Hey Guys and Gals,
So as always we have lots to catch up, and I want to keep everyone updated with our journeys, but equally desire to sit on my butt watching bad TV while icing my legs and eating the free ice cream at the "hostel" we are staying at.
So first I want everyone to know I'm not crying everyday! It's been at least two weeks since I started being able to climb these mountains without the tears rolling down my face. That said, my feet are still a big fucking problem, and there are some days where I do great most of the day, but by days end my feet bring those familiar salty drops back to my face. (They still hurt in the morning, warm up for a few miles, then hurt around mile 8) Still rolling my ankles every few days, and they are pretty much in a permanent state of swollen. My knees, especially the right one, gets pretty painful by days end, and having a 2 mile descent that goes down about 2000 feet never helps that. As we get closer to finishing Maine, we climb at least one, usually two or three mountains a day, and often have a notch (aka gap) in the middle so we go up 2000 feet, down 1500, up another 1000, on a daily basis. Still averaging 10 miles a day (again the occasional 6 mile or 13 mile!) which feels good to me but is still a snails pace compared to 90% of the people hiking this trail.
So as Andrew mentioned we are going to try a few new tactics, given I still am having a lot of "hiking pains" and he is having almost none. First is these massive sturdy men's hiking boots I bought which will protect my feet and joints from feeling every rock and root in Maine. Also we may try to give him a little more food weight, and lighten the load of my pack. I've been against him carrying extra weight from the start, I mean I want to carry my share, but a couple things helped me see that him carrying extra weight will hopefully do us both some good. I want to get to the point where we can carry the same pack weight, but he has had two years of working and living outside to acclimate his body to these conditions. He is also a man with no body fat, one solid muscle from top to bottom. I am definitely carrying a little extra weight on my body, and then just not used to this much wear and tear. My body knows how to eat and exercise for like an hour, so its still getting used to all this. Also while he is very patient, it's hard for him to go the speed I need to go to not hurt myself, so we are hoping that a heavier pack may give his body an idea of the what a physical struggle it is for me to do this. Aka he sympathizes with my pain, but feels none of his own, and that is of course a hard dynamic. He really has been a sport, but when you are hiking partners coming from such different places, it is a constant struggle to stay on equal footing, as it were.
Anyway we hope these adjustments will help, because we are still going slower than we would both like, and this constant pain is getting pretty fucking annoying.
But on to happier things, I've written plenty about the hard parts, and most of them are still hard, but there is a lot of great experiences to be had. I never thought I would climb a mountain, much less 20. I can't even count how many mountains I've climbed, and we are now about 24 miles from finishing Maine! The "hardest 24 miles of Maine" they say and in about two days we will be hitting Mahoosuc's Notch which most say is "hardest mile on the AT" (btw I'm really tired of hearing hardest mile or section on the AT about the sections I'm about to do) and I'm both scared and also a little excited. The first two weeks of this journey every step felt impossible, the climbs felt overwhelming and the descents felt like dancing with death. But now I see massive rock boulders I have to climb up or down and I know I can do it. I still get scared, I still hurt myself a lot, but I know I am capable of more than I was a month ago. And that feels pretty good.
One of my favorite parts of hiking this trail have been the people I've met along the way. Sure, there are still WAY too many dudes, and I'm so sick of dudes I may have to surround myself with only women for like a month when I get back, but the AT is a treasured trail and so many people are in awe at our attempt that they try to help in anyway we can. We've never waited more than 45 minutes for a hitch. Many times we simply cross the road and within minutes someone pulls over, happy to take us to town or back to the trailhead and wants to help us figure out the best market to go to, tell us how to get around town, or where we may find a free shower. The people who run these little hostels in these TINY towns are gems, spending years of their lives making sure backpackers have a homelike place to rest their weary legs and minds. (When we say tiny towns, we are talking one gas station/grocery store/restaurant no stoplight, library/town hall type places). We met a couple the other day who gave us 10 bucks, and said "Enjoy your next pint, beer or ice cream on us! We think it's so great you are doing this!" It felt a bit weird taking money from a stranger, but every bit helps and Ill always take cash handed to me.
The place we stayed in Andover the last two nights is called "The Cabin" and is run by the SWEETEST older couple, who must be at least in their 70's. It is a three story log cabin that they live in and then open their home to guests. The women who runs the place cooks breakfast and dinner every night (for a small charge) and happily offers leftover for free when available. We got free chicken, ice cream and ham! She said she has tried to shut down this place for a few years (her husband who used to help in the business had a stroke so can no longer be an equal partner in running the place) but "people keep coming and we just can't turn them away" So it's really cool and inspiring to meet people like her all the time who love the AT and the people who hike it so much. Also this place had an ACTUAL bed (most hostels have crap camp matress, some don't even have sheets and make you use your sleeping bag, some haven't had clean sheets, etc) with real pillows and I finally slept for a full 8 hours, which I don't think I've done since I've been on the trail. When you sleep outside you are thankful for ANY sleep you get, but you never get a straight 8 hours. You are luckily to sleep a few hours without someone or some noise waking you up.
The people we met, the views we have seen, make the days spent hiking in the rain, the pain that seems unbearable, and the junk food-palooza all worth while. Or at least today it does. I am still unsure of my ability to complete this trail, financially and spiritually. I know I will get through Maine, and that feels pretty damn good. Not every day feels worth it, some days (aka hiking in the rain so that you are are so wet your feet are pruning and you can't stop to eat because it's raining so hard) I just make it through. Then some days I climb three mountains all over 3700 feet, look at the 360 view of lakes and clouds and forget why I would ever stop climbing the mountains is front of me. Anyway I am still a mess of emotions, but I feel the good creeping in more. Please note this is written after two days of being in a town, sleeping in a bed and eating real food. If I were to write a blog post after being back on the trail for 6 days, it would probably contain the sentence, fuck this fucking trail and also nature can blow me and I hate all the things.
Well we are heading back into the wild in a few hours, so I'm gonna go ice while I can. Much love to all who read, comment, and follow our journey. Yall's support makes a world of difference.
Sunday, August 26, 2012
Saturday, August 25, 2012
Nutrition: a constant battle
While on the trail one of the biggest struggles is to carry the weight of the calories that will sustain us. More food = more weight. Carrying more weight = burning more calories = needing more food = carrying more weight = ~sigh~ you gather our predicament?
Also the ratio of fat to carbs to protein is hard to nail down.
Before I left for the trail I started eating meat again after almost a decade of vegetarianism. I was SURE that I would need so much more protein, and that meat would be the way to get it. So I bought a dehydrator. I became a regular at the old fashioned butchery, called The Chop Shop, that serves what I call 'healthy meat' (read: hormone free, antibiotic free, local <less than 100 miles>, and generally treated well while it was alive). And lots of beef jerky was made!
It's delicious.
But then I discovered a series of articles on thru-hiker.com by nutritionist Brenda L. Braaten PhD (she's got a name, so she must exist, right?). What I learned is that long distance hiking is not body building (high protein) and it's not distance running (high carbohydrate) it's long distance hiking. Turns out I need a 50/35/15 diet: 50% carbs, 35-40% FAT, and only 10-15% protein.
Woah.
Suddenly I'm walking through grocery stores and looking at nutrition labels in entirely new ways: I'm paying attention to fat content! And not like most people! I'm trying to find the products highest in fat. Bread? Pssht! Give me those ritz crackers that pack a punch of 10g fat/serving. Tuna packed in water? what's wrong with you Chicken of the Sea? Give me tuna packed in OIL! I thought surely I'd be snacking on cream cheese, but was dissapointed to find it has LESS fat than standard cheddar. And most dissapointing of all: the cheapest high-fat foods??? Debbie cakes/ cinnamon buns/ nutty bars... etc. All the crap I'd normally avoid b/c it's killing me! (Though ice cream has always been the exception to my 'no foods that don't feed me' rule).
All the good fats (fruits, nuts, healthy oils) are the most expensive :(
One of the things I did right while planning this trip was to take advantage when Lara Bars were on sale (those things are only ~225 calories a piece, but are built of simple, healthy ingredients: mostly cashews and dates. Yum :). Sadly, it was always the same flavor on sale, so every care package comes with 10 or so bars that Lyss is tired of eating. Bummer for her. Yummer for me :)
So, daily, the diet looks like this:
Ideas for ways to turn the same-ole, same-ole into delicious variety? Any tips/help would be appreciated!
Mom: I'll give you a call soon to let you know what you can send that would be a big help!
Also the ratio of fat to carbs to protein is hard to nail down.
Before I left for the trail I started eating meat again after almost a decade of vegetarianism. I was SURE that I would need so much more protein, and that meat would be the way to get it. So I bought a dehydrator. I became a regular at the old fashioned butchery, called The Chop Shop, that serves what I call 'healthy meat' (read: hormone free, antibiotic free, local <less than 100 miles>, and generally treated well while it was alive). And lots of beef jerky was made!
It's delicious.
But then I discovered a series of articles on thru-hiker.com by nutritionist Brenda L. Braaten PhD (she's got a name, so she must exist, right?). What I learned is that long distance hiking is not body building (high protein) and it's not distance running (high carbohydrate) it's long distance hiking. Turns out I need a 50/35/15 diet: 50% carbs, 35-40% FAT, and only 10-15% protein.
Woah.
Suddenly I'm walking through grocery stores and looking at nutrition labels in entirely new ways: I'm paying attention to fat content! And not like most people! I'm trying to find the products highest in fat. Bread? Pssht! Give me those ritz crackers that pack a punch of 10g fat/serving. Tuna packed in water? what's wrong with you Chicken of the Sea? Give me tuna packed in OIL! I thought surely I'd be snacking on cream cheese, but was dissapointed to find it has LESS fat than standard cheddar. And most dissapointing of all: the cheapest high-fat foods??? Debbie cakes/ cinnamon buns/ nutty bars... etc. All the crap I'd normally avoid b/c it's killing me! (Though ice cream has always been the exception to my 'no foods that don't feed me' rule).
All the good fats (fruits, nuts, healthy oils) are the most expensive :(
One of the things I did right while planning this trip was to take advantage when Lara Bars were on sale (those things are only ~225 calories a piece, but are built of simple, healthy ingredients: mostly cashews and dates. Yum :). Sadly, it was always the same flavor on sale, so every care package comes with 10 or so bars that Lyss is tired of eating. Bummer for her. Yummer for me :)
So, daily, the diet looks like this:
Breakfast: oats for me, pop-tarts for Lyss, who is sick of oats
Snack: Larabars &/or nuts and chocolate &/or beef jerky
Lunch: pepperoni slices and cheese for me, cheese and chocolate chips for Lyss
Snack: snickers and/or debbie cakes
Dinner: Knorr Sides and/or Ramen, which are gross, and gross for us, but lightweight and quick-to-cook (plus, Ramen is fried in oil :))
After-dinner snack: hot chocolate with olive oil for added fat.
When we go into towns, the fruits and veggies we crave are usually super expensive. So we just try to eat a lot of whatever we can get our hands on. Like the bowl of ice cream I just polished off while writing this :)
Ideas for ways to turn the same-ole, same-ole into delicious variety? Any tips/help would be appreciated!
Mom: I'll give you a call soon to let you know what you can send that would be a big help!
Still in Maine :)
Well, sadly I'm still struggling to load pictures on the random computers I end up using. Right now We're at "The Cabin" in Andover, Maine. The Cabin was bought in the early '90s by a newly retired couple named Margery and Earl (trail names Honey and Bear) who have now spent so much of their retirement running a backpacker hostel that they might never get to rest.
As she encourages me to eat some shepherds pie leftovers or the moose tracks ice cream they recently bought too much of, Honey (who must be almost 80) explained, "We've tried to shut it down a few times, but people just keep showing up!"
It's a beautiful house, though, and I'm happy we're taking a zero here. There's a greenhouse attached, movies to watch (plenty of complimentary microwave popcorn!), and a large dining room for busy season. Right now there are only 4 hikers here, us included, so we ate breakfast in the breafkast nook with Honey and Bear: pancakes, sausage, eggs, and OJ, all prepared by Honey, for only $5: A hiker's dream :)
We chose a private room upstairs for $35 flat. The basement houses the 'hiker bunkhouse' ($20/bed), complete with living room setup, movies to watch, a full kitchen, and a washer/dryer. They've even got boxes of clothes for hikers to wear while their clothes are in the wash! (I picked a very loud pair of tie-dye skinny jeans and a blue t-shirt, appologies now for not posting the picture, which would surely make your day)
Maine continues to be challenging and beautiful. We've encountered our first couple of 'notches,' which are just steep valleys between mountains, called 'gaps' in the south.
{Reminder: The Appalachian Trail was never meant to be thru-hiked! When all the little trails were connected into one contiguous trail, it was mostly for organizational and preservation purposes. The idea for the trail sprang up in 1921. It wasn't until '68 that the trail was completed and named the first National Scenic Trail. And still it took a decade for the National Park Service to START getting involved, helping to protect a 100 foot wide 'corridor:' 50 ft to either side of the trail. So when Earl Schaffer became the first person to through-hike the trail in 1948... no one believed him.}
Lysandra's feet still hurt pretty often, but two days ago we did our first 13 mile day! What can I say? Girl goes from claiming she "can't" hike a mountain to covering 3 in 13 miles: she's badass. 'Nuff said.
While I'm doing my best to empathize with her foot pain, my natural reaction is to be more solution oriented. The 'solution' I've been pinning my hopes on for a few days? Screw lightweight shoes: Lysandra is getting new boots. So this morning we woke up and ate the homemade breakfast that was put in front of us, before catching a shuttle (courtesy of Don, Honey's 58 year old son) to Bethel: bustling metropolis to the south; I think they have a traffic light!
First thing I hear the clerk say when I walk into the outdoor store in Bethel? "You have no idea how many times I've seen that exact same outfit."
About an hour later she's tried on every boot in the store and settled on a hefty, durable-looking pair of Merrels. I also chose to Boot Up; my trail runners, which were not new to begin with, are toast. Luckily the lightest weight boot in the store was on discount by the front door. They had one pair left: my size, exactly :) This afternoon there will be a lot of moose tracks ice cream eaten, many movies watched, many calories gained (curiously, after walking past actual moose scat day in and day out, eating a free bowl of 'MooseTracks' is no less appealing). Tomorrow we continue walking.
As she encourages me to eat some shepherds pie leftovers or the moose tracks ice cream they recently bought too much of, Honey (who must be almost 80) explained, "We've tried to shut it down a few times, but people just keep showing up!"
It's a beautiful house, though, and I'm happy we're taking a zero here. There's a greenhouse attached, movies to watch (plenty of complimentary microwave popcorn!), and a large dining room for busy season. Right now there are only 4 hikers here, us included, so we ate breakfast in the breafkast nook with Honey and Bear: pancakes, sausage, eggs, and OJ, all prepared by Honey, for only $5: A hiker's dream :)
We chose a private room upstairs for $35 flat. The basement houses the 'hiker bunkhouse' ($20/bed), complete with living room setup, movies to watch, a full kitchen, and a washer/dryer. They've even got boxes of clothes for hikers to wear while their clothes are in the wash! (I picked a very loud pair of tie-dye skinny jeans and a blue t-shirt, appologies now for not posting the picture, which would surely make your day)
Maine continues to be challenging and beautiful. We've encountered our first couple of 'notches,' which are just steep valleys between mountains, called 'gaps' in the south.
{Reminder: The Appalachian Trail was never meant to be thru-hiked! When all the little trails were connected into one contiguous trail, it was mostly for organizational and preservation purposes. The idea for the trail sprang up in 1921. It wasn't until '68 that the trail was completed and named the first National Scenic Trail. And still it took a decade for the National Park Service to START getting involved, helping to protect a 100 foot wide 'corridor:' 50 ft to either side of the trail. So when Earl Schaffer became the first person to through-hike the trail in 1948... no one believed him.}
Lysandra's feet still hurt pretty often, but two days ago we did our first 13 mile day! What can I say? Girl goes from claiming she "can't" hike a mountain to covering 3 in 13 miles: she's badass. 'Nuff said.
While I'm doing my best to empathize with her foot pain, my natural reaction is to be more solution oriented. The 'solution' I've been pinning my hopes on for a few days? Screw lightweight shoes: Lysandra is getting new boots. So this morning we woke up and ate the homemade breakfast that was put in front of us, before catching a shuttle (courtesy of Don, Honey's 58 year old son) to Bethel: bustling metropolis to the south; I think they have a traffic light!
First thing I hear the clerk say when I walk into the outdoor store in Bethel? "You have no idea how many times I've seen that exact same outfit."
About an hour later she's tried on every boot in the store and settled on a hefty, durable-looking pair of Merrels. I also chose to Boot Up; my trail runners, which were not new to begin with, are toast. Luckily the lightest weight boot in the store was on discount by the front door. They had one pair left: my size, exactly :) This afternoon there will be a lot of moose tracks ice cream eaten, many movies watched, many calories gained (curiously, after walking past actual moose scat day in and day out, eating a free bowl of 'MooseTracks' is no less appealing). Tomorrow we continue walking.
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Quick Check-in!
Hey friends :) I'm sitting in the library in Rangeley, smelling like a hiker, trying to figure out how to put some pictures up here! Can't decide if it would be better to use a remote photo-share site and just put links on the blog, or just slap a bunch of photos up, which is what I'm going to do right now b/c it's easier for me :o)
So we're 32 or 33 days in! We took a zero in Stratton, ME b/c Lysandra's ankles and feet needed some much deserved rest, and also because we woke up to a horrendous thunderstorm (literally, thunder that shook the seat I was sitting in, everyone in the room jumped!) that continued for the entire day; 13 hours of rain = I'll happily sit and watch movies and eat Ben & Jerry's <yum>.
The terrain here in Maine continues to be rooty and rocky, but we hit a couple of Mtns recently that have mixed a bunch of crazy steep climbs, with not so challenging trail (actual dirt!). I just posted a pic on facebook of us standing on one of these mountains called "The Horn."
...and we're continuing to meet a plethora of eclectic folk out here on the trail. Many are poor, some are downright homeless, some have ten grand to blow on this experience. I'm constantly asking people about their tattoos (b/c I'm always fascinated by what people choose to get imprinted on their bodies) and we met one woman about a week ago that had a tattoo of a kite on the middle finger of her right hand. When I asked her about it, she took a breath, kind of shrugged, and said, "Oh, I was in a cult." Kinda like 'whaddaya gonna do, eh?' She went on, "I got out, or escaped or whatever, about 3 years ago and when my oldest son went to get a tattoo he took me along to get a cover up, and I came out with this kite."
Fascinated as I was, I couldn't think of any non-rude questions, so I don't have the full story.
Other than interesting people, the days are starting to fall into a routine:
Breakfast,
Pack up the tent if we set it up,
Filter water
Hike, snack, Hike, lunch, Hike, snack,
Arrive at shelter or campsite: I set up tent and inflate mattresses while Lyss cooks dinner. (Dinner usually consists of boiling water and throwing stuff in, but she claims to enjoy the cooking aspect of it, and that's fine with me :)
Journal and/or chat with shelter peeps
Sleep not-so-well, b/c of creaky air mattresses or snoring shelter-sharers
wake up and do it all again.
That's the life! Pictures don't seem to be working right now, but I'll see if I can post some on facebook, which I'm pretty sure everyone reading this can see.
So we're 32 or 33 days in! We took a zero in Stratton, ME b/c Lysandra's ankles and feet needed some much deserved rest, and also because we woke up to a horrendous thunderstorm (literally, thunder that shook the seat I was sitting in, everyone in the room jumped!) that continued for the entire day; 13 hours of rain = I'll happily sit and watch movies and eat Ben & Jerry's <yum>.
The terrain here in Maine continues to be rooty and rocky, but we hit a couple of Mtns recently that have mixed a bunch of crazy steep climbs, with not so challenging trail (actual dirt!). I just posted a pic on facebook of us standing on one of these mountains called "The Horn."
...and we're continuing to meet a plethora of eclectic folk out here on the trail. Many are poor, some are downright homeless, some have ten grand to blow on this experience. I'm constantly asking people about their tattoos (b/c I'm always fascinated by what people choose to get imprinted on their bodies) and we met one woman about a week ago that had a tattoo of a kite on the middle finger of her right hand. When I asked her about it, she took a breath, kind of shrugged, and said, "Oh, I was in a cult." Kinda like 'whaddaya gonna do, eh?' She went on, "I got out, or escaped or whatever, about 3 years ago and when my oldest son went to get a tattoo he took me along to get a cover up, and I came out with this kite."
Fascinated as I was, I couldn't think of any non-rude questions, so I don't have the full story.
Other than interesting people, the days are starting to fall into a routine:
Breakfast,
Pack up the tent if we set it up,
Filter water
Hike, snack, Hike, lunch, Hike, snack,
Arrive at shelter or campsite: I set up tent and inflate mattresses while Lyss cooks dinner. (Dinner usually consists of boiling water and throwing stuff in, but she claims to enjoy the cooking aspect of it, and that's fine with me :)
Journal and/or chat with shelter peeps
Sleep not-so-well, b/c of creaky air mattresses or snoring shelter-sharers
wake up and do it all again.
That's the life! Pictures don't seem to be working right now, but I'll see if I can post some on facebook, which I'm pretty sure everyone reading this can see.
Thursday, August 9, 2012
Week Three, and stuff
Hey Yall! Its me, the girl who falls all the time, has no idea what she is doing and changes her mood about 37 time a day. Yep, I'm a gem :)
Lets see, I'm not good like Andrew with his nightly journaling. I basically get to camp, elevate my feet, eat as quickly as possible and fall asleep within the first few pages of Harry Potter. So I'll do my best on catch up, but you have been warned this will be both scattered and random.
Last post I complained about, well a whole freaking lot, and you will all be happy to learn.....I still have all those complaints. No, I kid, I kid... things are getting a bit brighter. First off, the view and landscape of Maine continue to be unreal. And of course we have no pictures to show you, that would be helpful, but trust us, our eyeballs are dancing in delight on a daily basis. Andrew had a birthday a few days ago (huzzah he is 30!) and we had a tent site on a large flat rock right over a massive lake. So we listened to loons (which sound like wolves at times and wacky birds at others) and had a cool lake breeze blowing on us all night. Plus I snuck come Reeses big cups into my food bag and surprised him with chocolate peanut butter goodness. I know its not much, but out in the woods, every unexpected treat means the world.
Lets see, in general Andrew is a still a rockstar, happy energetic, and because of the "slower pace" I need to take has very little muscle and joint pain compared to many other hikers (the beginning is often painful). Right now we are hiking about 8-10 mile days, every now and then we do a short 5 mile or a long 12 mile day. The 15-25 mile days that so many of the hikers we meet talk about still seem insane to me, but I know I must find a way to get there or we will be hiking this damn trail until spring. And by damn trail, I mean really freakin incredible challenging trail I hate/love depending on what minute it is.
My ankles and knees continue to have serious problems with the vagabond lifestyle. I'm assuming if they could speak they would say things like, "WTF, we are used to sitting around watching 'Parks and Rec,' then cooking for 4 hours, and then more sitting, WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO US?" I'm pretty sure I have plantar fascitis in both feet, which basically means that my feet hurt a lot at least 50% of the time. I was fairly sure I had it in my right foot before we left, but my left foot is catching up, so a typical day for my feet goes as such: Wake up and they hurt A LOT. The first few steps of the morning feel like my foot is a massive bruise and every step is terrible. Then they feel ok until I put my shoes and pack on. (For anyone who cares, The hiking shoe I'm wearing is a men's running shoe with a 'Superfeet' insole, which may or may not be a good thing. Sadly, finding an outdoor store is almost impossible out here, much less one that has a perfect shoe for my incredibly wide, flat foot. I could not find a women's hking shoe that fit my foot, and I tried three stores in Asheville before we left. Anyway, shoe tangent end). So the first mile of walking is pretty painful, but bearable. Then my feet warm up and I have about 5-7 miles that are ok, of course depending on climbs, terrain, etc. Then pretty much regardless around mile 7-9 my feet start feeling like massive bruises again and it just gets more and more painful until I stop walking. As you can imagine, THIS IS REALLY FRUSTRATING. I continue to try and "ice" my feet and ankles (aka put them in all the cold Maine rivers and elevate them when possible) but the people I talk to with feet issues, specifially PF(plantars) have stated it just hurts and always kinda will. So great......or NOT great at all. I do feel stronger in my legs, but still anything over 10 miles is so overwhelming mentally and physically. Sigh.
Speaking of lakes, here is a funny/gross story. About four days ago Andrew and I were stopping for lunch at a ford (where you have to take your shoes off, croc up, and cross a river) when we spotted a cooler! In the woods coolers usually mean trail magic, and as it happens we stumbled apon the last two sodas in the cooler! That lifted our spirits tremendously as we crossed the river, and then decided to enjoy our sodas and lunch on the rocks with our feet soaking in the river. We both commented on how warm the water was, noting it was probably because it was kinda slow moving. We sat eating bagels, cheese, and fritos and talking to some lady NOBOs (Trail names Fruit Loop and Rook) that crossed the river as we lunched. We talked to them for a while, as I especially tried to pick their brains about hiking the trail as a female, clothes that work for them etc (All my clothes are wrong for the trail, lots of chaffing, etc, but anyhoo) I made them laugh about the common "pain is weakness leaving your body" macho mentality of many of the hikers on the trail and they tried to assure me things will get better, ladies can do this, and everyone has a hard time in the beginning. We headed toward our packs, our spirits particularly high after the great convo and the much needed sugar-rush from the cola, and sat down to dry our feet and return them to the smelly grossness that is a hiking shoe when I noticed a quarter sized brown spot on my upper calf. At first I thought it was dirt, so I went to wipe it off, but it wouldn't budge. Why? Because it was a LEECH!!! Andrew was a few feet away, but I would have screamed regardless. "UGHHH!!!!! LEECHES baby!" -I shudder as I begin to scan my legs and discover they are EVERYWHERE. I have several larger ones on my legs and then my feet are covered in tiny pinky nail size ones. By covered I mean, literally, between every toe. Leeches, as I discovered, are slipperly little bastards that are very hard to get off. I start trying to breathe deep, because I can feel the panic attack rising up inside me. Andrew, winning boyfriend of the year, comes over and helps me pry off these mini demons, trying and failing not to laugh at the overdramatic reaction that I am of course having at the site of my feet covered in leeches. He then looks at his own feet and has a few, but not nearly the leech-fest covering my poor tootsies. Also fun fact, even though leeches don't hurt, the cuts they make to suck yer blood do not seem to stop bleeding. Like, ever.
Switching to a better note, I do feel like I am getting stronger. I still feel insane most days, but I'm getting more used to sleeping outside, eating total junk food (sounds good, but honestly all we want most days are fruits and vegetables, junk food makes you feel gross, but it's cheap and light), and spending my days pushing my body to it's limit. Yesterday was actually a pretty acurate example of what hiking the AT is like. We woke up around 6am to a wet tent, not because it rained, but we camped in a grassy field so our tent was covered in dew. So we had to wait a while until the sun came out and dry it so we didn't have to unpack a wet tent that night. Hence we got a late start and about 10 minutes into walking we discovered a giant field of blueberries!! So clearly we stopped and picked about 2 cups of blueberries, giddily joking about how "one goes in the cup, and one goes in the mouth" and saved them for the top of the mountain we were about to climb. We set out to do a 8-10 mile day or so, and knew we had a long 5 mile mountain to climb. I was feeling good for the first three miles, struggling to climb the mountain, but keeping a slow and steady pace up the tedious upward climb. Then the last two miles just started breaking my spirit. Just when we would reach a peak, we would descend a few hundred feet, only to climb another 500 feet or so (Please note most mountains are like this. Its not just ONE big climb, it's lots of up and down, freakin mountains....) Once we reached the top, my feet and ankles were screaming, and I felt tired more than excited at the beautiful view. Andrew was pumped up and full of energy, which I could not fully appreciate in my exhausted state. The blueberries and the view eventually brought up my mood, though I still get so frustrated/sad/stupidly hard on myself when I let a hard climb sour my mood. The descent down the mountain was a short and steep 1.3 miles which is easier on the muscles, but much harder on the joints. And we have to take them slow because it is a rooty, rocky shit show and you don't want to break anything. We then arrived at a lean-to for a quick snack break and foot elevation, but decided to push on, hoping to get as close to Caratunk as possible as to make our walk in the morning a short one. Since we had no pre-designated tent site, we ended up walking an extra 5 miles until we found anything resembling a flat surface to tent on, making our day a 12 mile one. The last two miles I was in pretty unreasonable amounts of pain, and pushed on because I knew if I just dropped down on the trail the mosquitoes would eat me alive. We started setting up camp around 7:30 aka mosquitos buffet hour. I could barely stand, and even with bug spray was being attacked by those tiny blood suckers so stuffed half a bagel and a fruit snack in my mouth before retreating for the tent, leaving myself without enough food. Andrew braved the conditions a little longer, managing to eat an actual dinner of salmon and crackers, while I flossed and brushed inside the safety of tent. Then we set up the inside of the tent and I lay down and tried to quietly weep because even while lying down my feet were spasming (or something, Im still not sure what is going on). The best way I can describe the pain is if you have a bruise and someone punches it, that immediate pain, it feels like that is rippling up and down my foot. Andrew kindly offered to rub them, but I was in so much pain, I just tried to fall asleep. So yeah, that's kinda a day on the trail, beautiful one moment, painful the next, always an adventure. Man, I sound kinda like a downer. I'm working on it yall, I really am. This is hard stuff.
And just in case yall are wondering a typical day for us food wise goes a little something like:
Breakfast: Poptarts for me, Oatmeal for Andrew
Snack: Snickers and GORP (luckily that is almonds and nuts we get sent from home, with some raisins and peanut butter M &Ms)
Lunch: bagel with cheese or salmon, fritos or chips, perhaps some jerky
Snack: Jerky, GORP, Lara bar when we are luckily
Dinner: Lipton sides (which are, for the record pretty gross. But again light to carry and filling) or mac and cheese.
Sometimes we get a dark chocolate bar as a treat, but in general, we just eat crap. If anyone would be interested in sending us delicious (and lightwieght) camping meals, treats, snickers (the perfect hiker snack), delicous fruit and nut bars (like lara bars or pro-bars) etc, just comment on the blog or email us and we can let you know the next post office we will be hitting.
Ok I can't write anymore, I have an ice bag calling my name. As always we will post when we can, thank you for keeping up on our adventures. Love the comments, please keep them coming.
Lets see, I'm not good like Andrew with his nightly journaling. I basically get to camp, elevate my feet, eat as quickly as possible and fall asleep within the first few pages of Harry Potter. So I'll do my best on catch up, but you have been warned this will be both scattered and random.
Last post I complained about, well a whole freaking lot, and you will all be happy to learn.....I still have all those complaints. No, I kid, I kid... things are getting a bit brighter. First off, the view and landscape of Maine continue to be unreal. And of course we have no pictures to show you, that would be helpful, but trust us, our eyeballs are dancing in delight on a daily basis. Andrew had a birthday a few days ago (huzzah he is 30!) and we had a tent site on a large flat rock right over a massive lake. So we listened to loons (which sound like wolves at times and wacky birds at others) and had a cool lake breeze blowing on us all night. Plus I snuck come Reeses big cups into my food bag and surprised him with chocolate peanut butter goodness. I know its not much, but out in the woods, every unexpected treat means the world.
Lets see, in general Andrew is a still a rockstar, happy energetic, and because of the "slower pace" I need to take has very little muscle and joint pain compared to many other hikers (the beginning is often painful). Right now we are hiking about 8-10 mile days, every now and then we do a short 5 mile or a long 12 mile day. The 15-25 mile days that so many of the hikers we meet talk about still seem insane to me, but I know I must find a way to get there or we will be hiking this damn trail until spring. And by damn trail, I mean really freakin incredible challenging trail I hate/love depending on what minute it is.
My ankles and knees continue to have serious problems with the vagabond lifestyle. I'm assuming if they could speak they would say things like, "WTF, we are used to sitting around watching 'Parks and Rec,' then cooking for 4 hours, and then more sitting, WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO US?" I'm pretty sure I have plantar fascitis in both feet, which basically means that my feet hurt a lot at least 50% of the time. I was fairly sure I had it in my right foot before we left, but my left foot is catching up, so a typical day for my feet goes as such: Wake up and they hurt A LOT. The first few steps of the morning feel like my foot is a massive bruise and every step is terrible. Then they feel ok until I put my shoes and pack on. (For anyone who cares, The hiking shoe I'm wearing is a men's running shoe with a 'Superfeet' insole, which may or may not be a good thing. Sadly, finding an outdoor store is almost impossible out here, much less one that has a perfect shoe for my incredibly wide, flat foot. I could not find a women's hking shoe that fit my foot, and I tried three stores in Asheville before we left. Anyway, shoe tangent end). So the first mile of walking is pretty painful, but bearable. Then my feet warm up and I have about 5-7 miles that are ok, of course depending on climbs, terrain, etc. Then pretty much regardless around mile 7-9 my feet start feeling like massive bruises again and it just gets more and more painful until I stop walking. As you can imagine, THIS IS REALLY FRUSTRATING. I continue to try and "ice" my feet and ankles (aka put them in all the cold Maine rivers and elevate them when possible) but the people I talk to with feet issues, specifially PF(plantars) have stated it just hurts and always kinda will. So great......or NOT great at all. I do feel stronger in my legs, but still anything over 10 miles is so overwhelming mentally and physically. Sigh.
Speaking of lakes, here is a funny/gross story. About four days ago Andrew and I were stopping for lunch at a ford (where you have to take your shoes off, croc up, and cross a river) when we spotted a cooler! In the woods coolers usually mean trail magic, and as it happens we stumbled apon the last two sodas in the cooler! That lifted our spirits tremendously as we crossed the river, and then decided to enjoy our sodas and lunch on the rocks with our feet soaking in the river. We both commented on how warm the water was, noting it was probably because it was kinda slow moving. We sat eating bagels, cheese, and fritos and talking to some lady NOBOs (Trail names Fruit Loop and Rook) that crossed the river as we lunched. We talked to them for a while, as I especially tried to pick their brains about hiking the trail as a female, clothes that work for them etc (All my clothes are wrong for the trail, lots of chaffing, etc, but anyhoo) I made them laugh about the common "pain is weakness leaving your body" macho mentality of many of the hikers on the trail and they tried to assure me things will get better, ladies can do this, and everyone has a hard time in the beginning. We headed toward our packs, our spirits particularly high after the great convo and the much needed sugar-rush from the cola, and sat down to dry our feet and return them to the smelly grossness that is a hiking shoe when I noticed a quarter sized brown spot on my upper calf. At first I thought it was dirt, so I went to wipe it off, but it wouldn't budge. Why? Because it was a LEECH!!! Andrew was a few feet away, but I would have screamed regardless. "UGHHH!!!!! LEECHES baby!" -I shudder as I begin to scan my legs and discover they are EVERYWHERE. I have several larger ones on my legs and then my feet are covered in tiny pinky nail size ones. By covered I mean, literally, between every toe. Leeches, as I discovered, are slipperly little bastards that are very hard to get off. I start trying to breathe deep, because I can feel the panic attack rising up inside me. Andrew, winning boyfriend of the year, comes over and helps me pry off these mini demons, trying and failing not to laugh at the overdramatic reaction that I am of course having at the site of my feet covered in leeches. He then looks at his own feet and has a few, but not nearly the leech-fest covering my poor tootsies. Also fun fact, even though leeches don't hurt, the cuts they make to suck yer blood do not seem to stop bleeding. Like, ever.
Switching to a better note, I do feel like I am getting stronger. I still feel insane most days, but I'm getting more used to sleeping outside, eating total junk food (sounds good, but honestly all we want most days are fruits and vegetables, junk food makes you feel gross, but it's cheap and light), and spending my days pushing my body to it's limit. Yesterday was actually a pretty acurate example of what hiking the AT is like. We woke up around 6am to a wet tent, not because it rained, but we camped in a grassy field so our tent was covered in dew. So we had to wait a while until the sun came out and dry it so we didn't have to unpack a wet tent that night. Hence we got a late start and about 10 minutes into walking we discovered a giant field of blueberries!! So clearly we stopped and picked about 2 cups of blueberries, giddily joking about how "one goes in the cup, and one goes in the mouth" and saved them for the top of the mountain we were about to climb. We set out to do a 8-10 mile day or so, and knew we had a long 5 mile mountain to climb. I was feeling good for the first three miles, struggling to climb the mountain, but keeping a slow and steady pace up the tedious upward climb. Then the last two miles just started breaking my spirit. Just when we would reach a peak, we would descend a few hundred feet, only to climb another 500 feet or so (Please note most mountains are like this. Its not just ONE big climb, it's lots of up and down, freakin mountains....) Once we reached the top, my feet and ankles were screaming, and I felt tired more than excited at the beautiful view. Andrew was pumped up and full of energy, which I could not fully appreciate in my exhausted state. The blueberries and the view eventually brought up my mood, though I still get so frustrated/sad/stupidly hard on myself when I let a hard climb sour my mood. The descent down the mountain was a short and steep 1.3 miles which is easier on the muscles, but much harder on the joints. And we have to take them slow because it is a rooty, rocky shit show and you don't want to break anything. We then arrived at a lean-to for a quick snack break and foot elevation, but decided to push on, hoping to get as close to Caratunk as possible as to make our walk in the morning a short one. Since we had no pre-designated tent site, we ended up walking an extra 5 miles until we found anything resembling a flat surface to tent on, making our day a 12 mile one. The last two miles I was in pretty unreasonable amounts of pain, and pushed on because I knew if I just dropped down on the trail the mosquitoes would eat me alive. We started setting up camp around 7:30 aka mosquitos buffet hour. I could barely stand, and even with bug spray was being attacked by those tiny blood suckers so stuffed half a bagel and a fruit snack in my mouth before retreating for the tent, leaving myself without enough food. Andrew braved the conditions a little longer, managing to eat an actual dinner of salmon and crackers, while I flossed and brushed inside the safety of tent. Then we set up the inside of the tent and I lay down and tried to quietly weep because even while lying down my feet were spasming (or something, Im still not sure what is going on). The best way I can describe the pain is if you have a bruise and someone punches it, that immediate pain, it feels like that is rippling up and down my foot. Andrew kindly offered to rub them, but I was in so much pain, I just tried to fall asleep. So yeah, that's kinda a day on the trail, beautiful one moment, painful the next, always an adventure. Man, I sound kinda like a downer. I'm working on it yall, I really am. This is hard stuff.
And just in case yall are wondering a typical day for us food wise goes a little something like:
Breakfast: Poptarts for me, Oatmeal for Andrew
Snack: Snickers and GORP (luckily that is almonds and nuts we get sent from home, with some raisins and peanut butter M &Ms)
Lunch: bagel with cheese or salmon, fritos or chips, perhaps some jerky
Snack: Jerky, GORP, Lara bar when we are luckily
Dinner: Lipton sides (which are, for the record pretty gross. But again light to carry and filling) or mac and cheese.
Sometimes we get a dark chocolate bar as a treat, but in general, we just eat crap. If anyone would be interested in sending us delicious (and lightwieght) camping meals, treats, snickers (the perfect hiker snack), delicous fruit and nut bars (like lara bars or pro-bars) etc, just comment on the blog or email us and we can let you know the next post office we will be hitting.
Ok I can't write anymore, I have an ice bag calling my name. As always we will post when we can, thank you for keeping up on our adventures. Love the comments, please keep them coming.
Sunday, August 5, 2012
Make like a baby and HEAD OUT!
We're leaving Monson!! ...again.
After paying for a shuttle to get us back to where we left the hundred miles the first time (for the rolled ankle), we hiked out that last 15-or-so miles (over two days) and ended up in back in Monson. 'Well, time for a shower and a sleep(!)' we figured. So we stayed the night and now are preparing to make like babies and 'head out.'
SouthBound!! :)
Some interesting things happened each time we were in Monson. Hopefully I'll have more time later, but right now I'm just trying to communicate some logistical and 'We're safe/healthy' type info for any worriers in our respective families.
Planning on hiking just under 10 miles today (Lyss' suggestion, as I try my best to let her set the pace) and about the same again tomorrow.
Hope you're all well :)
Andrew
After paying for a shuttle to get us back to where we left the hundred miles the first time (for the rolled ankle), we hiked out that last 15-or-so miles (over two days) and ended up in back in Monson. 'Well, time for a shower and a sleep(!)' we figured. So we stayed the night and now are preparing to make like babies and 'head out.'
SouthBound!! :)
Some interesting things happened each time we were in Monson. Hopefully I'll have more time later, but right now I'm just trying to communicate some logistical and 'We're safe/healthy' type info for any worriers in our respective families.
Planning on hiking just under 10 miles today (Lyss' suggestion, as I try my best to let her set the pace) and about the same again tomorrow.
Hope you're all well :)
Andrew
Friday, August 3, 2012
Andrew's Journal: Day 10!
Okay, skipping a few days because we're about to catch a ride back to the trail from this hostel and I'm running short on time. Fun things happen every day but, they're probably more interesting to me than to the general public, and they're already in my journal. Besides, I'm not sure how much time I want to spend re-writing journal entries.
It's possible, as I'm coming through towns more often, that it will seem less time consuming to me to re-hash my experience. So many interesting moments, and almost takes as long to write about them as to live them!Well... we'll just take it as it comes, shall we?
Day 10:
Logan Brook Lean-to to Carl A. Newhall Lean-to: 7.2 miles
I woke up in my tent to the sound of Charlie telling the story of his nights sleep, or lack thereof. Charlie, who we met yesterday, wants to hike the entire 2,200 miles in 100 days and I have dubbed him 'Hundred.' A lot of trail names get thrown around (I'm pretty sure I'm not going to keep 'Bear Bait,' the suggestion of a NOBO who heard my bear story) and I was pretty pumped when this guy said he'd keep the moniker I'd given him. Just over a week into the less trafficked route and I've already given someone a name to live by for 6 mon... well... a hundred days anyway.
Apparently one of the ever-present shelter mice fell from a rafter directly onto Hundred's face in the middle of the night. The mouse woke him (obviously), but it was hiker hunger that got him up and cooking at 1:00am. After cooking up his second batch of noodles, this kid was draining his boiling pasta water into the stream and a slip of his hands sent his noodles floating away from him. One of those moments when I had to bite my tongue: ignorant as this kids decision to negatively impact the ecosystem was, if I go off on him, he's likely to stick to the same behavior to spite the raging hippie who told him off. So I try to delicately mention that he shouldn't be doing that, but with no follow up questions about why, I'm skeptical that he took my reminder to heart.
The northbound section hiker who arrived last night was in busy panic-mode this morning, warning us that every element of the next three days is THE WORST/HARDEST section of the entire trail. All her friends who have hiked the trail have said so, she claims. I try to take this advice with a grain of salt, but it's discouraging to hear nonetheless.
This morning, Patrick (a 33yo whose parents have dehydrated home grown veggies, mixed them with rice, or couscous, or whatever, and vacuum sealed every individual serving, which they will then mail to him along the trail) shares with us some of his home-made snack bars, and we set out on our hike. As we were climbing the first of today's four mountains, the day started to get grey and Lyss' spirits plummeted. Near the top of White Cap Mtn (the only one of the for that would have a view if it weren't so cloudy)... it started to rain. Luckily, it didn't rain long or hard, but we pushed through the post-drizzle tree-pee without a snack, and settled down between the second and third mountains for lunch.
In the afternoon another SOBO came up from behind us and introduced himself (with a big smile on his face) as Angry German, or A.G.for short. Caucasian male, haved head, big beard: typical A.T. hiker. He flew by us, but before long we saw him again, sitting with Patrick, who had passed us as we ate lunch and was now chowing down on a store-bought package of beef jerky that a weekend hiker had just given him in an act of hwat we will come to know as 'Trail Magic.'
Not long after this, Lyss is cry-hiking again. It's an act I've become familiar with, but in my attempt to support her I've come to the conclusion that I'll have to wait before it's good joke-fodder. Suddenly I look up from my focused view of the roots and rocks in front of me because Lyss has fallen silent.
"Moose," she says, and points.
Just then I hear a whistle behind me that sounds human, but don't turn because I'm trying to identify this 'moose.'
Behind us, his bird-whistle having gone unacknowledged, A.G. shouts, "Aah, Hey-Der!!" in a mock northern accent.
"SSHHHT!" Lysandra 'shushes' him violently, cutting him off. "Moose," she says, pointing.
I see it now, it's about 40' away, and I drop my pack as quietly as I can while simultaneously grabbing for my camera. The moose moves into the bushes, kind of away from us. Anticipating it's direction I head up the trail & try to snap a photo. When I turn off the trail I've totally lost sight of it, but it's not coming out where I expect it to, so I keep walking through the woods, in the general direction of where I think it's headed. About a minute goes by and, figuring it's gone I drop all attempts at stealth and shout, "I think it's gone!"
"It's. Right. Here!" Lyss shout-whispers back in my direction.
Now I'm in a pickle b/c I want to get back over there, and fast, but I know that kind of movement will scare it off. So, suddenly I'm tip-toeing as fast as I possibly can through the woods and when I'm about 20 feet from Lyss and A.G. I saw it.
I froze, on tip-toe.
The moose froze, 800 lbs of muscle on spindly little legs, looking like a blackened ham balanced on 4 toothpicks. But it was mostly behind a bush from where I was... so I crept forward. It was enough to bother the moose, who hopped across the trail, light and agile as a deer, right between Lyss and I, then stopped again. Now it's facing away from us, an slowly it turns it's head back to check us out.
I know it's kind of a defensive stance, or a flight-ready pose. Like it's prepared to run if we do anything sketchy, but it's also still open to the possibility that we're safe. But it seemed, at the time, kind of like it was just showing us it's rear end... then looking back to make sure we saw it. Maybe to gauge the expression on our faces now that our photo-op has been thwarted? Then it walked off after about ten seconds, clearly sensing no threat, but also maybe showing a sense of judgement? Like, 'Okay, you've been subjected to my butt long enough.'
As the three of us were moving on to the shelter, I decided not to share my suspicions about the moose's intentions. A.G. seems like a nice guy, if a bit full-on. His military experience has obviously impacted his personality: wide eyed, loud speaking voice, and habit of repeating himself, as if not realizing that everyone had heard him the first time.
The shelter was right around the corner, and after we had been there about five minutes, chatting amicably about outdoor gear and sleep systems, the moose showed up again. Just hopped on by, right around the corner of the shelter. As suddenly as it had appeared, it bolted in to the thick brush, as if startled by us. It crashed down the hill to the river, where we heard a moose-sized sploosh into the water. Then silence.
The three of us just looked at each other, kind of like after that tree fell, just confirming, that we had all, in fact, noticed the giant moose that had just tried to sneak past our camp unnoticed, then balked mid-sneak.
Moose got NO tact.
Suddenly it occurred to me that the idea of a moose teamed up with a squirrel to do espionage really is funny, and I wondered just how many precious years of Rocky and Bullwinkle I've missed out on.
As the evening rolled on, I keep talking to A.G. about gear and his hammock system. I tell him about a NOBO hiker we met at White House Landing named "Walking Home" - a hippy-looking guy we overheard on his cell phone talking about hiking the 'purest form' of the trail, whatever that means. Walking home had spent big bucks online buying gear made of Cuben Fiber, the newest in high-tech ultralight-weight materials. Turned out he's been a sales rep for Coca-Cola for 7 years and is only going to Grad. school so he'll be more appealing to the company for promotions and other such "advancement" (though I question the term in this context).
At this point in my story, one of the two NOBOs who had walked up to the shelter and identified himself as 'Pretzel' chimed in. "Walking Home! HAH! What a joke! I just about saw that guy get his ass beat in a bar a couple hundred miles back."
What followed was a bit of pretty typical northbound-culture drama, centering around differing A.T. philosophies: How to hike the A.T.
{sidenote: Most people say "hike your own hike" but there are many strong opinions about what a 'real' thru-hike is. Some people want to touch every single white blaze trail marker on the A.T. while others don't give a damn if they hitch-hike 10 or 20 miles as long as they more-or-less walk 2000 miles in the appalachians within 12 months. Still others just come out for a couple weeks at a time each summer until they've seen the whole trail, settling for a series of section hikes. Some insist that you have to carry your life on your back (one guy this summer carried a tent 2000 miles that he never even used, opting for the shelter every night) while others take opportunities to 'slack-pack,' leaving their big pack at a convenient place and taking a smaller pack for the day when they can get their pack again that night. ...you get the point.}
so the short version of this drama is that walking home paid all that money for a pack that weighs approximately 5lbs before food and water, yet was seriously harsh in his criticism of a guy who slack packed for an (undeniably) abnormally long section of the trail. The slack packer in question is legally blind. Trail name: Bat. (you can imagine why he might want to carry a day pack when he can)
By the end of the story, we're all but convinced that Walking Home hasn't been able to embrace the 'Hike you own hike" philosophy. But even though this anecdote might make him seem like the 'bad guy,' I can identify. I mean it's kind of like saying "live your own life." the implication being to let others live theirs. But I struggle to accept the inherent worth and dignity of someone who chooses to work for a giant mega-conglomerate corporation that sells sugar-water to a target market of children and the obese at 600% markup. Seems like a douchy, selfish choice based on a greedy desire for a bigger paycheck. Ayn Rand would be proud. But more importantly, in the time it takes me to puzzle it out (or write it down), I could probably be living my own life and consider my time 'better spent.'
'Pretzel' seems to have no such hangups and criticizes loudly, but otherwise seems like a likeable guy. Early 20s, red goatee, witty and quick with his words, funny, sassy, and full of opinions,. You know, the type of guy who likes to give people a hard time, and is okay getting one in return. The quote of the evening came when Lysandra came to my 'defense' at one of Pretzel's jibes. I had picked up a rubber chicken (the object of a northbound collective 'relay' to the finish) and Pretzel said, "that's for NOBOs only, get your dirty SOBO hands off of it."
Without missing a breath, Lyss spat back, "You better watch how you talk to my boyfriend before I slap that little red mouth of yours!"
We all had a laugh at the quick mouth of my defender, and bedded down for the night.
It's possible, as I'm coming through towns more often, that it will seem less time consuming to me to re-hash my experience. So many interesting moments, and almost takes as long to write about them as to live them!Well... we'll just take it as it comes, shall we?
Day 10:
Logan Brook Lean-to to Carl A. Newhall Lean-to: 7.2 miles
I woke up in my tent to the sound of Charlie telling the story of his nights sleep, or lack thereof. Charlie, who we met yesterday, wants to hike the entire 2,200 miles in 100 days and I have dubbed him 'Hundred.' A lot of trail names get thrown around (I'm pretty sure I'm not going to keep 'Bear Bait,' the suggestion of a NOBO who heard my bear story) and I was pretty pumped when this guy said he'd keep the moniker I'd given him. Just over a week into the less trafficked route and I've already given someone a name to live by for 6 mon... well... a hundred days anyway.
Apparently one of the ever-present shelter mice fell from a rafter directly onto Hundred's face in the middle of the night. The mouse woke him (obviously), but it was hiker hunger that got him up and cooking at 1:00am. After cooking up his second batch of noodles, this kid was draining his boiling pasta water into the stream and a slip of his hands sent his noodles floating away from him. One of those moments when I had to bite my tongue: ignorant as this kids decision to negatively impact the ecosystem was, if I go off on him, he's likely to stick to the same behavior to spite the raging hippie who told him off. So I try to delicately mention that he shouldn't be doing that, but with no follow up questions about why, I'm skeptical that he took my reminder to heart.
The northbound section hiker who arrived last night was in busy panic-mode this morning, warning us that every element of the next three days is THE WORST/HARDEST section of the entire trail. All her friends who have hiked the trail have said so, she claims. I try to take this advice with a grain of salt, but it's discouraging to hear nonetheless.
This morning, Patrick (a 33yo whose parents have dehydrated home grown veggies, mixed them with rice, or couscous, or whatever, and vacuum sealed every individual serving, which they will then mail to him along the trail) shares with us some of his home-made snack bars, and we set out on our hike. As we were climbing the first of today's four mountains, the day started to get grey and Lyss' spirits plummeted. Near the top of White Cap Mtn (the only one of the for that would have a view if it weren't so cloudy)... it started to rain. Luckily, it didn't rain long or hard, but we pushed through the post-drizzle tree-pee without a snack, and settled down between the second and third mountains for lunch.
In the afternoon another SOBO came up from behind us and introduced himself (with a big smile on his face) as Angry German, or A.G.for short. Caucasian male, haved head, big beard: typical A.T. hiker. He flew by us, but before long we saw him again, sitting with Patrick, who had passed us as we ate lunch and was now chowing down on a store-bought package of beef jerky that a weekend hiker had just given him in an act of hwat we will come to know as 'Trail Magic.'
Not long after this, Lyss is cry-hiking again. It's an act I've become familiar with, but in my attempt to support her I've come to the conclusion that I'll have to wait before it's good joke-fodder. Suddenly I look up from my focused view of the roots and rocks in front of me because Lyss has fallen silent.
"Moose," she says, and points.
Just then I hear a whistle behind me that sounds human, but don't turn because I'm trying to identify this 'moose.'
Behind us, his bird-whistle having gone unacknowledged, A.G. shouts, "Aah, Hey-Der!!" in a mock northern accent.
"SSHHHT!" Lysandra 'shushes' him violently, cutting him off. "Moose," she says, pointing.
I see it now, it's about 40' away, and I drop my pack as quietly as I can while simultaneously grabbing for my camera. The moose moves into the bushes, kind of away from us. Anticipating it's direction I head up the trail & try to snap a photo. When I turn off the trail I've totally lost sight of it, but it's not coming out where I expect it to, so I keep walking through the woods, in the general direction of where I think it's headed. About a minute goes by and, figuring it's gone I drop all attempts at stealth and shout, "I think it's gone!"
"It's. Right. Here!" Lyss shout-whispers back in my direction.
Now I'm in a pickle b/c I want to get back over there, and fast, but I know that kind of movement will scare it off. So, suddenly I'm tip-toeing as fast as I possibly can through the woods and when I'm about 20 feet from Lyss and A.G. I saw it.
I froze, on tip-toe.
The moose froze, 800 lbs of muscle on spindly little legs, looking like a blackened ham balanced on 4 toothpicks. But it was mostly behind a bush from where I was... so I crept forward. It was enough to bother the moose, who hopped across the trail, light and agile as a deer, right between Lyss and I, then stopped again. Now it's facing away from us, an slowly it turns it's head back to check us out.
I know it's kind of a defensive stance, or a flight-ready pose. Like it's prepared to run if we do anything sketchy, but it's also still open to the possibility that we're safe. But it seemed, at the time, kind of like it was just showing us it's rear end... then looking back to make sure we saw it. Maybe to gauge the expression on our faces now that our photo-op has been thwarted? Then it walked off after about ten seconds, clearly sensing no threat, but also maybe showing a sense of judgement? Like, 'Okay, you've been subjected to my butt long enough.'
As the three of us were moving on to the shelter, I decided not to share my suspicions about the moose's intentions. A.G. seems like a nice guy, if a bit full-on. His military experience has obviously impacted his personality: wide eyed, loud speaking voice, and habit of repeating himself, as if not realizing that everyone had heard him the first time.
The shelter was right around the corner, and after we had been there about five minutes, chatting amicably about outdoor gear and sleep systems, the moose showed up again. Just hopped on by, right around the corner of the shelter. As suddenly as it had appeared, it bolted in to the thick brush, as if startled by us. It crashed down the hill to the river, where we heard a moose-sized sploosh into the water. Then silence.
The three of us just looked at each other, kind of like after that tree fell, just confirming, that we had all, in fact, noticed the giant moose that had just tried to sneak past our camp unnoticed, then balked mid-sneak.
Moose got NO tact.
Suddenly it occurred to me that the idea of a moose teamed up with a squirrel to do espionage really is funny, and I wondered just how many precious years of Rocky and Bullwinkle I've missed out on.
As the evening rolled on, I keep talking to A.G. about gear and his hammock system. I tell him about a NOBO hiker we met at White House Landing named "Walking Home" - a hippy-looking guy we overheard on his cell phone talking about hiking the 'purest form' of the trail, whatever that means. Walking home had spent big bucks online buying gear made of Cuben Fiber, the newest in high-tech ultralight-weight materials. Turned out he's been a sales rep for Coca-Cola for 7 years and is only going to Grad. school so he'll be more appealing to the company for promotions and other such "advancement" (though I question the term in this context).
At this point in my story, one of the two NOBOs who had walked up to the shelter and identified himself as 'Pretzel' chimed in. "Walking Home! HAH! What a joke! I just about saw that guy get his ass beat in a bar a couple hundred miles back."
What followed was a bit of pretty typical northbound-culture drama, centering around differing A.T. philosophies: How to hike the A.T.
{sidenote: Most people say "hike your own hike" but there are many strong opinions about what a 'real' thru-hike is. Some people want to touch every single white blaze trail marker on the A.T. while others don't give a damn if they hitch-hike 10 or 20 miles as long as they more-or-less walk 2000 miles in the appalachians within 12 months. Still others just come out for a couple weeks at a time each summer until they've seen the whole trail, settling for a series of section hikes. Some insist that you have to carry your life on your back (one guy this summer carried a tent 2000 miles that he never even used, opting for the shelter every night) while others take opportunities to 'slack-pack,' leaving their big pack at a convenient place and taking a smaller pack for the day when they can get their pack again that night. ...you get the point.}
so the short version of this drama is that walking home paid all that money for a pack that weighs approximately 5lbs before food and water, yet was seriously harsh in his criticism of a guy who slack packed for an (undeniably) abnormally long section of the trail. The slack packer in question is legally blind. Trail name: Bat. (you can imagine why he might want to carry a day pack when he can)
By the end of the story, we're all but convinced that Walking Home hasn't been able to embrace the 'Hike you own hike" philosophy. But even though this anecdote might make him seem like the 'bad guy,' I can identify. I mean it's kind of like saying "live your own life." the implication being to let others live theirs. But I struggle to accept the inherent worth and dignity of someone who chooses to work for a giant mega-conglomerate corporation that sells sugar-water to a target market of children and the obese at 600% markup. Seems like a douchy, selfish choice based on a greedy desire for a bigger paycheck. Ayn Rand would be proud. But more importantly, in the time it takes me to puzzle it out (or write it down), I could probably be living my own life and consider my time 'better spent.'
'Pretzel' seems to have no such hangups and criticizes loudly, but otherwise seems like a likeable guy. Early 20s, red goatee, witty and quick with his words, funny, sassy, and full of opinions,. You know, the type of guy who likes to give people a hard time, and is okay getting one in return. The quote of the evening came when Lysandra came to my 'defense' at one of Pretzel's jibes. I had picked up a rubber chicken (the object of a northbound collective 'relay' to the finish) and Pretzel said, "that's for NOBOs only, get your dirty SOBO hands off of it."
Without missing a breath, Lyss spat back, "You better watch how you talk to my boyfriend before I slap that little red mouth of yours!"
We all had a laugh at the quick mouth of my defender, and bedded down for the night.
Thursday, August 2, 2012
Andrew's Journal: Day 5!
Hiked 12 miles today! Started without big gains or losses in elevation, but the
relatively 'flat' terrain was really Maine's definition of flat: R&R
(rooty and rocky) We started off hiking with Jon, but were quickly left in his dust as he joked that he let the beagle set the pace (though before he headed off, he was sure to double check where we'd be staying that night :)). The boy scouts hiked north and asked us to tell their second group, who had fallen behind, where they were going tonight. Just after we delivered that message, we crossed a small-but-swift river on a foot-bridge no wider than my foot and found another group of boy scouts... this time in matching t-shirts :) One of them actually held out his hand to help Lyss down from the far end of the bridge! But did anyone help down ole Andrew? Nope! ~sigh~ Gender Discrimination: ... just when I thought I had gone far enough to escape the ills of society, one rears its ugly head :(
After that blow to my ego, we started the long and arduous climb up Nesuntabunt Mtn. It was challenging, no doubt. I mean, I was worn out when we neared the top. At one point the pain in Lysandra's feet brought her to tears. We still can't figure out what's behind the pain, but it's a regular struggle on hikes. Near the top we met a couple of northbounders (NOBOS) coming back from the lookout to retrieve their packs from where they had left them by the trail. Though I'm normally interested in the trail names of the hikers we meet, my exhaustion sufficiently squelched conversational curiosity, so we politely exchanged pleasantries as Lyss and set down our packs and headed to the lookout. The view from the top was fantastic. Words don't do it justice, but suffice it to say that the struggle it took to get us there made it a lot better. AND, while we were there, I discovered the panoramic setting on my new digital camera! Bonus!
In the evening, as we rounded the corner at Wadleigh Stream Lean-to, Jon let out a sigh of relief. He had obviously been eager for company, and said as much. Lyss and I tried our first Lipton Knorr Side for dinner (hands down, the most popular food of choice for an overwhelming majority of distance hikers on the A.T.). It was salty, nutritionally bereft, and kind of gross, but it was easy, and quick to cook, which is what counts when you're exhausted. There were clouds in the sky, so we set up our tent inside the shelter, and it fit (barely)! I felt kind of silly, but having a bug net without the stuffiness the rain fly brings is SWEET! and besides, Jon was the only other hiker there, and he... doesn't seem like the critical type.
After that blow to my ego, we started the long and arduous climb up Nesuntabunt Mtn. It was challenging, no doubt. I mean, I was worn out when we neared the top. At one point the pain in Lysandra's feet brought her to tears. We still can't figure out what's behind the pain, but it's a regular struggle on hikes. Near the top we met a couple of northbounders (NOBOS) coming back from the lookout to retrieve their packs from where they had left them by the trail. Though I'm normally interested in the trail names of the hikers we meet, my exhaustion sufficiently squelched conversational curiosity, so we politely exchanged pleasantries as Lyss and set down our packs and headed to the lookout. The view from the top was fantastic. Words don't do it justice, but suffice it to say that the struggle it took to get us there made it a lot better. AND, while we were there, I discovered the panoramic setting on my new digital camera! Bonus!
In the evening, as we rounded the corner at Wadleigh Stream Lean-to, Jon let out a sigh of relief. He had obviously been eager for company, and said as much. Lyss and I tried our first Lipton Knorr Side for dinner (hands down, the most popular food of choice for an overwhelming majority of distance hikers on the A.T.). It was salty, nutritionally bereft, and kind of gross, but it was easy, and quick to cook, which is what counts when you're exhausted. There were clouds in the sky, so we set up our tent inside the shelter, and it fit (barely)! I felt kind of silly, but having a bug net without the stuffiness the rain fly brings is SWEET! and besides, Jon was the only other hiker there, and he... doesn't seem like the critical type.
Andrew's Journal: Day 4
Woke up to a (seemingly) solid layer of bloodsuckers waiting patiently between the tent's screen & rain fly. Our hopes of waking early to beat the bugs having been dashed, we sit in the tent and make a make a plan to pack up efficiently & make our escape. Lyss is in tears at the misery of discomfort, but I wait it out & try my best to form something resembling a pep talk despite the fact that I'm just as intimidated by the number of mosquitoes waiting outside that thin screen. What is it about this stupid campsite‽ How much of the hundred miles will be like this?
Soon we're packed & on our way, with no breakfast in our bellies. A few miles later we bump into some more encouraging hikers who tell us 'getting our legs' will only take a few weeks! This news picks us up, and our spirits are bolstered even more when we stop for lunch on the gorgeous Rainbow Lake where we take an extended break and soak our throbbing feet.
By 3:00pm we're exhausted again and pushing to get to a camping site by a spring. It's no surprise that Rainbow Spring Campsite puts us very close to the shore of the same giant lake where we ate lunch. As I'm resting by the spring legs propped up above me to help my body deal with lactic acid buildup and reduce soreness (thanks for the tip, Sam!) I see a tiny frog creep up onto the pebbles. It's still got it's tadpole-tail, and briefly I feel like I could be anywhere, anywhen, witnessing the everyday miracle that is LIFE PUSHING ON... then a mosquito lands on my arm and my revery dies when I squish it flat.
Soon, a bunch of boy scouts show up & invade my once-tranquil space: troop 1776 out of Jersey. I sit there for a few more minutes, enjoying their speculation on the connection between Dan Marino and Merino wool, before getting back up to camp to make dinner: more lentils and rice. Already Lyss is sick of it, but I could live on the stuff. As we're eating, another southbounder shows up. Jon again, but a different one. This Jon is hiking with a beagle named Bella, and carries her dehydrated dog food in addition to his own food. Jon's smiles come easy, and he's likeable, but I'm confused when he tells us how grateful he was to find people to camp with tonight b/c he didn't want to sleep in the woods alone.... I don't ask him about it, because I don't want to make him self conscious, I mean the guy's gotta be in his mid twenties, and he's hiking the appalachian trail... meh, I'm too tired to try to figure it out.
We're in bed by 7:30
Soon we're packed & on our way, with no breakfast in our bellies. A few miles later we bump into some more encouraging hikers who tell us 'getting our legs' will only take a few weeks! This news picks us up, and our spirits are bolstered even more when we stop for lunch on the gorgeous Rainbow Lake where we take an extended break and soak our throbbing feet.
By 3:00pm we're exhausted again and pushing to get to a camping site by a spring. It's no surprise that Rainbow Spring Campsite puts us very close to the shore of the same giant lake where we ate lunch. As I'm resting by the spring legs propped up above me to help my body deal with lactic acid buildup and reduce soreness (thanks for the tip, Sam!) I see a tiny frog creep up onto the pebbles. It's still got it's tadpole-tail, and briefly I feel like I could be anywhere, anywhen, witnessing the everyday miracle that is LIFE PUSHING ON... then a mosquito lands on my arm and my revery dies when I squish it flat.
Soon, a bunch of boy scouts show up & invade my once-tranquil space: troop 1776 out of Jersey. I sit there for a few more minutes, enjoying their speculation on the connection between Dan Marino and Merino wool, before getting back up to camp to make dinner: more lentils and rice. Already Lyss is sick of it, but I could live on the stuff. As we're eating, another southbounder shows up. Jon again, but a different one. This Jon is hiking with a beagle named Bella, and carries her dehydrated dog food in addition to his own food. Jon's smiles come easy, and he's likeable, but I'm confused when he tells us how grateful he was to find people to camp with tonight b/c he didn't want to sleep in the woods alone.... I don't ask him about it, because I don't want to make him self conscious, I mean the guy's gotta be in his mid twenties, and he's hiking the appalachian trail... meh, I'm too tired to try to figure it out.
We're in bed by 7:30
Andrew's Journal: Day 3
Leisurely morning by the leisurely river. Army men glued everywhere around shelter. Mouse turd in shoe, but hanging food is untouched :) 3.5 miles to first A.T. shelter in '100 Mile Wilderness.' After yesterday's 10.5 mile rush, our "easy day" still feels hard. We arrive at Hurd Brook Lean-to at 2:30pm. It's a mosquito paradise and we briefly consider moving on... until were done with lunch... and stand up. We set up our tent and spend the rest of the afternoon hiding in said tent. Writing, talking.
Gather our courage at about 5:30 (lathering up with natural bug repellant, cursing ourselves for not buying Deet at the convenience store before the hundred miles) & head out to cook dinner. As we're standing there, eating lentils and rice to the steady rhythm of mosquito slaps we hear a crack, a groan, and a sixty or seventy foot tree falls in the direction of our tent. I only have time to wonder what I'll do if my tent is crushed before the tree lands, some three feet from the oh-so-delicate nylon and bug-netting that is our home for 6 months. The tree breaks into 15 foot sections on impact and a 'splinter' the size of my arm actually bounces into the tent. This is one of the rare moments in life that Lysandra is as speechless as I am, and we just stand there looking from each other, to the tent, and back again.
Slowly, we finish spooning dinner into our still-agape mouths before hanging my sardine-scented pack from a nail in the lean-to. We've been warned many times about the rampant mice at shelters.
About 9:00pm Lyss hears people at the shelter and wakes me up. We still haven't learned to trust our stuff around random hikers -- horror stories of stolen packs & ruined trips echo in our memories. The realities that no one walks miles into the woods to steal, or that no hiker wants any more weight to carry don't dawn on me in my groggy state & I head out into mosquito-ville to say hello and assess the risk. What I find are two men: smelly, shaggy, shockingly thin, but otherwise featureless behind the glare of red headlamps. This, I will later learn, is the typical northbounder with almost 2000 consecutive miles on the legs. They tell me that today will be a 40 mile day for them after they continue on to the site where we stayed last night. They've just stopped in to jot a quick something in the A.T. register: a notebook that's in most shelters; used mostly to communicate between friendly hikers who've been separated along the way. I joke about the length of their hike and mention how sore I am already after yesterday's 10 miler; they assure me I'll have my trail legs after "700 miles or so."
On this discouraging note I head back to the tent, fully awake now, and try to get back to sleep.
Gather our courage at about 5:30 (lathering up with natural bug repellant, cursing ourselves for not buying Deet at the convenience store before the hundred miles) & head out to cook dinner. As we're standing there, eating lentils and rice to the steady rhythm of mosquito slaps we hear a crack, a groan, and a sixty or seventy foot tree falls in the direction of our tent. I only have time to wonder what I'll do if my tent is crushed before the tree lands, some three feet from the oh-so-delicate nylon and bug-netting that is our home for 6 months. The tree breaks into 15 foot sections on impact and a 'splinter' the size of my arm actually bounces into the tent. This is one of the rare moments in life that Lysandra is as speechless as I am, and we just stand there looking from each other, to the tent, and back again.
Slowly, we finish spooning dinner into our still-agape mouths before hanging my sardine-scented pack from a nail in the lean-to. We've been warned many times about the rampant mice at shelters.
About 9:00pm Lyss hears people at the shelter and wakes me up. We still haven't learned to trust our stuff around random hikers -- horror stories of stolen packs & ruined trips echo in our memories. The realities that no one walks miles into the woods to steal, or that no hiker wants any more weight to carry don't dawn on me in my groggy state & I head out into mosquito-ville to say hello and assess the risk. What I find are two men: smelly, shaggy, shockingly thin, but otherwise featureless behind the glare of red headlamps. This, I will later learn, is the typical northbounder with almost 2000 consecutive miles on the legs. They tell me that today will be a 40 mile day for them after they continue on to the site where we stayed last night. They've just stopped in to jot a quick something in the A.T. register: a notebook that's in most shelters; used mostly to communicate between friendly hikers who've been separated along the way. I joke about the length of their hike and mention how sore I am already after yesterday's 10 miler; they assure me I'll have my trail legs after "700 miles or so."
On this discouraging note I head back to the tent, fully awake now, and try to get back to sleep.
Andrew's Journal!
Ok Guys, I'm going to start transposing from my daily journal and keep on typing 'till I get tired and have to go to sleep. As Lysandra explained in her post, she rolled her ankle and we came off the trail. This will be our third night in the youth hostel in Monson, ME (one more night than we expected :)) and tomorrow morning we'll be hitching a ride back into the wilderness to make up the miles we missed!
... and now for the journal:
Day 1: Baxter State Park - Katahdin Steam Campground to Baxter Peak and back: 10 miles round trip and 4,100' up, then down again (should I write 4,100' elevation gain? or 8,200' elevation change? Anyone, anyone? Beuller... Beuller?)
Woke up this morning at the 'A.T. Lodge' and ate a 5:30am breakfast at the 'A.T. Cafe.' Coincidence? I wonder, but nor for long. As we're being shuttled from Millinocket to Mt. Katahdin, our driver/ the owner of the hostel tells us..well, lots of things. One of them is that he bought the cafe same time he bought the lodge and that's how he can offer a giant breakfast as part of the 'Southbound Special.' Sadly, because we haven't yet developed our 'hiker appetites' (more on that later), this means we waste food even AFTER asking the (somewhat shocked) waitress to leave an item or two off our plates.
Met a guy in hostel named Jon: 22yo, coast guard 4.5 years, decided to hike the AT last-minute. Says he's open to this becoming a through-hike, but we've learned enough already to suspect that his means he probably won't walk to GA. He has an enameled-steel pot hanging from the outside of his pack like some sidekick in a Wild West movie, or Johnny Appleseed wannabe. But criticisms aside, Jon's a nice guy. What he lacks in savvy, he redeems with enthusiasm. He has no water filter and no stove. He plans on boiling his drinking water over a fire... in August. He wants to live this romantic dream before taking Jewelry design classes and inheriting the family jewelry business. But even as I type this he's probably prepping for a late-admit class. Jon was surprised we had rented a storage unit. He's still paying rent in a downtown Philly apartment: $1,300 a month! ...and I considered driving my stuff to Dad's to avoid a $50/mo storage bill :)
Hiking Katahdin: After a few miles we reach treeline and the wind picks up, carrying my heartbeat with it. It's the first time I've been above treeline and it's exhilarating. No surprise when Lyss decides to turn back. Not worth injury on her first day, not to mention that if even I can recognize my anxiety about the wind speed, she's probably second-guessing this entire trip. So she heads back and I pick up my speed... for about ten minutes. Then I run into a lady we met yesterday on the bus into Millinocket. 'Melody' (trail name) is turning 63 today (!!) and is starting the second half of her flip-flop thru-hike.
Definition: Flip-flopping is when someone does all 2,175 miles of the trail in a non-linear fashion. Typical flip-floppers do one half, then the other, whether for seasonal reasons or for whatever-else-I-can't-think-of-'cause-I'm-too-tired reasons.
When I catch up to Melody, we've reached the part of the trail that's less 'hiking' and more 'bouldering.' Sure, she's hiked 1,000 miles (about 995 more than I have) but she's 63!! And besides, she's a much better conversationalist than I am and I'm always looking for practice.
All in all it took 5 hours to get to the peak, where I encountered random day-hikers, weekend campers, and groups of summer-camp teenagers. I was asked to take a photo for a group from camp Walden, then ate lunch, then took my leave to get back down to camp. I decided to hurry a bit, partly for fun, partly because Lyss has been backpacking for a sum total of 1 night before in her life and I kind of want to check on her, but even I was surprised when my 5 hour climb took me 2 hours to decend.
Back at camp Lyss & I make dinner while Jon eats dry M.R.E. packets and tries to make a fire to boil water. We're all getting along -- laughing and joking; Jon drying wet shorts over his fire -- when John freezes, staring past us with a glazed look in his eyes. When I turn, I see a sizable black bear not fifteen feet from where we're standing. I assume it's the lentils/rice cooking in veggie broth that brought him sniffing. Jon is petrified, so I walk over to the bear, shouting and clapping, not making eye contact, and the bear moves away (about 10 feet), turns back toward us and sits on it's haunches, waiting. I try again with the same result, but now the bear is 20' out of camp and seems harmless enough, so I turn my attention back to the others. This is when Jon realizes that where he WAS holding a brand new pair of hiking shorts (drying over the fire), now he's holding a not so stylish elastic belt, adorned underneath with burnt/melted fringe strips. "Dang, I just paid $60 for these!"
When the bear comes back, not 5 minutes later, Jon starts asking if he should get out his gun.
"You brought a GUN?" we ask.
"Yeah, my mom wouldn't let me come out here without it."
Despite the dubious nature of this response, coming from a bona fide member of the U.S. Coast Guard, we assure him that the gun won't be needed, as bear hunting is illegal in Baxter State Park. I head off to the ranger station, to let someone know this is going on, but nobody's home, so I go back to camp & the bear has wandered off.... but not too far.
We saw him a few more times that night and two different rangers stop by, of their own accord, later on. One says we can put our food in the ranger station and, appreciatively, we do.
{sidenote: when we got of the plane the previous day, one of those slips had been put in my pack that indicated a security check. I don't think much of it until the morning after 'The not-so-Great Bear Incident' 2012. More on that later.}
At 3:30am I'm having a strange dream: It's just a bunch of Velcro being pulled apart... or maybe boxes being opened... No. Wait. I'm awake, lying in a tent, and that's the sound of a bear ripping through silnylon: the same fabric that composes the brand new lightweight rain cover I put on my backpack (because, even though there were no clouds, I'm trying to model the cautious, 'better-safe-than-sorry' mentality that Lysandra (and I) will need to get through the next six months.) SHOOT! I sit bolt upright and clap twice, loudly. "Where's the headlamp‽" I whisper, clumsily pulling myself out of my sleeping bag. Lyss grunts, and suddenly I have a headlamp in my hand and am rushing out of the tent. When I get out there my brand new pack cover is ripped to shreds and there's there bear, standing conspicuously at the edge of camp, as if he too had heard the noise and come to check it out. But now I'm not laughing. This is no longer cute. I rush to pick up a few rocks and pelt him, hard, with my first throw. Poof. The bear is gone.
Grumbling, I grab both packs and put them under the rain fly of the tent, not thinking too much about the possibility that the bear will come back. I just want to get back to sleep.
When I woke up in the morning I assess the damage. The rain cover was toast and there was oil EVERYWHERE!! Sardine oil... It takes me a while to stop calling myself stupid for forgetting a can of sardines in the brain of m pack. I don't even remember putting it there! Then it dawns on me: a security check slip in my bag after the airport; the one food item packed in an oddly-shaped metal can mysteriously not in my food bag, but in an easily accessible exterior pocket. Grrrr... The only thing I can't figure out is how that bear coordinated with airport security... Friends reading this: I'm open to feedback.
Anyway, Day 2: I clean the stuff I can with baby wipes and bag the things I can't (including the brain of my pack) to wash later. Delayed by the unexpected cleanup, we leave late for our 10.5 mile hike out of Baxter State Park. A bigger day than we'd prefer this early in the game, but Baxter is obligatory pay-for-stay and all the sites are expensive. Exhausted, we arrive at a state site just outside Baxter: $4 for Maine residents; $8 for non-residents. The pay-method is envelopes. You're supposed to put your money in one and slip it in a slot cut into cylindrical metal deposit box. Wondering how the park ranger is supposed to get these envelopes out, I look around back of the box and there's an open hole near the ground with a bunch of sealed envelopes inside. So we put money in an envelope, all the while feeling like suckers and glancing around for the homeless guy waiting in the bushes for his daily paycheck, and drop it in the box.
The campsite is beautiful. A shelter on the side of a huge river. Some other, car-camping families in sight. None of this matters because we're both exhausted. We're in bed before nightfall.
... and now for the journal:
Day 1: Baxter State Park - Katahdin Steam Campground to Baxter Peak and back: 10 miles round trip and 4,100' up, then down again (should I write 4,100' elevation gain? or 8,200' elevation change? Anyone, anyone? Beuller... Beuller?)
Woke up this morning at the 'A.T. Lodge' and ate a 5:30am breakfast at the 'A.T. Cafe.' Coincidence? I wonder, but nor for long. As we're being shuttled from Millinocket to Mt. Katahdin, our driver/ the owner of the hostel tells us..well, lots of things. One of them is that he bought the cafe same time he bought the lodge and that's how he can offer a giant breakfast as part of the 'Southbound Special.' Sadly, because we haven't yet developed our 'hiker appetites' (more on that later), this means we waste food even AFTER asking the (somewhat shocked) waitress to leave an item or two off our plates.
Met a guy in hostel named Jon: 22yo, coast guard 4.5 years, decided to hike the AT last-minute. Says he's open to this becoming a through-hike, but we've learned enough already to suspect that his means he probably won't walk to GA. He has an enameled-steel pot hanging from the outside of his pack like some sidekick in a Wild West movie, or Johnny Appleseed wannabe. But criticisms aside, Jon's a nice guy. What he lacks in savvy, he redeems with enthusiasm. He has no water filter and no stove. He plans on boiling his drinking water over a fire... in August. He wants to live this romantic dream before taking Jewelry design classes and inheriting the family jewelry business. But even as I type this he's probably prepping for a late-admit class. Jon was surprised we had rented a storage unit. He's still paying rent in a downtown Philly apartment: $1,300 a month! ...and I considered driving my stuff to Dad's to avoid a $50/mo storage bill :)
Hiking Katahdin: After a few miles we reach treeline and the wind picks up, carrying my heartbeat with it. It's the first time I've been above treeline and it's exhilarating. No surprise when Lyss decides to turn back. Not worth injury on her first day, not to mention that if even I can recognize my anxiety about the wind speed, she's probably second-guessing this entire trip. So she heads back and I pick up my speed... for about ten minutes. Then I run into a lady we met yesterday on the bus into Millinocket. 'Melody' (trail name) is turning 63 today (!!) and is starting the second half of her flip-flop thru-hike.
Definition: Flip-flopping is when someone does all 2,175 miles of the trail in a non-linear fashion. Typical flip-floppers do one half, then the other, whether for seasonal reasons or for whatever-else-I-can't-think-of-'cause-I'm-too-tired reasons.
When I catch up to Melody, we've reached the part of the trail that's less 'hiking' and more 'bouldering.' Sure, she's hiked 1,000 miles (about 995 more than I have) but she's 63!! And besides, she's a much better conversationalist than I am and I'm always looking for practice.
All in all it took 5 hours to get to the peak, where I encountered random day-hikers, weekend campers, and groups of summer-camp teenagers. I was asked to take a photo for a group from camp Walden, then ate lunch, then took my leave to get back down to camp. I decided to hurry a bit, partly for fun, partly because Lyss has been backpacking for a sum total of 1 night before in her life and I kind of want to check on her, but even I was surprised when my 5 hour climb took me 2 hours to decend.
Back at camp Lyss & I make dinner while Jon eats dry M.R.E. packets and tries to make a fire to boil water. We're all getting along -- laughing and joking; Jon drying wet shorts over his fire -- when John freezes, staring past us with a glazed look in his eyes. When I turn, I see a sizable black bear not fifteen feet from where we're standing. I assume it's the lentils/rice cooking in veggie broth that brought him sniffing. Jon is petrified, so I walk over to the bear, shouting and clapping, not making eye contact, and the bear moves away (about 10 feet), turns back toward us and sits on it's haunches, waiting. I try again with the same result, but now the bear is 20' out of camp and seems harmless enough, so I turn my attention back to the others. This is when Jon realizes that where he WAS holding a brand new pair of hiking shorts (drying over the fire), now he's holding a not so stylish elastic belt, adorned underneath with burnt/melted fringe strips. "Dang, I just paid $60 for these!"
When the bear comes back, not 5 minutes later, Jon starts asking if he should get out his gun.
"You brought a GUN?" we ask.
"Yeah, my mom wouldn't let me come out here without it."
Despite the dubious nature of this response, coming from a bona fide member of the U.S. Coast Guard, we assure him that the gun won't be needed, as bear hunting is illegal in Baxter State Park. I head off to the ranger station, to let someone know this is going on, but nobody's home, so I go back to camp & the bear has wandered off.... but not too far.
We saw him a few more times that night and two different rangers stop by, of their own accord, later on. One says we can put our food in the ranger station and, appreciatively, we do.
{sidenote: when we got of the plane the previous day, one of those slips had been put in my pack that indicated a security check. I don't think much of it until the morning after 'The not-so-Great Bear Incident' 2012. More on that later.}
At 3:30am I'm having a strange dream: It's just a bunch of Velcro being pulled apart... or maybe boxes being opened... No. Wait. I'm awake, lying in a tent, and that's the sound of a bear ripping through silnylon: the same fabric that composes the brand new lightweight rain cover I put on my backpack (because, even though there were no clouds, I'm trying to model the cautious, 'better-safe-than-sorry' mentality that Lysandra (and I) will need to get through the next six months.) SHOOT! I sit bolt upright and clap twice, loudly. "Where's the headlamp‽" I whisper, clumsily pulling myself out of my sleeping bag. Lyss grunts, and suddenly I have a headlamp in my hand and am rushing out of the tent. When I get out there my brand new pack cover is ripped to shreds and there's there bear, standing conspicuously at the edge of camp, as if he too had heard the noise and come to check it out. But now I'm not laughing. This is no longer cute. I rush to pick up a few rocks and pelt him, hard, with my first throw. Poof. The bear is gone.
Grumbling, I grab both packs and put them under the rain fly of the tent, not thinking too much about the possibility that the bear will come back. I just want to get back to sleep.
When I woke up in the morning I assess the damage. The rain cover was toast and there was oil EVERYWHERE!! Sardine oil... It takes me a while to stop calling myself stupid for forgetting a can of sardines in the brain of m pack. I don't even remember putting it there! Then it dawns on me: a security check slip in my bag after the airport; the one food item packed in an oddly-shaped metal can mysteriously not in my food bag, but in an easily accessible exterior pocket. Grrrr... The only thing I can't figure out is how that bear coordinated with airport security... Friends reading this: I'm open to feedback.
Anyway, Day 2: I clean the stuff I can with baby wipes and bag the things I can't (including the brain of my pack) to wash later. Delayed by the unexpected cleanup, we leave late for our 10.5 mile hike out of Baxter State Park. A bigger day than we'd prefer this early in the game, but Baxter is obligatory pay-for-stay and all the sites are expensive. Exhausted, we arrive at a state site just outside Baxter: $4 for Maine residents; $8 for non-residents. The pay-method is envelopes. You're supposed to put your money in one and slip it in a slot cut into cylindrical metal deposit box. Wondering how the park ranger is supposed to get these envelopes out, I look around back of the box and there's an open hole near the ground with a bunch of sealed envelopes inside. So we put money in an envelope, all the while feeling like suckers and glancing around for the homeless guy waiting in the bushes for his daily paycheck, and drop it in the box.
The campsite is beautiful. A shelter on the side of a huge river. Some other, car-camping families in sight. None of this matters because we're both exhausted. We're in bed before nightfall.
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
Katadin and the 100 miles (almost)
Hello Cats and Kittens, we are fresh out the wilderness (and by fresh
I mean so smelly you know we are coming from a mile away) and will do
our best to fill you in on all our adventures. First we are out of the
"100 mile wilderness" though still haven't finished it. I know kinda
confusing, basically we were about 20 miles from finishing the wilderness when I
rolled my ankle pretty badly. I've rolled my ankle a few times, but
this time it hurt to walk, and we were concerned about doing further
damage. Its a longer story but essentially we did a lot of extra hiking
trying to get out of the wilderness, spent a day hitch hiking, and now
are in a hostel in Monson, resting our legs, showering, eating real food, resupplying and enjoying all the "modern day comforts" that we often take for granted. We got in yesterday, and will be leaving on Friday, spending tomorrow working all day for the hostel so the three nights we spent here will be free. Work for stay is the jam!!
Im gonna try to give a general overview, then Andrew or I will do our best to give more details later. Lets go old school.
Roses aka the good of the last two weeks.
The Views: I've seen some of the most remarkable landscape, mountains, lakes, animals, freakin everything in the last two weeks than I've ever seen. The land up in Maine is rough (Ill cover that in my thorns) but DAMN it's beautiful. We climb mountain after mountain, each view a different angle of this beautiful state. We walk by the same lake for days, stopping to dip our sore feet in the cool water. Tent sites by the lakes are filled with the sound of loons all night long. Many lean-to's are right besides streams, or waterfalls, so we go to sleep to the sound of rushing water, which sometimes helps with the other hikers loud snoring. We wake up and walk down to a rushing waterfall, and fill our water filter bag, dipping our tired toes in the ice cold water, waking our body up before we may be ready. We watch the sunset every night, and night means total darkness, with stars covering the sky. We are doing our best to post pictures, but right now it aint happening. We will continue to try, because my paltry words cannot express the dazzling nature I've been blessed to see the last week and half.
The lakes: One great thing about Maine is that there is water a plenty. Not just streams, but massive lakes that seem to stretch on forever.We can go swimming, bury our felt in smooth mountain rocks, and watch the reflection of the sunset as it covers the surface of the lakes with colorful beauty.
The wildlife (mostly): We have seen a bear, moose, loons, snow hair, owls, ducks, guinea hens, and the oh so pesky chipmunks, squirrels, and mice.That's rights, we have already seen two moose! The first one we saw on our 6th day when we stayed at a B&B/hostel type in the middle of the wilderness called White House Landing. Mostly because I was going a little nuts in the woods and needed a shower and to talk to my Mom. Anyway this place had canoes and was right on the river so we took a canoe out at sunset in the attempt to spot a moose. Moose watching if you will. And sure enough, right as we were about to turn back we saw a Cow (female Moose) drinking from the lake. They aren't too skiddish so we were able to paddle about 10 feet from it and watch as it enjoyed the same cool lake that we had. Our second moose was spotted by me, about 700 feet from our lean too, right at the end of a long hiking day. Long story short, I was crying (as I have almost every day) and walking slow enough that I spotted a dark spot in the middle of some thick bushes by a mud puddle. Andrew and I tried to creep closer and then it turned into the bushes. Andrew ran ahead to try to get a picture, and as he did another SOBO hiker (Trail Name Angry German) came whistling behind us unaware of our attempt at stealthyness. I quickly shushed him and as I did we saw the moose come out of the bushes and got to see it swatting flies with is large ears. Andrew had run way too far ahead and yelled, "Lys I think its gone" and I laughing responded "Babe, Im literally staring at it, its like 10 feet away." So Andrew came running back up the trail to see it, and as he did, the Cow (again female Moose) started walking in my direction. Now I don't know how close yall have been to a Moose, but it suddenly occured to me that this beautiful muscular moose body could be pretty deadly if so provoked. As it took another step in my direction, the other SOBO I was with, advised me to get behind a tree, in case of moose attack. So AG (Angry German) and I got behind some skinny little trees as Andrew came loudly tip-toeing on the other side of the Moose. The Moose ran between us and up a hill as we watched in awe the great beast climb a steep dense forest in a few quick strides. We laughed and discussed our moose encounter as we walked the few minutes to our sleeping destination for the night and set down our packs. Moments later we saw the moose rounding around the corner of the trail as it ran full speed downhill into the stream about 30 feet below. Needless to say Moose are super cool, and if you want to see one, it probably helps to cry.
We also had a RIDICULOUS bear encounter, but Ill let Andrew cover that one, because his pack took the brunt of that experience. I will say there was a black bear that snuck up about 10 feet behind me and for the first time in my life I ran screaming at a black bear, throwing rocks and yelling things such as "This is not your home bear! Go back to your home! I will get you!"
Trail Magic: There are two sayings on the trail, trail magic and trail angels, that pretty much help keep you on the bloody thing. Trail magic is anytime a stranger or fellow hiker does something unexpectedly kind. Trail Angels are people that help you in a time of need, or really anytime. Trail magic can range from a cooler of sodas left out in the woods, to gifting you extra food, to a ride into town, really anything that brightens your day. Our first trail magic was DEET bugspray, which is ironic given we both swore never to use the stuff. But on the third day I was averaging 15-20 misquito bites on my ass and thighs alone, so I was in some desperate need of some deet. A section hiker heard us complaining about how terrible the bugs were, and gifted us the last of his bugspray since he was finishing his hike the next day. A fellow SOBO (AG again) got some food trail magic from a group of weekend hikers and saved us each a kiwi just because. Some older lady section hikers were about to go into town, so gave Andrew and I some gummy snacks, a full container of organic peanut butter, crackers, and all kinds of other goodies. When I rolled my ankle we were given rides from 4 seperate cars, all who happily tried to make sure we got to Monson. I could go on, and will some other time.
Love from home: When at White House Landing, I got to talk on the phone to my Mom, and my Asheville Mom, Larissa, which made a massive difference in my mood. Somehow in the woods the days feel twice and long and it's very easy to forget there are people who love me and believe I can do this. Talking to my "two moms" reminded me of the incredible people in my life, and my ability to make myself completely crazy by insisting on irrational thinking. I also got some texts from my mom, my hommie Christine, and a few days later a great voicemail from my girl Bri. Texts, emails, voicemails, are all really appreciated, even if I can't reply quickly, know they mean the world after a hard day of hiking.
Andrew: He has been a hiking rockstar. Patient with my slow ass self, constant in his positive mood no matter the struggle of the day, going with the flow, even if it means spending a day hitching because of my rolled ankle, encouraging me to push forward even in the face of my tears and negative attitude, basically being his consistent kind rockstar self. Sometimes its hard for me not to resent him, because all of this comes so much easier for him, but he is just too damn positive for me to do that.
I'm sure there are more roses, but I'm getting tired, so that's what I have so far.
So thorns. Sadly I've probably been focusing more on these than I should. First I wanted to list the reasons I decided to do the AT, so that when I list my complaints I don't sounds like so much of a whiney face.
Reasons that I, Lysandra, wanted to do the AT:
1. I want to develop a deeper gratitude for the world I live in. To remember to appreciate and recognize the millions of miracles that happen every day.
2. I want to develop a stronger strength in myself both physically and mentally. I want to become more confidant in my physical body and push myself to my physical and mental limits, in order to explore my negative thought patterns, and find healthier ways to process stress. This may be the one I struggle with the most.
3. I want an adventure, to try something new. I've notice with age comes the idea that if you haven't done something yet, you never can. I do not want this to be true in my life. Even though being a beginner is hard, it teaches you so much, and hiking the AT is about as far out of my comfort zone as it gets. While also being an incredible cool healthy thing to do.
4. I want to remind myself it's about the journey, not the destination
5. I want to figure out what I want to do with my life, for at least the next few years. What is next for me, in terms of career and where I want to live, all that grown-up stuff.
6. To figure out if Andrew and I will go through this next phase in our life together, or not.
So Thorns aka not so good:
THE PAIN: I've never been so physically sore in my life. At the end of the day my feet feel like giant bruises and each step is agony. Or lets say some days are agony, some are uncomfortable but, in general my feet, ankles and knees bring me to tears at least once a day. Maine is a rooty, rocky, rough terrain that can be difficult for a seasoned NOBO so is clearly a horribly rough start for a newbie SOBO. Many consider Maine the "hardest state" and I've been warned that "I haven't even seen hard yet"so its hard not to fear the pain to come. When it hurts to walk, and that is what you have to do for the next six months, it can feel really overwhelming.
BUGS: Bugs love me. They cover me in love bites. That itch. A. LOT. Flies seem to like to fly into my hair, and bite my scalp. One night Andrew counted13 mosquito bites on my rear end alone. They also seem to like my thighs. Lots of big spiders, constantly walking into spider webs. I know, it's nature, bugs are everywhere, but they make me fuckin nuts sometimes.
All the boys: This fucking trail is swimming with men. Young, old, all smelly and dirty ( to be fair I am also very smelly and dirty), and all men. Sure men are fine, great even, but I'm seriously missing some female friendship. I mean you seen ladies every now and then, but hardly any SOBOs, and many females I've met have that hardcore I'm so tough and badass vibe which just isn't how I am. Of course that can be really great, but mostly the badass type, both male and female seem to want to scare me about how hard things are going to get, how I've barely done anything yet, how people have died on this trail, broken bones, general talk that is meant to make them feel super hard core and often leaves me feeling scared and desiring a whole to crawl into.
Crying/Negative thoughts: Yep, I've cried almost every day. After the first few days of the whimpering, constant "I can't do it, I suck, I'm a big fat loser" type talk Andrew piped in with his two cents. Basically he sympathized with my crying as a way to release emotion, but had a serious problem with all the negative shitty things I insisted on whining to myself as I actively climbed a mountain. So I've stopped most of the whining, but still am brought to tears by the pain of my feet, knees or ankles once a day. Maybe I'm still a wimp, but this stuff is hard. I've never been hardcore physically, so it's hard to know where to put all the pain and emotion of doing this stuff.
Being a beginner: It seems like almost everyone I've met has been hiking for years, planning this trip since they were a kid, and even most of the SOBO's I've met are already doing 15-20 mile days. There is nothing in the AT world I feel good at, or even familiar with. Nothing I feel confidant at, and in fact on a daily, almost hourly basis I feel like its the first day of kindergarten all over again. Of course it was one of my reasons for doing the damn thing, but in the hard moments, its so FUCKING frustrating to feel like I'm the only one who is new to all this. Also rolling my ankle every few days isn't the best.
The food: The "hiker hunger" hasn't kicked in yet, and we brought very bland food, so I've pretty much been nauseous 80% of the time. I mean I've always had a problem with that, so having to eat super early, hike on a full stomach with a tight strap around my stomach doesn't help and I'm a hot mess of wanting to vomit all the time.
Ok WOW, this turned into more of a personal check-in than a meant it to. We will def try to give more of a detailed account of our days, the mountains, all the cool peeps, all funny stories before we get back on the trail. Also I'm exhausted to be forgiving to the grammer, spelling, general no makey sense of some of this post.
Please keep the love coming, I know I need the support, and though Andrew is his usual positive self he can always use all the love you can throw at him.
Thanks for reading and supporting our journey. Loves yall. Loves.
Im gonna try to give a general overview, then Andrew or I will do our best to give more details later. Lets go old school.
Roses aka the good of the last two weeks.
The Views: I've seen some of the most remarkable landscape, mountains, lakes, animals, freakin everything in the last two weeks than I've ever seen. The land up in Maine is rough (Ill cover that in my thorns) but DAMN it's beautiful. We climb mountain after mountain, each view a different angle of this beautiful state. We walk by the same lake for days, stopping to dip our sore feet in the cool water. Tent sites by the lakes are filled with the sound of loons all night long. Many lean-to's are right besides streams, or waterfalls, so we go to sleep to the sound of rushing water, which sometimes helps with the other hikers loud snoring. We wake up and walk down to a rushing waterfall, and fill our water filter bag, dipping our tired toes in the ice cold water, waking our body up before we may be ready. We watch the sunset every night, and night means total darkness, with stars covering the sky. We are doing our best to post pictures, but right now it aint happening. We will continue to try, because my paltry words cannot express the dazzling nature I've been blessed to see the last week and half.
The lakes: One great thing about Maine is that there is water a plenty. Not just streams, but massive lakes that seem to stretch on forever.We can go swimming, bury our felt in smooth mountain rocks, and watch the reflection of the sunset as it covers the surface of the lakes with colorful beauty.
The wildlife (mostly): We have seen a bear, moose, loons, snow hair, owls, ducks, guinea hens, and the oh so pesky chipmunks, squirrels, and mice.That's rights, we have already seen two moose! The first one we saw on our 6th day when we stayed at a B&B/hostel type in the middle of the wilderness called White House Landing. Mostly because I was going a little nuts in the woods and needed a shower and to talk to my Mom. Anyway this place had canoes and was right on the river so we took a canoe out at sunset in the attempt to spot a moose. Moose watching if you will. And sure enough, right as we were about to turn back we saw a Cow (female Moose) drinking from the lake. They aren't too skiddish so we were able to paddle about 10 feet from it and watch as it enjoyed the same cool lake that we had. Our second moose was spotted by me, about 700 feet from our lean too, right at the end of a long hiking day. Long story short, I was crying (as I have almost every day) and walking slow enough that I spotted a dark spot in the middle of some thick bushes by a mud puddle. Andrew and I tried to creep closer and then it turned into the bushes. Andrew ran ahead to try to get a picture, and as he did another SOBO hiker (Trail Name Angry German) came whistling behind us unaware of our attempt at stealthyness. I quickly shushed him and as I did we saw the moose come out of the bushes and got to see it swatting flies with is large ears. Andrew had run way too far ahead and yelled, "Lys I think its gone" and I laughing responded "Babe, Im literally staring at it, its like 10 feet away." So Andrew came running back up the trail to see it, and as he did, the Cow (again female Moose) started walking in my direction. Now I don't know how close yall have been to a Moose, but it suddenly occured to me that this beautiful muscular moose body could be pretty deadly if so provoked. As it took another step in my direction, the other SOBO I was with, advised me to get behind a tree, in case of moose attack. So AG (Angry German) and I got behind some skinny little trees as Andrew came loudly tip-toeing on the other side of the Moose. The Moose ran between us and up a hill as we watched in awe the great beast climb a steep dense forest in a few quick strides. We laughed and discussed our moose encounter as we walked the few minutes to our sleeping destination for the night and set down our packs. Moments later we saw the moose rounding around the corner of the trail as it ran full speed downhill into the stream about 30 feet below. Needless to say Moose are super cool, and if you want to see one, it probably helps to cry.
We also had a RIDICULOUS bear encounter, but Ill let Andrew cover that one, because his pack took the brunt of that experience. I will say there was a black bear that snuck up about 10 feet behind me and for the first time in my life I ran screaming at a black bear, throwing rocks and yelling things such as "This is not your home bear! Go back to your home! I will get you!"
Trail Magic: There are two sayings on the trail, trail magic and trail angels, that pretty much help keep you on the bloody thing. Trail magic is anytime a stranger or fellow hiker does something unexpectedly kind. Trail Angels are people that help you in a time of need, or really anytime. Trail magic can range from a cooler of sodas left out in the woods, to gifting you extra food, to a ride into town, really anything that brightens your day. Our first trail magic was DEET bugspray, which is ironic given we both swore never to use the stuff. But on the third day I was averaging 15-20 misquito bites on my ass and thighs alone, so I was in some desperate need of some deet. A section hiker heard us complaining about how terrible the bugs were, and gifted us the last of his bugspray since he was finishing his hike the next day. A fellow SOBO (AG again) got some food trail magic from a group of weekend hikers and saved us each a kiwi just because. Some older lady section hikers were about to go into town, so gave Andrew and I some gummy snacks, a full container of organic peanut butter, crackers, and all kinds of other goodies. When I rolled my ankle we were given rides from 4 seperate cars, all who happily tried to make sure we got to Monson. I could go on, and will some other time.
Love from home: When at White House Landing, I got to talk on the phone to my Mom, and my Asheville Mom, Larissa, which made a massive difference in my mood. Somehow in the woods the days feel twice and long and it's very easy to forget there are people who love me and believe I can do this. Talking to my "two moms" reminded me of the incredible people in my life, and my ability to make myself completely crazy by insisting on irrational thinking. I also got some texts from my mom, my hommie Christine, and a few days later a great voicemail from my girl Bri. Texts, emails, voicemails, are all really appreciated, even if I can't reply quickly, know they mean the world after a hard day of hiking.
Andrew: He has been a hiking rockstar. Patient with my slow ass self, constant in his positive mood no matter the struggle of the day, going with the flow, even if it means spending a day hitching because of my rolled ankle, encouraging me to push forward even in the face of my tears and negative attitude, basically being his consistent kind rockstar self. Sometimes its hard for me not to resent him, because all of this comes so much easier for him, but he is just too damn positive for me to do that.
I'm sure there are more roses, but I'm getting tired, so that's what I have so far.
So thorns. Sadly I've probably been focusing more on these than I should. First I wanted to list the reasons I decided to do the AT, so that when I list my complaints I don't sounds like so much of a whiney face.
Reasons that I, Lysandra, wanted to do the AT:
1. I want to develop a deeper gratitude for the world I live in. To remember to appreciate and recognize the millions of miracles that happen every day.
2. I want to develop a stronger strength in myself both physically and mentally. I want to become more confidant in my physical body and push myself to my physical and mental limits, in order to explore my negative thought patterns, and find healthier ways to process stress. This may be the one I struggle with the most.
3. I want an adventure, to try something new. I've notice with age comes the idea that if you haven't done something yet, you never can. I do not want this to be true in my life. Even though being a beginner is hard, it teaches you so much, and hiking the AT is about as far out of my comfort zone as it gets. While also being an incredible cool healthy thing to do.
4. I want to remind myself it's about the journey, not the destination
5. I want to figure out what I want to do with my life, for at least the next few years. What is next for me, in terms of career and where I want to live, all that grown-up stuff.
6. To figure out if Andrew and I will go through this next phase in our life together, or not.
So Thorns aka not so good:
THE PAIN: I've never been so physically sore in my life. At the end of the day my feet feel like giant bruises and each step is agony. Or lets say some days are agony, some are uncomfortable but, in general my feet, ankles and knees bring me to tears at least once a day. Maine is a rooty, rocky, rough terrain that can be difficult for a seasoned NOBO so is clearly a horribly rough start for a newbie SOBO. Many consider Maine the "hardest state" and I've been warned that "I haven't even seen hard yet"so its hard not to fear the pain to come. When it hurts to walk, and that is what you have to do for the next six months, it can feel really overwhelming.
BUGS: Bugs love me. They cover me in love bites. That itch. A. LOT. Flies seem to like to fly into my hair, and bite my scalp. One night Andrew counted13 mosquito bites on my rear end alone. They also seem to like my thighs. Lots of big spiders, constantly walking into spider webs. I know, it's nature, bugs are everywhere, but they make me fuckin nuts sometimes.
All the boys: This fucking trail is swimming with men. Young, old, all smelly and dirty ( to be fair I am also very smelly and dirty), and all men. Sure men are fine, great even, but I'm seriously missing some female friendship. I mean you seen ladies every now and then, but hardly any SOBOs, and many females I've met have that hardcore I'm so tough and badass vibe which just isn't how I am. Of course that can be really great, but mostly the badass type, both male and female seem to want to scare me about how hard things are going to get, how I've barely done anything yet, how people have died on this trail, broken bones, general talk that is meant to make them feel super hard core and often leaves me feeling scared and desiring a whole to crawl into.
Crying/Negative thoughts: Yep, I've cried almost every day. After the first few days of the whimpering, constant "I can't do it, I suck, I'm a big fat loser" type talk Andrew piped in with his two cents. Basically he sympathized with my crying as a way to release emotion, but had a serious problem with all the negative shitty things I insisted on whining to myself as I actively climbed a mountain. So I've stopped most of the whining, but still am brought to tears by the pain of my feet, knees or ankles once a day. Maybe I'm still a wimp, but this stuff is hard. I've never been hardcore physically, so it's hard to know where to put all the pain and emotion of doing this stuff.
Being a beginner: It seems like almost everyone I've met has been hiking for years, planning this trip since they were a kid, and even most of the SOBO's I've met are already doing 15-20 mile days. There is nothing in the AT world I feel good at, or even familiar with. Nothing I feel confidant at, and in fact on a daily, almost hourly basis I feel like its the first day of kindergarten all over again. Of course it was one of my reasons for doing the damn thing, but in the hard moments, its so FUCKING frustrating to feel like I'm the only one who is new to all this. Also rolling my ankle every few days isn't the best.
The food: The "hiker hunger" hasn't kicked in yet, and we brought very bland food, so I've pretty much been nauseous 80% of the time. I mean I've always had a problem with that, so having to eat super early, hike on a full stomach with a tight strap around my stomach doesn't help and I'm a hot mess of wanting to vomit all the time.
Ok WOW, this turned into more of a personal check-in than a meant it to. We will def try to give more of a detailed account of our days, the mountains, all the cool peeps, all funny stories before we get back on the trail. Also I'm exhausted to be forgiving to the grammer, spelling, general no makey sense of some of this post.
Please keep the love coming, I know I need the support, and though Andrew is his usual positive self he can always use all the love you can throw at him.
Thanks for reading and supporting our journey. Loves yall. Loves.
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