“Catching Up On A Day Off”

AT Day 112

Miles Today: 0

AT Mile: 1799.4

(Hikers Welcome Hostel)

It rained through much of the night last night, and looks as if it’s going to do the same for the rest of the day today.

It’s still morning as I write this, the opposite of my normal routine, but it’s a rare day that I’m taking off the trail *without* abounding distractions. It’s quite the opposite of most of the Zero days that I’ve taken so far on the AT. It’s a quiet hostel, there’s one other thru hiker who’s also taking a zero, and it’s the hostel staff (and a super-chill dog named Turk).

As such, I have the time to write. I also have some time to myself to think… yes, I have the trail and the miles to think, but it’s not the same as being off the trail with time to think.

—

Plinko texted me a couple of days ago. He said that he felt bad about the way that he’d left. He’d sent me a few messages trying to justify leaving so abruptly, but none of them made much sense of the situation. I still felt hurt by it.

But then he messaged me telling me that he was camped only a couple miles up trail from me two nights ago. So I shouldn’t have been surprised when I arrived here at the Hikers Welcome Hostel and they said he’s here as well.

“I don’t know if you’ve met Plinko, but he’s staying here tonight too,” the host told me when I arrived.

“Yes,” I said. “We’ve met.”

It was incredibly awkward when he walked by and we bumped fists. I didn’t know what else to do in the situation. But later in the evening he stepped up to me as I was changing laundry and authentically appologized for the way that he’d handled himself at his parting in Rutland. It was sincere and heartfelt. He mentioned a family situation that he’d received notice about prior to our finishing the Long Trail and that he “didn’t handle [himself] well.”

It wasn’t something that I was wanting or expecting from him, but it was received well. And I told him as much. That I was grateful and accepting of his apology. We talked a bit more last night, I told him about the bear in my camp two nights before, and he talked about his plan for hiking the White Mountains ahead.

It is unlikely that we will hike together from here, and there are many reasons for that. But I’m happy that most of them are logistical reasons and have less to do with resentment than what either of us were probably feeling before.

He left to trail early this morning and is planning to blast through the White Mountains. He and I hike very differently, it turns out. And so he’ll hike his hike and I’ll hike mine. I don’t know if we’ll share miles again after this hike. If we’re supposed to then I suppose we will. Time will tell the rest of that story if there is ever more to tell.

—

With the rain out there today the hiking looks miserable. Yesterday it was the heat, and today it’s the rain. It’s like I just can’t be pleased… But really that’s not true. The weather the rest of this week looks ideal, and I really don’t want to go up and over Mount Moosilauke today in the rain. Southbound hikers have told me that it’s one of the best views for the rest of the trail from the top, and today it’d be completely clouded in and raining. The alternative is to wait out today, hit it tomorrow, and hopefully have ideal temperatures and weather.

Unfortunately this will also mean I’m entering the White Mountains on the weekend, which will end up putting a lot of people on trail, but I’d rather that than hike a day of misery today in the rain and then drag that same energy into the rest of this week.

It almost feels like I’m starting to justify a Zero now… I really don’t think that I am.

—

I’m at the point where I need to be looking into my finish date and after-trail plan. Technically I already had these planned out, but you’ll remember that thing about planning–it often doesn’t go according to plan.

My “plan” for after the trail was all laid out before I took the Long Trail detour, but after that the dates are all mixed up now. I had “planned” on having 3 weeks after the AT before returning to Arizona and my life back home. The last of those three weeks was going to be spent with Boots who will be driving up from Tennessee. And I “planned” on the Long Trail taking 7-10 of those days when it ended up taking 13 days… almost two weeks.

So now I’m scheduled to finish the trail basically within one or two days of Boots arriving in Maine. She’s taking time off work and can’t shift the dates of her travel, so I’m sort of in a pinch to finish by the 19th.

From the people I’ve talked with at this hostel (who have hiked the AT and know what they’re talking about), it’s going to be hard to finish in that timeline. Or, said differently, in order to finish by the 19th I will need to *haul ass* for the next 400 miles. That’s not something that I want to do but it is something I’m capable of doing if need be.

Taking a zero day today doesn’t put me at the end of the trail any sooner… but I’m well past the point of prioritizing miles over smiles. This hike is too important to me to be blasting through as quickly as I can. I got off that train at Trail Days! And I want to enjoy my miles for the next three weeks, or whatever’s left.

I also acknowledge that it’s not just the timeline with Boots that’s tight, but also I’m losing some of the time that I’d set aside to work on my writing after the trail. And that is tremendously important to me.

I’ve started to ask if I might should just push my return to Arizona back by a week or two. There’s nothing set in stone that says I need to be there by September 1st. I do have a tattoo appointment to get “AT25” on the back of my ankle on August 28th, but that could be rescheduled if need be. And I told my boss I’ll be back by September 1st. But that isn’t in writing and can be pushed back. There’s some rent and housing stuff… but that can all be pushed off.

These are the thoughts that have been bouncing around in my head the last 36 hours or so. There’s a lot of time on trail to think about things like these, but sometimes that’s all the thoughts do is bounce… sometimes they never land until you take a day off trail and give yourself some time to rest and digest.

—-

I might not be returning to Arizona so early after all…

I have some time to think about it, but need to find resolution on that sometime soon. Need to start thinking about tickets back and things like that.

Wormwood