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.