North Before the Storm

Lee, MA,

The stench rose when the sun came through and burned away the rain in the Massachusetts forest and dried my socks, shoes and gear.  It hit me as I walked that it was me that I smelled and I hadn’t had a hot shower since Pennsylvania about 200 miles earlier.
 
There was a cold sponge bath a week ore more back at the Graymoor monastery near the Hudson River in New York, but I had not gotten really clean in more than three weeks or washed my clothes in more than two. The odor crept up on me in New Jersey, New York and Connecticut, and grabbed me by the nose as I neared South Egremont, MA and 1500 miles along the Appalachian Trail.
 
The trip to town meant a $10 bunk and hot shower and a $3 laundry at the East Mountain Retreat Center, plus a pig out at Mom’s Restaurant outside of town where Strider and I ate a big meal. Shared a huge stack of blueberry pancakes for desert and then happily accepted the breakfast leftovers from a kindly gentleman and his granddaughters at the next table.

Luxuriously clean, rested and stuffed, I was/am a happy camper again. And, I am jumping north; the journey continues.
 
Hurricane Irene is headed up the coast and that sealed my decision to go north and finish my Appalachian Trail journey in sections.  A bus will take Strider and me through Springfield, MA, then Boston and deep into New Jersey as we hope to beat the storm and get to New Hampshire over the weekend. 
 
The jump clears the calendar and takes the pressure off the October 15 deadline that can seal off Katahdin and Baxter State Park as winter comes.  Soon I will be hiking in the White Mountains, the Presidential Range, the Mahoosucs and the 100 Miles Wilderness and enjoying that 400 mile chunk of the AT in the fall before doubling back to do the 300 miles of Massachusetts and Vermont as winter comes.
 
On we go. The days are getting shorter, the nights cooler as August fades into September and I look forward to my cold weather gear that should be coming next week.
 
The change is invigorating and the hiking is about to become much more difficult, a welcome challenge after the lovely, flatter trails of lower New England that took us through birch and evergreen and along steep ups and downs through the scrub brush near the tree line and across rock ledges with wonderful views of the Berkshires.
 
The hike north from Pawling, NY and my trip to Manhattan featured a succession of idyllic villages offering poor hikers an array of high-end Belgian chocolates and coffees and trendy bookstores and antique shops. Each offers wonderful hospitality to even the smelliest of thru-hikers in town for a hot meal, a mail pickup or just a break from the woods for cold sodas and ice cream.
 
St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Kent, CT, (1826,)offers a friendly greeting from Father Kevin and lets hikers tent in its churchyard and use the parish hall bathroom.  St. John’s Episcopal Church in Salisbury leaves its doors open all day and give hikers fresh new socks (for their “troubled soles”) from a Hiker’s Box in the vestibule. And there’s internet access at Scoville Memorial Library which, at 200, is the country’s oldest publicly funded library and looks far more like a Revolution-era church than a public building.
 
These have been welcome and charming sites after the rigors of Pennsylvania and the struggles along the trail.  After more than four months in the woods, hikers begin to feel the grind of the long walk from the south and have to reach deep to stay focused on the trail ahead and the goal of finishing the 2180 miles in one year.  There is much work left to be done.

The trail through New York and Connecticut has been crowded with southbound thru-hikers, mostly young college graduates who left school too late for the south-to-north journey, but who can head south in June and make it to Georgia before the snows hit the Great Smoky Mountains and the Blue Ridge. They look fresh and eager at this stage of their journey and I wonder if I had that same enthusiasm and zeal when I was 700 miles along the trail and in Virginia.

I was relieved to get into the South Egremont because I had been slipping and sliding my way down Jug End, after falling four times on wet rocks, banging forearms and and drawing blood, I was eager to get this part of the hike behind me and to get my wits about me. Since leaving Pawling, NY 10 days earlier I had witnessed several trail tragedies and was able to learn from the misfortunes of others. I continued to marvel at the generosity of others.

Being Park Bears ”Just act humble, Strider and let it come to us,” I say as we walk into the Housatonic Meadows State Park and settle in at a picnic table between a recreational vehicle and three family-sized tents.

Two minutes later, a man brought two water bottles; then two minutes later, two young girls brought us to apples each; then the man invited us over for chicken salad sandwiches and chips and sodas and lemon bread and zucchini bread. We ate and talked hiking and told stories.

Rosemary and mike invited us to their RV for cranberry juice and we spent a half hour enjoying their company.

Lesson One Patience, Grasshopper. The mantra for the hike –. Let the hike come to you and do not hurry, because you might get hurt if you press and an injury could end your hike in an instant.

Purple and Carnivore are 50-somethings hiking south from Katahdin to Springer, but a fall near Sages ravine just inside Massachusetts on the way to Kent, CT could kill their hopes.

Purple was wailing as she came up the trail, one bandanna held to her forehead by another, her face wet with tears and red from tears and a frightening fall. She did not appear to be badly injured, but she was very scared and rattled by her fall. Carnivore looked on impassively as they decided to take a short side trail that would take them to a road into town. Her tears had dried

Patience, Grasshopper, and take care. That could be you.

Man Down. Steve came flopping into a campsite near Ten Mile Creek late one afternoon, both boots falling apart as he finished the first day of a planned 10 days in the woods. He's from Beaufort, SC and has come 25 hours by bus for this long-anticipated trip that's about to go horribly wrong. We chat as he uses my duct tape and his cord to strap his boots together and then we pitch camp ahead of the late afternoon storm that's moving in.

I was hoping for solitude, but it's also good to have someone my own age and from my part of the country around for conversation. Steve also has a large flask of very smooth Scotch and shares a liberal dose with me as the rain begins.

We hike together the next day and I go slower than I would have liked but have agreed to go with him as we are both headed into Kent – me for a mail drop and him for new boots – and Strider is a half day behind. His boots hold together and our conversation is steady as we negotiate the 10 tough miles to the road.

Strider catches us and we start down the highway toward town; we walk because three hikers makes hitch-hiking unlikely.

We're chatting and Steve's boots are musically flapping along the pavement when he suddenly goes down. Quicker than a thought, he hits the pavement, face and chest first and he is unconscious, his head next to a small puddle of blood. Strider and I look on in stunned horror as a small car pulls onto the shoulder and two young men get out to help.

Steve stirs, and Strider unsnaps his pack so he can move. The heavy pack had become Steve's worst enemy, adding torque and power to the tumble when he lost his balance and driving him to the ground. He bled from a cut over his left eye and said his ribs hurt. He pressed a white towel to his head, but the bleeding had stopped.

I helped Steve to his feet, and he slowly regained his senses, staggered by the fall and working to figure out what had happened and how much damage it had caused him. He cut the ropes from his boots, hoisted his pack and we walked another quarter mile into Kent. Steve went to the outfitter's store and found medical help while Strider and I met Father Kevin at St. Andrew's Church.

Heavy winds and rain blew through town as we camped that night; I was not there when Steve came back to retrieve his pack, but he was off the trail with a broken rib there was no concussion but he would not be hiking again soon.

Patience Grasshopper and be wise. This could be you.

Steve and Purple stay in my thoughts as I continue to go steadily north. I am now convinced that I will be able to finish the entire trail – unless a bad spill or accident takes me down.

My friend Ricky (Trailmaster) called last night. He hiked the entire trail 25 years or more ago and had been talking with our mutual hiking friend Cliff (Mr. Bag.)

“Cliff says 'he looks tired.'” Really, I have just walked 1500 miles; We laugh at that and discuss my plans to jump north. Ricky is impressed by my hiking success at 60, but, like me, realized that I would not make Katahdin by mid-October and that I am doing the right thing by shuffling the hike.

Strider and I camped a hundred yards up the trail and five miles out of Kent last night before catching a ride into town – and to Joe's Diner for a big breakfast and a library visit before the bus to Lincoln comes at 11.

We discussed our hitchhiking prowess as the first car by circled back to give us a ride into town. The young man at the wheel, looking I in the rear view mirrors, said, “are you guys brothers?” With a 40-year age differential, we both laughed at that, something I will probably never hear again.

From Georgia to Manhattan -- And Beyond

My 1400-mile hike from Georgia brought me close to New York City and a commuter train ride from my son, Noah, who happened to be in town from Atlanta to play music in Manhattan.

It hasn’t always been easy.

A wet sock was rubbing the bottom of my right foot raw as I hurried along the trail, working to get to a train station 40 miles ahead in Pawling, NY. I sorted through the logistics, knowing that I could not make it to Pawling in time on foot. Noah travelled with others, his itinerary iffy, and we worried that our rendezvous might not happen.

Trail loneliness was getting to me as I had been hiking and camping alone for several days and was increasingly weighed down by magnitude of the task ahead and the knowledge that I walked from Georgia to New York, but my ultimate destination was still nearly 800 miles away.

I had camped the night before atop Island Pond Mountain on a grassy field under a full moon. I was up and on the trail by 6:45, but by mid-afternoon, I was toiling through Harriman State Park, worrying that a side-trip to New York would leave me a day or so behind my hiking buddies and alone starting the last third of my thru-hike to Maine.

My iPod had died in Maryland, but I could not get The Byrds song “Glory Glory” out of my head as I limped along and worried about the journey ahead. “Halleluiah. Thank you, Jesus. Help me lay my burdens down.”

The hike across New Jersey and into New York had been magnificent, with both states far more beautiful than I thought they could be. The trails were smoother than oh-so-rocky Pennsylvania and brought us near ponds and through meadows and bird sanctuaries, and also offered enough steep ups and downs and hardships to keep hikers honest.

Then I met Colleen and Steve, day-hikers sitting atop West Mountain and drinking red wine and enjoying the views from high above the Hudson River. They shared a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a bottle of Gatorade; we talked hiking and I posed for pictures with each of them before I continued north and pondered my options.

They caught up with me down the trail a few minutes later, and, on a whim, I asked them if they were headed anywhere near the Graymoor Spiritual Center, a Franciscan monastery 15 miles up the trail and a place that would allow me to jump ahead to Pawling in time to get to New York and meet up with Noah if that happened to work out.

“Grasshopper, we will take you any where you want to go,” Colleen said.
An hour later, I was walking across a field to join three friends at the monastery’s hiker shelter, carrying my pack and a six-pack of Coronas when Noah called me on the phone.

“Hey, Dad. I’m in Central Park at the John Lennon memorial. I was just at the place where he was shot.”

“That’s awesome, Noah. Can we go there Tuesday?”
“Absolutely.”

A half hour later, I received spiritual confirmation that I had made the right decision and come to the right place. My phone buzzed with a text message from the Messenger, my friend from the Mepkin Abbey monastery near Charleston who I had miraculously met for the first time on the trail in Virginia 900 miles earlier as he hiked south and I moved north.

“Yes, God is so great. United in Prayer,” he wrote. “Blessings on you, dear friend. Fr. Leonard, pray for us. Amen.”

I called him and we laughed at our wondrous spiritual connection and the coincidence of him sending me a text for the first time just after I had arrived at a monastery in New York. I said he had not been at Mepkin the times I phoned and instead I had talked with Father A.J., who always made me smile with his closing comment, “May God Bless you, Grasshopper.”

“That is actually an Ecclesiastical blessing,” the Messenger said, adding that Fr. A.J. was a retired Catholic Bishop before he became a monk, so that means his blessing carries more spiritual weight than one from a priest or a monk.

My time at Graymoor and my talks with myself and the Messenger brought me to a peaceful place with my hike and my fears that I might not make it to Baxter State Park before it closes on October 15 and that I could get very close to the end of the Appalachian Trail while being unable to finish atop Mount Katahdin.

“I don’t care. I am laying that burden down,” I told the Messenger. “I am going to keep walking until I get to Baxter and if the park is closed, so be it. I am going north and don’t plan to stop until I get to the end.”

Refreshed, another burden aside, my faith in myself and in my hike were restored. Strider and I decided to take the early commuter train to Grand Central Station. Noah hoped to be back from Boston by mid-day and we would get together so very far away from home.

God willing, I will be in Connecticut by the end of this week and this magical journey continues. Some memories:

New York City. “You look like a hobo,” Noah said when we hugged outside the Waldorf Astoria where I had been chilling on a sofa, waiting for him to get to town. We had a marvelous visit, almost not believing that fate had brought us together so very far away from Atlanta where we last had been together in early April, a day before my hike began.

He laughed at my skinniness and at the white scruffiness on my face. I had been shaving, but the youngsters on the trail convinced me to let the beard grow and “go wild.”

Manhattan was not as surreal as I thought it might be, and I was amazed that with a blink I would see many more people than I had seen in four-plus months of hiking the Appalachian Trail.

Pounding the Manhattan pavement all day was much like hiking the trail though I could look up and around instead of watching the ground for rocks and roots, no bugs buzzed around my face or darted into my ears or eves, and no cobwebs suddenly smacked me across the mouth or eyebrows. Walking without a pack was refreshing, but still tiring. As on the trail, there was so much to look at and absorb while getting from one unfamiliar place to another one several miles (or many blocks) away, not sure where I was heading, what I would find when I got there or where I would go after that.

My senses of hearing and smell have heightened during my months in the woods, and the city’s sounds and smells were powerful, jarring and intoxicating. Walking in Central Park was more soothing than on 5th Avenue or Broadway; Strawberry Fields, the Lennon memorial, was touching; the subway was funky; the World Trade Center site was nearly as sad and moving as when I had seen it a few months after 9-11.

Seeing my 23-year-old son walking along a sidewalk with my 20-year-old hiking companion will make me smile as I continue north.

Trail Sainthood. Strider and I met Trail Saint Carol at the CVS in Pauling while and trying to decide where and how to stash our packs while we went to NYC. We planned to camp at the Edward R. Murrow Memorial Park and worried about leaving our possessions unguarded for a day.

Trail Magic. Problem solved.

Carol invited us to her home where we stayed in guest rooms; she took us to town and the train at 5:30 in the morning and retrieved us at 10:30 that night. There was hot coffee when we woke both mornings, we cooked breakfast and shared stories of our journeys and adventures and of hers.

Ahead or Behind? We had stopped for a break at the Mohican Outdoor Center, 10 miles after crossing into New Jersey from Pennsylvania. It was nearly 2 p.m. before Strider and I pushed on toward a shelter 14 miles away and, as usual, he moved ahead and I took my time on the uneven terrain. Rain started and didn’t let up; I missed the shelter and found a place to camp, deciding that I had to stop as the rain slacked and darkness fell.

The next day I would be out early for a 15-mile day that I hoped would catch me up with Strider, Juntsi and Captain Redbeard. It didn’t. I stopped in Unionville, NY early one afternoon two days later and the three of them came into town a few hours behind me.

I had been working to catch up with them only to find out that I was ahead of them – not behind. That makes an old man feel good.

The Church on the Mountain. I was lucky enough to get to this hostel in Delaware Water Gap, PA on a Thursday because the church has been hosting potluck dinners for hikers since 1977. There were three of us there that night, far short of the 50 hikers who showed up a few weeks back, but that meant there was more food for us than I could imagine, including homemade cherry ice cream.

Celebrity Status. First the Indians, then the Japanese and then Colleen and Steve from New Jersey, but people want to get their picture taken with me.
The Indian man was carrying an 8-foot section of PVC pipe over his shoulder with a plastic bag hanging from the end. He said he and his son were out hiking for the first time and he was amazed to have run into a thru-hiker. “We need a picture. OK?” “Sure.”

Dad was wearing a University of Kentucky cap, but said he’s a cricket fan and just liked the color. The son took picture of me and Dad, and then Dad snapped the boy and me. They promised to email me copies.

A dozen Japanese came by me day-hiking in Harriman State Park in New York. A man in a black sweat suit and bright green bandanna asked a friend to take his picture with me. “You are living my dream,” he said.

Steve and Colleen were hiking in Harriman State Park to check their gear before they go to Europe for 10 days of hut hiking in the Alps. As we hiked later, with Steve leading the way, then Colleen and then me behind, I told her, “Colleen, I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but you sure do smell good.”

She shared that comment with Steve, and I think he laughed. A bit later, our hiking order was switched so she was leading, followed by Steve and then me.
I could not resist. “Steve,” I said, “I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but you sure do smell good.”

To New York and Beyond.
The Mid-Atlantic states have been more captivating than I had imagined, as I had only seen them from the I-95 corridor on the few times I had drive north or from high above on an infrequent plane ride to New York. The mountains are much lower than in the South, but the ridges offer spectacular views of ranges like the Poconos and the Catskills that I have heard of but never seen.

The Hudson River is breathtaking after the long walk from Georgia, and I could almost imagine being among the Last of the Mohicans (a favorite movie) and part of an adventurous part of this country’s past.

Every day brings another magical encounter; each mile offers another wonder. Surprises wait over every ridge. It might be a family of deer or wild turkey crossing ahead, a snake or turtle blocking the path, or groups of scouts or day-hikers wide-eyed and eager to hear more about my walk in the woods.

I still hunger to get to New England, but I am quite happy to be where I am on my journey.

Happy Trails, everybody. Grasshopper is out of here, headed north.
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Trouble on the Trail

Palmerton, Pennsylvania, 1250 miles. Monday, August 1, 2011

My granddaddy's granddaddy walked from the deep South to Pennsylvania nearly 150 ago wearing a wool uniform and carrying a rifle, so my doing the 1250 miles from Georgia in shorts and a backpack doesn’t seem that big a deal.

His adventure did not end well. A Rebel soldier, he was wounded at Gettysburg and joined a 14-mile-long trail of wounded warriors who limped back South after three days of hell. I am not taking enemy fire, but my last week in Pennsylvania had me wondering if I might be going home in a box.

Late Sunday, I was lost near the summit of a 900-foot boulder field after scrambling and laboring up a very steep and challenging mile of trail to flat walking and a campsite six miles beyond. I had turned back from an impossible climb and was cautiously inching my way along a steep descent when I stumbled slightly, wobbled, spun and fell back, banging my head and slamming my left foot against a rock. Dazed and staggered, I wondered how I was going to get to the bottom without breaking an ankle, a leg or my neck.

All this high drama came just four days after I had nearly stepped onto a timber rattler and two days after I happily but cautiously hiked along a flatter boulder field, my feet never touching soil – just rocks – for a few hundred yards during a thunderstorm and drenching rain. Once confident that the Lord Jesus wasn’t going to call me home just yet, now I was not so sure.

I slipped off my pack and slid over to a broad flat rock to catch my breath. The sky was a spectacular blue and a hawk (perhaps an eagle) floated above while a small airplane flew by on approach to a tiny air strip below. All I could see was the boulder field beneath me and I could not enjoy the view because I was shaken, and, for the first time since leaving Georgia, I was scared.

On my own, I was in a mess. It was just past 4 p.m. and about 100 degrees when I walked out of Palmerton with a chocolate milkshake and without a worry about the hike ahead. I was the last hiker out of town and was sure nobody was behind me. Strider had called to tell me that the climb included scaling a few boulders and some hand-over-hand rock climbing but that the path was sometimes confusing.

I sat and watched the valley as my breathing calmed. I ate a Snickers bar, and drank a half liter of water while deciding what would come next. I was bloodied, but OK and knew that I would be able to get to the bottom. I needed to talk to someone because sharing my plight would take some of the terror out of it and I knew that talking through my options would help.

Strider could offer nothing but sympathy, but said he knew I’d be fine and that he would pray for me. I had talked to Kathy in Columbia before I left Palmerton and things were still rosy, and she now offered the reality check and reassurance that I needed to refocus and know I was going to be fine.

I picked my way cautiously down, lowering myself gently a step at a time, hoping the rock that I trusted would not shift under my weight, tip or slide and praying the tread of my Trailrunners would hold. I never saw another white blaze as I made my own path while brambles clawed at my legs and my ankles sometimes yelped.

The trail I found was not the Appalachian Trail, but it led me to a parking lot where two hikers were locking their car before heading up the hill.

Samson, a 2008 thru-hiker, said the section was the most difficult part of the trail in Pennsylvania and that he had gotten lost on that climb when he had come through. He offered to lead me to the top, but it was well past 5 o’clock and I’d had enough adventure for one day. I wanted a hot shower and a glass of Jack Daniel’s and accepted his kind offer of a ride back into town.

I had that one drink and shared my tale with Musher, a fellow northbounder who had watched me limp back into town and waited while I washed away the blood and pulled myself together. I did not eat dinner and sleep was difficult as I thought through the past week and scribbled notes in my journal, eager to get to the library and a computer on Monday morning.

I will strap on my pack and face that same climb early Tuesday, humbled and a bit battered, but structurally sound and eager to get going. I will climb out of Lehigh Gap without getting lost this time and find my way to the top and beyond.

By Wednesday I will be in New Jersey, but Pennsylvania will stay with me. This is why:

-- Gettysburg. Chilling. I took a Zero Day to get off the trail and take my mind away from hiking. This was a perfect choice. I took the tours, walked the cemetery and then brought the book Killer Angels along to learn what happened during the three days that left 50,000 killed, wounded or missing. I left the battlefield and caught a ride to the Mason-Dixon Line and crossed from Maryland into Pennsylvania like my granddaddy’s granddaddy before me.

-- The Half Gallon Challenge. A sign marks the 1090.5 mark, exactly halfway from Springer to Katahdin, and a Trail Challenge waited at a country store at Pine Grove Furnace State Park three miles away. I pulled in at the end of a steamy 17-mile hike eager to try and eat a half gallon of ice cream. The choices were grim – Peanut Butter Twist (gag), Banana Split (ack), or Cherries Jubilee (barf). Vanilla was my only option.

A half-dozen hikers looked on and cheered as Green Light and Joontsy ate. Green Light was groaning while he dug out another spoonful, and Joontsy’s face was bloated and an odd color and he looked close to being ill. Not deterred by seeing what pain lay ahead, I settled in and finished off a box of vanilla in 48 minutes while both of those youngsters had taken more than an hour.

My reward for ingesting more than 2400 calories at one sitting? A small wooden ice cream spoon and a caution to not get the spoon wet or the ink-stamped “Half Gallon Challenge” will run.

And no, I did not hurl. An hour later, I was ready for a cheeseburger and fries, but I lost my craving for ice cream and didn’t have more ice cream for nearly 48 hours.

-- Cumberland Valley and the Heat. Camping is prohibited in the 14 miles through the valley, and we made that day-long trip in 100-plus heat and humidity. It was Pennsylvania at its loveliest with smooth trails and mostly-flat walking through cornfields and forests and a mid-afternoon swim in Conodoguinet Creek (aka Whatyacallit Creek) four miles from camp to wash away the sweat. Add in swims in a lake near a campground and at a public pool in Boiling Springs and you have refreshed and happy hikers.

-- The Rattlesnake. I credit tai chi training with giving me patience and confidence as I sometimes teeter on the rocks of Pennsylvania and I believe it saved me from stepping into a life-challenging encounter with a timber rattler. That stutter-step move in the 32 sword form is called “wild horse crosses a mountain stream.” Having gotten past the snake, I now call it “grasshopper dances over rattlesnake’s back.”

-- Trail Angels. I stood in the rain beside the road for barely two minutes before Brad stopped and gave me a ride the two miles into Lickdale, PA. My shopping finished as the rain was ending and I was putting on my pack when Jeff came up and asked me if I needed a ride back to the trailhead. We stopped at Wendy’s on the way out of town. A Pentecostal pastor I met on the trail happily drove me all the way into Gettysburg.

-- Rockhound. A 43-year-old former Army MP, Rockhound had a heart attack in Troutdale, VA on April 2, the day I left Springer, and then had a double bypass operation and took three months off before getting back on the trail.

Most hikers haven’t had their walk disrupted by major surgery, but many of us have walked through crises of confidence, motivation, interest and will after making it halfway to Katahdin but knowing that we had more than a thousand miles to go.

Strider and I have hiked together since Franklin, NC more than 1100 miles ago, but he had gone to Gettysburg and was close to calling it quits. After a long talk with his mother and himself, he decided to stay in the woods and is happily hiking again, determined to get to Katahdin.

Francois Dillinger was distraught and yelling at himself when I arrived at the Ensign Cowell Shelter in Maryland and his buddy Sherpa was not doing much better.

“I have to finish this,” Dillinger said, “I have never finished anything that I started, and I have to finish this.” He had taken a series of zero days and was having problems getting re-engaged, although it seems like he’s now back on track.

Everyone has been running numbers – how many miles a day will it take to get me where I need to be? Will I make it? Am I behind schedule? Where are my friends?”

Our population has dwindled since we all left Georgia so many weeks ago. Those who keep track say that last year 1460 hikers left Springer for Katahdin, 747 of them made it to Harpers Ferry, and 349 made it all the way to the northern end of the 2,180 mile trail.

The success rate of a straight through thru-hike – about 10-15 percent.

It’s August now, and we start getting the same questions from others on the trail and in town as we move steadily north. Aren’t you running late? Are you going to make it to Maine? Wow, you still have a long way to go!

Undeterred, each moves on, knowing that half of us might leave the trail before reaching the end.
The mental part is the hardest because we often have to push our bodies through pain and injury, and because some days we would just rather not hike but go hiking anyway.

Sitting in the Palmerton, PA library, I take stock of my battered body as I am poised (odd word) to start my fifth month in the woods and on the Appalachian Trail.
Despite Sunday’s banging, my feet seem fine even though I switched from boots to Trailrunners in Harpers Ferry and I had been nursing a foot injury since the Shenandoah National Forest almost 300 miles back.

I took a chunk out of my right little toe when I was barefoot and kicked a rock while putting the rain cover on my tent before a thunderstorm in the middle of the night. Bandages helped, but the constant pressure of my shoes and the pounding of rocks and roots have made it hard to heal.

As July becomes August, I move ahead, confident in my ability to go the distance and stick with the adventure of a lifetime.

I move ahead with the support and caring of folks at home, somehow inspiring them as Rockhound and many others out here (and at home) continue to inspire me and cheer me on.

Tomorrow I head back up the mountain that kicked my ass so badly the day before yesterday. And tomorrow I will get it done. I will miss Pennsylvania (or not) but look very much forward to what comes next.

Happy Trails.

On to New Jersey and New York and Connecticut and Massachusetts and Vermont and New Hampshire.

On to Maine.

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