Monson, Maine. October 3.
Three more weeks of hiking will bring me back to New Hampshire and across some of the most rugged and demanding parts of the Appalachian Trail in Maine.
Pray with me for good weather because the final leg of my hike would really be a bitch in the rain, ice or snow. But the weather has been extraordinary since late August when Hurricane Irene sent me scrambling north, and I have been blessed with clear skies and great visibility through the White Mountains and on Mount Katahdin, where I flipped the hike and began walking back south through Maine.
I am now 163 miles from Gorham, NH and Mount Success, the end point of this remarkable adventure.
I hike south having shared the beauty and melancholy of Katahdin and Baxter State Park with other hikers who have reached their finish line. Many look stunned, their eyes glazed by the thought that “it’s over. I’ll be home (and the ‘real world’) very soon.” Their joy and pride of accomplishment is soon muted by the goodbyes and best wishes to others who know the challenges and the wonder and joy that have marked the long walk north.
Today marks six months to the day since I started north from Springer Mountain in Georgia.
Six months in the woods is a lifetime -- when I am in town I want to be in the woods; when on the trail, I want to stop hiking and wish I was in town. The end will be bittersweet, but the hike has taken its toll. I am physically, mentally and spiritually stronger than at any time of my life, and I am ready for what comes next.
Life is good. God is Great and my thanks and praise to Him for all I have seen and done for the past six months. Please join me in prayer for my continued good health and good hiking. I have seen others come agonizingly close to finishing their hikes only to be taken out by injury or worse, but I now am happy to be able to take my time and extra care as I walk south because I need no longer worry about getting to Katahdin by October 15.
At the top of Katahdin I gave thanks to God for everyone I have met and for the amazing adventure that has played out since I left Georgia in the spring, wondering how life in the woods and the harshness of this test would affect me or how long my hike might last. Each day I thank the Lord for the air in my lungs, for the food in my stomach and the strength in my legs and in my heart that has kept me going. I am truly blessed to have come this far.
I was thrilled to get to Katahdin on a clear day and to be able to see the lakes of Maine stretching far to the south and to look ahead to the 100 Mile Wilderness, the Bigelows, Saddleback and Sugarloaf, the Mahoosics and other stretches of trail that I hiked 30 years ago. I head south tomorrow and will retrace my steps from a hike 10 years ago, one that I thought might be my last hike because I was suddenly out of my depth and ready to quit.
I still carry a scar from Pleasant Pond Mountain, and I look forward to hiking that again -- and doing it right this time.
But that’s what is ahead. It’s time to look back.
The jump north from Massachusetts was the right call, and I would have had no choice but to skip Vermont anyway because the hurricane trashed the state and closed it to hiking. Much of the AT is still closed, and I hope to come back next year and see what I missed.
I last blogged before the August 28 storm, and, this being October, it’s been more than a month since I was last able to write about my journey. Truth is that I stared at a flashing cursor on a Word document in Gorham a few weeks back to write about the White Mountains, but could not find the words to share stories from the 75-miles stretch of trail that took me far above the tree line and tested me as never before.
The transition from Massachusetts from New Hampshire was dramatic, as we suddenly faced long and steep ups and downs through a range of 4,000 foot mountains to the top of Mt. Washington at 6,200 feet. But it was difficult to enjoy the views because the terrain was treacherous and, though the sun was shining across the Presidential Range, a harsh, cold and bitter wind blew me to the ground as I cautiously made my way down Washington.
As I trudged along, I cursed my stupidity.
Footing was treacherous and progress very slow, but the walk was more delicate and dicey for me because my shoes had little tread and the front of the right shoe was unraveling with each step. The dying shoes were worn nearly smooth and slipped on the rocks; they offered little cushion for sore knees and ankles continually being jarred by the steep descents.
I had switched from boots to lighter-weight trail runners in West Virginia, but foolishly -- stupidly, actually -- come to New Hampshire ill-equipped to deal with the rugged terrain. New boots would come to me at Pinkham Notch, but that meant new shoes (and the chance of blisters or foot problems) as the trail presented still more demands.
Long gone are the days of 15-mile-a-day hiking. New Hampshire and Maine offer the country’s toughest trails and it can take more than an hour to cover a single mile and five miles might qualify as a good day of walking. Twice, climbs of only three miles took more than five hours, and I once walked three miles in the dark to a campsite, my eyes adjusting to the limited light as my pace was slowed by the slippery boards that spanned trails still boggy from Irene.
New boots came just in time for the climb up Wildcat Mountain and then Carter Dome, where a late September snow storm blew across the mountain, coating the trees and making us grin while hiking in the snow and then shiver through the night at Imp Campsite where 10 hikers shared a shelter and temperatures dropped into the teens.
That blast of early winter convinced me to head north again and to climb Katahdin before the weather turned really nasty and then head south back to New Hampshire. The timing has been perfect as the leaves are turning from green to red, gold and silver and the trail through Maine flattens and wends through the lake country before hitting the mountains to the south.
The jump north means I am now a southbounder instead of a northbounder (in hiker parlance a SoBo instead of a NoBo) and That means an almost daily reunion and a daily dose of memories and shared stories as I bump into hikers I had known in Georgia or Virginia or New York and had not seen since.
Back in the spring, nine thru-hikers shopped at Wal-Mart together and also shared lunch at a Main Street café. Five of us are now in Monson together, hundreds and hundreds of miles and so many adventures later.
The Monson library closes in less than an hour. There is no time to start sharing stories and adventures, but I have filled a notebook with memories and a lifetime of stories to write and share. That will come later.
Thanks to all of you for the support and encouragement you have given me along the way. messages and the postings and text messages that gave me strength when I needed it the most. You are all Trail Angels and you will be in my heart and in my prayers forever.
I head south tomorrow with a glad heart and knowing that my merry woodlands adventure is 163 miles from its end. I hike south remembering the mantra that has brought me this far:
“Patience, Grasshopper. And trust in the Lord, thy God.
Happy Trails.
-30-
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