. (It was also raining, of course). The day before I entered the Whites me and Mr. Jingles were basically just bitching to each other. (This was also when my glasses decided that they wanted to break, too. One of the straight pieces that sits on my ear just snapped clean off at the joint.) (The way he tells it, I pulled him down. Possibly accurate.) I kept joking how the day was just going to continue to get worse. It was going to end with me on top of Moosilauke in a thunderstorm (above treeline, of course.) Mr. Jingles responded that we should have dropped out at Damascus, like normal people. (Because we obviously can't stop now.) But it was okay, because at the shelter there was a random trail angel who packed in chili. All became better, especially after I had a dream about playing Bear Soccer. The only important things about Bear Soccer are that humans are the goalies, bears take the rest of the positions, and it's vaguely like soccer. I remember the goalie on the other team being female, and I could picture her really well when I woke up, in a much better mood. (I won the game, of course.) Mr. Jingles was still pissed, and more pissed because I wasn't.

And then I met the girl of my dreams.

Well, not really. Not at all. We were hiking behind Jettcat (yes, two t's, I don't know why.) At a distance I thought she might look exactly like the girl I was playing against. (So more like the girl from my dream?) Her hair was the right color, and she had the same build, but her face wasn't quite the right shape and her hair was cut wrong. Still kinda weird, though.

With those odd thoughts running through my head I summit-ted. Silly me, I thought that was the easy part. I then had to descend, and earned a dozen scratches on my right wrist in the process. We managed 16 miles on the day, though. Haven't seen Jettcat since. She was trying to catch up to Wired, and Wired moves fast. The next day, to celebrate, we went 9 miles into town. And then took a 0. (We had plenty of excuses, too.) The main reason was that we wanted to be on Franconia Ridge during a day with clear skies. I fixed up my glasses with duct tape, a stick, and a dime for balance. It's the hiker version of Google Glass.

Franconia was beautiful when we did it, and we managed a 10 mile day, which was respectable, given the terrain, and how slow you hike when presented with the best view of your hike, for 3.5 straight miles. Also, there were a ton of day hikers, which slowed us down to pass, and slowed us down further when we made fun of them. (Mostly not within earshot.)

And Haiku caught up with us at the shelter that night! And pushed us back into gear. We flew the next day (at least over the 5 miles where there was good terrain, we managed over the rest), and then managed an 18 over the Presidentials. I think it would have been an extra mile to hit all of the peaks. (The AT doesn't go over all of them.) (Guess I gotta go back and do the traverse this fall.)The amount of non-hikers was ridiculous at Mt. Washington. The views were fantastic, though. (And of course I got 0 pictures w/o my phone.) After the Presidentials we were beat, but that didn't stop us from hiking Wildcat. (And getting an awesome work for stay at the Carter Notch Hut, my only one.)

One more day of hiking, and then today we walked 2 miles of river walk (really easy terrain) into Gorrham. ME is 18 trail miles away, which I'll try to do tomorrow. I bought a pay-as-you-go phone with 1000 minutes to use in 30 days, so I may be calling around, if I can remember your number. I'm considering this a burn phone. so I don't want to post the number on the internet. Makes me feel all cool and spy-ey and stuff. Also now I feel like the NSA is trying to track me down. They'll never catch me in the woods! (Muahaha?) Alternatively, they could just wait for me to show up at Katahdin, but that would be silly.

826 insects killed
19 falls
Till next time,
PG'14