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AT Day 111

Miles Today: 19.90

AT Mile: 1799.4

(Hikers Welcome Hostel)

The heat and humidity on this trail are oppressive. I search to try and find better words for it, but I’ve come to terms with the fact that there are some things in life that are so beautiful or so awful that there are no words to describe them. The heat of the Appalachian Trail is one of those things.

It is absolutely terrible. Horrible. Deplorable. Awful. Oppressive. Enveloping…. I could go on.

The point is that it’s’ bad.

In my experience, the heat of this trail has been the worst thing. And that’s stated in the face of the rain, the tree-tunnel, the ticks, the crowds, and even f*cking norovirus! None of them have been as bad as the heat.

Shoot–if God came down today and gave me the choice of either taking these temperatures like I’ve had the last few days *or* going through norovirus again, I’d pick the latter! At least that way I can get some rest and not feel like I’m draining my soul out of every pore. Not saying that “Riding The Noro Dragon” was any fun… just that the heat is actually that bad.

God it’s terrible.

If I ever get the idea in my head at some point in the future that I want to bring my ass back out to hike in the east, it’s only going to be after sustaining a major head injury that prevents me from remembering just how much the heat of the Appalachian Trail has sucked!

I hiked the desert miles of the Pacific Crest Trail. Nowhere *near* this bad!

I’ve walked the deserts and Great Divide Basin of the CDT. Still not as bad as this. Not even in the same ballpark.

Shit… I’ve lived and hiked through all of Arizona for 20 years, and still I’ve never experienced hiking in the heat like I find out here.

It’s just miserable.

So, that’s the reason that I got a big shit-eating-smile on my face when I checked my maps a couple days back and saw that there is a hostel here for me to stay at tonight. Actually, that’s not true; two days ago I grimaced when I saw how far it was going to be before I could get to this hostel as I thought about the heat that I was going to have to swim through along the way.

Last night was nice of course, because I was camped up above 3,000ft elevation. But of course the trail dropped right down into three digits this morning and then proceeded up and down for the rest of the 20 miles today.

Twenty miles wasn’t anything to be impressed by earlier in the trail, but now with the humidity and heat, it’s hard for me to manage.

I meet other hikers who don’t seem as impacted by it as I am. But maybe they’re more adapted to the humidity than I am as well. I’m not pretending that the other hikers don’t struggle with the discomforts of the trail much in the same way that I do, but I do see a difference between us. Maybe it’s just in how I handle it compared to them, but from what I can observe, I seem to sweat my clothes all the way through before most hikes even seem to have a ring of sweat around their neck. It just pours off of me! In the heat of the day it’s consnantly dropping off my face, my elbows, my nuckles, and my shirt is soaked through and through. I had the thought today that I’m glad my backpack is so waterproof, because otherwise all the gear on the inside of my pack would get drenched from the sweat as well!

—

So there was the heat today, but fortunately it wasn’t *quite* as hot as the last two days. Maybe two or three degrees cooler. And I also had the thought that after 20 miles I was going to have a shower and a place to stay.

Between me and you… … … I’m thinking about maybe even doing a Zero day here at this hostel tomorrow.

Even though the temps are predicted to drop dramatically tomorrow, my soul and my will are beat down from the heat. This heat just f*cking hurts me in ways that are hard to describe. It literally hurts something inside of me the way that no other physical challenges of the trail do.

I could Zero here tomorrow then go into the big mountains of the Whites the following day. If I go out into it tomorrow I’m going to be in the clouds and maybe even some rain in my first peak of the day. I’ve been advised to wait until after it passes.

I might.

So many stories of the trail every day… so hard to get them onto the page.

—

After I checked into the hostel, one of the care takers mentioned that “Patience” was excited to hear that I’d arrived. The name struck me immediately, but then I had to think back. I hadn’t met a Patience on the AT. I was thinking of “Peace” at first. The last Patience I’d met was on the Colorado Trail in 2018, and… then sure as shit, the guy from 2018 saunters in! We hung out in Salida, CO for two days seven years ago while he was going SOBO on the CT and I was going NOBO. We have followed one another on social media since, but I didn’t know that he was going to be here!

When I asked why he hadn’t messaged me to tell me that he’s here, he shrugged and said, “I knew you’d stop in.”

So much more that I’d like to write, but as always, I put these journals off to too late, then I’m way too tired when I do sit down to write. So I need to call it a day. Need to write more on some things tomorrow. Much more to be said.

Wormwood.

AT Day 110

Miles Today: 16.05

AT Mile: 1779.4

(Smarts Mountain [tent])

That was the second night that I’ve had a bear wandering close to my tent while I was trying to write. But it had been an over a thousand miles, and last time I wasn’t camped alone.

Last night was scary in that it was my first night camped alone on the AT since just past the half way point–somewhere in Pennsylvania. That and it was scary in the way that hearing an unseen large animal tromping around the wilderness in ear shot of your tent is always going to be a bit scary.

I tried to ignore it and hope that he’d just go off in another direction, but as you’ll see in my journal from last night, the tracks in the leaves and broken branches got closer and closer and eventually I had to get out of my tent and do some clapping and yelling.

I could see its eyes in my headlamp at the brightest setting, but that’s all I could make out. At one point, as I clapped and yelled, I saw it drop its head down closer to the ground, but it kept its eyes on me. I’m not exactly sure what my plan was if it had continued to come closer at that point. I’d put all of my confidence tokens into believing that the clapping, yelling, and flashing of my headlamp was going to be enough to scare it away.

I didn’t have a Plan B.

But as you’ll note, I’m clearly still alive, well, and writing my journal this evening, so either my attempts to scare it off worked, or the bear mauling that proceeded was tame enough to leave me still spirited and apparently able bodied enough to be writing this journal tonight. It’s the former.

The bear was the first thing I thought of when I woke up this morning. It was the thought of wondering when I must have fallen asleep, because all I could remember was laying there awake and waiting for the sound of crunching leaves and snapping branches.

—

I knew that it was going to be another hot day today, but still slept in. Normally, if I was on my game I would have been out of camp before sunrise to beat the heat, but I’m really protesting that go-go-go mentality as much as I can.

Instead of busting ass to get to trail and collect early miles this morning, I instead checked my maps to see how to get off trail and into air conditioning.

As it happened I was able to hike about 10 miles to a road crossing where I was able to catch a super easy hitch into the town of Lyme, NH and was fortunate to get a ride back to trail just as easy. It might be a bit of an overstatement to call Lyme a city, as it was mostly just a school, a few homes, a general store, and a library, but there was at least one police officer and a post office, so I think that makes it count as a town. For my purposes all they needed was a place that sold ice cream, which was the general store.

After I had lunch and a Diet Coke, I tried to find the library but accidentally walked right past it. I asked a guy who was also out and about walking if he could direct me to the library and he said that I’d already walked by it. It was so small that I confused it for a house or something.

I spent the better part of three hours in the library going through Vermont photos and reaching out to friends and family by phone.

I was back to trail at around 5:30 which is to say that I missed a lot of the heat today, but it was still a heat index of over 100 degrees. I was so sweaty today that my clothes were as soaked as they would be if I came out a pool wearing them. It’s miserable when it’s hot like this.

I think that the heat is the hardest part of hiking the Appalachian trail. The other long trails don’t even compare.

One more hot day tomorrow, but I’m hoping to get to a hostel before the end of day.

Camped up on a mountain today. Watched a sunset from a fire tower. Maybe the best sunset that I’ve been able to watch the entire trail. So often in the forest that I don’t get to see the sun go down.

So tired that I can barely keep my eyes open. Have to end it.

Wormwood.

AT Day 109

Miles Today: 23.50

AT Mile: 1763.1

(Unnamed Ridge; New Hampshire [tent])

I slept well last night, and would have stayed asleep for longer if it weren’t for the birds at sunrise. Earlier in the trail I would put in earplugs and use a buff as an eye mask. I might have done the same today but for the forecasted high temperatures. I knew that today and tomorrow are both going to be intensely hot, so I wanted to get to trail and start collecting miles as early as was reasonable. The longer I slept in would mean the hotter and more humid I’d have to hike through.

—

Dammit… there might be a bear outside my camp. I’m actually pretty confident that’s what it is.

A ways off but I’ve been listening for ten minutes now. I’m pretty sure it’s a bear tromping around.

That makes me a bit nervous but also I have my food secured in my pack. My pack is beside my tent though.

Wow… as I write there is a cacophony of hounds barking off in the distance, spurring one another on.

If the tromping through the leaves continues I’ll step out of the tent and make some noise. Fuck.

—

The humidity this morning was so thick that you could literally see the air in the low sunlight hours.

I’ve been through enough mornings like this on the Appalacahin Trail already to know it was going to be a lot of miles of misery as the temperatures increased. The one good thing that I can say is that having been through so much of it this summer I at least know what to expect and how to best conduct myself through it.

I was ready for being completely soaked through with sweat and using my camp towel to continually wipe myself down and then wring it out. It still sucks, but I know how to get through these miles now. And even though temps broke 95(F) with a significantly higher heat index, it still wasn’t quite as bad as some of the days in Connecticut.

—

There was also a trail town and resupply at the end of the tunnel. As the AT crosses from Vermont into New Hampshire, it passes though the towns of Hanover and N… n…. I forget the second one’s name. It starts with an N. It’s where Dartmouth college is located, and the trail literally walks right through campus. I was actually so entranced with some of the buildings on campus that I walked right by my turn and continued on the wrong sidewalk for almost a quarter mile before seeing the err of my way and correcting.

Along the sidewalk there was a girl selling lemonade with her mom. I felt obligated to buy…

—

Bear is getting a bit closer.

I really don’t like this part of thru hiking. Just listening to what I’m pretty confident is a bear, tromping through the woods. And of course I’m camped alone tonight for literally the first time in over a thousand miles…

—

I was able to shower in town at the community center and did my laundry in the shower as well. It took all of about ten minutes in the sun for my clothes to dry.

I resupplied and ate a pint of ice cream.

The people on the Vermont side were so incredibly nice, and almost every one of them that walked by engaged. One of them gave me some pretzles. I didn’t need them necessarally, but I accepted mostly to show appreciation for his offer.

—

The hike this afternoon into New Hampshire was like this morning, but the trail did feel somehow different in the way that each state has its peculiarities in how they built their section of the trail.

—

Just shouted at the bear. Stopped for a bit. Now coming towards me.

Fuck.

Definitely a bear tromping through leaves and branches. Fuck.

Finishing my journal.

Will write maybe if this stops.

Wormwood.

Follow-up:

Been out of my tent for ten minutes yelling at bear. Saw eyes. Watched his head bob up and down. Did not like it. He seems to have wandered off in another direction. Either that or is laying low, right where I was catching him in my headlamp a moment ago.

I think we’re good. I’ve secured anything in my camp with a food smell.

I don’t like this part of thru hiking.