Day 141:
Part 2
We stopped
by the White Mountains Lodge & Hostel because we were low on food and the
guidebook indicated that they sold some. The hostel was really just a house and
the only food they sold were frozen pizzas you could cook there and ice cream.
Nepsis found some food in the hiker box. It wasn’t much, but we figured we
could survive off of it until the next town. We wanted to hike on a bit more
and not go further into town. So we cooked up two pizzas and ate them in the
garage. Once we were full we set out again along a paved road to a dirt logging
road and finally back up into the woods. We climbed up Mt Hayes. I was trying
to rush ahead to make it to a campsite, but Nepsis was lagging behind. When I
got thirsty I realized I forgot to grab any water at the hostel and the one
brook on the way to the campsite was just mud. We drank the few sips we had
left and continued on, down a bit, and up Cascade Mountain. We hiked over five
miles on just a little water, it was getting dark, and I was very tired. We
hiked down the mountain into a gap and I kept slipping and falling. The last
time I fell, I freaked out and declared that I was done walking and just sat on
the ground. It took a bit for Nepsis to get me going because I thought we were
still nowhere near the campsite and it was about to get really dark. It turned
out we were about ten steps away from the side trail leading to the Trident Col
Campsite. Nepsis hurriedly set up the tent while I walked a ways down to a
clear, cold pool of water. It was glorious to drink. After everything was set
up, we went to sleep quickly.
Miles hiked
today: 22.1 Total AT miles completed: 1893.9 Total AT miles left to hike: 291.4
Day 142
We woke up,
broke camp and began hiking up to Wocket Ledge, across a ways, and up the short
and steep Mt Success. We ate lunch on the Trail as a storm gathered above us.
We hiked on to a sign indicating that we were now crossing into our last state:
Maine! Yote and Peaches were eating lunch there and we took photos for one
another. We hiked on, up Mt Carlo and across three peaks of Goose Eye Mountain.
We reached Full Goose Shelter and Campsite where Yote and Peaches were already
tucked warmly into their sleeping bags. Peaches and Yote were showing each
other photos on their cell phones. We were going to push on, but it was getting
quite cold and Mahoosuc Notch, considered the most difficult mile on the Trail
was coming up and we didn’t know how long that would take or if there were an
camping spots anywhere around it. So we set up in the shelter and it began
raining as White Rabbit, Silent Bob, and Bagheera each showed up. As the light
of day faded, it became colder and colder before we drifted off to sleep.
Miles hiked
today: 14.5 Total AT miles completed: 1908.4 Total AT miles left to hike: 276.9
Day 143
We woke up
early to the extreme cold. It was the first time since our early days of hiking
that I had to put on my down jacket again. It was hard to get going very fast,
but we were the first ones to begin hiking. Our food supplies were getting
drastically low so we hoped to hike the next twenty miles quickly, in order to
get to the town of Andover by dinnertime. It was only a mile and a half up
Fulling Mill Mountains’s south peak and down to the dreaded Mahoosuc Notch. At
the very beginning it wasn’t so bad, then we found ourselves in the midst of a
huge jumble of large slabs of rocks we had to somehow maneuver around. It was
fun, albeit extremely slow, for a while finding ways to climb, jump, crawl, and
squeeze through the varying rock formations. Several times, we had to take off
our packs and push them through a small tunnel, toss them over a giant rock, or
fling them across a gap. It was very slow and we used our arms a lot. After
what seemed like a long time of grueling work it stopped being fun. The notch
seemed endless and the last section wasn’t quite as fun: it seemed like it was
comprised of pulling ourselves over giant rock slabs and sliding down the other
side over and over again. Finally, we reached the end of the notch and
discovered it had taken us over two hours to get past that 1.2 miles! This was
made more devastating by the fact that we had expended so much energy that we
had eaten all of our food except for some ramen and we still had over seventeen
miles to hike, up and down two big mountains to the town. We hiked up Mahoosuc
Arm, which wasn’t exactly the fastest and I had a great idea. Over this
mountain were Grafton Notch and a road where our guidebook revealed that a
hostel in Andover would pick thruhikers up. We could then slackpack the next
day to catch up on our mileage. At the top of the mountain was Speck Pond
Shelter & Campsite where we stopped to call the hostel and set everything
up. We sat down to rest. I pulled out our cell phone, and pushed the on bottom.
Nothing happened. I tried again. Nothing. I tried again and again and with each
try my stomach growled and my heart sunk and my mind went haywire. I couldn’t
believe it! How could it be dead? I’d charged it. Even if it got turned on by
mistake it shouldn’t have gone completely dead. It didn’t make sense. But it
wouldn’t turn on. I pressed my face to my hands in helpless resignation as
Nepsis went to the Trail to keep alert for other thruhikers so we could borrow
their phone. In a few minutes Peaches came down the Trail and when Nepsis asked
about using her phone she said no. She was panicking herself because she had
been hiking with Yote, but his knee started acting up and she sent him down a
side trail just before Mahoosuc Notch, hoping it’d lead to a road where he
could hitch into a town. After she made it through the notch she had cell
service and called the hostel in Andover for information about the side trail
and the woman on the other side informed her that the side trail only led to a
rarely used logging road and that towns were more than twenty miles away and
that it was unlikely any vehicles would pass Yote’s way. She didn’t know what
to do; especially since both of their cell phones had only one percent battery
left. I too became very concerned about Yote’s safety and as we discussed what
we should do, Peaches turned on her cell phone and received a text from Yote,
informing her that he had made it safely to a town, Berlin, back in New
Hampshire. He’d have to go to the hospital and stay there several days before
he could get back to the Trail. He had been trying to finish the Trail by
August 17th, but wouldn’t make it until several days after us. We
were all happy to hear that he was safe though and Peaches let Nepsis use her
phone to arrange a shuttle from the hostel to pick us up at the next notch. She
also gave us a couple of energy bars. I was very happy and we quickly hiked
across the mountain and down the several miles to Grafton Notch where we took
Peaches pack so she could slackpack the next ten miles to the road closest to
the hostel in Andover. We had to wait at the parking lot for about an hour
because Nepsis didn’t know exactly when we’d arrive there and played it safe by
giving us plenty of time to get there. We snacked on ramen and watched as a few
dayhikers came and went from the parking lot. After about an hour a van pulled
up and a tall Native American man stepped out to greet us. It was a forty-five
minute drive along a winding road through the forest. We passed by several
moose crossing signs, but didn’t spot any moose. He drove us to the tiny town
of Andover and his hostel, Pine Ellis Lodging, which was his house with a very
small bunkroom attached. They also had a couple private rooms in the house that
were already full for the night. He gave us a tour, showing us his living room
where we could hang out, the hiker bathroom, the tiny bunkroom we’d be sleeping
in, the hiker fridge, the washing machine and drier in the garage, and the
extra clothes we could wear while doing our laundry. Everything was very
cramped. He then decided to show us something he said he didn’t show everyone,
but would to us because we were cool. He took us to the other side of his
garage to his workstation. There were a bunch of small chains and hooks in
small containers and hanging off a string stretching across the room. Attached
were small, round, brown objects. There was a larger container filled with
these. He picked one up and asked if we knew what it was. He said we see it on
the Trail all the time. It looked for familiar, but we weren’t quite sure.
“Moose shit!” he said. It was true; we had started to see these droppings all
over the Trail. He picked one up and thrust it in our faces, explaining that
moose poop is the only poop that is odorless. He makes jewelry out of it with
little white blazes painted on them. He joked, “When I die, I’m going to leave
my kids all this shit.” We took showers, put our dirty clothes in the laundry,
put on clothes way too big for us, and walked down the street to the only
restaurant in the town. The food was great, tasted home-cooked. We also got ice
cream and food for our slackpack tomorrow at a way overpriced gas station. We
discovered our phone wouldn’t charge at all and we didn’t know why. We didn’t
now what to do about that since we would pass no more towns big enough to have
any stores that would sell phones. Peaches made it to town and stayed in the
bunkroom with us. We tried to go to sleep early because we scheduled an early
ride back to the Trail the next day.
Miles hiked
today: 10.5 Total AT miles completed: 1918.1 Total AT miles left to hike: 267.2
Day 144
We woke up
bright and early, ate breakfast quickly and were on our way back to Grafton
Notch. We only brought one backpack with water, lunch and snacks, and the
guidebook, which I carried. We flew up Baldplate Mountain and enjoyed wonderful
views from two peaks. The weather was wonderful. We made our way down the
several miles off the mountain, stopping for lunch, and the several miles us a
very slight incline up to Wyman Mountain. We felt so light and it was great to
enjoy the nice day without heavy packs. We didn’t go too fast, but covered a
lot of ground. We passed by a lot of French-speaking students from Quebec. From
the top of Wyman Mountain we had a steep down and finished our day up the
extremely steep Moody Mountain. I can’t imagine how much more difficult it
would have been with full packs. We hiked down the mountain to the road and
found some trail magic. A ma who named Old Buzzard who had thruhiked the Trail
before and lived in the area set up a grill and had sodas, beer, and other
snacks. He, his son, and their friend were camping here a couple of days and
providing food for all thruhikers who passed. We had actually met the man
before when he was hiking a section in Vermont. We didn’t eat too much since we
were going back to town for an all-you-can-eat pizza night at the restaurant. Back
at town we ate dinner with a couple of southbounders and bought more food to
get us the three days to our next stop. It cost around $120, which is way more
than we’ve ever had to spend. They really jacked up the prices in this small
store in this remote, small town. We got a private room back in the hostel and
Nepsis started fiddling with the cell phone and charger. She discovered that if
she pushed on the charger a certain way the phone would start charging,
otherwise, it would not. That is why it died even though I thought I had
plugged it in. It was plugged in, but it wasn’t charging. We let it charge all
night as we slept.
Miles hiked
today: 20.4 Total AT miles completed: 1938.5 Total AT miles left to hike: 246.8
Day 145
We woke up,
ate breakfast and had to wait a bit as a bunch of thruhikers piled into a van
overstuffed with gigantic backpacks. We were driven back to the Trail where we
immediately began climbing up the large Old Blue Mountain. On the way up Nepsis
spotted the back end of a moose through the trees and it moved off before I
could catch a glimpse. We moved across the mountains, enjoying spectacular
views from Bemis Mountain’s two peaks. After most of the day hiking across the
mountaintops, we hiked down and back up to ME 17 where we found a bench, a
couple coolers, and Bagheera and White Rabbit sipping on Budweisers. We sat
with them for a long time. None of us wanted to leave the trail magic filled
with beer, soda, powerades, and full-sized candy bars. The bench had a
wonderful view of a lake with a small island in the center of it. We left
before the other two, continued up a bit until the Trail leveled off and we
passed by several ponds. We reached Sabbath Day Pond Lean-to where we decided
to stay, despite the fact we were going to try to reach the next campsite. Bagheera
continued on, but White Rabbit stayed with us and shared his bottle of Jim Bean
with a couple of southbounders and us. We went to sleep when it got dark.
Miles hiked
today: 17 Total AT miles completed: 1955.5 Total AT miles left to hike: 229.8
Day 146
We woke
early and headed out along ponds until we reached the campsite where we found Bagheera
canoeing in one of the ponds. He decided to take a bath so we loaned him our
Dr. Bronner’s soap and told him to return it the next time he passed us. We had
kept passing each other for the past several days, but this would actually be
the last time we saw him. The terrain was quite flat as we hiked on a few miles
quickly past even more ponds. We then hiked up the tall Saddleback Mountain. I
felt strong and pushed myself up quickly with Nepsis a bit behind. We were up
above tree line again so the views were nice. We quickly made our way down a
saddle and up to the Horn, and down another saddle and up to Saddleback Junior.
We started down, off the mountains and partly down we passed a shelter with many
young French-speakers from Quebec and a few northbound thruhikers who we had
never met. The past few days we had kept passing thruhikers we’d been behind
our entire journey, reading about them in the trail journals. One of the older thruhikers
told us he had just cried, realizing that we were so near to finishing the
Appalachian Trail. We continued on, all the way down the mountain. It was late
in the day as we began climbing Lone Mountain. A couple miles up I suddenly
became exhausted. My steps were slow, I felt dizzy, and stumbled a lot. It was
getting dark, but we were less than three miles away from the shelter we were
hoping to get to. Unfortunately, I got slower and slower. I’ve never felt that
way before. My body was not cooperating. The mountain seemed endless and it was
almost completely dark so Nepsis found a semi-flat spot right off the Trail and
we set up our tent and went to sleep. I needed the rest.
Miles hiked
today: 25.9 Total AT miles completed: 1981.4 Total AT miles left to hike: 203.9
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