“Green Jesus”

AT Day 125

Miles Today: 16.56

AT Mile: 1968.5

(Sabbath Day Pond Lean-To [tent])

The Appalachain Trail has officially taken me longer to complete than the Pacific Crest Trail. The PCT is 450 miles longer, but I now understand why the AT takes people so long to complete on average. It’s a very different kind of trail, and at the miles are completely unlike anything you’d find on the PCT. They’re slow miles since the Vermont/New Hampshire border, and the trail is often incredibly steep. In the places that aren’t steep climbs or descents the trail is almost always so root-ridden and rocky that instead of hiking you find yourself stumbling along for miles and for hours without ever seeming to get good footing or catch your balance. It becomes aggravating, exhausting, and frustrating. I met a new hiker at the Om Dome who is camped with me tonight, and he’s echoed much the same–namely that the miles since New Hampshire haven’t been enjoyable and that our experience on trail has not been fun. I think that both of us are as upset about being upset as we are about anything else though. Like it’s upsetting that the trail has become this thing that is no longer a positive experience when we all hoped that we’d be feeling better at this point in the trail.

The heat also will not let up. It was cooler today than yesterday, but not by much. The highest reading I got today was 92, which is still far outside of my hiking comfort zone. But I needed to get back to trail. The day and a half at the Om Dome were wonderful, and the owner offered me a work for stay if I wanted to do massage and bodywork, but I felt a drive to get back to trail.

I am also beginning to run on a tight deadline. Boots was able to postpone her trip to Maine by a week on account of my hiking the Long Trail and having my miles cut so short by New Hampshire and Maine, but now my finish date is looking exceedingly close to her arrival for the week together. We’ve also reserved an Air B&B for the week, so I do have a timeline that I need to make. I need to finish by the 25th. If I’d stayed at Om Dome another night to wait out the temperatures, it would have made finishing by then even more difficult than it already will be.

I have been told that the miles mellow out a bit in central and northern Maine, but that’s yet to be experienced up to now. We’ll see.

—

Had a kind of funny experience with an older gentleman this morning. I’d met him at the hostel yesterday and knew that he lived on the property as a work for stay type thing. Apparently he’s a thru hiker from 2012 and he met the owner of the hostel on trail and they hiked most of the AT together.

By the way, before I forget, the owner of the hostel was on Naked and Afraid the TV show. I’ve never seen it, but I think that it’s got a big audience. His name is Ryan and he was on five episodes. Good dude.

Anyways, this work for stay guy this morning yells at me from his little cabin, and he’s holding up his pot pipe. He asks if any of us want to “green blaze” and I immediately dart over there. Free weed before starting to trail sounded wonderful.

So I walk over, sit down, take a hit… and this dude ends up going full on Sermon on the Mount, talking as quickly as a car salesmen all about Jesus Christ is the only God and he was blessed to find Him, and on and on and on. This guy had an intense Jesus pitch!

But what was so funny is that this seems to be his jig: call hikers over from the hostel, get them stoned, and then just run his speech about Jesus to them.

It seemed like a strange take on the typical Jesus-ey stuff that I’ve seen so much on the AT so far. But I also thought that it was strangely nice.

As usual, very tired as I write this. Temps are supposed to drop tomorrow. Rain predicted tonight. Would be good if we got some. It’s been extremely hot and dry and I was thinking today about how devastating it would feel if a forest fire closed things down and prevented me from getting to the end of the AT.

Anyways, pray for a bit of rain. Better temps ahead.

Wormwood.