Countdown Commencing

So I woke up this morning (August 28) at the Imp shelter after a brutal hike yesterday, and I really didn't have a great idea of what was ahead of me in the second half of this section. Like, I've hiked between Imp shelter and Route 2 going southbound, as I mentioned in yesterday's post, when I was a camper and a counselor at Pine Island. But I had never hiked it going the other way.

I knew I had about an 8-mile stretch to get to Route 2, including one big challenging climb up and over Mount Moriah that I wasn't necessarily looking forward to. It had rained overnight, but that was okay. I mean, I wasn't thrilled about putting away a wet tent in the morning, but at least the rain had stopped by the time I got up.

So it was a little wet going over Mount Moriah. And very windy. But the past few days on the trail have been really nice, so I shouldn’t complain. I can't expect every day to be beautiful, and it certainly could have been a lot worse. So I'll take it. [Wife note: In these pics, everything looks nice and dry and lovely, so I was confused, but Rob/Patch explained that these were taken after he’d gone over Moriah and things had cleared up.]

About 5 miles into the day, the trail mercifully started a very gradual descent down to Route 2. And it was just amazing how different it felt, compared to the past several days — actually, since I started hiking from Franconia Notch, after I left the Notch hostel, because since then, there have been virtually no easy miles or what I would even consider reasonable miles.

So the 3 miles down to Route 2 were just a pleasure. When I reached Route 2, I found a large population of hikers who were going back into Gorham after one night on the trail. So they hiked from Gorham to Pinkham Notch, spent the night, and then today, hiked from Pinkham back to Route 2 and were headed into town. But I decided to keep going.

And I'm glad I did, because I was traveling in a pretty large group of hikers, and the campsites were all pretty full. And I’ve always been able to get a tent site, but I just don't like feeling competitive about that or kind of stressing about it while I’m hiking. So while everyone was waiting at Route 2 for their rides into town, I kept going.

The AT takes you on a little bit of a road walk, and then you cross the Androscoggin River, road walk a little more, go back into the woods, and shortly thereafter, you hit 1,900 miles. There was a nice marker made out of pine cones. It doesn't even seem real to me at this point how far it’s been since Georgia. But the 1,900-mile marker signifies for me that I have fewer than 300 miles to go to reach the end of the AT. I'm sort of considering this the pivot point to counting down rather than counting up.

From there, my next stop was Trident Col tentsite, and “col” doesn't stand for colonel. I had to look it up. Apparently, “col” is synonymous with “gap” or “notch.” There are a lot of campsites and tentsites in northern New Hampshire and southern Maine with “col” in the name.

So I got to Trident Col, and it's only a tentsite, no shelter. And it's this beautiful, quiet, serene place. I was the first person here, but shortly after I arrived, a hiker named Sleepy Joe showed up. We've been keeping a pretty similar pace over the past couple days. And then a southbound hiker came in, and that seems to be it for tonight.

So it’s really quiet here, really nice. I got here with plenty of time to set up my tent and actually make a proper dinner, though my quote-unquote proper dinner these days is instant mashed potatoes — flavored, of course, but not heated — with a packet of salmon or tuna or chicken thrown in. You know, gourmet eating on the trail. But it's filling, and it saves me from having to carry the weight of a stove and a fuel canister.

So I’ve had dinner, cleaned up, and now I’m in my tent and hoping for a good night's sleep. Tomorrow is supposed to be a very challenging day, according to the comments I’ve seen on Far Out, so we'll see how it goes.