Days 42 and 43/July 21 and 22: Reaching into the hiker's bag o' tricks

When I arrived at Levardi's, Chance told me about the scheme he had to get to Ahab and Rainman's huge hiker party near Manchester, VT scheduled for July 22 and 23.

That would be a party that was scheduled to start in two days more than 60 miles away.

The invite to the party had been extended to the entire thru-hiker community as long ago as Graymoor. It sounded cool. Ahab and Rainman are cool guys. Ahab wears a hat that looks like the hats that Asians wear while picking rice and won first place in the Trail Days talent show. I hiked a few miles with Rainman in Jersey.

A few of us later did the math in Kent: 185 miles in 8 days. No way.

But Chance was determined, and had a plan. Getting to Manchester Center would involve slackpacking 17 miles back to Dalton from the summit of Mt. Greylock [elev. 3,491 ft.] on Tuesday, then hiking 25 miles over the next one or two days from the summit to Bennington and getting a bus from there to Manchester. We would bus back to Bennington after the party. Finally, Rainman [the party would be at his house] had assured Chance that he would send somebody to drive us the last 6 miles from the town to the party.

I was in. It beat zeroing in Dalton.

Levardi drove us up to Greylock on Tuesday, and we hiked south, with daypacks. It rained all day. I was soaked head to toe. At Cheshire, a trail town, we had some food. The bicycle trail looked awfully tempting, compared to the steep climb and long slog on the trail. So we blue-blazed it, hiking about 8 miles on hardtop in the rain.

It killed my feet.

And the next day, when Levardi drove us back to Greylock, the road to the summit was closed. No go. It was almost 7 miles from the gate to the top.

So we skipped the Greylock descent, or about 6 miles of the AT, and hiked from North Adams, Mass. to the first shelter in Vermont, the Seth Warner. Along the way I started seeing hikers who had previously been assuredly ahead of me: Leon and Halifax, MD3.

I'm hoping this means I've gotten slackpacking and blue-blazing and yellow-blazing out of my system, and all in a two-day shot.

Most hikers I've met at some point do at least the slackpacking bit during a thru-hike. A purist hiker doesn't do any of them, but there aren't many purists out here. An ultra-purist is a hiker who feels compelled to pass by every single white blaze from Georgian to Maine. I haven't met any of those.

The Appalachian Trail Conservancy gives 2,000-miler recognition based on the honor system; slackpacking is technically allowed, while the organization recognizes blue-blazing on an emergency basis.

As for those 6 lost miles, I could go back and do them later or do the approach trail to Springer Mountain in Georgia [the trail's start] and bank it, or bank some other miles somewhere.

It's all part of the journey.

Day 41/July 20: Yeah, life is good

In my previous post, I wrote about setting out from Tyringham, Mass. with the intention of reaching Dalton, Mass. in a day's hike. I also wrote about being disappointed at still not having tunes and about being weighed down by extra water, my water filter having quit.

I forgot to mention that I was wearing boots that had been wet for two days and clothes that hadn't been washed since Kent, Conn., some 70 miles earlier.

Finally, I didn't write the bit about Dalton being 28.7 trail miles from Tyringham.

So there you go.

[Lecture alert!]

When you set out to do a 29-mile day, as I had done just once before, you need to be A] highly motivated.

Check. More than fixing all the discomforts listed above, I was driven by my desire to catch up with the hikers I'd lost track of when I slowed down in Connecticut.

B] You need to forget about cooking meals, visiting shelters that are more than a few yards off the trail or swimming/taking in vistas, etc.

No problem. A combination of protein, fat and sugar two or so times in the day should suffice to fuel the human engine. I would do that with peanut butter, Pop Tarts, pepperoni and sharp cheddar cheese.

And, C], you need to just accept the fact that something is going to go wrong. No one hikes that far through the woods in one day and gets through it without a hiccup.

I passed by two trail magics - a box and a cooler - that had long ago been depleted. When I reached the first shelter, the October Mountain lean-to, a group of kids peppered me and another section hiker with questions while I ate some very basic food and checked the trail register. Pretty funny. Then one smart aleck wished me good luck with my "hiking sticks" on my way out.

The section hiker, a southbounder, told me that the remaining 12 or so miles were "cake." He also told me I'd be running into some sweet trail magic halfway to Dalton. I also read in the register that Pusher, a hiker I've met several times, had done virtually the same hike days before. After visiting the shelter, I was refreshed, and I hiked fast over the next 6 miles.

The trail was cake, and the trail magic was there. The sodas were ice cold and the orange things had little packets of Fritos, Oreos, Doritos etc. just waiting for me to eat.














After that came the hiccup, and it came in two: I developed a sudden and very aggravating chafing problem as I walked. Then, just a few miles outside of town, I could see the town lights but the trail went up, up and down where I thought - because my AT companion led me to believe so - there would be only down. It was very dark all of a sudden, so it was just me and my headlamp.

And these guys...














Two baby deer peering at me from either side of a narrow tree. I took my time in identifying them because I didn't want to rush right into a pair of bear cubs. The deer remained still and absolutely silent. I've since been told that adult deer leave their young in a spot while getting food. The young deer are scentless, and undetectable by predators, so that's their survival strategy.

I walked into Dalton not terribly late and made it to the home of Tom Levardi, a man who has for years hosted hikers free of charge at his Depot St. home. Outside in his yard I saw old trekking poles lining the walk - "Must be the place," I thought. The front door was open; only the screen door was closed.

Tom invited me in after I stashed my pack and boots among the others on the porch, and in the living room I found several hikers I was very glad to see: Col. Mustard, Chance and Mississippi, and a hiker named Lisa and one I hadn't met named Comb.

I took a shower and Tom dished me out some ice cream. Damn, hiking the Appalachian Trail wouldn't be the same without the trail angels.

It has been a humbling experience to find such people, and to exist as a wanderer among other wanderers. Whatever hardships the trail throws at me, I can look on moments like this one and feel blessed.

Day 40/July 19: Sometimes, the trail eats you

My Sunday of July 19 started nice and slow. I had the cherriest camp spot at which to wake up. Since I was only planning to hike 13 miles, I made oatmeal and dried out my clothes in the sun.

While hiking, my water bladder ran dry, as it does every day I hike, so I got out my filter at a stream and went to work. This time, there was a problem. My filter essentially quit, which it's not supposed to do until well after I finish the northern portion of the entire trail.

A little instruction sheet in the filter's carrying case gives instructions for cleaning the filter canister: Just flip two valves and let it flow in reverse. I worked on it for 30 minutes, gave up and hiked on, then worked on it for 30 minutes more.

No dice. Instead of jetting out of the filter at 3 liters per minute, full of bubbles, the water trickled out and kept the stream's color.
Instantly, I was transformed from a hiker with a range as long as my food lasts to a hiker with the range of a day hiker. It was crushing.

I reached Tyringham, Massachusetts in the late afternoon, where I needed to be on Monday to pick up a package. I had ordered myself a Sony Walkman radio in Salisbury to be sent there.

The town had the PO, a B & B and nothing else - not even a gas station, and I was low on food. Thankfully, I met a hiker named Hitch - from Chicago, doing Damascus, Va. to Maine - who was staying at the B & B and who had already arranged for the owner of the B & B to drive him to the bigger town of Lee nearby.

So we had dinner at Arizona Pizza, and then I resupplied for the short run at Price Chopper. We waited for our cab at a sports bar that had a golf channel on and served a beer with the masculine-sounding name of Steel Rail.

Back in Tyringham, sometime after 9 p.m., I set up my tent literally behind the post office. I woke up sometime very early, and couldn't get back to sleep, so I packed everything up at 6 a.m. and waited the three hours until the post office opened. It was at about 8 a.m. that a crew from Town Hall took a backhoe to the area where my tent had been earlier, so I'm glad I didn't wake up to that hassle.














And I found out my radio wasn't even there when post office opened.

At that point, I was like, "I'm getting to Dalton [the next trail town] even if it kills me." To address my water situache, I packed 208 ounces, or 13 pounds [!!!], of water and headed back to the hills, hoping for some good luck...

July 18: The joy of tenting

Now that mosquitos have become a mainstay on the Appalachian Trail, descending in swarms whenever you stop to filter water and making shelter sleep all but impossible, I have come to love sleeping in my tent.

No bugs can get in. I have plenty of room. I don't have to deal with snorers, as happens pretty often in shelters, and I pick my own spot. I can also stay up to read, write, play sudoku, whatever, without bothering others.

After 14.4 miles from The Hemlocks lean-to to the Tom Leonard lean-to, I was too beat and too wet-footed to feel like hiking another 6 miles with the five girls who make up the Packadivas and the Condiments, so I set up shop alone.

It was good to get in a long evening. It gave me a chance to dry out some laundry, properly hang a bear bag and cook. I even started a fire - only my second so far - and admired the view.














[My setup and the mountains in southwestern Mass., July 18]

Day 38/July 17: The three mountains

I left Salisbury, CT after noon with Early Bear and Lil Dipper and got up 1,200 feet in elevation to Bear Mountain, which is the highest point on the AT in Connecticut and only .7 miles from the Massachusetts state line.


















[Me at the top of Bear Mountain, in Connecticut, July 17, 2009]

Massachusetts greeted me with an unending buffet of my least favorite hiking ground: The steep, slippery rock which must be descended:














After that I summitted Race Mountain [elev. 2,365 ft] and Mt. Everett [2,602 ft]. It was the first day perhaps of my whole trip to that point where the trail felt mountainous. Mt. Everett boasted a 360 degree view because of the low vegetation:














After a wet 14.1 mile hike I slept in The Hemlocks lean-to [New England way of saying "shelter"]. I got there late, at about 8 p.m., and everybody was in bed with the lights out while I ate dinner [tortilla + pepperoni + cheese + sun dried tomatoes] and read the trail register on my top bunk. Normally lights out is at about 9 p.m., but it was all good.

July 17: To Mass. or die

So I didn't make it out of Salisbury yesterday. However, the $30 I spent to split a room at the White Hart Inn turned out to be the smartest $30 I've spent this entire trip.

A murderous storm that dumped rain in buckets, felled trees, dropped lightning all over the place [with the loudest thunder I've heard in years] and pelted earth with hail struck the area at about 7:30 p.m. It will be interesting to hear, over the next few days, how all of the hikers stuck in the woods got through that.

I spent it on the porch of the inn along with Early Bear, Lil Dipper and Matchstick. Early Bear did some guy science and tested out the force of the hail:




Now I'm off to Massachusetts and I'll be hustling to get to Vermont, where greener pastures lie.