“Parting Ways”

AT Day 104; LT Day 17

Miles Today: 14.18

LT Mile: 263.2

(Laura Woodward Shelter [tent])

Wow… my last night of the Long Trail. My last full day of the Long Trail. My last resupply of the Long Trail. My last sunset of the Long Trail.

It ebbs against overwhelming.

I didn’t expect there to be such a traumatic separation anxiety when I left the Appalachian Trail at the Main Junction to complete the Long Trail, but it hit me heavily. Plinko has remarked the same–that he still feels that seperate on anxiety from the AT. In fact he’s the one I took the term from, but it sounded so appropriate that I can’t find a better thing to call it myself. Those first few days after leaving the AT were really hard for me. I felt them in a visceral way. I felt it somewhere deep inside me and physically.

In the same way, I maybe wasn’t prepared to feel so moved by the conclusion of this trail. In a way, it is a rehearsal for a much bigger conclusion that is now less than one month away, when I complete the Appalachian Trail and my Triple Crown. If the completion of the Long Trail holds as much gravity as I’m now feeling, I can only begin to imagine how impactful the end of the AT is going to be.

So I won’t think about that for now, any more than I have here already. And maybe to add that I stopped mid-trail yesterday and cried a bit about the ending being close. The LT ending is a small thing by comparison, but it is still moving me greatly and in ways I did not expect.

In short, the Long Trail had become a far more important experience than I expected it to be. And although I have cursed these miles many times while they’ve been underfoot, as I lay here in my tent tonight, I’m grateful that Plinko and I made the decision to stay on the LT to the end and walk to Canada.

Canada…

Canada…

Tomorrow morning I’ll be at the US border with Canada…

—

Last night I slept better than I think I’ve slept since Virginia. It was glorious. I woke around sunrise and went right back to sleep for as long as I could manage. It was probably another hour, but it felt like even more.

I expected the other two Long Trail hikers at the shelter to be gone by the time I finally crawled out of my tent and stepped over to the shelter to make coffee. But they were both still there.

We met them last night–SugarWolf and WaterMuel, both solo NOBO Long Trail hikers who have camped together the last few nights. Today is WaterMuel’s birthday, and last night I gave her a Coyote tooth as a birthday present. She was grateful and seemed to get it. I was glad to see that she was still there at the shelter when I steppped up to make coffee. I was glad I got the chance to wish her a happy birthday. She shared that she felt really moved by some of the things we talked about last night after I gave her the coyote tooth, and I was moved by the moment of authentic human connection. In spite of our layers of built up trail filth, I asked if she was a hugger and we embraced.

—

The trail this morning was completely overgrown, littered with unending mud bogs, and infested with stinging nettle. The later you may have heard of as an over the counter supplement. But in its native form it’s a leaf that brushes up against your legs for a millisecond and then leaves you feeling like you were hit by a jellyfish for about a half hour. It burns like hell! And today it was all around the trail. And the fucking mud… pardon my French, but I struggle to find another way to campfire it. It was insidious! Vermont is known for its mud, but today was just another level… it seemed like sometimes it was less dry trail than it was mud bogs. Some of them I could poke my hiking pole into and it would only be a few inches deep, but I swear upon all things holy and otherwise that some of the bogs were a foot or two deep! It was an ongoing game of “floor is lava” and more than once today I fully submerged my foot in muck, which you’d have known if you were hiking within a quarter mile of me, because every time it happened I instinctually pelted out high volume profanity. I cannot overstate the value of dry feet on this trail and how quickly things can go from dry to totally submerged in mud.

It sucks.

But only one more half day of it…

—

On a similar note, I added to my fall count again today. And it’s worth reminding here that in the 1800 miles of AT so far I’ve only fallen to the ground four or five times. But on the LT I fell that many times today alone! I had a quarter mile stretch where my hands and ass hit the ground three times!

This trail is just not like other trails. It is rough!

—

As much as I wanted my food supply to last me to the border, it wasn’t going to happen. Wed planned it out so that we would run out today, but I still had hope in the back of my head that I could maybe stretch it those last ten miles to canada. in truth, I wouldn’t starve to death without having resupplied, but I would have reached the end very famished and pissed off.

We got a hitch into a grocery store and deli near the trail, and the Canadian couple who gave us the ride were so kind as to actually wait for us while we resupplied and gave us a ride back to trail afterwards! We must be getting damn close to Canada with kindness like that! They also commented that our president was an asshole but that they didn’t hold it against Plinko and I. We told them that we both appreciate that.

—

For this last night on the Long Trail Plinko and I are tented beside a shelter atop of a hill. SugarWolf is solo in the shelter and we are both tented. I told Plinko I could only set camp here early with him if I could get a shower, and there is water here so I was able to set up my camp-shower and bathe. I lay here tonight feeling a million times better than I did with that progressively accumulating layer of filth and sweat that I was beginning to be made of.

—

Tomorrow Plinko and I will be up at five and on trail at 5:30. We have about 9 miles to the Canadian border and then a 1.4 mile approach trail that will lead us down to the parking lot where Plinko’s friend Alaska will pick us up and shuttle us back to Rutland. I hope my keyboard and other things I’ve ordered have all arrived safe and soundly.

Will find out soon…

Wormwood