AT Day 87

Miles Today: 18.55

AT Mile: 1585.1

(Father Tom Campsite; Cheshire, MA)

I love hiking with Hemlock, but he also pisses me off. Not because anything that he does is annoying, but because he’s such a strong hiker! This dude is literally coming straight off the couch and onto trail, has no trail legs, hasn’t thru hiked in years, but is somehow still out-hiking me *every day*! I can’t tell you how humbling it is knowing that I’ve got 1700 miles underfoot and he’s still moving faster and farther than I can hold…

We got to the top of a climb yesterday and I saw him staring off into a distance horizon. I catch him doing that a lot these last few days. Even more as the days go by. It’s like he’s looking into some distant infinity, and it reminds me of the feeling of being fresh to trail again. It’s like he’s completely immersed in the here-and-now. It’s such a beautiful thing to witness.

“You doing okay there?” I asked, and he broke out of his hypnotic gaze at the distant landscape.

He blinked a couple of times and snapped back into this reality, as if I was waking him up from a dream. “Yeah, I was just thinking…” I could hear a lot in his words beyond just the words themselves. So much of it was in the longing from *how* he said it. “I wish I could keep hiking with you guys.”

He’s been with us for almost a week now, and his wife was scheduled to pick him up today. I could see the last couple of days that he was not looking forward to leaving the trail. We had been worried that he’d struggle to keep up with us, but once that was clearly out the discussion, it became about his just being in love with the experience and with the hike. He hasn’t pushed 20+ mile days since we hiked together on the CDT six years ago, and I can see how much he’s lighting up from the trail and from the miles. Mind you, he joined us on a terrible stretch of trail that’s been mostly an inferno, but he’s still trudging through it with a smile on his face at the end. Literally, every single day he’s been out here I’ve watched him become more alive and invigorated. It reminds me that even in the thick of the shit, this experience is still tremendously good and beneficial.

After a moment, he went on, “But I gotta get home to see Rachael.” For the last couple of days he’s been talking about his guilt about leaving home for so long. It’s been a recurrent point of conversation–missing his wife and feeling guilt for leaving her home alone to take care of the property.

And I get it. I understand what that feeling of security and stability can be to someone. I’ve felt that way before, even if I haven’t had the property and the marriage. I’ve had stability within life and within a relationship, and I’ve been willing to give up a lot for it.

Last week Hemlock lamented that he may never be able to do long thru hikes like he used to now that he has the property and the married life. He’s never wavered in his determination that the trade was worth it, and I know he means it. I can see how much he lights up when he talks about his wife and he was talking about wanting to own property all the way back in 2019 when we were hiking together on the CDT. So no doubt, this is what’s best for him. But witnessing him on the precipice of realizing what he had to give in order to get what he now has, has been profound. Especially in light of my recently exiting a relationship that I expected to end in marriage and starting out into this trail and this life on my own again.

I’ve spent a lot of lonely nights wishing that I could find what Hemlock has, but it’s taken 1,700 miles of hiking the Appalachain Trail for me to realize that I might want independence even more. Watching Hemlock look out at the distant horizons reinforced a very important lesson that I’m learning on this trail: That you cannot eat your cake and have it too. And I’ve been so caught up in trying to find “cake” in the form of a relationship that I’d lost sight of the costs that come with it.

I fooled myself into thinking that the thing I was looking for that was going to make me feel whole again was companionship. And on the process of trying to find that, I may have discovered that the thing I actually want more than anything is my autonomy and freedom.

—

I talk to Boots on the phone most days. We text one another frequently when I have service, which has been less often lately.

I love the sound of her voice and the way she brings a smile to my face. Ans I love the feeling she brings to my days. In so many ways she’s enriched my life this summer and allowed me to believe in things that I never thought I’d be able to entertain again.

But I also see that look in Hemlock’s eyes when he looks off into distant horizons. And I think about that look when Boots and I are connecting. I see how much he misses the home and the garden and the chickens and the wife and the life that he’s spent all these years building. But I don’t think that’s what he’s looking at when I catch him staring into the infinity. If I had to guess, I’d bet he’s confronting the hard fact of life that you cannot eat your cake and have it too.

I know he wants to keep walking to Katadhin with us. But he needs to go home soon. And needs must come before wants.

Boots promises me that she doesn’t want to take me away from the things that I love, and I believe her. But still I find myself scared of getting into a place where I have the companionship that I thought I needed in order to feel whole, at the cost of the freedom that made me feel alive.

As we walked around Hemlock’s property last week during our day off trail, he showed us all the things that he’s built since becoming a married man. The house, the garage, the garden, the tractor, the chicken coop, the pond, the solar panels, the lawn, and so much else that I used to think I wanted. The pillars of contemporary American success–sans the white-picket fence and kids.

But all I could think to say to him was that although I could see how it made him happy, I didn’t want any of it for myself. There was a time when I thought I wanted those things. But it’s taken these past few weeks to realize that that isn’t what I really want. I don’t want to be locked down, even if it means being stable and secure. What I want more than anything at this stage in my life is to be free.

Something in me believes that there’s something greater out there than I’ve yet to find, and I don’t want to lock myself into any of the things that I have right now. I don’t want to believe that this is as good as it gets. I want to believe that there are things even better than my ability to believe or imagine at this stage.

—

Yesterday Hemlock told me that he’s going to start living life through philosophy of: “What would Wormwood do?” I laughed and told him I liked it, but if anything ever happens to take me off this earth too soon, then I hope he makes stickers that say “Where Would Wormwood Walk?” and let that be my memorial and reminder to keep walking and hopefully distance ourselves from other earthly desires. Not that I’ve been perfect in remembering either of those points at all times, but I do what I can to keep them in mind.

—

I’ve started this journal in the city of Dalton, MA. We hiked 10 miles out of the Cookie Lady’s house this morning, and came to town to resupply. There was another hiker we talked to this morning who said he was headed into town “to get a hotel room and get drunk.” It caught me off guard at first. A lot of thru hikers drink, but the thought of just getting a hotel room to be alone and to be drunk struck me as strange. I asked the other two if they got a strange impression from him, and they both agreed that he’s probably not a thru hiker. Hemlock pointed out that his gear looked too clean and fresh. Plinko agreed that it didn’t sound like a thru hiker’s motivation to just go to town and be drunk… at least not this late in the hike.

It’s been very hot since we got to town. We’ve mostly tried to stay in air conditioning, but several hours have passed, and I think that we’re all feeling the urge to get back to trail. It’s currently 88 degrees (F), and not expected to cool until much later, but we might as well limit our time in it if we can. Plinko and I are both in agreement that walking in the humid heat like we had last week is a special kind of hell that should be avoided at all costs moving forward. It’s just not worth it to be suffering like that.

Hemlock reached out to his wife about staying another week, and they met in the middle with his staying with us on trail for another couple of days. If he could I know that he wanted to hike for another full week before going home, but he talks a lot of the guilt from leaving home and his wife alone. I asked if any of that guilt is coming from her, and he always assures me that it’s not from her, but from something in himself that feels like he should be doing more and not just “fucking off on a hiking trail.” I told him that I understood, and that I thought it was a reasonable thing to feel. I told him I’ve felt that way too. But that I’ve also spent a lot of time and a lot of miles examining my motivations for this hike, and what I hope to do with the experience to better myself and hopefully better the world around me. I suggested his doing the same kind of self appraisal in hopes of finding relief from his anxieties about not being enough or having to feel guilt for going hiking for two weeks, once every two or three years.

He said that he worries about other members of his community seeing him taking a two-week vacation and leaving the wife at home to earn the paycheck while he’s out “playing in the mountains.”

“Fuck those people,” I told him, taking a quote from my mentor in massage therapy. “If there are people who are going to judge you for perusing your best life in a way that does not negatively affect them–*fuck them*! That’s a very important lesson that I had to learn in the last couple of years. I have great love and respect for my fellow man, but you and I both know that you’re not just out here abandoning your wife or your life; you’re taking your first vacation away from home in the last three years, and if someone is going to say that’s irresponsible, then fuck them!”

Hemlock chuckled, half dismissing me and probably half in agreement.

There’s a lot that I like about the guy. His simplify and straightforwardness being a couple of my favorite things.

—

We’ve made it another ten miles north, to the town of Cheshire and the Father Tom Campsite, which is basically right in the middle of town. But the “town” is minuscule, from what I can tell.

It was a hot climb up and over some mountains to get here from Dalton today, but ultimately the miles were nice. There was a breeze this afternoon, and our hitches to the food store and back to trail both went really smoothly. I remarked to Hemlock and Plinko that we seem to be getting rides a lot easier as a trio than any of us ever did when we’ve hiked alone. Hard to say if that’s a small sample size and we’ve just been lucky or if maybe there’s something to being a small group. Regardless, it’s been nice.

I’ve changed my trail food plan a little bit for this next segment. Been playing with the idea of using oatmeal as my base food throughout the day, then just adding chia, protein, honey, and PB2 as needed to give me the other things I need out of my food intake. I sort of played with it a bit in this last segment, and really liked it so far. I also want to start steering away from so much sugar. I know I’ve said that before, but I can absolutely feel the difference when I’m allowing myself to have more refined sugars on trail compared to when I’m eating cleaner. As I’m losing muscle over the course of the trail, I think it’s becoming more important that nutrition be more on point. It’s not like I felt at the start of the trail. I felt strong by default then. Now I only feel that strength and stamina when I’m making a conscious effort to eat better on trail.

—

Tomorrow’s our last day with Hemlock. He’ll hike for another 14 miles from here, then we’ll have to say our goodbyes. His wife makes the long drive from CT to pick him up tomorrow. I think it’s around 6 hours for her, round trip, and I know he feels somewhat sorry that she has to make the drive. It’s my hope that the time they have together on the way back is good and loving. I hope he gets to tell her about having an amazing time for the 8 days he’s hiked, and how he felt something magical when he got to the top of climbs and looked out at the horizons. I hope she sees what I’ve seen in him these last 8 days. I hope whatever he found out here continues to flourish in him for some time to come.

We’ve all agreed to rise tomorrow at 5am, and be “on trail” at 5:30. There’s a Dunkin’ Donuts just up trail though. So although I may try to avoid the donuts, I wouldn’t mind a coffee to start the day.

We’re aiming for 24 miles to camp tomorrow. After Hemlock says goodbye, it’ll just be me and Plinko… maybe onward to Maine.

Wormwood.

AT Day 86

Miles Today: 26.81

AT Mile: 1566.7

(The Northern Cookie Lady [Hanger])

It seemed like a bad idea at first–diving in without properly examining the waters’ depth. I walked up to the dock and asked the ladies sitting at the end if it was deep enough to dive. They all said no, but as I walked closer to the end and looked into the water, it was so much clearer than any of the lakes that I’ve seen this far on trail.

The ladies were right; the water at the lake’s edge didn’t drop off deep, like it looked from a distance. Rather, it very slowly dropped into greater depth as the shoreline grew more distant. But from what I could tell, it still looked deep enough to dive in safely. I was willing to take that risk.

The way I tell it makes it sound like all of this took some time, when in reality I just walked up to the dock, asked if it was deep enough to dive, they said no, and then I proceeded to walk to the end and dive into the waters of unknown depth.

It looked deep enough to probably be safe.

I was confident enough.

—

The last time we went swimming on a day like today–to actually go swimming and not just to rinse off in a lake–was back at the Mohecan Outdoor Center. It must have been a few hundred miles ago. And the only thing that felt like it was missing that day was a psychedelic. It had been almost a month since my 50-day experiment in conciousness that began at Amacalola Falls, and I had drifted away from them in the last 35 days. Dabbled a bit in the last four weeks, but not much.

I’d drifted far enough away that when the thought arose this morning that today might be a good day to dive back in and start the morning with mushrooms, I felt some trepidation running through me. But I’ve learned that when that feeling arrives, the best thing is to trust and to dive, so long as the waters look deep enough to catch me, but not so deep as to swallow me.

And so today my supply of mushrooms became notably smaller. I’m sure that of the three of us, I’m the only one that was taking any today. I’m also sure that if the others had taken any, then I would have been the only one of us who redosed throughout the afternoon. I’m sure of it.

—

Psychedelics don’t magically make everything better. Shoot… a long ways from that. To the contrary, I think that there’s at least some value in the argument that psychedelics can make things significantly more complicated and solve abosolutely nothing. It all depends on set and setting…

But I’ll be damned if today didn’t feel a whole world better than what we’ve been slogging through the last two weeks. I know that yesterday was more pleasant as well, and overall we’ve been on an upward progression since the heat wave started to break. But today in particular was just magikal!

There was something in me this morning that realized, right at the first effects of the mushrooms, that I felt more like myself through their lens than I have in some time. It’s something that I’m going to need to explore more fully in the coming days, but I couldn’t shake this feeling that I was back in my own skin again today as the first effects started to take shape. I felt alive, playful, focused, sharp, and excited for the next steps.

If the others had taken any mushrooms with me this morning, they also would have remarked that the miles passed easier and the energy felt cleaner today.

—

I dove in, not quite sure if the water was deep enough to be safe, but confident enough in my assessment that I was willing to take the risk.

Waters of unknown depth…

And they received me like some place that I was already supposed to be. I don’t even remember hitting the water; there was no transition moment of the piercing between one reality and the next. I only remember jumping forward from the dock, and then being in it, completely submerged.

I opened my eyes, and it scared me how clearly I could see things around me, and how that visibility turned into something dark and gray as I looked out into the deeper water of the lake. In the shallows there was penetration from daylight, and I saw what looked like a perch dart off to my left. But in front of me the waters became deeper still, so that sunlight couldn’t reach the depths as readily.

I didn’t come up for air or shy away from the gray and the darkness. Instead, I kept pulling myself further into it, swimming deeper into the direction of the lightless waters, and as I swam further and deeper, I could feel the depths and how they became colder as I swam deeper.

I don’t know how long I was under. It felt like a lifetime, but for some reason I never felt like I needed air. When I came up to the surface again, it wasn’t for air, but because I felt done exploring the deep dark waters and I wanted to see the sky again. I rolled around onto my back, filled my lungs with air, and floated there like a cork, my arms sprawled out, just bobbing and looking up at the blue sky and streaks of clouds.

What a beautiful realization–that we actually can fly, but through the magik of this transformed reality of an underwater world. The experience of weightlessness and flight, at only the cost of our breath.

It was as close to a perfect moment as I have found in many weeks on the Appalachian Trail.

I don’t want for it all to be because I was under the influence of a psychedelic. It wasn’t all because of that. What it was was a moment of serenity, ushered in by a psychedelic. The medicine wasn’t everything in the moment; it’s just what brought it about and made it feel so pure. It felt like the lake and the water and the ladies on the dock, and the clear sky, and the sun, and the forest all around were literally flowing through my veins. It felt like I was made of all this stuff, and no longer something seperate from it.

I was glad that I’d been unafraid and dove.

It makes me remember why the psychedelic piece is important to me on this hike and in this life… even if it’s not the most the only important piece. The puzzle that has been my hike of the AT has been grand and complex.

—

Today I floated on a lake, looking up at the sky and feeling alive.

Today I ate psychedelic mushrooms, danced, and felt alive while I hiked up trail.

Today I hiked 27 miles with my friends, we laughed, we commiserated, and we felt alive.

Last week I struggled to find god or reason why anyone would want to hike this trail. Today I remembered why.

—

Sad news, but my necklace is starting to delaminate. I’ve carried it with me since the beginning of the trail, but I originally got it in early 2020. I remember it well. There’s a story behind it that will have to wait for another day.

It’s a laser cut pinecone with a piece of moldivite inlayed, and coated in epoxy. I don’t think you’re supposed to swim with it, but I don’t know if it was the swimming, the rain, or the constant sweat that made it start to peel apart. But whatever it was, there’s definatley some moisture in it now, and I have to wonder if I should try to fix it or try to rough it out to the end of the trail… only 700 miles left!

—

We saw this morning before leaving camp that the Northern Cookie Lady was about 26 miles ahead, and so we set that as our target for the day. We got destracted by the cabin with the dock where we went swimming, and that added about a mile to our hike, but still the Cookie Lady was where we were aiming.

We got here at around 6:30, met Ruth (the Northern Cookie Lady) and the site caretaker, a girl named Ava. I wasn’t expecting to find such a great human connection here, but Ava was really amazing to get to know.

She’s here on a work for stay from Pittsburg, and from what I could tell she’s searching for herself just like the rest of us are on trail. Only difference is that she’s not thru hiking and only really started to learn about the trail this week, when she arrived to help the Cookie Lady with running the space for the month of July.

We probably talked for the better part of two hours. We talked about where we came from and where we’re going, what we’re looking for, what we’re afraid of, what we’re wondering, and all sorts of things in between. It was the kind of conversation that I absolutely love, but that a lot of people are turned off by. Ava noted the same–that we don’t normally dive right into our greatest hopes and fears when we first meet someone. But somehow on trail that’s more normal and seemingly more acceptable.

At one point Ava mentioned tarot cards, and I asked if she’d do a reading for me; it had been a while.

I pulled the Ace of Rods, which she explained is really the Ace of Wands, but her deck calls it Rods. Whatever the term, it made no difference to me; I’m mostly ignorant to it all, except that I had someone in my life who was really into NewAge arts for a few years (understatement of the day).

Anyways, Ava read from her book about the Ace of Rods and explained that now is a good time to dive in to whatever big thing I’ve been feeling afraid of. I don’t think that’s the term her book used–“dive in”–but it was something close to that. It immediately reminded me of the lake, the cold gray water, and the mixture between excitement and hesitation to swim deeper. It was the same feeling I had at the start of the AT about coming out here in the first place. It was a feeling of conviction and determination, but not absent of hesitation and trepidation. It’s how I’ve been feeling towards my relationship with Boots and my desire to write a book about all of this after the trail.

But her deck of cards said that it’s okay to dive in. To not hesitate. To be willing to jump in and start something new. I took it to mean that knowing the waters’ depth wasn’t important, that they’d be deeper than I was fearing, so deep that light had yet to reach them.

I tried to project the idea forward and thought more about my hopes to spend time writing after the trail. It made me wonder if I actually could produce a book if I took the time and put my mind to it, like I’m wanting to do.

—

Boots has kept in contact and is still a part of the story. I go all over the place with how I feel about her. No… that’s not true. It’s not what I mean. I know what I feel about her. I feel love and longing for her. What I don’t know is whether those feelings are greater than this urge for independence that I also feel a pull towards. Whether I should be swimming deeper into the unknown waters of this new relationship, or into the unknowns of being independent and solo in this world.

I don’t know if the waters of uncertainty I should be swimming deeper into are the waters of independence or the waters of a relationship. I’m also not certain that it’s impossible to find both–love and preservation of my time alone.

—

Shoot… this one’s going long and I’m growing tired. The mushrooms spurred a lot from the back of my mind today. So much more that I still want to write, but hard to stay awake to keep writing.

Tonight the three of us sleep in an airplane hanger that’s been converted into a bunk house by the Northern Cookie Lady and her husband. Tomorrow it’s back to trail and north to Vermont.

The trail goes on.

Wormwood.

AT Day 85

Miles Today: 14.66

AT Mile: 1541.5

(North Wilcox Mt. Shelter [tent])

Today has been my first really pleasant day on trail in a minute! It reminded me why I like hiking in the first place. Several times today, I said to the others that I can almost see how this kind of thing could actually be fun if the days were all like today.

It was a much needed change from the hell that we’ve been slogging through these last couple of weeks.

That heat man… I just cannot say enough about how oppressive the heat and humidity have been. And by contrast, how wonderful today was–still warm, but not humid and with a breeze most of the day. So far I’m developing a fondness for Massachusetts that I never found in Connecticut.

—

The feather… I need to share more about the feather. To anyone who’s new to these journals, you can skip ahead or read back on the feather journals from before; I’ve written about it at least twice.

A quick catch up though, for everyone else: I found that owl feather in Georgia on my second day of the trail, carried it with me for over a thousand miles, then lost it just after Harpers Ferry when it slipped out from my pack’s chest strap. Then a southbound hiker found it and was going to send it back to me, but that’s where we left things–presuming that the feather was back now.

Well, it didn’t turn out so well after all. Last week, while I was at Hemlock’s place for my day off trail, I reached out to the gal who found it, asking if she’d mailed it yet. To my surprise, she wrote back saying that she was just about to text me that day and ask if I’d received it yet. She’d sent it over a week prior, and said it should have arrived “many days ago.”

That was a week ago now, and it still hasn’t arrived. The gal even texted me a photo of the owl feather, wrapped up and the envelope addressed to Hemlock’s place in Connecticut. But it never showed up.

I’ve had three different people reach out and celebrate that I found it again after my last writing on the feather, but unfortunately it’s still MIA. Funny though, the people that I tell about it seem more upset than I am. I already made peace with its being gone. It’s something that I wrote about not long after it was lost–that I knew it would come back if it was meant to come back, and if not, then it wouldn’t. In my heart of hearts, I still feel like the story of the feather is no more “done” than my hike of the AT is today. Maybe there will be nothing more to come of it, but I’m still hopeful that if it’s meant to go on, then the story will go on. There will maybe be more with time.

—

Today’s the Fourth of July, and although I don’t have much feeling for the holiday, it meant that many people were off work today, and there seemed to be a festive feeling in the air.

We got a ride out of town quickly from an eccentric lady whose name we missed because we were so glued to the road, and the ping-pong-speed dialogue that bounced around the car between her and the rest of us. She may have been on some form of speed. Or maybe she was just like that. But she moved as fast as the car.

She told us that she saw us hitching but that she’d been headed the other direction to buy cannabis with her sister’s debit card, because yesterday was her birthday. (All true story) But when she saw us, she says she had to turn around and give us a ride.

“Get in–I don’t give a fuck where you’re going!” It was the first thing she said as she pulled off the road and I asked for a ride back to trail. She had on a brightly colored, paint-splash-print sun dress and Elton John sun glasses with a personality that I already explained was likely influenced by a stimulant of questionable legality. But she was a quick ride back to trail for the three of us, and hard to say no to.

When we got out, she was floored that “this” was the Appalachain Trail. Just this little line in the dirt that cuts out into the forest. She had always thought that it was something bigger, I guess. Or more well defined. I can’t blame her though. I maybe had that image of the trail before I got out here or at least into thru hiking. It’s easy to imagine it as something bigger than it is, merely because it’s so long and so well known. But for all intents and purposes, if you take a little piece of the AT and look at it in isolation like our ride back to trail did today, it appears notably unassuming.

As I pulled my pack from her car, I noticed that another coyote tooth had fallen out from the skull that I have affixed to the back of my gear. I picked it up and turned to our sundressed choffier. “I have something very strange to ask,” I began, thinking back to the Bitter Old Man and how he refused to so much as understand my offer when I presented it to him a couple weeks ago.

“Anything.” She replied.

“Do you want a coyote tooth?” And I reached out to hand her the tooth.

“Oh my god; totally! I even have a coyote skull at home and I got it from Arizona. I’m going to put this next to that one!”

I told her about the Bitter Old Man and how he hadn’t wanted one when I offered it to him, and how he’d inspired me to order a whole bag of coyote teeth that I’m going to start carrying with me up trail. But this one seemed so perfect for her, having fallen out of the skull in the back of her car. Maybe it’s morbid… or maybe it’s just part of this crazy life and this crazy hike and this crazy story. Any way I look at it though, it felt to me like a magikal human connection on the Appalachian Trail.

—

There was trail magic all over the place today. Well… I guess only twice “formally” but all day the trail was “magik.” This morning we got that ride so quickly, then at mile ten there was a sign that said “Trail Magic 600 steps” away. We all three debated whether it was just a trap to get us into a church or something, but it turned out to be legit. There was this couple that had a property just off trail that just so happened to have a little chapel on it, and they had an awesome trail magic setup for the weekend. Hot food, drinks, shade, fruit, and the works. It was so nice that we spent around an hour with them before continuing back to trail and finding yet another trail magic setup only 100 yards up trail from the last. Then an hour later we made it to a lake to go swimming. While we were there we got into a conversation with a couple in their 60s who said they were interested in long distance hiking and especially interested in the CDT. That we had all three hiked the PCT and CDT was especially impressive to them, and it was interesting to realize as we talked that the three of us are a unique bunch on the AT, having all three almost completed our triple crowns. Something else that came up, but I hadn’t realized before: I look at Hemlock and Plinko with the greatest respect and admiration as thru hikers. They’re literally amongst the most accomplished hikers I know personally, and I authentically think of myself as struggling to keep up with them or even live up to the reputation that they both have. That said however, as we talked with that couple, it dawned on me that I now have at least as many or more long distance trail miles than either of them–having hiked the CT, AZT and the TRT twice. Not that it does anything to invalidate their hikes, but rather, it is an amazing example of how we can sometimes look at ourselves compared to how we look up to others. Such an interesting moment to me today.

—

The swim in the lake this afternoon was magical. It’s been so insanely hot this last week, and I haven’t had a real shower since leaving Hemlock’s on Monday. It’s now Friday. I knew that I was filthy and sticky, but only after getting into the water and then back to trail did I realize how much I’d been needing that. I need to take note of how much of a difference it made, and not let myself get to that level of filth on trail again. It lowers my disposition so much!

—

The three of us are the only three camped at this shelter tonight, but we’re all set up in our tents because the mosquitos are so viscous. I got more bug spray in town, but when you’re hiking they still attack if you stop moving even for an instant. They aren’t as bad as they were in Connecticut, but they’re still a force to recon with.

—

We were wanting to get a few more miles in tonight, but the campsite that we had our sights on has comments about it being recently frequented by bears. There are some notes from just last week that bear activity at that site in particular has been very high, and so out of caution we decided to cut the day short and camp here. It’s allowed time to rest and settle down earlier than normal, and that’s been nice.

Shoot… it’s almost like there might be something to *not* hitting 30 mile days every day and spending some time in the water instead.

Here’s to the days ahead.

Wormwood.