Well dear friends, family and random people who may be reading this, I am happy to report we are out of the woods! And by that, I mean we have finally completed the "hardest parts of the trail"; we are of course still spending the majority of our times in a wooded area. I'm writing to you from Lebanon, NH which is a town outside Hanover, NH. Andrew has flown home because his grandfather passed away and he of course wanted to be with his family. He will be coming home Sunday so we can set off on the trail Monday morning. We were incredibly lucky that we were in Hanover when trying to make arrangements for him to fly home for several reasons. One we were close to several airports which made flying out easier and Andrew's sister Torie has some good friends in Lebanon who have kindly let me stay at their house for a few days while Andrew is in Memphis, which is great for our budgets.
It feels good to finally have Maine and New Hampshire behind us, though as always our journey is far from over. We have hiked 440 miles with some 1742 miles to go, a number which still seems too big to fathom. It might as well be a humpty billion more miles to hike. At least that's how I feel when I look ahead. When I look behind me I feel pretty darn proud of the miles we have already hiked, given I was sure at least once a day that I was never hiking another step. Many NOBO's have warned us that the miles ahead are much more of a mental challenge than a physical one. Now that we don't have such difficult terrain, we have to focus less on the trail itself and make sure not to "get bored". Currently we are so freakin grateful for the more mild terrain we cannot imagine being bored by it, but like all things in life any good always comes with a little bit of challenge. Keeps us on our toes I suppose. Our last 50 miles of hiking were so wonderful we are still basking in the glow of this much easier trail. There are still roots and rocks of course, but we instantly see a massive difference in the trails. You can actually walk and get a good stride going, which hasn't been the case for the first 400 miles. We have also noticed the difference in the mountains, the last three we climbed were verging on easy (Easy for climbing mountains, of course eating ice cream while watching The West Wing will always be easier than this crazy shit). You still have uphill and downhill, and are still breathing heavy as you climb, but you get to the top in a reasonable amount of time. These last few mountains you climb for a bit and then you are at the top, no crying or reaching into the depths of your soul for strength you never knew you had required. It's pretty darn nice. The only flip side are the views are nothing compared to the ones we have seen, but for the moment we are fine with that. Plus fall is coming, so no matter where we are the world is about to be painted with color.
I've gotten a new pair of shoes (Patagonia Mens Trail shoes) and inserts (SOLE modable inserts) that seem to be doing my feet a world of good. That's not to say they don't still hurt in the morning and after mile 11-12ish, but for the most part the pain is tolerable. The smoother terrain also helps with that, I can take nice flat steps instead of crunching my foot in-between whatever rock and/or roots looks the least dangerous. But, as I mentioned, with this new terrain comes different challenges. We have finally increased our mileage, doing 15, 16 even 17 miles days! Oh yeah! Go us! Which means we are walking faster, and somehow for me means I'm falling down like it's my new job. Our last 5 days of hiking (By far our easiest days on the trail terrain wise) I took two fairly hard falls a day, every day. And of course I seem to always injure the same two joints. I keep rolling my right ankle and landing on my left knee. I believe because we are walking faster and I'm not paying attention to every step it's easier for me to miss a small stick or rock which causes me to lose my balance. Also the leaves have started to fall here, so some parts of the trail are covered with dead leaves which makes it harder to see the debris underneath. My first big fall was literally about a mile after our last big climb (Mt Moosilake, super cool mountain) and I remember thinking "Wooohooo, the trail is finally getting easier!" and then rolling my ankle catching myself on both my knees on hard rock, causing both my knees to bleed. Ouch. Every time I fall, tears seem to burst out of me, regardless of the pain, but I do my best to stop the tears quickly. I will say rolling an ankle hurts like a bitch, but I have to keep walking so I try not to focus on the pain, just the idea that if I keep moving forward I will eventually get to rest.
Anyway besides my new trend to bite it hard twice a day I really am enjoying this new terrain and excited to hike with fall. The 15 mile days are exhausting in a completely different way than the 10 mile days in Maine and New Hampshire. It is more a cardio workout, instead of the slow arduous climbing we are accustom to. Usually around mile 12, I severely crave to be done and have to really push myself to keep going those final few miles, no matter how easy. And since we have taken so long in our first two states, we really have to push ourselves to get at least 15 miles a day and hopefully getting to 20. I've promised Andrew I will attempt a 30 mile day, but we will be waiting until a flat as a pancake state like Pennsylvania before I actually attempt that many miles in a day.
Before I forget I must tell a story in which Andrew was my knight in shining calmness. The day before we hiked into Hanover I was feeling pretty good. Despite all the falling, I was keeping a fairly optimistic attitude and really trying to appreciate the easier terrain and lovely fall weather. Then about 10 miles into our day I fell. Dammit. Ouch. But I got up and kept going. But the fall had crushed my spirits and it began what I refer to as the "Avalanche of Negative Thinking" (this seems to happen to me, and many women I know. It is when you start thinking one negative thought which then snow balls into a billion negative thoughts all within a 5 minute period) My first thought was I haven't actually gotten any stronger. This quickly turned into a snowstorm of crazy where my thought pattern went something like:" I've actually gotten weaker and fatter and I'm stupid and I'm the worst hiker ever and my I will never get better and I should probably die because all I do is hike badly and fall and also I'm stupid." Then came many uncontrollable tears. At this point Andrew was hiking ahead of me and didn't know that I had fallen or was having a little mental breakdown. Finally I took some deep breathes and tried to focus on good thoughts, which were mostly I have to keep hiking so suck it up Sykes! Then the trail got tricky very quickly (tall grass covering big rocks) and I fell again, minutes after I'd finally composed myself. Andrew happened to be on a bridge nearby and heard me fall and yelled to inform me he was coming. I had picked myself up by the time he got there, though emotionally I was entering the period after the Avalanche of negative thinking, where logic and reason are completely lost on me and I can turn any positive thought into a negative self deprecating one in under a minute. Andrew has seen this before and did his best to say sweet wonderful things, while also understanding that I may not be able to be cheered up. We did, as always, have to reach our destination if we wanted a good flat place to sleep. So we walked on and at the first hill we reached I became a 3 year old.
Me: "I can't do this! Why is there a fucking hill? Its suppose to be FUCKING FLAT! I'm too fat to get up this hill and I hate this fucking trail and..... I cant.....I cant.......UGH!!!" This was all said while sobbing.
Andrew: "Ok, lets take a break". And he took his pack off and sat down. I just stared at him.
Me: "But we have to keep going. What if we never make it and we never sleep and we just die here!?"
Andrew: "Well then at least we will be together, now set down your pack and let me hold you."
Me:"Ok."
And then I sat between his legs while he said logical calming things to me and reminded me that this much falling is as damaging to the spirit as it is to the body. All while getting me to focus on calming my breathe down. After a few minutes we got up, and continued to the shelter. I still stopped a few times for totally irrational crying freak out moments, and Andrew handled every one with the patience of a saint. The next day I was able to laugh at my behavior but at the time I really had gone off the deep end, and I am so thankful he was there to pull me back to reality. We have not had a perfect relationship on this trail, in fact this trail has already put our relationship through the ringer several times, but he is a steady rock for me, and I wouldn't still be on this trail without him.
Also we forgot to mention he has a trail name! I dubbed him Funguy (or Fungi) because of his love of all things fungus. (You will see this when you look at our photos!) Seriously the guy stops every 10 minutes to take a picture of all these freakin awesome mushrooms we have seen. Plus he is a fun....guy. Yeah, double meaning, you know you like it. I have yet to have a trail name......would love any suggestions.
We are still in awe by the kindness of strangers and the generosity we've experienced along this trail. Hanover is known as a magical land of Oz type place to AT hikers, and now we know why. There is a list of names on a board when you walk into town, and you call them up and they let you stay at their hose for free! Basically there are 10 adults who open their homes to you, in large part because Hanover is expensive and they want hikers to feel welcome and have a nice place to rest their bodies. We were SUPER lucky to stay with Lizanne, a women in her 40's who is a consultant for non-profits. She picked us up from downtown, drove us to her house, and said "Eat anything you want, there is beer in the fridge, I have to run, but Ill be back soon to cook you dinner" I mean really, besides having a unicorn, her house was pretty much heaven. She cooked us smocked salmon for dinner, had a huge comfy bed for us to sleep in and added bonus was a interesting, smart, wonderful person to be around.
Plus the outfitter gives you a free snickers, the pizza place gives you a free slice, you get a free bagel at the bagel basement and the local dinner gives you a free donut. Plus the town has a FREE bus that runs M-F and takes you pretty much anywhere. I mean this place loves hikers, which is good because we love people who love us. This is a rarity to have this much love in one town, usually we aren't pimpin so hard when we roll into towns, but it feels pretty incredible when it happens.
Alright yall, I've rambled enough, we will try to post more before we leave, there are so many wonderful stories to tell, but for now hope this will do.
Go do something you think you can't do today. Even if you cry, you tried. That's saying something. Love to all!
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