AT Day 90

Miles Today: 26.79

AT Mile: 1655.3

(Spruce Peak Shelter [tent])

I woke up in a half-dazed panic this morning, having been chased down in some kind of nightmarish dream all night. It wasn’t until later in the morning that I remembered taking a 5mg melatonin last night. Plinko mentioned to me some time back that he doesn’t take melatonin because it causes him to have violent night terrors. I told him that I’d never had anything like that, but now I’m noticing that it is seeming to lead me to consistent nightmares. Almost always kafkaesque nightmares about running away from someone who is either trying to kill me or incarcerate me. I can’t make sense of it, except that there’s the apparent correlation with the melatonin.

I’m sure this is exactly the kind of content readers of a long trail journal are looking for–sleep supplement reviews.

I digress…

—

Plinko and I started the day together at around 6am. We had planned to get to trail closer to 5:30, but it rained heavily last night and was still sprinkling at my 5:00 alarm. So I dozed back asleep for a bit until the birds woke me and I started coffee.

The trail was beautiful this morning. The rain cleared early on and broke into clear skies, although you’d have a hard time telling that most of the time on the AT because the dense vegetation usually blocks any view of the sky. What did break through was enough to glimmer on the wet leaves and needles and duff and mosses. Temperatures were more comfortable, even though humidity was notable.

I turned to Plinko and asked if he wanted a cap of mushrooms, and we both started the morning with a half gram. We’d part ways not long after, as we walked different routes to get to the shelter tonight. When I saw that there was a swimmable lake ahead however, I added more capsules through the afternoon.

—

Not long after parting with Plinko, I reached a parking lot where someone had a large vehicle parked with a “Jesus Christ” banner on the side. At this point it’s not hard to recognize “trail magic.” I put it in quotes, because the thing that I really like to call “Trail Magik” has more to do with serendipity and luck, whereas a lot of these folks are just on trail handing out soda pops to find conversation or an opportunity to introduce someone to their lord and savior.

—sorry… I’m getting extremely tired as I write this. And no; I didn’t have a melatonin tonight. But my eyes are very heavy and I can already tell that this one’s going to be a struggle to get through. I’m also writing in my tent tonight, after sundown. I’ll be asleep quickly tonight.

—

When I arrived at the car with the big red “Jesus Christ” banner, I met a guy named Johnny who said that he’d been posted up there for around a week or two, making breakfasts and handing out sodas to hikers. I scoped the area out before deciding to drop pack, accept a Coke, and fasten my seatbelt for whatever banter this guy was going to deliver. But he didn’t end up being too deep on the religious slant. There was some of that for sure, but for the most part, the guy just seemed lonely and needing someone to share his stories with.

That makes me laugh sometimes–that people like Johnny come out to trail to tell their story to all the hikers coming through. It would be one thing if his story was interesting, but having sat with him for around 35 minutes, I can promise you that it was not. It was a tired tale about divorce, bankruptcy, losing the house, winning a settlement, finding Jesus… all things we’ve heard before just in a unique combination that only belonged to Johnny. But he didn’t ask much about the hikers; it had a lot more to do with his giving them a soda and telling his story to a captive audience, then giving a blessing on the way out.

This kind of thing is common on the Appalachain Trail, even this far north.

Anyways, he’s going on about religion, and one of his big themes is that although he follows the teachings of Jesus, he doesn’t like to call himself a Christian. He said, “I don’t even like to use the ‘C’ word.” Which led me to believe that this guy probably doesnt even realize that most people use “the C word” to mean something very different. But whatever. He’s telling me that he doesn’t like how all these different religious sects have taken the teaching of Jesus and the Bible itself and made it into something that fits their agenda. He says, “I’m not Baptist, or Catholic, or Protestant, or Whatever. I just preach Jesus.”

And if I’m being real with you, dear reader, I’m totally down with that. As I learn more about Taoism through audio books and talking with Plinko over the past month, I’m somehow even more okay with the figure that was Jesus than I already was before–and I was already pretty down for JC.

God… I want to flesh this story out more. Another time. Another time. Keep to the main points. I’m laying in my tent and I’m so tired. My eyelids are struggling to stay open.

Anyways, after this guy gets through telling me about how he likes Christianity but doesn’t necessarily like its followers and how it’s been abused in the hands of the nefarious, the conversation digresses, and after some time, Johnny explains that he doesn’t like doing trail magic for the main hiker bubble. He says that group is more full of the partiers and the bad apples. He tells me a story from the year before where two older hikers had relayed to him that the shelter the night before had been an absolute drug-infested party scene. Now I should also say that Johnny had also told me that he used to be a state trooper, but that he’d retired form the job a few years prior. So you can guess his disposition to the subject of “drugs.”

I asked him if he knew what kind of “drugs” they were using, and he relayed that the two older guys had been trying to get some sleep in the shelter, but that a group of 8 or 10 younger hikers were just doing drugs and being crazy all night.

“What drugs?” I asked. “Did they say?”

He paused shortly, then said marijuana, mushrooms, and “even some LSD, I think.”

I figured that was what he was going to say before I even asked the question, and I also knew where I was planning to bring the conversation from there, but until that movement, I didn’t realize that I was actually going to do it. And maybe it was a bad idea, but it was also an opportunity. I believe in leading by example and educating people when the opportunity arrives. And this felt like an opportunity… in spite of the fact that I was talking to a retired State Trooper who had probably heard nothing positive about drugs in his entire life.

I said it still.

“Well, can I just interject, Johnny? Do you remember that thing about your being a Christian but not liking what some people do with Christianity?”

“Yeah.”

“How you love Jesus, but don’t like how the the Bible and Jesus get used by some people calling themselves ‘Christian’?”

“I do.”

“Well I wonder if this might have been something of the same. Maybe they were just shitty kids, and it wasn’t so much the drugs that were the problem but the shitty kids.”

The look on his face said that he followed, but that he wasn’t sure where I was going with it.

I gave it one last moment’s consideration before saying, “I feel like our conversation has been going well and that our time together has been good for both of us.” He agreed. “But I have to tell you Johnny; I’m high on both marijuana and psychedelic mushrooms right now, as we speak.”

His reaction was level but surprised. He told me that he didn’t expect that, and I went on to tell him about hiking the PCT and about converting from atheism to a spiritual belief system with the use of psychedelics. I started to tell him how they led me first from atheism to what I called “pantheism” at the time, but only because I didn’t have any better words to describe the experience of finding god within everything. I went on and tried to say a word on how I’ve spent the last ten years refining that belief system down into something that has been circling around Buddhism for the last few years, but that is now seeming to develop towards Taoism since beginning this trail.

I tried to say all those things in enough detail so that the story would make sense, but there’s never enough time for every one of the little details, and this certainly wasn’t what Johnny had been expecting from our conversation when he first offered me that can of Coke.

We talked for some time after that. He gave me another Coke before I left back to trail and into the steepest climb of my day, right in the heat of the day.

—

Damn… there’s so much more I need to write about today, but I’m falling asleep.

I need to write about the lake.

I went swimming in Straton Lake today and inflated my sleeping pad so that I could float around on it and watch the clouds. It’s the second time that I’ve done it on the AT. The first time that I’ve done so with a psychedelic.

I’d taken a bit more mushrooms at the mountain top, anticipating that the lake would be four miles ahead, and when I got to the lake, there was nobody else there. I had lunch, laid out my wet gear from last night, and filtered some water before inflating my pad.

There was a moment’s hesitation as I blew it up and realized that I was about to go swimming on a lake, all by myself, slightly under the influence, and if anything were to happen, that there’d be nobody there to help. I honestly sat on the thought for a minute or two, then went back to eating my lunch, determined to still go swimming, but perhaps not swim so far out.

Then, just as I was about to jump in, three guys from Rhode Island showed up. They told me that they’d hiked in around 6.5 miles from the parking lot (in god only know which direction that might have been), and that they were on a summer trip, hiking along the way. I asked if Rhode Island was around here, as I’m genuinely quite ignorant to the layout of the eastern United States… embarassingly ignorant, but I’ll say that my time on the AT has helped with these 14 states at least. But the AT doesn’t go through Rhode Island, so I wasn’t sure quite how far back that was.

“It’s about a four hour drive to get back home. So no. Not really close to here.”

By this point I was already in the water, floating around lazily on my sleeping pad and letting the slight breeze carry me along.

Then he asked, “What about you? Where’d you leave your car at?”

I hesitated shortly before explaining that I don’t have a car out here, and that I walked here from Georgia.

The three of them acted surprised, but when I told them that they’re basically right on the AT, they said they knew that but didn’t expect to actually meet any AT hikers.

After we talked, I paddled a bit deeper into the lake. It actually caught me by surprise when I looked back to the lakeshore and how far out into the lake I’d made it. It made me wonder how deep the water must have been out there, but I vanquished that thought and instead got lost in the clouds and the sky. It was heavenly, laying there and floating effortlessly, the air warm, and the sun beating down. It’s the kind of thing that I didn’t feel like I had time for at the early states of the trail. Not that there were any lakes in those early states that I could swim in, but the point still–I was rushing things when I came to this trail.

I’ve been rushing things a lot in my life leading up to this trial.

Some of it, I suspect, was a way of coping with the circumstances I had been dealing with. Never allowing myself to be anything other than busy so that there would be no time to address the things that probably most needed to be addressed.

Floating there today made me grateful to have slowed down like that. I’ve been much better about it during the second half of the AT than I was in the first. Which is kind of funny, now that I’m hiking with a partner who puts down even bigger miles than I can do. He also never swims–it’s not Plinko’s thing. But we both started out hiking too many miles, and it took a long time to figure out how to slow down, and to see the good that has come from slowing down and just floating sometimes.

Still had big miles with a lot of elevation change along the way today, but at no point did I think that swimming in that lake was a bad idea. If anything, it was probably the peak moment of my day today, and it wasn’t even hiking.

—

For now, Plinko and I are camped close together at the shelter this evening. It’s forecasting heavy rain tonight, then we have just over two miles to get to town tomorrow.

Tomorrow we will Nearo in town.

Wormwood.

So tired.

AT Day 89

Miles Today: 23.29

AT Mile: 1628.1

(Goddard Shelter [tent])

We were stopped at a shelter along with a few other hikers this afternoon, not out of necessity, but out of convenience. The heat and humidity are still overpowering for most of the day, so both Plinko and I are reduced to what feels like walking through quicksand for much of the day, in terms of our progress. We used to be strong hikers. We used to break 30s with relative ease. Now just getting to 25 is a struggle. Let’s also mention that the state of Vermont is known for its constant elevation gain and loss, and so far it’s living up to its reputation.

There’s a quote about the Vermont AT in Bill Bryson’s “A Walk In The Woods,” and I wish I could recall where he quoted it from. But it says that, “Once hikers reach the Vermont border of the Appalachain Trail, they will have completed nearly 80% of the trail’s miles but only 50% of its effort.” (Or something to that effect). Things like that continued to lead me to fear coming to the AT, and have even perpetuated this far into the hike…

Literally as I write this, it comes to my attention that I was misremembering the quote… He was talking about crossing over the VT/NH border, and that at *that* point 80% of the hike is done but only 50% of the effort… Shit. I guess that means a lot of climbing ahead still. But the point stands. Vermont has climbs.

I considered that while I hiked today–that in terms of miles, this would have only been around the half way point of the CDT. But the AT is 800 miles shorter than the CDT. And it’s not wrong to say that this trail is effectively coming to its end.

Holy shit… it’s hard to believe that I’m actually saying that right now and for the first time on the page… I can see this trail’s ending on a horizon.

Plinko and I talked about finishing the trail together yesterday. I may have mentioned that in my journal last night. Or maybe I didn’t.

—

One of the others asked another what motivated her to hike the AT. She was much older, and was going to take most of the year to finish the entire hike. If I remember correctly she was 72.

She said that God told her to hike the trail, and that was what motivated her to be here.

There was some pause before I asked what I wanted to ask but knew better than to ask. I still asked it, even if it was almost mumbled as a way to get away with breaking social norms.

“The Christian god?” I asked.

“What?”

“The Christian god, I assume. That’s the one that told you to hike the AT?”

The look of confusion on her face said that she wasn’t sure what I was talking about, but she said yes, that’s the one she was talking about.

Within the next couple of minutes, the older hiker asked Plinko and I our names.

It’s become funny to me when people ask Plinko where he got his name. He f*cking hates explaining it; I can tell. But that’s how a lot of long-time thru hikers feel about our names after awhile. It becomes exhausting explaining a story of our name to every single person we meet.

For the record, and because I don’t think I’ve shared it before, Plinko took his name from a Price Is Right mini game, where a player drops game chips down a peg board and they go plink-plink-plink all the way down. And he got the name for dropping gear down the sides of mountains on the PCT.

I joked with him today that next time I hear someone ask him how he got his trail name that I’m going to tell them that he used to look *exactly* like Bob Barker from Price Is Right before he grew out the beard and the hair. It’s a claim of absurdity, but it also fits our personalities.

When she heard my name, she asked, “Wormwood, like in Harry Potter?”

I’ve had a few people ask that. And the answer is no. I’ve never seen or read Harry Potter. But I guess it’s a more common thing than my reference to absinth.

“No,” I explained. “Wormwood, as in the hallucinogenic plant used to make absinth. And I was given the name because ‘god’ told me to go out into the Pacific Crest Trail and learn about the nature of all things via the use of a tremendous amount of psychedelics in 2015. Basically the same as your story, except the psychedelics part, and mine was a different god. But otherwise the same basic story as yours.”

—

Today I remembered what it feels like to bathe in a river.

The waters were so cold that it was hard to fully submerge, even in the intense midday heat at only a thousand feet of elevation. I dropped myself in and below the water surface several times. It reminded me of a time many years ago when I was under the influence of acid and swimming in a lake in Arizona. I remembered coming out of the water, feeling so completely changed from before I went in that it led me to feel like I understood the meaning of baptism for the first time.

The river today made me feel more wild than I have before these last few weeks. I’ve swam in several lakes, but this was the first river that I submerged into. There’s something different about flowing water.

I didn’t want to go up the hill to change into my wet shorts, then wade in and go through the discomfort of a cold plunge, then come back out, soap up, do it again, then come out and dry off with that little towel I use to soak up my sweat, then climb back up the hill to change into my dry shorts, then climb back down to dry off some more before starting back to trail.

It all sounded too exhausting.

I just wanted to rest.

But I also knew how good it was going to feel to be fresh and washed. I had fresh and clean shorts, so I decided to wash my shirt even though it wasn’t going to have time to fully dry. At that point it was so soaked and sticky from sweat that even I was becoming disgusted in it.

As I popped back up and into the open air and sunlight, I had that feeling again, about how it makes sense why churches would use submersion in water as a way to mark rebirth and a new beginning. The river might not have done quite that much for me today, but it made a world of difference in my attitude and my overall day.

After lunch at the river I felt cleaner, cooler, and refreshed. The climb in the following 10 hours was authentically tough and rough, but now I’m at camp at mile 23, and I’m still feeling glowy from the wash in the river.

Simple things man… this trail teaches an appreciation for simple things.

—

Today is day 2 of that new food approach where I’m getting a lot of my calories from a mush of oatmeal, protein powder, PB2, and chia seeds. Today I discovered that I really need to go with instant oats, and not standard oats. My mash was way too thick, no matter how much water I added. So even this far in its still a learning process.

I would like to note however, two things about sugar intake.

First, I have dropped my sugar intake on this stretch of the trail by around 80%. It wasn’t in this stretch of trail for any strategic reason; rather, I just realized that I had slid way too far into the bullshit food products and allowing myself to have too much junk food on trail. In just two days of reducing that junk food intake, I can already feel and see a difference in my body. It’s absolutely insane how much inflammation comes from refined sugar!

—

Tomorrow the plan is to aim for 27 miles and an enclosed shelter. There may be some weather in the form of rain coming in tomorrow evening.

Plinko and I are both getting a bit tired and would like to take a day off trail soon. This morning I suggested a nearo on Thursday (day after tomorrow) and he seemed in agreement.

As per usual, I’m growing very tired as I finish this, so this will have to be my end.

Will write again tomorrow. Maps show a lake that is supposed to be good for swimming at mile 20. Sounds like a good motivation to me.

With love,

Wormwood.

AT Day 88

Miles Today: 23.38

AT Mile: 1604.1

(Just North of Vermont Border [tent])

This may sound silly, and perhaps it is, but three days ago there was a piece of graffiti scrawled in sharpie on the inside of a privy door, and it read: Remember you are on vacation. You’re supposed to be having fun.

I wish the message could have come from a more magnificent source instead of the inside of a shitter door, but that’s also life on this trail. Inspiration comes when it comes, and the most important moments are rarely “placed” where you might think they should be.

I spent some time with that shitter-sharpie-scrawling over the last few days, and thought about how many miles I’ve spent genuinely not having fun out here. That’s not at all to lose track of how many I have enjoyed, but it occurs to me that a reminder was due for me to think about what I’m “supposed” to be doing out here and compare that with what I have been doing.

Last night a text came in from Specs–the hiker who I took acid with on day 9 of the trail and who I hiked with intermittently there for a while. He was the first person I really shared any miles with on the AT.

He told me that he was much farther back than I expected him to be by now–almost 400 miles south of here. He said that he’d taken two weeks off trail to stay with a friend, and that he was feeling burned out from hiking, although those might not have been his exact words. I told him that I understood the feeling. Not that I feel burned out in this hike, but that it’s hard to be in the bliss of it all the time. To the contrary, most of the time is spent in pretty deep challenge; hiking this trail is not f*cking easy! But the bliss points are sweeter on account of those steep grades, so in a way I welcome it. Still, even if you *really* like hiking, it’s hard to enjoy every step of it for twenty-two hundred miles. Sometimes it has to suck.

Plinko and I shared stories about our low points at the start of the AT. We both had a time within the first three weeks where we “hated this trail,” as Plinko put it. But not in that we actually hate the trail, but in that we had our moment of hating it. Somehow that too is an important part of this hike though. And I’ve spent some time with this thought too–there’s something fundamentally important about this trail absolutely sucking ass sometimes. I guess the trick is to find serenity in those moments and soak up the ever-fleeting moments of bliss.

—

We got to trail early today, but not before several of the other tents at the Father Tom Campsite were already packed and out for the day. I was surprised to see how early people were starting the hike today.

It made more sense once we were to trail though. The temps were high today and the humidity was significantly higher than yesterday. Hemlock pointed out something that I had not noticed until yesterday–that the rocks actually start to accumulate moisture when the humidity reaches a certain point. It’s like they’re sweating, sometimes just as much as me.

There were the temps, and then there was the elevation profile. All through today it was a big up in the morning, that broke over 3,200 feet for the first time in several states, then back down into the lowlands. Then back up to where we’re camped tonight.

I guess this is Vermont…

The people are different here too.

Yesterday at the food store this wild lady came up to us and asked, *very* aggressively, “Where you from?” And Hemlock said Connecticut. “Noice!” She replied. Then proceeded to ask Plinko where he’s from, followed by another “Noice!” And of course asked me where I was from, and emphasized the “Noice!” Even heavier.

I asked where she was from and she said somewhere around there. I tried to mimic her and said, “Nice!” She seemed to appreciate my rapport.

After we parted ways, Plinko said “Welcome to New England.” I took it to be a good thing.

—

We thought we were going to have most of the day hiking with Hemlock today, but his wife arrived to pick him up earlier than we’d expected and so we parted ways at the top of Mount Gray Lock. She brought drinks and snacks, so we all spent around an hour together before Plinko and I went back to trail. I think that no matter where we separated it was going to be hard to say goodbye. But I’ve found a way to avoid saying goodbye by always leaving on something like “Will see you again soon,” whether it’s likely to be true or not.

In Hemlock and Rachael’s case, I hope that it is soon. Hemlock’s never been to the Grand Canyon, and I’m trying to talk him into planning a trip out that direction in October to hike and see the State. It’s likely that if Boots and I are still dancing at that point, she’ll be there visiting for my birthday at the end of the month as well. It would be good to have the four of us together again and have more time than we felt like we could find during the stay at Hemlock’s last weekend.

—

It’s just the two of us now–Plinko and myself. We do well together though, and we both acknowledged this afternoon that we could very likely finish this trail together. It’s been something I’ve considered a few times before now, but today was the first time that either of us said it aloud.

During our second climb this afternoon, we pulled aside to a set of campsites just south of the MA/VT border. The heat and humidity and climbing was too much all together. Our clothes were all completely soaked through, and I couldn’t take anymore. I told Plinko I was pulling off to the campsites, and he asked if I meant for a break or to camp. I told him that I didn’t know but that I needed to take a break. There was a sign that said Campfires Permitted, and although the heat of a fire didn’t sound pleasant at all, it gave me some hope to think that it could drive the bugs away. Today it’s not only been mosquitoes but little black gnats as well. They’re insidious little fuckers! Swarming so thick that I had a few fly up my nostrils and into my sinus this afternoon. They also bite.

We couldn’t find anywhere to camp, but struck up a conversation with another hiker we’d met earlier in the day. She’s out here on a section with her daughter and her friend but she’d hiked the whole trail in 1993. We talked a bit about her first thru hike and how things have changed on trail since then while I tried unsuccessfully to build a fire to keep the bugs away. After five minutes I gave up and Tired-Dogs picked up where I left it. She managed to get it lit within two minutes. Testament to how rarely I have a fire on trail.

—

I’ve got some pain that’s developed in the back of my left knee. It’s either part of my hamstring or my popliteous. Either way, it’s been bothering me for around a week. I keep meaning to make note of it but have been forgetting when I’m writing these because it doesn’t hurt when I’m laying down or sitting down to write. So go figure.

I don’t think that it’s anything that’s going to take me off trail, but it has been persistent enough for long enough that I feel like it’s worth noting to see how it develops with time.

Very tired as I finish this up tonight.

Last night I had an extremely vivid Kafkaesque nightmare about being accused of murdering someone I went to school with. No idea where the dream came from, as I haven’t heard or even thought about this person in at least ten years, and nothing in the dream seemed to make sense. But it scared the hell out of me and it felt so real. I remember thinking, as they arrested me, that I might not be able to finish hiking the AT this season if I get found guilty of having done it.

I mentioned it to Plinko and he suggested that it might have come from taking Melatonin last night. He can’t take the stuff because it gives him night terrors. I told him I don’t know, but if there was a connection I might stop taking it.

Haven’t taken any melatonin tonight but I’m so tired that I’m literally dozing off here between finishing words and writing the end of this sentence. Holy hell. I wish I could do more to get it all on the page before it’s gone, but I’m grateful to get at least what I can as I have.

Wormwood.