Luck Be a Lady
This morning (August 5), I woke up at the Catamount Motel. It was starting to seem like I’d moved in there. I wanted to get on the trail early, and Jim had to get home and get back to work, so we didn't dally. The night before, I’d purchased stuff for us to have for breakfast in the hotel room, so we got up and ate a little breakfast and had a little coffee before heading out.
Jim kindly drove me back to the trail, and as I've said, I don't know, a billion times before — sorry I keep mentioning this — whenever you leave town, you always have a big climb right off the bat. And for whatever reason, I still get anxious about the big climb out of town, even though I feel like I’ve got my hiker legs now. Maybe my ability to hike is better than my knowledge of my ability to hike. Luckily, the weather wasn't too hot in the morning, and that is such a huge factor in whether or not my hike is pleasant. The cooler the weather, the better it is, and fortunately, I felt pretty good. I felt pretty rested, and I made it up the 1,000-foot ascent in no time.
In general, this section of the trail isn't overly noteworthy. I'm hoping Vermont gets a little bit more interesting as I progress into it, but this is only day two in Vermont. It's definitely starting to get Vermuddy, as I mentioned a couple posts ago. I'm kind of hoping that the trail doesn't actually live up to its dubious reputation of being super muddy, but I probably need to be realistic about that.
About halfway into the day, I bumped into a hiker who was doing the Long Trail, going south. This section of the trail — I’d say from the southern border of Vermont probably about 80 miles into the state — is both the Appalachian Trail and the Long Trail. So, not only have I starting seeing AT thru-hikers that are going SOBO from Katahdin down to Springer Mountain, but I’ve also starting seeing people who are hiking the Long Trail, both southbound and northbound, and that's proven to be very interesting so far.
So, I bumped into this nice lady, named Eileen. She told me she actually has three different trail names but just chooses to refer to herself by her real name. She had a very interesting take on distance hiking. She hiked the AT a while ago, and like I said, she’s doing the Long Trail now — she only had a day or so left to go — and she attributes anyone’s success to luck. Because, you know, your hike can end in the blink of an eye. She told me a story of how she fell and needed help and made it to the next road crossing and, luckily, someone just happened to be parked there and was able to help her. So that saved her hike, and she was able to continue.
I explained that I've fallen a couple times, and I hurt my leg a little bit in Pennsylvania, but it could have been a lot worse, and she was like, “See? Your hike could have ended there!” It seems like a bit of a pessimistic take on things, because I'd like to think that preparation, skill, and fortitude count for something and help you on your hike, but I guess everyone's got their own philosophy.
After I talked to Eileen, I continued on to the Kid Gore shelter for the night. I did about 14.5 miles today. There’s a guy here who’s doing a 300-mile section hike. He's from Tucson, Arizona, and he’s a professor of pharmacology at the University of Arizona. He’s just kind of testing whether or not he wants to do the whole AT. He's almost done with his 300 miles, and I think he’s pretty much determined that he doesn't want to do the whole thing after all, so good for him.
He’s sort of a novice home brewer, but he has a very good understanding of biology and the science behind brewing, so we had a really nice conversation about all that. He was really interested in talking about enzymes and temperatures and yeast health and all that stuff, so it was fun for me to kind of nerd out about beer with someone who was eager to learn.
After a little bit, a father-daughter hiking duo came into camp. The daughter actually hiked the AT last year — her trail name is Webster — and she's sort of a super hiker. She does big miles, and quickly. I talked to them for a bit about the logistics of meeting up with friends and family at Baxter State Park in Maine. I want S. to join me to summit Katahdin that last day, and we’ve been trying to figure out how that all works.
The parks service is very protective of Katahdin and has all these complicated restrictions and vague limits, and it’s really not easy to figure out. And talking with these guys just added to the mystique that it's next to impossible to figure out how the heck to navigate meeting up with people in the state park. Oh, and there's no cell signal there, which complicates things even further. So, I guess they weren’t able to be all that helpful, but at least it affirmed that we weren't crazy.
At any rate, I’m glad to be at the shelter tonight. When I got here, I immediately set up my tent and got water and all that, because I knew it was going to start raining before too long. When the storm got here, the section hiker had been so wrapped up in our conversations about hiking and brewing that he’d neglected to go filter his water for the night, and then it just started to downpour. We were all hiding from the rain in the shelter, and he was attempting to capture some of the water coming off the roof so he wouldn't have to go down to the stream in the storm.
He stripped down to his boxers and was holding on to the side of the shelter and holding his water bottle out, trying to catch the drips. He only managed to get a few ounces, though. So in the end, he wasn't very successful, but the whole thing was entertaining to watch.
We all ate dinner in the shelter, and when there was a short break in the rain, I headed back here to my tent — and then it started raining again. Hopefully, it won't rain the entire night and soak the ground, but we'll see.
