The Rainbow Connection

Today is August 22, and I awoke at the Galehead hut pretty early in the morning. I’d gotten a decent night's sleep, but when you’re staying in a bunkhouse, there’s not a lot of privacy or personal space. And there were two people in the bunkhouse that happened to be very loud snorers.

And I recognize that this is a particularly rich thing for me to be critical of, given that in days gone by, I’ve typically been the person keeping everyone in the bunkhouse awake with my snoring, But the trail has caused me to shed quite a few pounds, and apparently, I don't snore anymore. When I get back home, I'm going to have to try to maintain something close to my current weight so I can continue to not snore and not keep S. awake like I used to. I'll have to be very disciplined about that, so we'll see whether I succeed.

There was a guy from Germany staying at the hut, and even though I asked him several times to help me understand his name, I just couldn't get it. But I do know that he's from Frankfurt, he’s hiked some sections of the Appalachian Trail over the past few years, and he’s out now just doing a small section. Nice guy.

So this morning as I was heading back to the bunkroom from the bathroom, I noticed that my new friend from Germany was walking around the place wearing a very small pair of black bikini underwear. And that’s it. The etiquette around these huts is that if you're not in your bed, you generally are clothed. But this guy from Frankfurt was just casually rocking his tiny black bikini underwear with his generous body — let's put it that way — hanging out all over the place. I thought that was pretty funny. It was definitely a very non-American thing to do.

Another guy who was staying there — not a thru-hiker, just a weekend hiker — was a very avid photographer. When he got up from the breakfast table to head out, he said, “All right, it's time to go photograph some mushrooms!” which I thought was pretty funny given my friend Jon's enthusiasm about taking pictures of all the mushrooms he saw when we were hiking through Connecticut together. So maybe mushroom photography is a thing?

I asked him whether he’d really just said that he was going out to photograph mushrooms, because I wasn't completely sure that I’d heard him right. But I’d heard him right. So I pulled up and showed him a bunch of the mushroom photographs I took in Connecticut, and he seemed pretty interested in them.

Another great benefit of staying in one of these huts is that they feed you breakfast, in addition to dinner. So this morning, I had a nice breakfast of oatmeal and eggs and some great blueberry coffee cake. Unfortunately, the weather forecast for the day was not nearly as nice. It was looking pretty grim again and was already raining a bit. Originally, we’d all expected it to clear up today, but up in the mountains, things just happen differently. The weather is a lot less predictable.

All my stuff was still sopping wet, too. Nothing had dried at the hut overnight. Rainbow and I talked through our options for the day and ultimately agreed that we would hike out to the highway, head into town, and get to a hotel so we could finally dry our stuff out. But I definitely felt a little awkward about the decision, because I just spent a night at the Hikers Welcome hostel. Then I went and spent three nights at the Notch hostel. And then I spent a whopping one night out on the trail at the Garfield Ridge campsite and followed that up by spending last night at a hut. Now, I'm staying at a hotel in North Conway.

So lately, my thru-hike seems to be more more of a series of day hikes than a true camping trip. But I think the stays are all reasonably defensible, given the circumstances, and I'm still making good miles. Before long, I won't be able to stay in a hotel or hostel, so I might as well soak it up while I can.

Rainbow and I headed out together in the morning and hiked together the whole day. The biggest challenge we had was hiking over South Twin Mountain, which is about a mile away from the Galehead hut. It was straight up for that whole mile, and, of course, it was raining on us the whole time. No view at the top, either. Rainbow and I are starting to suspect that we’re never going to see the sun again.

At about 7.5 miles into the day, we came to the Zealand Falls hut, which was a very welcome sight. We stopped there for a bit to rest and have some lunch.

This morning, before we left the Galehead hut, Rainbow texted a guy named Hydro to see whether he could pick us up from the trailhead at Route 302 and Crawford Notch and take us into town. And Hydro had said, “Yeah, no problem. Just let me know.”

Rainbow and Hydro are both from Tennessee, though I’m not exactly sure how they know each other. And Hydro decided to follow the AT hiker bubble north this year and be a shuttle driver. He hiked the AT last year, and now, he basically lives in his van and drives people around.

And I don't know exactly where this happened, but I think somewhere along the trail in southern Virginia, a couple from Cleveland met Hydro and decided that they wanted to slack pack the entire trail — or at least slack pack as much as possible — so they kind of put Hydro on retainer. Now he’s following them up the trail and stays nearby so he’s available whenever they need him. And when he's not doing something for that couple, he gives rides to other hikers and makes a little extra money on the side.

As I mentioned, Rainbow had arranged with Hydro to pick us up, but we had no cell signal when we were getting close to the pickup spot, so we couldn’t reach him to confirm. I used my Garmin to message S. and asked her to text Hydro for us to let him know that we’d be at 302 by 5:00, and we arrived right on time. We’d managed to cover the 7.5 miles or so down from the Zealand Falls hut in just about three hours.

S. had found two hotel options for us but hadn’t booked anything, because she didn’t know which one we’d want. One was closer to the middle of town, but she thought the other one, Mountain Inn, seemed nicer — plus, all the rooms had balconies. When I heard that, that clinched the decision for me. Having a balcony would be a serious windfall, because I’d be able to hang my tent out there and finally get it to dry out.

Before we went to the hotel, though, we stopped at REI. Hydro needed to return some pants, and Rainbow needed a few things, so I took the opportunity to get myself some warmer clothing. I also wanted a new raincoat. The one I had just hadn't been working for me. So I bought an REI raincoat and an REI fleece that was on clearance for 40 bucks, and now I feel much more equipped for the cold weather.

Then, Hydro drove us into North Conway, and we checked into the Mountain Inn. By this time, it was probably 6 o'clock. Our plan was to shower up and then get dinner at the Sea Dog Brewery. It was an underwhelming brewery experience, but it was beer nonetheless, and I got a turkey burger. Hydro actually joined us for dinner, so Rainbow, Hydro, and I got a good chance to hang out, and Hydro told us some great stories from his AT thru-hike.

We went back to the hotel, and by then, everything had dried out nicely, and I was able to reorganize my pack a bit. I talked to S. for a while after that, which is always nice and so much easier when I’m at a hotel. And then I caught up on making recordings for a bunch of days that I’d missed. Sometimes I’m just too tired at the end of the day to do it, so I take notes and then record the posts later.

It's now close to 11 o’clock, and I’m struggling to stay awake, so I think I’ll call it a night. I’m headed back to the trail tomorrow, though I’m not expecting to do too many miles, and Rainbow will be staying here an extra day. I’m sure I’ll see him again further down the trail.