AT Day 105; Long Trail Day 18

Miles Today: 9.26

AT Mile: 1709.3

(Yellow Deli Hostel [again])

Today I completed my hike of the Vermont Long Trail.

It is done.

The Vermont Long Trail was the most difficult thru hike of my hiking career. It was also beautiful, exciting, intimate, unique, and new. But foremost it was difficult.

To be clear, I have had more difficult experiences in thru hikes, but mile-for-mile this trail has been extremely difficult. The mud, the climbs, the overgrown vegetation, the black flies, the isolation, the dry stretches. There was a lot of challenge to this trail.

I don’t recommend it to anyone as a first-time thru hike, and there were a lot of miles along the way where I felt like I didn’t want to be in it, but now that it’s over, I’m very grateful that we took a left-hand turn at the Maine Junction and that I can say that I’ve hiked the entirety of the Vermont Long Trail.

—

We woke early this morning, as we wanted to get to the end of the trail in time to make it back to Rutland before the day was too late. Plinko’s friend Alaska was scheduled to meet us at the end of the trail at around 10:30, so we were on trail before 6:00. It was around 8.5 miles from where we camped to the end of the trail.

I took a small amount of mushrooms as we were leaving camp. And I’m glad to have done so. Even though there was one more rough climb right out of camp this morning, the effect of the mushrooms through the rest of the day was perfect in all of the ways that it led the trees to breath and the wind to flow.

Plinko and I hiked the entirety of the day independently today.

It was windy, but the sky was clear.

I listened to music for some of the morning, but in the last few miles I just wanted to be with the trail and in the experience. It ended up being more profound an experience than I was expecting. That last mile and a half today hit me hard.

Plinko was ahead of me when we reached the end. I’d stopped to drop pack and have a short smoke at the top of our last climb, about a half mile short of the end, and he passed me there. But I heard a shout from him when he reached the end of the trail. He was only a couple of minutes ahead of me.

When I did arrive, I was feeling a lot of things. It was impossible not to remember the endings of my other trails, and spending the entire summer thinking about a Canadian monument. At first I didn’t think that I was being affected by it, but then when I actually arrived at the end of the trail and saw the monument, it struck me. Not all at once, but slowly.

I began to weep.

It came to me unexpectedly, but overtook me fully. Before I even reached out and touched it to make things official, I sat there beside the monument and cried for maybe a minute or two before reaching out to put my hand on it. Plinko stepped away and gave me privacy for those minutes.

Plinko and I took pictures for some time, then continued on to where we met Alaska. She was only about a mile and a half down an approach trail.

The drive back was a few hours and we checked into the Yellow Deli Hiker Hostel again. This is the same place where we stayed when we were in Rutland last time.

We will reconnect to the Appalachian Trail in two days. Tomorrow we’ll rest and take a Zero.

One of my closest friends from Arizona has joined me for the next few days.

I’m extremely tired. Falling asleep.

A lot to share about the Long Trail and my stay here in Rutland. It’ll have to get to the page tomorrow.

Wormwood.

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

AT Day 103; LT Day 16

Miles Today: 22.37

LT Mile: 248.8

(Tillotson Camp [tent])

It’s amazing how quickly the temperatures have changed! It finally feels as if we’re close to Canada and not just lost in an endless summer heatwave.

I’m curled up in my tent tonight, bundled up in most of my layers and with the tent vestibule door zipped to keep the warm air inside. Somehow the inside of the three-walled shelters is comparatively warm compared to the open air elsewhere about the forest. Last night I was alone in the Round Top shelter while Plinko camped nearby. He shuddered all through the night while I had to strip off a layer so as to keep from sweating. The same is true tonight. But I set my tent as I don’t like camping in shelters with other hikers. I toss and turn a lot through the night, and it makes me self conscious being on my loud sleeping pad in a shared shelter, so I mostly camp in my tent like tonight.

It’s hard to believe that within the last month it was so hot I could barely sleep through it and now, still in the month of July, I feel like it’s already fall.

—

I took two hard falls today.

Again, I never fell in trail before the AT, and even that only dropped me a couple times over 1,800 miles. But the Long Trail lays me out a couple of times a day.

I’m fortunate that I haven’t been hurt in any of them. Plinko fit his hand and then fell on that same hand again today. He’s been hurt worse than I have along the way. The soles of his shoes seem not to as good as well on these slick rocks of the Long Trail.

—

Temps and weather were good today. It felt amazing to have cooler air and a breeze! It’s incredible just how much that can make a difference in disposition. I might go so far as to say that I actually enjoyed myself and the hiking today.

—

Got my first views of Canada today from the top of a tower this afternoon.

—

Falling asleep as I’m writing. Barely able to hold my phone right now.

Good night.

Wormwood.