I come to bury scrubhiker.blogspot.com, not to praise him

Dear reader,

I have recently migrated all Blogger-based journal entries over to a new website, with a better-organized design and the possibility for a little more expansion. Everything with the old URL should now redirect to the new one: http://www.scrubhiker.com.

If you were one of the wretched, ennui-stricken souls who subscribed to this blog's feed in the past, I've made it very easy to subscribe to the new one, but your current subscription won't cross over.

RIP scrubhiker.blogspot.com.

- Scrub

Day 23: Sunday, September 7

Finished the AT today at Katahdin (AT mi 2181.0*), walked 10.4 miles today

Woke up in the dark at 4:30 and by 5 had gotten all packed up and made my way down the street to the cafe. The early-bird crowd was me, some old Mainer guys who I got the sense were regulars at that hour, and a family of four who looked like they might be hiking. After discerning that they were indeed hiking, and that they were going up Katahdin via the Hunt Trail/AT, same as me, they were kind enough to offer me a ride into the park. They were Tyler and Nicki and their two kids, Jensen and (ahh I forget the boy's name, sorry dude, I know you're probably reading this), they were from downeast Maine, and they were total rockstars. We got to the trailhead around 6:45, along with a few dozen other people--7 a.m. is the cutoff for the parking lot so it creates a herd of day-hikers leaving at the same time--at which point the car thermometer only read 44 degrees. 

Left them and got going by 7:00 for the climb, 5.2 miles and 4150 feet of elevation gain, most of which is squeezed into the middle 3 miles. Passed most people in the first hour, though I was passed three times myself by thru-hikers going absurdly fast, each with focus etched into their faces and a disinclination to make conversation. The middle three miles, the ones with all the action, were a ton of fun, especially once the trail got above treeline. All of a sudden it got Arctically cold and dry-windy--I was freezing my ass off despite exerting myself uphill and in my rain jacket, hood cinched up so I could barely see, and tights--and the hike stopped becoming a hike and turned into a full-body boulder scramble for about an hour. The weather could not have been clearer and sharper, or the vistas greener and bluer, and I was alone for most of this time. Eventually I reached the false summit, called the Gateway, which I was wise to already from the maps, then enjoyed a calm final mile and a half over the flatter rocky alpine zone called the Tableland. Made the real summit just before 10 and there were only six people there: a thru-hiker, a dude named Richard from Utah, and four yuppie types. Only one of the latter responded to my request for assistance in taking a summit photo; she took just one, then silently handed my phone back to me and went back to smoking pot with her friends. Luckily, Richard was more alert to the personal significance of the moment and helped me get many more pictures. He and I talked for a few minutes, more people started trickling in, including Dortmund Joe and Eastwood, and by that point I was cold and it was time to get down, as I had nothing more to do or say to anyone up there. 

I really felt immense happiness when I first got to the summit and the sign and I just plopped down leaning against it, as I'd always imagined I'd do; I don't remember nearly the same intensity of feeling getting to the monument at the end of the PCT. But the PCT happened more quickly, cleanly and confidently for me than the AT, which was stretched over three years during which I couldn't say to myself or anyone else that I'd hiked the whole thing, only part of it. I'd spent a lot more time visualizing the final moment when I'd get to the Katahdin sign than I had with the PCT monument, and a lot more time wondering how long I'd have to wait for it to happen. So to get up there on a perfect day, after a really enjoyable time in the 100 Mile Wilderness, with all aspects of planning pragmatically executed (and I get perhaps inordinately self-satisfied with the last one), left me quite chuffed. I stuck around on the summit as long as the warm glow lasted, but as soon as that was gone I knew there was no need to drag out my time and I had a practical concern to attend to, namely figuring out how to get 240 miles south by the evening.

Enter Eric and Laura, a couple I had overheard on the summit saying they were driving back to Boston today; I passed them on the descent and asked if I couldn't accompany them as far as Portland. Much like with the family I asked this morning, they agreed with no hesitation, and later refused gas money. Ended up getting back to the trailhead about ten minutes before them--descending through the rock scrambles was just as fun as coming up, although my knees were starting to hurt. They/I took off for the south lands right away, stopping only so I could get a bite to eat at the WacArnold's on the way out of Millinocket. Three hours later I was being dropped off at a Starbucks in Falmouth, near Portland, and a pumpkin-spiced hour after that A-GAME and her man Steve completed the handoff by picking me up there in their car and taking me to their place on the east side of Portland. After a fine home-cooked veggie pasta meal and a lot of conversation, we were all pretty well whupped--they'd had a ridiculously busy weekend and I'd been up since before dawn--so that was that and I repaired to my futon, where I will sleep like a fat lion tonight. Hiking is now over for the time being and the journal will stop being regular, but I plan to significantly update the rest of the webpage and keep the blog more alive than dead over the winter months. Especially if I give in to Carrot, Spark &co. and make moves toward the CDT next year. Ttfn. 

*All my mileage figures have been from the 2011 AT Guide by AWOL. I think the official total mileage of the trail in 2015 is 2185 or something like that. Regardless of the big numbers, I'm confident I got the small numbers, i.e. how far I walked each day between points, right the whole time.

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Days 21 and 22: Friday, September 5 and Saturday, September 6

Both days slept at the AT Lodge in Millinocket, ME (left AT at mi 2175.8 at Katahdin Stream CG), walked 11.6 miles Friday and 0 Saturday

Woke up on Friday, at first around 5:45, to a decent enough sunrise in the vicinity of Katahdin, though I never got a good photo of it. Snoozed until seven and got walking at 7:30, hiking downhill for a few miles to Hurd Brook; on the way, I met a fellow named Mouse who had just finished his Triple Crown with a CDT NOBO and is now topping off with a "victory lap," an AT SOBO in the same year. Told him I'd put him in touch with Carrot, who wants to do the same CDT-AT meal deal next year. After Hurd Brook the trail rolled a few miles through the forest until popping out at Abol Bridge and the end of the "Wilderness." This turned out to be an arrestingly ugly place, with log trucks and men in very large pickup trucks being the main users of the dusty roadway. There was a store there and an adjacent restaurant, but the restaurant failed to open at 11am as promised because the one cook had apparently cleaned out his trailer and left overnight without telling anyone, and the other employees were just piecing together the facts now. Decided not to bother them by demanding service, as they had quite a pickle on their hands, and ended up hiking on at about 11:30. Also in the Abol Bridge store we (the Swiss and Siesta and I) saw our first weather forecast in five days, and it had become significantly more pessimistic for Saturday--rain, storms, hail, wind, destruction, weeping, gnashing of teeth and what have you.

Partly because of this forecast and partly because I was tired of encountering other people and having the same freaking conversation over and over again ("Yes I'm about to finish the trail. No I did not come all the way from Georgia this year. My injury in 2011 was a stress fracture. I'm from Oregon but not Portland but I grew up in Virginia and went to school in Minnesota. Yep, I guess you could say I'm from all over!" Etc.), I decided to take a shorter, less-used route to the Katahdin Stream Campground via the Blueberry Ledges trail, which turned out to be very shitty and claustrophobic and unrewarding, and a huge error in judgment on my part in general. The AT would've taken me about two hours longer, but I thought it might be best to get to KSC early to confirm the forecast and make a decision about whether to attempt a summit the next day and give myself time to get to town. That all turned out to be unnecessary; I did get there by 1:30 and decide to put off the Katahdin climb by a day--a decision I'm fine with, no point in climbing up there and having my picture made in horrendous weather--but I could have just as easily made that call at 3:30pm. 

Regardless, I got a ride into Millinocket, about 20 miles away, with the AT Lodge hostel shuttle around 4 and chose to settle in here for the next two nights. It's quite a thorough and tidy place, and almost no hikers were around on Friday, meaning I had the communal bunkroom utterly to myself; one of the few hikers that were here was Guthook, he of the trail-app fame. He and I and a few others went out to dinner at the AT Cafe (you may spot a theme in the names of businesses in Millinocket), where I put on an absolute clinic, inhaling a Baxter Peak-sized portion of chicken Parmesan and mozzarella sticks and eliciting comment from some of the seasoned hikers around me by the sheer voracity of my efforts. After that it was off to bed, and Saturday, today, was a fairly nondescript zero day. I ate twice more at the Cafe, lunching with a Brit named Overhaul who used to sell very expensive jewelry on cruise ships and next wants to open a restaurant chain that serves crickets and call it Stumps (the domain name stumpys.com apparently already belongs to a fetish site for amputee porn, otherwise that would be his business name), and later supping with the Swiss couple and Siesta. They successfully summited Katahdin this morning, but it was in heavy fog and then they were chased off the mountain by storms which they just barely avoided before they caught a ride into town. They and I and another successful thru-hiker, Toasted Toad, hit up the bahhhs--or, more accurately, the one bahhh in Millinocket, the Blue Ox Saloon--after dinner, which was at like 6:00. I didn't want to make a spectacle out of it, because I do have to get up at 4:30 tomorrow morning and make a very steep climb of a very important mountain, but it was great to hang out with them. I found out that Swiss Miss spent a year as a high school exchange student in Yakima, Washington, of all places, going to the "ghetto school" there, which certainly sounded like a character-building experience. There was a hint of post-trail blues setting in already, but for the most part everyone was happy, and the owner was kind enough to take care of a few drinks for all the finishers. I left early and came back to the hostel, making a little more conversation with Overhaul and a different hiker who was a former trucker (I've long noticed that there is absolutely a thru-hiker/trucker crossover or common bond, maybe I'll flesh that idea out more later). Then bed. Tomorrow morning: hitch out extremely early, climb Katahdin, get down from Katahdin, start hitching again and with any luck end up in the evening in Portland, Maine with A-GAME. Should be a rare old day.

More pictures on Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/scrubhiker

Day 20: Thursday, September 4

Cowboy camping (whatttt?) on the Rainbow Ledges looking right at Katahdin (AT mi 2160.0), walked 22.8 miles today

Slept a little too well on my soft spongy flat tent spot and got a late and groggy start around 7:45. After three miles, got to the stunningly beautiful Nahmakanta Lake shore, deep in the heart of northern Maine's Hundred Mile Wilderness, to find ... a man in flip-flops walking his golden retriever. We've seen day hikers every day out here in the "wilderness"--a wilderness with suspiciously regular road access--and today was no exception. Also at the beach saw, for the first time, section hikers Ross and his Czech girlfriend whose name I never got (although Czech Mate sounds like the obvious trail name), whom I interacted with quite a bit later. Ross is on a mission to climb all 50 state highest peaks and is 70% of the way there, soon to be 72%, at the tender age of 29, and seemed to share similar interests to me regarding long-distance overland travel around the United States.

Took my first break at the Wadleigh shelter, where there was a memorial to Buffalo Bobby, a 2011 thru-hiker that I had known back in Tennessee and Virginia who died of a stroke not far from that shelter, only 38 miles from finishing his thru-hike in 2011. The trail bounced around most of the day after that, never making its mind up on whether to be flat, steep, rocky, muddy, clear, foresty, rivery, lakey or what. It was hard to get into a rhythm, so music helped ... I found myself recalling in particular the opening lines to Madonna's "Like a Virgin"--"I made it through the wilderness, somehow I made it through-ooh-oohhh"--so that ended up on today's playlist. The weather was impeccable the whole day and the vibes were positive; about six miles in was a stunner of a view of Katahdin from the top of Mt. Nesuntabunt, where I and about ten other people at one point stopped to take a break and have photos taken.

The only thing that cramped my style was my second golden retriever sighting of the day (that's golden retrievers two, moose zero for those keeping track); this one belonged to some fanny-pack-bedecked day hikers and seemed to think I was a bear, so he ran a away from me first and then panicked and barked barked barked inconsolably for a minute or two. It seems like such a small thing but it's so ... annoying to have it happen when you think you've finally made it to the part of the trail that's a little inaccessible, a backpackers-only special zone. But it turns out that there's *nowhere* on the AT that's actually remote enough to keep out the fanny pack golden retriever people, even the most northern reaches of Maine. And by the way, I still haven't had to dig a cat-hole to poop in this year, and I'm coming up on 400 miles. The slogan "a footpath for those who seek fellowship with the wilderness" rings a little hollow when one can walk 400 miles of said footpath and not have to crap in the ground.

/rant. The day concluded spectacularly, with a solo climb up to here, the Rainbow Ledges, an area with oddly sparse vegetation, the apparent effect of a forest fire from 1923 (recovery doesn't happen quickly). There are views all around, and I found a little window to the northeast looking straight at Katahdin, and a flat-ish spot to lay my groundsheet and pad out on. The sky is completely clear and the bugs as absent as they will ever be on the AT--not completely absent, but I can almost pretend they are--so I made the bold move of cowboy camping. My backup plan, should the situation suddenly turn wet, is to pack up and hike like hell through the dark a mile or so til I can find a decent tent site. But in the meantime, I will enjoy looking at the big fella, Mr. Katahdin, and in the morning I should be able to watch the sun rise about 60 degrees to the right of it. Not a bad way to spend my last night of real camping on the AT (tomorrow at Katahdin Stream CG won't count). Tomorrow morning it's six miles down to Abol Bridge and the end of the "wilderness" (and the return of restaurant food), then a quick ten more to the base of Katahdin and camp for the night.

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Day 19: Wednesday, September 3

Tenting at the Nahmakanta Stream Campsite (AT mi 2137.2), walked 24.0 miles today

Slept rather miserably in the shelter last night due to rain, snoring from a mystery person to my left, general stress and a restless brain. I've become such an old man now and can't sleep in the shelters with the kids, even when it's not packed in like sardines (last night there were only five on an eight-man platform); the PCT gave me too much time with solitary tenting or cowboying on soft ground, and now that's the only thing that works for me. Woke up for good at 6:20 and decided the hell with it, got hiking by seven. Literally the only climb of the day happened in the first three miles, a tame 500-footer up Little Boardman Mountain, and afterwards the trail was the smoothest of sailing. With the exception of a few muddy rocky sections at various points, I essentially strolled the whole day and walked the 24 miles with a minimum of fuss--a very rare luxury on the AT. 

My main goal, my only goal for the day, the only thing I cared about in the world, was to get cleaned up, and more specifically get my clothes washed in some body of water and set out to dry in the sun. If I had walked only two miles today but accomplished that, I would've been happy, because putting on my soaking wet sweat-saturated and chafe-inducing clothes this morning for the third morning in a row was one of the worst feelings I've ever had while hiking, a perfect example of the mental game being tougher than the physical game. Ended up getting the chance to clean everything out twice, first in the morning at the Cooper Brook shelter, which had a fine but slightly river-funky-smelling swimming hole directly in front of it, the second at Jo-Mary Lake, where I found a paradisical beach in the afternoon sun. Both times I went in for a swim that felt utterly orgasmic, and was able to get enough sun on the clothes that they got _kind of_ dry after 45 minutes lying out; had to settle for that upon realizing that in Maine I'll never really get the cardboard, tortilla-chip kind of dryness that you get if you try to dry your gear out out West.

Walked alone the whole day while constantly leapfrogging the Swiss couple and Siesta; they ended up camping with me here along with Dortmund Joe, who lit out early and whom we never saw until the end of the day. They may end up as my Katahdin summit-mates, although the foreigners aren't sure if they want to summit Saturday or Sunday, while I'll almost certainly go up Saturday regardless. Today the trail was so benign and sun-dappled and cool and breezy that it was hard to see it as anything other than nature rolling out the red carpet as we move toward Katahdin. In the evening we got our first view of it, from across a minor lake, and it's quite an impressive massif. It didn't seem very far away. If I ever do the CDT and do it northbound, I'll be able to comment on Katahdin's merit as a trail terminus vis-a-vis Waterton Lake--those two seem to be in the running for the title of Most Awesome Way to End a Long-Distance Hike--but I have a suspicion that Katahdin wins. Something about ending on top of a mountain, one with such a good history--Thoreau losing his composure and all but yelling "What is this Titan that has possession of me? Who are we? WHAT are we?"--upon climbing it. I probably won't be doing the same on this blog, but who knows ... It could knock me for a loop just like it did for him. We'll see on Saturday.

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Day 18: Tuesday, September 2

In the East Branch Lean-to (AT mi 2113.2), walked 16.3 miles today

Got hiking a little after eight and was immediately forced into a treacherous ford of the ankle-deep West Fork of the Pleasant River. Having survived by the skin of my toes, I was rewarded with some cheap miles after that--four of them in an hour and a half on a clear, well-graded trail! Incredible. Still managed to sweat a ridiculous amount despite the relative ease of the trail, to the point where my clothes were all wetted out; this ended up causing big problems with chafe later in the day once it had cooled down. After the four easy miles came the six that looked brutal on the elevation profile, up and over four different peaks in the White Cap range, but they did not have the same degree of difficulty as yesterday's ascents and descents. Part of that was due to unbelievably good trail-building, with hundreds of rock steps on each peak ... I thought back to how hard a single rock step was to build on Konnarock Crew in 2007 and was very impressed, especially considering the remoteness of all this area.

After the first of the four peaks, clouds took over and socked in everything, leading to a sensation I realized I only remembered from New Hampshire and Maine on the AT in 2011--that of being on a mountain in a cloud, in really dark dense forest of short spruce trees, and hearing the wind whoosh around but not make much noise since it doesn't have leaves to catch hold of and rustle. It's a hard sensation to describe, or explain why it's special, but it's distinct and I'd forgotten all about it until now. The being-in-a-cloud also meant that everything, pack clothes and skin, got cold and thoroughly damp, and I stopped sweating, so the chafing really started to kick in at this point. My armpits even chafed, which has never happened before, ever. The views from the top of White Cap, allegedly stunning on a clear day, looked about like the picture below. I could not see Katahdin, as had been promised to me in my LYING, FULL OF SHIT guidebook.

Came down from White Cap to the Logan Brook Lean-to, where I spent a long break chit-chatting with all sorts of people, the usual suspects from the past few days plus some SOBOs, and two NOBOs named Captain Rico and Yote who caught up and will soon overtake us. No one northbound was headed past the next shelter, three miles on, so I walked most of that at an amble with the German Dortmund guy, whose trail name I learned today is Joe (because apparently no one in this country can pronounce Joachim, his real name). We talked about soccer some more. Got to the shelter around 5:30 to find the nearby grounds overrun with college freshmen on an orientation trip from a school in Portland, Maine. Awwright awright awright! The hiker trash took over the shelter itself--the crowd is me, the Swiss couple (Swiss Miss and Nobody), Siesta, Yote and Captain Rico. Thunderstorms are imminent, but again it barely rained on us hiking during the day. Tomorrow the terrain gets much much easier and I'll try to hike somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 miles.

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Day 17: Monday, September 1

Tenting by the West Foahhk of the Pleasant River (local pronunciation) (AT mi 2096.9), walked 15.3 miles today plus about .8 extra for water at one point

Got hiking around 8am after a great night's sleep and the first climb, a little blood-circulator that gained 1,000 feet in less than a mile, swiftly brought me to the conclusion that I couldn't hike 21 miles today like I'd been planning. Other climbs and descents in the next few miles bore that point out even further, but I didn't worry about it and set a more modest goal, this riverside camp, which still ended up taking me all day to make. The terrain was extremely challenging and the hiking laborious, appropriate for the holiday. Still, everything stayed just as beautiful as yesterday and I was in a great mood the whole time.

Took two breaks today that have to go down as all-time classics, shoe-ins to the Hiking Breaks Hall of Fame--the first at Cloud Pond Lean-To and the second on (stay with me here) Third Mountain. The one at Cloud Pond was born out of necessity, since it was the only water source for miles and my Moxie bottles were getting empty, so I made the trek .4 miles off-trail. Once I saw the pond I was extremely grateful I'd gone, because it was a pristine north-woods affair, with some ideally situated rocks for reclining and relaxing and gazing at the lake, and only me to enjoy it (presumably the distance off-trail scared other hikers away from stopping). I spent about 45 minutes there lazily munching Snyder's flavored pretzel bites and finally moved on to continue the parade of brutal ups and downs that was the trail today. Got rained on with medium intensity shortly thereafter, enough to scare me into battening down all hatches and covering my pack up, but it only lasted ten minutes and that was it for the day; more had been forecast but we escaped yet again. In fact, this whole AT experience this year has been surprisingly free of rain--I realized that in the mid-Atlantic section it never rained on me once while I was hiking, only at night, for 15 days. That's unheard of on the AT. 

The second break, on Third Mountain, was gloriously unplanned and happened when I stumbled upon a panoramic view just as the sun was coming out. Thunderstorms were off in the distance--I got cell service and Instagrammed a picture of it--but I was able to sit in full sun for a half-hour straight and dry everything off and eat a bunch of cheese. It was important to dry my hiking shirt off because I've sweated an unholy amount in it, especially today, and it's starting to fall apart already, being made of tender merino wool. Today I sweated so much that the pinholes at the bottom of the back panel of my pack started to let in sweat and it ended up pooling at the bottom of the inside of the pack, which I only discovered to my disgust (things *inside* the pack being soaked with my own sweat) at the end of the day. That never happened once on the PCT, or in the mid-Atlantic of the AT this year, with the same pack and same pinholes.

A thru-hiker named Siesta (not the most original trail name; I've now met four in the past two years) caught me up towards the end of the day and he and I walked and talked for a bit before he outran me. Even though I feel strong, I don't have true thru-hiker speed yet and won't have time to build it up this year. He ended up camping in the same spot, as did most of the other crew from yesterday--the Swiss couple, the German Dortmunder guy, and Eastwood. They all started out ahead of me intending to go 21 miles but, like me, were cowed by the incredible difficulty of today's trail and decided to end well short. I have no idea how anyone, like Shorts from the PCT who tried to set a speed record out here SOBO this year, hikes 30+ miles per day in this terrain. It seems physically impossible to me. Everything else about speed-hikers' pace seems feasible, like once I'm in good hiking shape I could keep up with them for at least one day or part of one day, but not 30 miles over this. I would collapse after half a mile at that pace.

Tomorrow is a 16-18 mile day, and then the terrain finally eases up and we're into the promised land, the much kinder second half of the 100 Mile Wilderness.

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Day 16: Sunday, August 31

Tenting near the Long Pond Stream Lean-To (AT mi 2081.6), walked 18.6 miles today

Slept in my tent in the side yard of Shaw's, as I had done three years ago, for the same reason as then, which is that it seemed a lot more restful than the bunkroom. Proved to be true: slept great and the first time I woke up was at 6:30am, just in time for breakfast at 7. Filled up on the standard breakfast foods while talking to my tablemates, a trio of 50-something south-Georgia-born siblings who are out to do part of the 100 Mile Wilderness. The brother has lots of backpacking under his belt, including an AT thru-hike and some adventures in Alaska, while his two sisters have zero. None of them look physically fit for backpacking, and the brother seemed just a bit imperious with his own expertise; they are heading southbound so I will no doubt run into them in a few days and see if they have injured themselves or one another yet.

Got a ride out from Shaw's to the old AT trailhead on Pleasant St., from whence I'd departed the trail for good in 2011, with Dawn the owner and Eastwood, the hiker I'd met and dined with last night. This saved two miles of non-trail that I'd assumed I'd have to walk this morning, which is good, because the 18 miles I did do took all freaking day. Right away the vast differences between the PA trail I'd just left and the Maine trail were apparent: it looks and smells deliciously sprucey; there are great water sources every mile or two; the trail is not especially rocky but definitely very rooty, although everything that isn't exposed tree roots is spongy soft organic matter; there are lakes and ponds everywhere, and north country lakes get me all hot and bothered, so I was really excited all day; and every now and then, unseen from one of said lakes, a loon would call out over the still Maine woods. Loons also get me hot and bothered. It was quite a day.

The trail was very crowded with hikers going both directions; not even counting the gaggle of day-hiking ladies I saw right after starting, there might have been two dozen other people I encountered today. The trail was slow going, but I didn't mind and no one else seemed to either because it was so wild and tranquil and north-woodsy, not just miles of fucking shit like Pennsylvania. Only took two substantial breaks, one at each intermediate shelter, after six then thirteen miles respectively. Met several NOBO thru-hikers who are finishing up and are for now on the same hiking schedule as me: Swiss Miss and Nobody, a young Swiss couple; the aforementioned Eastwood; Speedo and Grunt, an Alabaman couple who like me are finally finishing the trail after a failed thru-hike bid in 2011; and a German middle-aged banker whose name I haven't caught, but he and I talked about soccer for about two hours straight ... He is, first and foremost, a HUGE Borussia Dortmund fan and he was telling me about American prospects in the BvB youth academy that I've never even heard of. That and many other soccer-related things; I got the sense he hadn't met too many people on the trail with whom he could talk about the sport in much detail. I know I haven't met those people very often either, and when I do I tend to blurt soccer things at them nonstop until they come up with some excuse to stop "for a second" and ditch me completely.

The miles, as mentioned, took the full day from 8:15am to almost 7pm, by which point it was getting twilighty. The shelter seemed full and I wanted some quiet time, so I tented off away from it by myself, which I'm more comfortable with the routine of anyway (after the PCT). Tomorrow is a big test day, ideally a full 21 miles over some large elevation gains and uncertain trail to the Carl Newhall Lean-To. If it works out, I'm in better shape to climb Katahdin in the beautiful forecasted weather on Friday; if not, I'll readjust and aim for Saturday. Not a huge problem to have to spend an extra day out here.

More pictures on Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/scrubhiker

This sign means absolutely nothing in 2014

Friday, August 29 and Saturday, August 30

Walked a big fat ZERO miles

My dad came to pick me up from the Hamburg Microtel on Friday morning, fresh off his own personal pilgrimage to the Martin guitar factory in Nazareth, then he and I took one more quick tour of the Cabela's before leaving town. Via Swarthmore, where we lunched, he got me to the Philly airport around 12:30 whereupon I wrote emails and played a lot of backgammon on my phone and then departed for Portland, ME at 4. When I landed, Coyote (from the AT in 2011, a lifelong Mainer), picked me up and took me to his house in central Maine. Spent a fairly raucous evening with him and his family in Jay, eating a lot of good food and drinking Shipyard Pumpkinhead and shooting the shit around the fire. Coyote and his family are good people, fantastic people, and they also live in a completely different world from mine and I was extremely thankful to have experienced all of those things. 

Stayed on the couch in his pad, which he shares with his girlfriend Bri, for the night and in the morning we got a champion's breakfast at the Mill St. Cafe in Jay before setting out for Monson, maybe two hours away. On the way, I got a personal tour of a part of the country that I'd probably never visit otherwise, and that few people besides the locals and the more adventurous set of Boston tourists probably ever do. We talked a lot about Maine, and the trail, and Coyote wanting to do the PCT sometime. When we finally got to Shaw's in Monson we were both in more than a little disbelief, happy disbelief. For me, it was another "How the hell did I actually end up back here?" moment; Coyote texted me later and said standing at Shaw's he realized exactly how much he missed the trail. He started talking to Dawn, the proprietress, who remembered him and Bronza and Fishhead and their bizarre conclusion to their 2011 hike, which revolved around Fishhead quitting after 2000+ miles in Caratunk because his girlfriend back in Michigan had waited until then to dump him (and now they're getting married this coming week). We posed for some pictures in front of the building and then that was that; Coyote went back to Jay to work in the evening, I set about killing an afternoon and meeting hikers, even though there are only about a half-dozen around, much fewer than I was expecting at this time of the thru-hiking season. Three of us did trek over to an outstanding barbecue dinner at what must be a newish place in Monson, then I came back and set up my tent and reorganized/thinned down my food bag (bought a little too much on a grocery run earlier today). That brings us to now, writing this in the Shaw's common room. Tomorrow morning, the well-known Shaw's breakfast and then out into the Wilderness. 

Side thought: Maine, even the more decrepit areas, is a place that has left such an overwhelmingly positive impression on me that it can almost do no wrong now. I have had universally good experiences in Maine with Maine people. I will have a residence either here or on the North Shore of Minnesota one day. 

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Day 15: Thursday, August 28

At the infamous Microtel in Hamburg, PA (left AT at SOBO mi 971.7), walked 18.0 miles today

As expected, there was serious rain not long after going to sleep last night, but the storm system apparently brought much colder temperatures in its wake, because we were cold waking up and cold walking the first few miles in the morning. Couldn't have been more than 55 degrees; it was also breezy and thus very autumnal-feeling. My legs, after yesterday's failure at pacing, could proverbially have had a fork stuck in them--they were done, and I was mentally done with the shittastic rocky trail, to the point where I proclaimed in the first shelter register I came across that four of the previous miles were "unquestionably the shittiest of the 2185." Probably not the proudest thing I've ever written in one of those books, but I was not a happy hiker for most of today. All I wanted to do was _walk_, have some kind of peaceful consistent stroll on my last day of non-Maine AT, and the trail wouldn't allow it. I had to skip, jump, slip, hoist, roll my ankle five more times, etc. I actually have a blister on my right foot now, the first one in 4500 miles. Thank you, mid-Atlantic Appalachian Trail.

Took a really nice break after 7.5 miles (three hours of nonstop hiking, i.e. really slow) at the Eckville Shelter, which is in someone's backyard, then about three and a half trail miles later noticed a shortcut in the guidebook, which I took. Had a feeling that there wouldn't be much reward in staying on the white-blazed AT, which was on a gravel ATV/snowmobile track through dense woods for about five miles; at the end of the day I talked to Princess, who had been well behind me and followed the white blazes, and she concurred and wished she'd taken the shortcut instead. Even now, lying in a hotel bed and not in a bad mood at all, it's hard to see the point in sticking to the pure trail in that environment when you have faster alternatives. It really is pretty goddamn worthless. At any rate, the shortcut saved me about four miles and was a nice mental boost. The last five miles, back on the real AT, shouldn't have been a breeze (they were rocky and steep) but they were because I had my headphones in, was ahead of schedule thanks to the shortcut, and was in general feeling much better about everything.

Got to the road in Port Clinton around 4:30pm and after about 10 minutes was given a ride to the Cabela's in Hamburg by local hero Chris (such a euphonious name). Even though I knew what was coming, having been in there with Perro three years ago, I was still taken aback by how enormous and excessive it is, and how many mounted animals there are in that store. It's in the hundreds, not the dozens. I didn't actually need anything in Cabela's, I just wanted to reminisce a bit--in 2011 Perro and I were given a ride there on a very rainy day, looking like drowned rats, with me on my stress-fractured leg, and then the AYCE buffet upstairs really did seem like a promised land, albeit a weird one with things like the 11th-largest polar bear ever shot standing nearby. Walking over from Cabela's to the Microtel--taking 20 minutes because of the pedestrian-unfriendliness of the whole megaplex--also brought back memories from three years back, namely of me being unable to walk more than a minute or so on pavement without a break. The front desk of the hotel still had me on file as a returning customer from then. Got set up in a decent room, cleaned up, did laundry, then headed over to the Taco Bell once I had a text from Princess saying she'd reached the highway, figuring that she'd ask to be dropped off South of the Border by whomever she ended up hitching with. That was correct, and we rendezvoused over Cool Ranch Doritos Locos Supremes (I'd never had a Dorito Loco before, and now I see what all the fuss is about). Then her boyfriend, Brian, showed up, having driven up from DC, and I retired to my room at the hotel. After an hour or two messing with the blog and the internet and whatnot, I got a very unexpected phone call from Mr. Perro himself. He a) couldn't believe that I was finishing out the AT and back in the fuckin' Hamburg Microtel--to be honest, I barely could either--and b) expressed some interest in flying up to Maine from NC next weekend to climb Katahdin with me and maybe go camping with A-GAME (2011 AT friend of ours who lives in Maine now) afterward. I said fuck yeah to both, and now maybe that's going to be a thing.

The length and looseness of this post should be an indicator that this is a different type of day for me. I was very tired of the trail at the beginning--more upset with it than I've ever been at any point on the AT, never mind the PCT which I love almost unconditionally and simply didn't have bad days on. And once I got to town, I also had a whole bunch of strong and kind of funny memories of how utterly miserable it was when I was here before. This highway megaplex in Hamburg really is an odd place to be making a triumphant personal return to, since it has absolutely nothing to do with the trail and is in fact pretty antithetical to the aesthetic of the trail, just happens to be a mile or so from it. But I'm here now, I'm calling the shots instead of a dumb broken leg, and now I'm about to fly up to Maine and finish the AT beeyotch! That's about all I have to say now. Two days of transit, and then the Hundred Mile Wilderness begins. 

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