“More Than a Feeling”

AT Day 92; LT Day 5

Miles Today: 10.31

AT Mile: 1668.7; LT Mile: 65

(Griffith Lake [tent])

We were five miles into the hike today when it hit me that I literally feel different, in light of having made the choice to hike the Long Trail.

It wasn’t until around noon that we got to trail today, having spent the morning comfortably lounging at the Green Mountain House Hostel and waiting for the morning to pass. I spent some time repacking my gear, eating another pint of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, and drinking too much coffee before we made our way back to trail. But we weren’t in a rush. Plinko and I both have enough food to comfortably get us to our next resupply in Rutland, VT in two days after the writing of this journal, so we didn’t have any motivation to get to trail early.

I guess we could have busted through this stretch in two big days. But neither of us want to do those kind of miles and make that kind of push anymore. We’ve been enjoying the pace of 20-25 miles a day so much more than either of us were feeling the 30+ mile days at the beginning.

I say all of this in light of the fact that we’re going to do a 30 mile day tomorrow… but we’ll get to that later.

For now, more on that feeling from this morning.

—

Nothing acts in isolation out here, or anywhere in the world for that matter. Everything we experience is an amalgamation of so many different influences that it’s hard to pin point what’s from what and what’s from what… (no way I said that in a way that makes sense, but let’s go with it for the time being). What I mean is that, take today for example–I was feeling amazing this morning in the ten miles we had from the road crossing where we picked up and this tent site beside Griffith Lake. It wasn’t because of only one thing. It wasn’t just that we’re now hiking the Long Trail, but also that we got a good meal yesterday, slept in beds last night, got a ride back to trail easily, and the weather was awesome. There’s ten thousand other things too, but that’ll do for now.

The Long Trail had a lot to do with it though. I stopped at one point and turned back to Plinko, who normally chooses to hike a good distance behind me even though he could be ahead with how much faster he can hike. He was close this time though. I told him that it feels different, because now instead of having 600 miles left to the end of the trail, now we only have like… 240 miles left until the end.

Plinko looked at me funny for a second, but then a look of comprehension passed over his face. “Oh, you mean because we’re going to get to the end of the LT sooner than we would get to the end of the AT.”

“Yeah. Yesterday when we were just thinking about it, it felt like we were making the choice of whether or not to add an additional 200+ miles of hiking to our thru hike, but now it feels like the Long Trail is sort of its own seperate thing. Like, even though we’re on the AT still, it feel like I can put my mind in a different mode and pretend that I’m just hiking the LT for now.”

—

At the trailhead this morning, just before we started back to hike, there was a trail crew there and we told them that we had decided to hike the whole Long Trail. They were stoked about it, as they were technically LT crew, as per their tshirt logos, and they gave Plinko and I each a trail sticker.

When we arrived to camp this afternoon, we took a pice of cardboard, stuck the sticker on it, cut it out, and made an unofficial Long Trail pack tag to go with our Appalachain Trail pack tags.

So I guess now it’s official.

And that feels really good to me. It doesn’t feel like we’re adding onto something that I don’t enjoy doing. Authentically, I’m excited to be hiking the Long Trail, and from what I hear, some of the best parts of Vermont are in the northern part of the state, which the AT does not explore. Instead, the AT takes a hard eastern turn after Rutland and heads into Maine before turning north again.

—

We met some ladies at the top of one of our climbs today. They were day hikers, but we made banter with them for ten or fifteen minutes at the top of the climb. There was a ski lift there, and it was the drop point for skiers and snowboarders in the winter season, but in the summer it made for an impressive view in every direction.

When I got to the top of the climb, the two ladies were sitting up there on chairs, presumably provided by the ski resort, and I told them that they looked royal, from how majestic the scene appeared. They played along with it and told me I was right, and that they were indeed royalty. They told me they were members of the Cabernet Club, and I said that I knew about that club. I said that I liked that club, but I knew better than to be mixing up with that kind of trouble. And that that’s what they were–trouble.

It was a playful vibe between the three of us.

Plinko mostly hung in the background and checked the maps for the miles ahead.

“Well,” one of the Cabernet Queens started. “What gifts have you come bearing for our majesty?”

Without any hesitation, I said “I have a bag of coyote teeth! Would you like one?”

I gave one of them a coyote tooth, and told them an abbreviated version of the story about how I came to be carrying them. But I’ve decided that moving forward I’m going to refrain from explanation. Even if the story of the Witch of Waynesboro is a good one, I think it might even be a better story that there’s just this guy hiking across the country carrying a bag of coyote teeth in his fanny pack.

—

We set camp beside Griffith Lake early this evening, at around 4:00. I remember gawking in astonishment at the AT hikers setting up at shelters at 4pm in the earlier states of the trail. Now I understand it a bit better. But it’s also not going to be a regular thing for us. We had been told that this lake is a good swimming lake, and saw that there’s camping right beside the swimming access. To be fair, the swimming is only about 3/5 on Wormwood’s Subjective Swim Scale. The bottom is rocky and the shallows go out for so long that it’s hard to get deep enough to swim.

Still, I feel awesome having only hiked ten miles today and getting a bath in the lake tonight, and being in tent before 8pm.

Like I said before, we’re going to aim for 30.0 miles tomorrow, which will probably come out just over 30 via GPS tracked miles. But that brings us to a shelter and our previous alternative would be only 24ish. Since we’re getting to bed early we think it’s fair to aim for a big mile day, and then the following day can just be 15 into Rutland where we’ll resupply for going north into the LT/AT split point. I’m looking forward to being on the Long Trail for a bit. It will be quieter than the AT. And it’ll also mean that when we get back on the AT we’ll be ten days “behind” where we are leaving off. So we’ll get to see hikers who are ten days “behind” us now and we’ll get to be in a completely different group when we get back to the AT.

It’ll still leave me with around 2 weeks after the trail to focus on writing, hopefully aiming to make a book from this trail and have a draft mostly or fully completed in those two weeks. I know that’s an ambitious goal, but I also think it’s a good thing to aim for in light of all the words that have gone to page in the last three months, and the stories that have come to fruition.

I spent some time with that thought today–that I didn’t know the stories that would unfold over the course of this trail, but that I had faith that they were worth risking a lot to pursue. I believed deeply enough that this would be worth it that I was willing to give up 5 months of income and professional development, give up an entire summer with my friends, give up all my long term clients, just to come here and walk a dirt trail.

Having done it before made it easier.

But still it was a risk.

And now that I have a better view of the stories that have come to fruition over the last 92 days, I look forward to taking a couple of weeks to step back, find the themes and redeemable stories, and see what I can make from it. It just seems like such a waste not to try–having spent so many hours and so many days writing over the course of this trail and this summer.

Even though it’s early in the evening, I’m still tired, and I hope to fall asleep soon.

I know that when the 5am alarm sounds that it’ll feel like only a moment has passed, but if I get to sleep soon, then the hours that follow won’t be so bad.

Here’s to falling in love with thru hiking again.

It’s good to be on the other side of the mountain, and out of whatever hell we’d been in for that heat wave those two weeks ago.

Thanks for sticking with me through that dear reader.

It’s good to still have you on the other side.

Wormwood.