That's a wrap...early.

Although my feelings were lightened by the hilarious songs that Band-Aid made up about our hiking party, the sense of foreboding remained when we left Dalton. Short days, cold weather, and word of storms led to many zeros. We zeroed in one AMC cabin with a fireplace and morning pancakes while looking after a young mouse Jeramiah found by the roadside, alone and disoriented--we named him Laverticus. Rain happened, and then day-long flurries followed by some sticking, and we zeroed again three days later at Tom Leonard shelter. Which, by the way, had a beautiful path-not-taken in a yellow wood. Torch, J, and I, along with two new friends, Robin and Brandon, easily convinced one another to take a total of three zeros, with usual daily trips back into Great Barrington by two miles of AT. We gathered much firewood from far and wide, kept the flames up all day, and generally bummed in the woods. I convinced Torch and J to do the half-gallon challenge with me, and Brandon came along; but alas, Brandon, the one of us not over the halfway-mileage-point, was the only one to complete the challenge! I could barely force myself to eat a quart. Well, at least we know now.

An extremely sad moment came after four days with Laverticus, when he passed away. We had loved him, kept him in our shirts so he wouldn't freeze, fed him, watered him, exercised him; he had crawled on our clothes and faces, and peed and pooped in our hands. He was smart, and crazy-brave. J and I mourned, and in the silence Robin played a sad song about change.

I was glad to take these zeros. I felt no desire to hike in the weather. And I started to realize I was done. When a Monday morning came, and the sky was beautiful, and it was not all that cold, and I still had no desire to hike, I went back to Great Barrington and said goodbye to the trail. J and Torch came and shared a hotel room with me. I forced myself to walk away the next day. I grounded myself at a wonderful place with wonderful friends, in New Jersey. It was hard, but it got better.

I'm still on the road at the moment, but I suppose that would be material for another blog, not this one. I would like to return and finish, but not right now. Torch made me a wooden AT-symbol necklace, and I'm wearing it now. I wish friends did not have to part.

Into MA

After having the best Equinox Thanksgiving potluck ever (and Sam's vegan cookies) at Becky's, J and I started hitching back to the trail. We made it far enough to stay in a hostel in Rutland run by a religious community, learned that our friends Band-Aid, Torch, and Lucky had been there the day before, and learned that our friend Chewbacca was there to stay. A big surprise! Not everyone's trail leads the same way.

We got back to the trail, hiked, got rained on, got hailed on, got flurried on, froze our butts off one night, celebrated entry into MA, resupplied, lazed about, blah blah the usual. I have a new sleeping bag now, that is as big as the rest of my pack, and almost wedged me in a spiral staircase on top of Mt. Greylock. I got sick one night, not sure why. I had my internal frame pack sent out, realized it didn't fit my sleeping bag any better, and am about to send it back.

I'm in Dalton, MA right now. I was here a few years ago with the Deerfield fellowship to see the Crane Paper Museum, and J and I went there again today. We're staying with Rob, a wonderful man who never advertises but merely opens his home to hikers as guests, friends, family. He made sure we were showered and laundered and fed and entertained and rested, and we decided to stay a second night to spend more time talking with him. He has a photo album of every guest from this year, and went through it with us talking about different people, what wonderful stories they told, how long they stayed. It was cool to see the faces to the names we've been reading in journals along the trail. One fellow, for instance, writes colorful and sticker-ful entries as Hannah Montanah's Hiking Tips, and he's really a burly guy with a big beard and turban. We saw people we've traveled with, or merely met.

All the northbounders have crossed us by now, so there are no more friendly faces from down south. We're at the back of the pack again, of course, almost to the 1,089 mi halfway point. ALMOST halfway, and we started in April! We could finish a through hike, and J still says he will, but the cold weather is not a friend to me, and the precipitation lately has me feeling crummy too. I'm entertaining ideas once again for alternatives to this hike, but I'll let the weather clear, and I'll get to New York, before making any decisions. Rob's stories certainly have rejuvenated me and my desire to keep going.

And J is now carrying an Elmo doll on his pack. Life is good.

Into Vermont!

Continuing New hampshire stories...

I enjoyed the Granite State, I suppose. The White Mountains are supposed to be some of the grandest on the trail. And they were. Majestic, truly. But they were also cold, metaphorically and otherwise. Rocky peaks rising into the sky, gray, hard, dry, treeless. Not my cup of tea. The highlight for me was a night hike and dawn viewing from Franconia Ridge. Several of us had made plans to hike the ridge under the full moon, but sleep set in, and it turns out half of us were lost anyway. So a few days later, J and I went back to complete the missed section, cowboy-napping by the highway, and I finally got myself to wake and rise in the dark, around 2 a.m. It was my first night hike, and there were no hitches really, except that by the time I got above treeline, where the moonlight could actually illuminate the trail, the dawn had begun with rusty colors. Still, I turned off my headlamp and made my way to the nearest large peak, Lincoln, with the almost-full moon over my left shoulder and the growing colors over my right. The stars dimmed behind me, the black sky turned purple, and by the time I got to Lincoln the dawn was casting harder shadows than the moon was. I waited on that peak for 25 minutes while the colors became maroon, rose, coral, peach, yellow, and the bright orb rose to warm my shivering body and running nose. I watched the line of light crawl down the peaks to the west. I was all alone, and it was totally worth the early rise. I've seen dawns before, but nothing as wonderful as dawn from a mountaintop. I'm sure I haven't conveyed any idea of how wonderful it was. A few hours later the ridgeline was mobbed with hundreds of dayhikers for the holiday weekend.

I cannot fail to mention someone else's dayhiker-free Mount Washington story. From Madison hut, six of us southbounders set out towards Washington in terrible rain and wind and cold, a seven mile journey to the next hut, all above treeline. About five minutes out, I decided to turn back to the hut and zero (J was disappointed). But J and four other hikers continued. Sadly, the group was one short when they made it to the next hut, for the one had fallen on a rock and busted his face. It's so terrible, but I'm glad it wasn't me. I hiked by myself the next day, in great weather, and caught up shortly.

Chet's hostel in Lincoln was great fun, what with an adult trike and a tandem bike. hanover, home of Dartmouth, was not exactly the college town most of us expected. We were already hating the Outing Club, which conducted freshman orientation backpacking trips without tents for the students, meaning large groups took over every shelter, a major faux pas in the woods. J and I were loving Pittsfield, VT. We stayed at a farm, pulling weeds for our stay and for sandwiches in the general store. The farmers are two hikers we met down south, and Danny Boy (Snipe) from Georgia was there as well, so it was a fabulous reunion! We never expected to see Dan again, and there he was with full beard and his picture on the front of the Wall Street Journal (Sept. 21) in an article about work-for-benefit on the trail.

We stayed at Amee farm two nights, and the next morning J set the record at the general store for eating a breakfast challenge--huge plate of food in 14 min 28 sec--thereby earning himself a free meal. Then we hitched to Burlington, VT, to visit my friend from my work at howell Farm. And here we are, devouring Becky's library and watching all her movies. In another coincidence, we met her friend Sam, aka Samwise, who just finished a northbound thru-hike. he recognized me from a shelter in Maine, and we talked about being vegan on the trail, and about his new vegan backpacking blog. What a coincidence!

But potluck tonight, and then hitching back to the trail tomorrow. Just a few days short of 1000 trail miles. Not even halfway, but still going with the flow, still having a great time.

Over NH, almost into VT

Sitting in the Hanover, NH library right now, racking my brain to think of everything to say.

First things first, Jeramiah caught up to me finally and we're hiking together again.

He caught up the evening after I finished Mahoosuc Notch, which has a reputation as being the "hardest mile on the trail." I like the way someone else put it: It's like an adult jungle gym. That is, it's a mile-point-one of huge rocks and boulders that are resting in a pile at the bottom of a notch, with some water running underneath. It requires a good deal of scrambling over and under and around, and a little strategizing, but nothing intense or dangerous. I went through alone, taking about an hour and forty minutes to finish. It was nothing like people built it up to be, not challenging at all, just different. I highly recommend that section.

Pretty soon after, we crossed into New Hampshire, kissed the ground, laid our final good-riddances in the Maine soil, and rejoiced. Deliver us out of these bogs and mosquitoes, New Hampshire. Time out for some visitation with my family, however. They all three drove to Pinkham Notch to meet J and I, and while the visit wasn't exactly restful, it was fun. And delicious. We drove around a lot, up the Mt. Washington Auto Road on the second day. I believe Washington (he'll kick you apart) is the tallest peak in the northeast? At any rate, it has the "worst weather in the world," with snow every month of the year and a planetary record windspeed of 231 mph many decades ago. It has a long history of tourism and research, and there is a weather observatory and little museum up there now, and a historical recreation of one of the early summit houses. We chilled there, contemplating pretending to be tourists to thru-hikers we did not know, showering them with the same old questions. But I would have laughed after the first few words and given it away. Later that day we went to a shopping town, where I got maple candy and some kid's secondhand keychain Ugly Doll, which I have named Guggers and now carry with me.

After that visit, several zero and near-o mileage days conspired against our hiking through the White Mountains very quickly. I got my first taste of mountain hospitality at Madison Springs Hut (Carter Notch had sent me out in the cold rain just before dark with a cry of "no room"). The Appalachian Mountain Club, which maintains many trails and the AT through New Hampshire, has run these "huts" in the forest by special permission for over a hundred years, I think. There's much criticism. They're very expensive, being situated on mountaintops in a popular location, and hikers and helicopters must bring in all the supplies, and bring out the waste. They charge thru-hikers for a mere spot on the dining room floor at night. But they also feed their leftovers, and sometimes make special food, for the thru-hikers. Work-for-stay is also possible. I lucked out at Madison my second night, for a group of old college buddies and some of their sons "adopted" me into one of their vacant reservations. I got to sleep in a bunk, and had special vegan food prepared for me. At Mizpah, I got to cook stir-fry for myself and sleep in the library, in exchange for washing dishes. At Lonesome Lake Hut, there was a spaghetti and salad feast, again in exchange for dishwashing. I felt I was for the most part, though with some exception, treated well. But then it was nice to hit some actual free shelters again, and escape the crowds.

Darn! Library closing! More later.

Andover, ME

Finally, some time to write! I wonder if I can fit it all in the time I have.

As I said before, J and I left his house after fourth of July festivities to try to hitch hike to Millinocket and begin hiking the AT south. The hitching was a mixed bag, and it took forever to just get out of Ohio. We also found a kitten, a hairy orange guy, in a ditch while walking through one town. We bought him food--he got gravy on his face, so we called him Gravy. I sacrificed my cotton thrift clothes that I bought to wear around J's house so they could be Gravy's bedding, and we carried him in a box for an evening and a day until we could get to Portsmouth, OH, where we heard that an animal shelter was. The unhelpful lady on the phone--when we got to Portsmouth--told me there was no space for more cats, and she didn't have any suggestions of where to turn, either. We spent a lot of time at the library trying to find a place to take him along our route, then we took him to the vet to get checked out. Luckily, a woman named Crystal picked us up as we left the vet and promised to take care of him until she could find him a home. She talked about rescuing kittens before, and said she'd take Gravy back to the vet for extra treatments, so we felt good about leaving our baby with her. We had only had him for a day, but it seemed like longer, having to make sure he was comfy and happy and didn't run off, which he tried. It was an emotional parting, really, and Crystal said we were going to make her cry!

The next few days we hitched through a corner of Kentucky, up West Virginia, into Pennsylvania. We stayed at a campground one night, found a spot in the woods another night, pitched behind a narrow tree by the highway another night. All sorts of people picked us up, genders, races, ages, and numbers. Trucks with single drivers and empty beds passed us up while cars and trucks full of people and equipment found ways to squeeze us in. People offered us food, drink, smoke. Best was the grapefruit at one guy's house!

In Pennsylvania we failed to contact J's friend who was supposed to live around Pittsburgh. We chatted a guy at the coffee shop who took us to a place to camp in the woods, and started hitching the next day. First we were harassed by the police for walking along one highway--it didn't have the limited access sign on the ramp we took!--but he told us hitching was legal. Then we tried back at the ramp, got one exit down, and got stuck for almost five hours as car after car passed us. It was depressing. THEN another cop came and told us that people had called in to REPORT us for standing there to hitch, and hitching was actually illegal, and we would have to leave. It was such a crappy day that I gave up. We took a local bus back to Pittsburgh, found our way to the Greyhound station downtown, and hopped on immediately. A day later, we arrived in Bangor, ME. It was my first bus trip ever, and quite the impulsive travel decision.

In Bangor the next day we saw a pair of traveling kids with their dog--Panda was the name of the guy--and they were pleased to see us and pass on info about Bangor and Bar Harbor. They told us of a secret place to camp in Bangor by the river, which we eventually decided to try. Sitting there, waiting for it to get dark, a woman passed us with her dog, asking us if another dog sniffing around was ours. No. Then, she simply asked us if we needed a place to spend the night, and invited us to her house. Her name was Sarah, and she was a French teacher working on, I think, a folklore dissertation. Her dog was named Tillie because she liked collecting rocks and ripping up sod, and Tillie had twenty-six toes. Sarah lived in a beautiful house like the kind professors have close to college campuses. She gave us her back room, the sunroom I guess, and I slept on the daybed. She let us bathe and wash our clothes, and she told us to help ourselves to the food and drink in her fridge. Her house was filled with books, and I wanted to read them. Sarah was so poetic in her demeanor, and spoke about oral histories and connecting children to their communities, and spoke about the friends she made in France when she was younger. She lost herself in telling her own story while driving us up the interstate, and passed our exit by a long shot, even though she had meant to take us only a few miles!

We got to Millinocket quickly, found my box was not at the post office, hung out with some high schoolers who showed us the way to the trail. A man picked us up in his car before we even put our thumbs out, and before we knew it we were in Baxter State Park. July 12 we hiked to the base of Ktaadn (seeing four moose and a bald eagle on the way) and started our ascent, too late in the day for my pace! It took us 12 hours, when others took 8-10 hours. There was so much rock-hopping, and climbing, and clambering! We had our full packs on, and I had to drop some of my things behind a rock to lighten my load and center my balance better. I literally required J's hand up on some of the rocks because they were so slick and tall. We summited around 6:15 pm, two hours after we saw the last group on the way down. It was freezing and windy up there, so we took our pictures by the sign and got going down, hoping to make it below treeline before nightfall, which we did. It was 12:19 a.m. when we got back to the campground, and I was so tired.

Next was the "100-mile wilderness" which was not really a wilderness, but definitely fewer roads crossed. The mosquitos were infuriating, as was the mud and the rain and the roots and the rocks, and the dozens of orange slugs we found on our gear and ourselves in the mornings. The terrain was flattish, but we were slow going. We had a day of me going back in to Millinocket for more food, and J going in thinking he would get off the trail, but his mom convinced him to wait it out. We got a hitch back to the wrong trailhead and lost a few days doubling back over the missed section so we wouldn't skip any trail. We met more hikers and dogs, one named Morgan with a pink nose and beautiful blue eyes, and we made it through the wilderness (swamp) into Monson. J was ahead of me, so I hitched by myself. On the back of a motorcycle. Oh yeah.

Molly in Monson let out a room and let J work for it, so we had a private room with sheets. The bar had great pizza, and lake access. We hung out for a bit, zeroed, used the internet to fiddle with my pictures. Shortly after Monson J and I separated on the trail and crossed a major ford, the west Piscataquis. I cross upstream among several islands, got tangled up and turned around, but eventually made it back to the trail without having to spend the night lost. J crossed at high water and got swept away momentarily, immediately assumed I had drowned, swam to the shore, and then saw me clambering out of the woods back to the trail. He was soaked. We called it quits for the day and built a fire.

Soon after that we met a group of hikers we've been with for about a week. Some of them flipped at Damascus after we did. We've been going into towns together, hanging out, drinking, doing Karaoke, watching TV, enticing each other to zeros, and so on. Currently I'm at the Pine Ellis hostel in Andover with TNT, as I lost J and the others a few days ago at another town. I think they stayed in town longer than expected, and if they made it off the trail by now they are probably at the "party" hostel near here. I like this place though, with internet and phone and shower and sheets and laundry and a porch. TNT was helping me with some fungus I have, directing me to soak my feet in salt water. It burned indescribably, and David, who runs this place (his home, really) gave me beer to ease the pain. And foot powder too. And I got to float around in a pretty floral skirt because they provide clothes to wear while doing laundry! How nice! Right now I'm trying to let my shoes dry from their washing--hopefully that will help with the fungus.

I am almost out of Maine now, and into the Whites, and close to Mahoosuc Notch, which is supposed to be the hardest mile on the trail. They say that about a lot of places, so it's hard ot believe, but Maine has definitely been a whole different animal from the southern part of the trail.

I'm sure I could say more, but I've been typing for almost an hour, so I'll have to call it quits.

Monson, ME

So Daniel finally posted the letter I sent him from Damascus, you can check out the post by him below.

There's so much I want to talk about, but I know I have to get off the internet soon, and start hiking to the shelter 6 miles off the road, but 4 miles hitch... I want to talk about hitching, and police, and generous people and their homes, and Gravy the kitten, and moose, and mud, and Ktaadn, and a bald eagle, and rocks, and hiker boxes, and mildew, and ponds, and a motorcycle, and mosquitoes...but it can wait. I spent the last probably two hours messing with getting the photos off of my camera. And I'm tired of the computer. Here.

http://s76.photobucket.com/albums/j14/mllebretagne/AT/

They added backwards this time, so they're all out of order, most recent photos first.

testing?