Almost there

Above treeline and looking at the summit of madison!

Mt. Madison

A view of Madison and Washington from the descent down the Wildcats. Right now I am two and a half miles from the top of Madison.

The Prezzies: Not an Award for Best Musical President

Well I managed to spend my entire zero day without thinking of anything interesting to write about. In fact, I didn't think about, or do, much of anything, It was amazing. I'm feeling strong, clean, full, and rested. My gear is repaired (as much as duck tape can repair these things) and the exhaustion has faded from my legs. I'm feeling ready for New Hampshire.

Kind of! NH is the hardest state on the trail, and for good reason...

As soon as I finish this post I'm going to step out the front door of the hostel and head off into the Presidential Range of White Mountain National Park. I will spend a large part of the next week above the treeline, exposed to the infamously unpredictable weather of this big daddy mountain range. Elevations change dramatically, the grades are steep, the terrain is harsh, and the places to camp, or even get shelter from a storm, are extremely limited. Sort of like Southern Maine, only less moose and more tourists taking gondala rides.

It's about seven days to the next major resupply point in North Woodstock, NH. So expect a huge post at that point. Gotta go. The trail calls. Plus I'm excited about lunch. I got some summer sausage and chedder cheese.

--Happy Trails
--Pawn

Dispatch from Gorham: City of Rest

"Oh yeah. The next ten miles are easy. You guys will have no problem. It's all downhill."

Here is a little tip for you. If a skinny guy with a beard ever says something like this, and you happen to be standing in southern Maine, do not, repeat, DO NOT believe him. There is no such thing as an easy mile in southern Maine.

Period.

Anyway.

I'm in New Hampshire! Yes! Two hundred and eighty miles after summiting Mount Katahdin, I crossed the state line. It was a wonderful experience walking past that little sign and knowing that my feet, aided by a prodigious amount of snickers bars and ramen noodles, carried me out of one state and in to another.

The last week was the most difficult week, physically speaking, of my life. Huge climbs, huge descents, over and over again. Wake up, climb mountains, go down the other side. Lather, rinse, repeat. And don't be fooled in to thinking that down is easier to up, because most of the time it's actually harder. Gravity plus a pack plus slick granite equalls falling down a mountain.

But the views? Oh man. Worth it in every sense of the word. In some ways I am actually sad to be out of Maine, because there is a wildness and rugedness to this place that is unlike anything I have ever seen.

Did I mention I saw another moose last night? I went down to a pond to collect some water for my dinner. I look up and there is a moose, standing chest deep in the water, pausing halfway through a mouthful of pond scum to check me out.

The moose and I regarded each other with somewhat similar expressions of surprise and befuldelment, then she went on with her dinner and I went on with mine. It was a sublime moment, in so much as the word sublime can be used to describe a wild mountain cow.

Speaking of moose, I really think that mankind missed out on a huge opportunity by failing to domesticate these awesome creatures. I can't tell you the amount of times I've been skidding down a slick granite face, barely in control of myself, and thought "I wish I was riding a moose right now." We don't really have a domesticated animal that specilizes in that kind of terrain. I say again-huge loss.

I can't be the only one who thinks such things. I'll ask around on the trail.

More posts tomorrow as I take my first zero day since July 3rd. It seems strange to think about NOT walking tomorrow. We'll see what it feels like. Tonight I am clean, well fed, and headed for a soft bed.

--Happy Trails
Pawn

The Not So Approving Sniffs of My Fellow Library Patrons

I am in Rangley, a quaint little ski town about seventy miles from the New Hampshire border. The people here give off the distinct scent of money, while I give off the distinct scent of...roadkill. 

I smell bad.

In fact, I smell really bad. This is the most "non hiker" people I have been around in 19 days, and in that time I have had two showers. My clothes have been washed twice. It is summer time. And I managed to step in dog crap five seconds after getting into town. So yeah. The people sitting next to me here at the public library, the librarians, the library, and probably the town fathers of Rangley itself are not happy, olfactorily speaking.

We are pushing on to Gorham, New Hampshire after this little pit stop. So far southern Maine has been just as difficult as advertised, though far more rewarding than I thought it would be. The views going up over Saddleback Jr, The Horn, and Saddleback yesterday were well worth the effort.

I passed the two hundred mile mark a few days ago, a cause for minor celebration. I split an orange four ways with the crew.  Cold Beer passed around a nip of whiskey. Six Strings played his guitar. Patches made mac and cheese. All was as it should be.

Speaking of oranges...I dream about them at night. I think about them during the day, at odd moments. I imagine that I can smell them. This is probably my bodies way of saying, "hey...um...remember vitamins?!" So I ate about five of them in Stratton and packed a few into the woods with me. They didn't even last two days.

Nineteen days and I've lost almost twenty pounds. That is pretty brutal math, but I still have another twenty pounds of fat on me, at least.  After that, I'll have to start going up on my food intake, or I will simply melt away.

The A.T. seems to be eating my shoes alive. I am predicting total shoe failure before the halfway point, although after New Hampshire the gnawing might stop, or at least slow.

Okay I am going to take pity on the man sitting next to me and walk around the library for a bit. They are having a book and bake sale today, and I might pick up something good for a dollar.

Happy Trails--
--Pawn

Bad Hostel Art: A Retrospective

The first of many entries, no doubt.

Bright Lights, Big City: A Dispatch from Stratton

I'm sitting here at the shared computer in the the Stratton Motel, a hiker hostel located in the bustling metropolis of Stratton, Maine. (pop. 685) Directly across from me a is a full length, three foot map of the entire trail, with a tiny arrow pointing to the a point three inches from the top. Next to the arrow is a handwritten note that says "you are here". I'm trying not to look at it.

Life is still good. Long distance hiking is a complete shock to the system, and the only way to truly prepare for it is to, you guessed it...hike extremely long distances. So I like to think that I am out of the "shocking" phase and my body is slowly beginning to adapt to the rigors of this task. As previously stated, my blisters and knee pain have mostly faded, leaving me free to concentrate on climbing hills and enjoying the natural beauty all around me.

Cold Beer and I have hooked up with two other hikers named Patches and Six String. We took an light hiking day into town (six miles) and are staying the night at the hostel to rest ourselves before we tackle southern Maine--a rugged place regarded as the second most difficult section on the entire A.T.

Yesterday I climbed about three thousand feet in the rain to the top of Bigelow Mountain, my first four thousand foot peak since Katahdin. Visibility was completely zero and the wind was blowing...well, honestly I don't know how fast it was blowing, but lets put it this way: I tried to pour water into my mouth and the water went sideways. I may be able to post a video of this summit in a few days.


(side note: I just had to stop and slap an elephant sized mosquito that is somehow inside this building. He probably tunneled under the house, I thought I felt the foundation shaking a few minutes ago. No worries. I have a plan to solve the ever present bug problem, and when I introduce it to trail life, nothing will ever be the same again. More on that in about ten days.)


There are so many things I want to talk about: life on the trail, what Maine is like, the people I am meeting. I think I may concentrate on those sort of things a little more from now on...I think those topics are more interesting than how many miles I have done in any one day.

So, to start out with: Hiker culture. I could go on and on about this but I think what I want to concentrate on most right now is generosity. As a group, long distance hikers are the most generous people I have ever met. If you are short on food, seven people offer to give you some. Need a shoe lace? No problem. Somebody will unlace his own boot and cut one in half for you. Short on cash? Here's a dollar.

This may not seem very awe inspiring to you but for this one important fact: Food, shoelaces, and one dollar is basically all these people  have. Most of them don't even have jobs or a house anymore (sound familiar?). When you carry your entire life on your back, for six months, from mountain to mountain and shelter to shelter, offering a total stranger the literal shirt off your back is a huge thing, a gigantic thing. And yet I see it every day. Most of the I see it more than once a day.

Relationships form instantly on the trail, and I do mean instantly. I don't want to cheapen the experience of war and the bonds formed between soldiers by comparing it to something as pedestrian as walking over mountains--and yet...and yet there is something close there.

The sense of a shared experience, the idea that at the end of the day all of us have hiked up and down the same unforgiving terrain, fallen into the same bogs, had our very living essence drained away by the same ocean liner sized bugs...it brings us together in a way that I could never have imagined "back in the real world".

Anyway. I think that is enough for the night. More on the nitty gritty of hiker life later. Reminder to self: Talk about home made gear, cooking in camp, the way northbounders look down on southbounders, and the way I Frankenstiened two different pairs of shoe soles together to form one ultimate pair of hiker soles. (I call them Sam and Dave, respectively. Eh? Eh? I'll be here all night.)

I have to go sort through my resupply food and get my bag packed for tomorrow. Send your happy thoughts out to Rachael, she is planning a wedding and trying to move to Ohio at the same time. All I have to do is hike for fifteen hours a day, and that is easy by comparison.

Also, here is the blog of a guy I keep running into on the trail. His name is Chris and he is a super cool dude.
www.ghettohiker.wordpress.com

Until next time,

Happy Trails

--Pawn

Notes From Pleasant Pond Mountain

Woke up this morning to find that despite all the precautions you can possibly take, rodents had raided my food bag and stolen my m&ms and nibbled on a bagel. Luckily for the mice they didn't touch my snickers bars. If they had I very well might have set fire to the shelter in retribution.

An paltry nine mile day today, four of which was climbing to the top of pleasent pond mountain.  I have a one and a half mile descent, after which I will camp on one of Maine's many lakes. Might even go for a swim!  Roughly two weeks left in Maine...and then come The Whites. Already they loom over me, psychologicaly if not physically. Phone battery is getting low so the next post might come in four or five days after ressuply in Stratton. 
Happy trails--
--Pawn

Notes from moxie bald mountain

Today I feel better than I have in days. The two hundred blisters on my feet are beginning to harden. The ache in my knees has faded considerably. Two low milage days combined with ten of the flattest miles in Maine today have healed my body and spirit. The three hundred and sixty degree view from the top of Moxie Bald also help. Some quick notes: the mosquitos have been replaced with a sadistic species of gnat that apparently reproduces by dive bombing directly into my eye. Snickers bars remain my chief source of spiritual happiness. Cold Beer still talks about cold beers all the time but primarily wants the bugs to go away. The mice at the last shelter have a taste for plastic. Cold Beer had his water filter chewed to shreds. My favorite thing about Maine is now the lakes and the loons. Okay gotta go--miles to go and promises to keep and all that.
Happy trails--
Pawn

100 Miles in the Wilderness

There is so much to update and not a lot of time to do it in before I have to show up for my all you can eat breakfast and then catch a ride back to the trail. So let me give you a quick re-cap of the last seven days and then a short list of highlights and lowlights.

I camped at Baxter State Park on the 2nd. On the morning of the 3rd, I woke at four fifteen and started walking up Mount Katahdin. It was an absolutely amazing climb. I got to the summit by eight thirty, snapped a few photos and ate some breakfast, then headed back down. I eventually walked twenty miles that day. Over the next week I walked anywhere from ten to seventeen miles per day. I met absolute brilliant people. I saw absolutely brilliant views. I started to use the word "brilliant" in sentences like that because I hiked with two Irish dudes for a few days. After seven days of the most difficult and technical hiking I have ever done, I  reached the end of the hundred mile wilderness. I am pretty beat up. Knees sore and stiff, feet achy and blistery, legs looking like raw hamburger meet from the mosquitoes and black flies. And yet I like this life. Here are some things that stick out about the last week, good and bad, in no particular order.

• The view from the top of Katahdin. Maine seems to be more lake than land. 
• Stopping at Abol Bridge Campground and eating two hamburgers, three snickers bars, and a six pack of beer to celebrate my first day on the trail. After a twenty mile day, all that took about six minutes.
• Seeing a moose on my first day in Baxter State Park.
• Losing one of my trecking poles--also on my first day--while trying to ford a river. I am bad at fording rivers. 
• Learning a thousand different ways to curse at mosquitoes from my Irish friends, Matty and Smiley. The Irish have a way with words. 
• The absolute misery of the first fifty miles after Katahdin--a swampy, sticky, mosquito infested nightmare of flooded trails and rotted bridges. Three straight days of wet feet and socks that won't dry. 
• The absolute elation of getting back some elevation. The views from White Cap Mountain, Chairback Mountain, and Fourth Mountain. 
• Getting to know southbounders and northbounders in camp at night. Playing chess, reading, talking. Complaining about our feet together. 
• Hitchhiking for the first time and actually being successful at it. 
• Missing my family. Missing Rachael and not being able to see her in Joseph right now. 
• Meeting a guy at the bus stop in Bangor that I would eventually end up hiking with a few days later. His trail name is Cold Beer. Guess what he talks about all the time? 
• Cold Beer and I finding our first bit of trail magic--an old scary guy selling two dollar cold beers from a cooler on his front porch at the very southern edge of the wilderness. 
• Sitting out on the dock at the Lakeshore House, a hostel here in Monson, and watching the sun set. 
• Showering last night AND this morning.
• Losing six pounds in seven days despite the huge amounts of food I ate. This is a major, major physical activity.

There is more, so much more, but just  no time to talk about it all. More later. Next post in five to six days from Stratton. I'm off to AYCE pancakes.

Happy Trails--
--Pawn

Initial Thoughts and Precursors

So here I am in the bus station in Bangor, sitting by a window, watching a heavy rain trickle down the glass. It started about seventeen seconds after I got inside. So far my luck is holding!

Some thoughts on Maine so far. First of all, the temp is a lovely, balmy seventy-ish. Goodbye for now Georgia--you fetid hundred degree armpit of a state, you. The people here are pleasant and straight forward, at least so far. It appears as if the suspender remains the dominant method of combating the effects of gravity upon pants. I love Maine for that, if nothing else. Also there are side walks here, and lots of people using them. (Looking at you, urban planners of Coweta county)

The man at the bus stop looks like somebody who writes poetry about fence posts and ramshackle barns. He pegged me immediatly, asking with a smile if I was walking all the way home or just doing a paaawt of the trail. I said "all the way" and he sold me a bus ticket.

I will be here until six thirty, at which point my bus will arrive and whisk me one step closer to Baxter State Park. Reception will be bad in the Hundred Mile Wilderness so this might be my last post until I get to Monsen approximately ten days from now. (I will try to post from the summit of Kathadin tomorrow if I can get service, but no promises)

Things still seem unreal. Tomorrow the jaunt begins in earnest. Wish me strong ankles and chafe free thighs. :-)

-Pawn

Walking to the bus station

Away we go

Sitting on the runway preparing to fly. Air travel is an amazing, incredible, stupendous way to travel. It's also a five hundred dollar excuse to have your head pressurized.

Strange to think that I am going to spend the next four months covering the same distance that is about to only take five hours!