So. I think I have a new favorite hostel. š (I say that for most of them, lol.)
There are two kinds of hostels on the ATāor, rather, those two are at the extreme ends, and everything falls on a sliding scale somewhere in the middle. There are the dumpy, loved places that are falling down, need work, well swept but well worn, where the priority is clearly the hikers over the property. And there are the picture perfect, magazine-type places, with lots of comforts but that tend to prioritize their property investment over the hikers. Thereās nothing wrong with the latter; itās just an observation that these places exist. Examples of the former: Glencliff, Shaws. The latter: 19E, Rattle River, Top of Georgia. Iāve come to realize that I like the seedy, hiker-friendly ones the best. Not coincidentally, they tend to be run by former thru-hikers. (The hotel-type ones are courting other outdoor types, as well.) Thru-hikers have pretty low standards; thosr higher-standard places tend to have a lot of rules that donāt mesh well with what thru-hikers need, pragmatically speaking.
This Caratunk B&B is one of the homey, comfy, gently used ones, and Paul (PCT x2, AT, many others) is amazing. No bells, no whistles, but bring your pack inside and make yourself at home.
Hiking today was magical. That whole area by Pierce Pond was one of those Maine places I wanted to spend time with, but after a night stealthings in a creepy little spot, I had 7 miles to hike and a canoe to catch! (Frogs +5, Iām not even kidding!)
I got to the Kennebec by 9:30, and there was a line 12 deep for the canoe. But listen! While we were waiting (Little Blade was there, whom I met at the Half Gallon, and Aria from Virginia), three eagles started to duke it out over the river! It was amazing! I took a pic of one of them perched in a pine tree, but you probably canāt see him. The canoe guy said theyāre after his dog.
And here I am. No phone service, but they let me use their land line to make my arrangements with Shawsāmy last town stop. Iāll take a full zero there to get ready for the Hundred Mile Wilderness.
My resupply is here! I supplemented with some stuff from the hostel.
And I think weāre good to go. I probably wonāt have phone service until Wednesday, so expect a gap.
Oh! And when I went to recharge my headlamp, the entire recharging piece has pulled entirely out of the headlamp. Unexpected! Honestly, Black Diamond has been less than stellar this hike. The thing still takes regular batteries, though, so Iāll be going old school for the last couple of weeks.
The resupply here has Crocs. Iām trying to resist the urge to buy them. Sure, there are a couple of fords and two hostels to go, but do I want to add the weight for the Hundred? Iām trying to resist! (I have Sealskinz for the fords.)
Trail was beautiful todayāponds and pine. I managed about 14 miles. Kennebec tomorrow, I hope!
All my peeps who were aiming for an August finish would be summitting tomorrowāSneaky Pockets, Hufflepuff, Kiwi, maybe True and Unicorn and J-Rock. Best of luck to all of you! It was a pleasure and a privilege sharing the Trail with you this year!
No cell today, or pretty much for the next 60 miles, unless I can get a room in Caratunk tomorrow. Iām anxious anxious anxious about all the various logistics for the next 2 weeks. Kennebec, Caratunk, Shaws, Baxter, Katahdin, Millinocket.
Frgs +1! It was the tiniest frog! Like… the size of my little fingernail!
Last nightās storm was epic. I woke up at 10, and it was raining so hard that the inside of the tent was a river, and everything was soaked, including half my sleeping bag. I stuffed the bag to minimize the damage and put on all my layers.It wasnāt enough, even with the puffy, and I never got warm enough to fall asleep (with the additional worry about whethet the pitch would holdāwhich it did). So here I am at the next shelter, drying things out.
Iām pretty sure Iāll hit the Kennebec on Saturday. Labor Day weekend!
I left the Hostel of Maine this morning and got substantially farther than anticipated, despite the late start. Thatās the Trail, helping me out. š Thanks, Trail! The Bigs are Mainey but not horrific, and I think Iām done with 4000-footers until Katahdin.
Big rainās in the forecast for tonight and tomorrowāan inch, or sonething. Iām on a platform at an official tent site. Thereās a big wolfpack of young male hikers here. Iām polite, but not really engaging much with new hikers at this point. This is the end game. Gotta focus.
The next couple of weeks look like this: a couple of days to Caratunk, cross the Kennebec River in a canoe, a few days to Monson (where Iāll zero if I can build up the time), then the Hundred Mike Wilderness, then Baxter and Katahdin.
Iāve spent some time on this hike talking to other repeat offendersāsecond timers on the AT, triple crowners, PCTers who are finishing the AT right now. Thereās comfort in those discussions, a language of emotions and familiarity and exhaustion and bliss that doesnāt happen with people who are doing this to themselves for the first time and likely wonāt do it again (smart people).
You remember those episodes of Survivor near the end, when the finalists did a little retrospective on all the moments and competitors theyād met along the way? This trail feels like that nowāevery discussion is a retrospective of the journey as it nears its end. āRemember that time in Virginia when…?ā āRemember So-and-so, how he started with that 68-pound pack?ā Itās all cementing the moments in our heads and hearts as we make our preparations to finish. It feels like a wake.
And despite all the suffering, and how difficult long-distance hiking is, when I sit here in my room eating my Ben and Jerryās and working out my train schedule to get home in a couple of weeks, my heart tightens and burns with the desire to get out and do it again. I love it and hate it more than anything Iāve ever experienced, and my eyes well up at the thought that I have to leave. Iām ready for a break, but I donāt want the ending.
I was thinking Iād do the CDT next, but after all those discussions, Iām thinking Iāll go back and finish the PCT instead. Weāll see.
Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod. For the second time, a random decision has turned into Trail serendipity. Hostel of Maine… ohmygod. The place is beautiful and amazing, the owners are FABULOUS, and their resupply is outstanding. Best in-hostel resupply Iāve ever seen. They even have cheese. And tuna in oil!
Iād decided to zero here because I thought Iād have to walk into town to find a market. But I wonāt. So I get to sleep and eat, which is awesome, because I really need it. Really. Iām trying to squeeze out enough energy to finish this beast of a hike.
North Crocker was niceānot nearly as tough as South Crocker. The gentle 5 miles down to town, though, were hard, just because Iām pretty spent. Running on fumes. Every mile feels like 5280 feet. But one day at a time, yo.
I love this place. Iāll be here tonight and tomorrow night. Mostly eating Ben and Jerryās.
Oh, and I almost forgot: 2000 MILES! That gives me 5000 long-distance miles. Iām a baby in the long-distance community, but man, am I proud of that number. š Thank you so much to everybody whoās supported me in this crazy hobby, especially my sister and brother!
[Dawn! Right Turn! Looks like you got to Crocker before I did, since my schedule exploded!]
Crocker is hard, hard, hardāat least, the NIBO ascent up South Crocker. The good news: I didnāt have to ford the Carrabassett River. Last time, I did. Thatās the difference between a wet year and a good year, precip-wise. Iām currently camped up on South Crocker. Going down to the 30s tonight. Thatās OK. I still havenāt broken out my puffy or my wool gloves for hiking. š
Expect light updating for the next 2 weeks. (The Hundred Mule Wilderness is in there anyway, with spotty cell service.) Gotta put the pedal to the metal! Tomorrow Iām heading into town for an unplanned resupply, and Iāll be there Tuesday also.
Tomorrow AM: Early start, North Crocker, then down to the highway for a 1 PM shuttle. Fingers crossed!
Oh, Maine, you crazy kid. There are no bugs now! There are no bugs because itās 40 frakking degrees!
OK, call it āin the 40s at night, with high winds. The wind chill last night was in the 30s, if not the 20s. I have the gear for it, but man, is it hard to de-tent in the morning.
Yesterday was rough. Oh, hell, theyāre all rough. š But Saddleback and the Horn with high winds were… harder than I remembered. But part of thatās the NOBO/SOBO thing. The NOBO descent down the Horn was the typical vertical tumble of treacherous boulders for a mile, but this time they were slate! I called it a day at the official tentsite before Saddleback Junior. That descent britalized my knees to Jello, and the ascent used up my courage for the day. Oh, and there was a bonus on top! A trick bog with moving rocks that unexpectedly swallowed your feet to mid-calf!
So I had black, muddy, wet socks and shoes. Camp shoes would have been great for that, except there was nothing to indicate it was a bog. Looked like a little puddle.
Iām eeking out tiny miles by listening to pods for like… 4 hours a day. The pods are using my battery like crazy, and the short days and the cold are using my food. I wonāt have enough food to get to my next resupply, so I had to do a little tapdancing. Iāll be at the Hostel of Maine Monday and Tuesday nights. Spendy, but there are only a couple of yowns left. Schedule-wise, who knows?I think Iām OK, but Iām just concentrating on one day at a time. I think Icoyld maybe have gotten thete Sunday, but tomorrow are the Crockers, or one of themāmore high above-treeline bullshit. āThe AT in Maine: An unrelenting procession of bullshit.ā š
Shelterās crowded! A college group, a lot of weekenders. Maybe some thrus, since Iām firmly in the bubble now. Dogs. Three dogs. Dogs are good.
That crappy little stealth spot turned out to be Aces, as the cool kids used to say. It rained steadily, but not torrentially, for half the night, and this morning my tent and footprint were pretty much dry. The fly was soaked, of course, but… yeah.
I hit the trail at 5:15 AM and managed 12.5 miles or so in 11.5 hours. The Trail helped me today! Thank you, Trail! There were no miserable miles-long scramblesājust short bursts. There was plenty of swamp to navigate, though, around several big ponds. No moose, but an insane amount of moose poop. Do fhey, like, congregate together, ass to ass, and let it rip? One place must have been a 6-foot square area of poop, several dumps deep. I almost took a picture, but I restrained myself. š
Waterās a problem. Youād think Maine would have pristine springs and beautiful clear creeks. Not on the AT, it doesnāt. I ran out of water entirely by lunchtime, after rejecting a couple of slimy trickles, and had to go to an official campsite near a pond. The water source was the pond. The edges were black silt topped by algae with a side of floating insect carcasses. I tried to dip my bag in, and dozens of frogs scattered! These looked like actual frogs, as opposed to the usual toads (which got a real +1 today). Frog water! Instead, I spent a half-hour letting 2 liters trickle from a nearby boxed spring, but with the filtering it wasted an hour of my hiking day. Not good. And now Iām down to 1 liter again.
Not much to add. Iām camped near the road to Rangeley, but Iām skipping that town. All my food numbers are screwed up because I can generally only get 8 miles right now. I think Iām OK to Caratunk; if not, there are some other town spots before then. Blah. Met another second-timer and a guy who did the PCT last year, which reminded me I could be hiking in the beautiful Pacific Northwest, finishing up the PCT like I was supposed to this year. Idiot. š
Tomorrow: The funās over. Saddleback and the Horn, which I remember were pretty gnarly mountains. And no camping above treeline, so Iām not sure where Iāll end up. Trying for 14.5, but that hasnāt exactly been working out lately. Weāll see.
Couldnāt get to the shelter. Managed 9.8 miles in 10 hours. Itās raining now, but Iām in my tent. Not a great stealth spot, but it was here, the rain was starting, so I grabbed it. I hope itās not a boggy spot. I guesstimated that itās not, based on positioning (and itās an existing spot). Weāll see! The rainās just a soft regular rain, anyway, as opposed to a fast downpour. Itās supposed to end this evening.
Frogs +1. Which is, honestly, the only real update. š
Hikers, unless you ran out of food, stop eating the damn blueberries by the handful. There are these 1000-pound moose out here that need the blueberries to survive. You can go to the grocery store. The animals canāt. /grumpy
Updating mostly because I saw a tiny frog. Frogs +1! Iāll start putting the animal score at the end if I spot sonething. Frogs have taken the lead!
Short mileage continues. Today, 10 hours for 8.5 miles. But that included two steep mountains with some technical bits: Moody and Old Blue. I may actually have a problem… but I think Iām OK. Iād like to get 12 miles minimum, but I need help from the trail to do that (eg, some good hiking amid all this crazy vertical rock climbing and deep swampy bogs). Also, Iām pretty sure I left the hostel with 7 or 8 days of food, which is a massive carry. Every time I eat, my pack gets a little lighter and I can hopefully cover an increasing amount of ground.
Last night something smallish, some ground animal, ran past my tent at midnight. Skunk? Raccoon? Fox? Porcupine? That sort of thing creeps me out. Tonight I couldnāt make it to the shelter, so Iām stealthed. Fingers crossed that the animals all ignore me.
There was supposed to be thunder, rain, and hail last night. I heard thunder in the distance but it didnāt rain a drop at the shelter. Letās hope tonight stays clear!
Tomorrow: Nothing major, I donāt think. Bemis Mountain, but Iām already halfway up. Iām trying for a shelter 12 miles away. Fingers crossed!
Saw a guy today, Bunny, whom I havenāt seen since the NOC. And did I mention I saw Raven and Happy Dance at the hostel? Havenāt seen them since Virginiaāthat day with the prescribed burn.
Only saw a couple of people today (although three NOBOs and one SOBO have passed my tent since I set up). Thatās always weird. I think I must be past the SOBO bubble, although there were a few at the hostel, and Iām also seeing flippers.
OK, this place is a place. I have sensory overload. Ska and reggae and conversation always in the background, amazing woodwork, hikers hanging everywhereābeanbag chairs, porches, firepits. Hikers playing trivia games, watching movies, outside smoking weed, hanging at the fire pit. This is a clear vortex. š I bought $37 of panic candy during a road trip to the general store, which I canāt possibly eat in one zero, and here I am in a bed in a loft. Iām clean and warm and wearing crazy velour loaner plants.
Hikers are either speeding up or slowing down. Yesterday I met two South Africans who started April 6 and a woman who started February 23. All of us, circling the same drain, as it were. I got a text from Kiwi! She saw a moose! She thought it was a donkey. š Thatās so Kiwi.
Woobie is here, although heās hiking out today. Firefly, also, and a hiker I met up on Washington whose name I forget. Plus a bunch of others, all hiking out today.
Good things here: The atmosphere, for sure. Yukon, the owner (who was on some show called Naked and Afraid, which I thought was a joke but apparently isnāt š) is a former thru-hiker and is fantastic. Heās patient with the crazy bustle, but still exerts control over it all to keep things moving along. The food is terrific. I had a restaurant-quality cheeseburger last night, and the coffee this morning was actually the best cup Iāve had on the trail. My bed last night was crazy comfortable.
Disadvantages: You have to leave your pack outide in a wet tent. Which I get and respect, but itās a big problem for, say, dealing with this massive resupply box I have. Canāt spread out, organize, optimize. Plus, you canāt hang your stuff up indoors, and my tent is soaking wet. My plan is to wait until all the shuttles have left, then go hit the pack and try to get it ready for tomorrow. Also, only camp shoes inside. Itās weird that AT hostels now have this expectation that everybody has camp shoes. But the bigger problem is that this place had a sensitive septic tank, so you have to schlep across a gravel yard to a portapotty during daylight hours. Itās like walking on Legos if youāre in bare feet!
What is it with the camp shoes? It seems so… section hiker. š On the PCT, you could always tell the JMT hikers; they were the ones with camp shoes.
āāāā-
So. Fear.
Fear of heights, like most phobias and fetishes, is hardwired. Itās just a fact of you, like blue eyes or that crazy birthmark that looks like a kangaroo. I remember being terrified as a toddler on the Jersey boardwalk, panic-stricken that I might somehow slip between the slats and plummet to my doom (on the soft cool sand three feet below). As a younger child, my mother and park rangers had to peel me off staircases twiceāonce on the third level of a firetower, and once on a ladder leading up to the cockpit of some historical airplane. I get… not dizzy, not vertigo, but in the panic I lose my sense of balance, and feel like my feet are going to fly up over my head. I canāt breathe. My hands rurn to rock and grip whatever root or rail they can find. Like… itās awful. Iām sure you can relate. We all have our own phobias.
So. The mountains in Georgia and North Carolina and Tennessee are tallish, but not high, if you know what I mean. No scary precipices, no hundred-foot drops. Albert Mountain at mile 100 was scary the first time, and let me tell you, Iām currently climbing Albert Mountains about thirty times a day.
The scariest single thing I ever did in my life, at that point, on July 14, 2013, was summit Katahdin. I did it on my hands and knees, with my fingers practically clawing divots into the rock face. Iād flipflopped, so after Katahdin came all this crazy high stuff in Maine and New Hampshire. And later, the new scariest thing in my life, which has yet to be surpassedāāthe Chuteā on Forester Pass, 13,000 feet , in the ice and snow on the PCT in 2016. Six inches wide, ice. A straight drop into infinity. Scary enough for me to quit a thru-hike that instantāor at least, after I stopped shaking like a leaf. š (They told me Glen Pass was worse. I couldnāt face it. I went back in 2017 and did the whole Sierra section. Glen Pass was not, in fact, worse. Nothing was worse. Iād quit the PCT immediately after Iād done the hardest thing on that trail. Out of fear.)
The anxiety, terror, panic never go away. But the muscle to breathe through it gets stronger.
At Fontana I met a young female hiker named Eleven with acrophobia whoād jumped out of an airplane to try to get rid of it and was surprised that it didnāt help. It doesnāt help. But all that stuff teaches your body how to remember to breathe while your feet are advancing an inch at a time.
An inch at a time, a day at a time, a step at a time. Thatās the moral of the story. If youāre failing, youāre taking too big a bite of the thing. Get smaller. Breathe. Still failing? Get smaller.
I didnāt internalize this on Katahdin, or in Maine, or on Forester Pass. It finally sank in in the Sierra in 2017, when I had to cross these crazy raging streams on little toothpick logs. The rushing loud water is its own distracting terror. The motion of the water increases the fear and the dizziness. Then I thought, āYouāre not responsible for crossing this river. Youāre responsible for finding a single flat, solid footstep.ā One step. Stop there for as long as necessary to feel the solidity, to take a breath. Stop there forever. The world is forever in that center of balance. The hell with pasts and futures and people on the bank. Just wait until it feels solid. And then take another step. Just one step.
I think the best way to train against a fear if heights is probably on a plank over a little stream. Then a smaller plank. Then a round stick. Moving water. Breath. And the wolf that gets stronger is the wolf of concentration, the one that can filter out the panic so the body keeps moving.
And there we are. Iāve climbed two bare rockfaces, infinity high, in the last few days: Old Speck and Baldpate. In both cases, fuck the magnificent view. I didnāt turn around, didnāt even look, until I was safe at the top with firm footing and a solid exit. I hate the view. The view is death. I crawled sometimesāparticularly on Baldpate, because it was raining and slick as hell, and the wind was gusting hard. Honestly, I was terrified. But that rarely stops me anymore.
One step at a time. Thatās how you get to Maine.
āāāāā
PS. Yukon just spotted me limping acroos the gravel and gave me a brand new pair of flipflops to wear. What a great host that guy is. Maybe Iāll check out his naked TV show someday. But probably not. š
Stormy night, with bonus thunder. Did crazy-ass Baldpate in the rain. Descending Baldpate was the NOBO version of the SOBO Arm. And crawling, literally, up a mile-high mountain of slab in the rain was terrifying, and bruising.
Iāll be at the hostel for two nights, all things remaining equal.
Soooooo. A whole bunch of tents sqieezed into fhat stealthānot stealth site between the Notch and the Arm. I found out later that one of them was Siren! Remember Siren? She shared a tentsite with ne after Trail Days. We had a quick catchup when she passed me this afternoon, and it was magic. I also ran into Reno today! Heās here at the shelter now, in fact. I havenāt seen bim since that same postāTrail Days shakeup. Er… no. Since fhe Half-Gallon Challenge. Reno saw a moose a couple of days ago! It was quick and in the trees, so heās not sure yet if heās going to count it.
Oh! Speaking of counting things… frogs +1! š
It rained last night. Like… hard. I packed up the tent from inside while it rained, then I started climbing to do the Mahoosuc Armāin the rain. The Arm took 2 hours. If anybody reading this is thinking about sectioning Maine (Iām looking at you, Doug), NOBO is the safest way to do this whole section.
Worse than the arm was that bit of rock-climbing misery at the top of Old Speck. Vomitously vertical and high, high, high. I lost a little more skin, but I made it. I have a few things to say about fear of heights, but Iāll save them for a zero. I canāt believe I did that SOBO. That or the Arm.
And that was today! Tomorrow are the Baldpates, which I loved last time, but somebody told me itās supposed to rain again, and that descent is supposed to be hellish in the rain. I hope all those opinions are exaggerated. Iāll get started an hour early, though, and take it one step at a time. I have a shuttle picking me up 8 miles from here at 4 tomorrow, and Iām not sure I can get there in time. How Maine is that?
Speaking of which, the rock climbs and descents in Maine come in two flavors: āMaine, you crazy kidā and āFuck you, Maine, you fucking fuck.ā The Notch was FYMYFF. The Arm was mostly FYMYFF. Old Speck was definitely FYMYFF. Actually, pretty much everything from the border to Grafton Notch was FYMYFF.
Yesterdayās update was image heavy, so it may post out of order. FYI, this post comes after the one entitled Moose Tour 2019. Thisāll probably be a continuing problem, here in the land of no signal, so Iāll try to remember to attach mileages for reference.
I didnāt see a moose today. I did, however, hike with a NOBO named Firefly who saw one earlierāin Vermont, maybe? Firefly started March 7. I also met a young guy today, Tin Can, who started May7. All the salmon hitting the end of the stream at the same time, because the journey ends when Maine is done.
Fireflyās husband works for NASA, designing doodads and bits of equipment for the International Space Station. How cool is that?
So. The water filter tuned that brown muddy stuff crystal clear! I was astonished! I treated it anyway. So many of these water sources are beaver ponds, moose swimming holes, and frog swamps that Iām extra paranoid. Or… the same degree of paranoid, because Iāve been double treating since Harperās Ferry. š
This morning. Oh, man, this morning! I totally forgot that this section was that crazy misery with the funky rebar and steps. So… I made it! Got through the rebar, survived the vertical slab descents and the walls of sheer rock. Got to Mahoosuc Notch at 1. My cutoff had been 2:30, so… boom! I yanked up my socks and went in.
I couldnāt even get up the first boulder! It took like… 5 minutes, and I slammed my shin and scraped all the skin off my left butt cheek, Boulder 1. Joy! Mark me down for āhardest mileā rather than āmost fun mile.ā Iām battered, bruised, and skinned.
But I got through it. 2.5 hours, as opposed to the 3 hours first time around. Guthooks helped, because I could keep checking and screaming, āPLEASE DEARGOD, IS IT OVER SOON?ā
My pack, though, didnāt fare as well. One of the side pockets got torn to crap on the rocksāwhich is going to cause me some logistical problems. I covered it with Tenacious Tape. Fingers crossed that it sticks, but Iām not holding my breath. It hasnāt been sticking to anything. Just 270 miles. It only had to last 270 miles or so.
What else? Nada. A flip-flopper named Roy just joined me at this stealth site. Thatās good. I like to camp with a few other people, these days. Roy flipped in PA, so thatās where heās headed.
Tomorrow: Mahoosuc Arm, Old Speck Mountain, other satanic ups and downs.
I have to call the hostel in Andover tomorrow to make sure theyāre running the shuttle on Saturday. I might zero at that place… but probably not. No food there, except what they might sell on premises. Frozen pizza. If I zero, Iād rather do it in a town. But I donāt think Iām in a real town until Monson, before the Hundred.
Karma AT2019 