8/17/93 – Tue.

And the rain continues…

The rain abated sometime last night, although the sky was still heavily overcast this morning. I got a late start (7:45), mostly due to my late arrival the night before — my gear was not as straightened out as it usually is when I go to bed, thus making for a longer pack-up time in the A.M. About a mile down the trail, a light mist began to fall. Within an hour it had become a light rain. None of my gear had really dried out during the night, so nothing really got much wetter, but nothing got drier, either. I ate lunch at a shelter a bit over 12 miles down the trail, and debated whether or not I should stay there. I was already wet, though, and the next shelter was only 5 1/2 miles down the trail, so I decided to press on. I arrived at the shelter at 4:30 — still plenty of time to spread out gear, do some maintenance work, and relax — only to find a Boy Scout troop doing their impression of a can of sardines. So…I pressed on yet again. 1.8 miles (+ .3 miles down a side trail) to get to the next shelter, which is big and a bit run-down, but of which I am the sole occupant this evening. I was still here by 6:00 (I pumped 5 qts. of H₂0 at the last shelter and carried it here, as the water here was listed as unreliable).

The Scouts said they’d heard on the radio that the rain is supposed to end sometime tomorrow, and I certainly hope they are right. My pack rain cover continues to repel water like a sponge, so my pack, as well as a lot of the stuff in it, is quite damp. Fortunately, I put the camera in a new ziploc bag in Salisbury.

Buck is two days, or a little less, ahead of me now, so it’s still possible I will catch her before I take off for Rush. I think finding a hiking partner might help me level out on the emotional rollercoaster I have been riding of late. I go from being excited about “how little” of the trail is left to being depressed about how much is left. In so many ways I continue to appreciate & enjoy the A.T. experience, but in another way I am so ready to return to a life that has Julie in it every day.

There’s been no sign of Roadrunner or Antaeus, so I have no idea how far back they are.

Both the Buck and the Roadrunner/Antaeus mentions illustrate an interesting phenomenon on the trail. Communication flowed one way through the shelter registers. The registers were notebooks that people would leave in a shelter — typically with their address in the back of it. Whether they were locals or thru-hikers who were carrying a blank notebook, the protocol was that you waited until you found a full register and then swapped it out with a blank notebook and sent the full one to the person who had left it there. Hikers made entries of all sorts in the registers. I wrote a couple of humor pieces along the way — one about my imagined etymology for “gnat” — “goddamn nat” to “g’damn nat” to “g’nat” to “gnat” (they were pretty bad at that shelter). Another was about how scientists had estimated that, by the year 2010, the entire AT would be paved with the rubber slowly shed by hikers’ boots over the years.

Thru-hikers also used the registers to send greetings to the hikers they knew were behind them. And, at the same time, hikers could predict when/where they might reconnect with hikers in front of them. As I think will become apparent over the coming entries, I “chased” Buck (and Roadrunner) for quite a while — I knew I was within a day of catching them, while they had no idea and would choose the next day to “yellow blaze” (hitchhike) farther up the trail. By the time of this entry, this had already been going on for a while. I think I caught up with her shortly hereafter.

As for the mention of Rush, I was close enough to Boston that I’d planned to get off the trail for a long weekend back at my fraternity house as the new freshmen arrived on campus.

8/11/93 – Wed.

Well, I missed a day in my journal here, but with good reason. Tuesday, I hiked about 27 miles. I say “about” because the last 5 miles was part of the roadwalk through Harriman State Park — the temporary re-routing of the trail out of the woodlands due to both fires and the hazard of fires along the trail. I caught up with Roadrunner shortly before lunch, and we hiked the rest of the day/evening together. During that time was when I realized that I had waxed eloquent on the approach of autumn somewhat prematurely — Roadrunner pointed out that the leaves were falling from the trees because the weather has been so dry; not because it is their time to go. At the same time, it is clearly no longer the middle of summer.

This morning, I was on the trail (or rather, the road) by 6:45 AM. By shortly after 9:00 AM I was at the Bear Mountain post office — the end of the road walk and a waiting package. A container of applesauce had semi-exploded in the maildrop, but everything was in plastic bags, so it was not too difficult to clean up. I’d been meaning to mention to Dad that those foil lids were easily punctured, but I guess I needed a fairly significant event with it to really spark my memory.

After dealing with the maildrop, I found a phone and called Julie. She seems to have sunk down into a bit of a depression again due to lack of money, lack of a job, and too much of her relatives. It now looks like I might not see her again until I get to Maine. In some respects, Katahdin was starting to seem close, but in terms of being the next place I will see Julie, it is distant beyond measure. With luck, we will figure something out before then.

After talking to Julie, I wandered through the trailside zoo/museum, which was a bit urbanized for my tastes. The A.T. reaches its lowes point (124 feet above sea level) in front of the bear den, so I guess that was a landmark of sorts.

Around noon, I finally headed across the Hudson River and on up the trail — 7 miles to the Graymoor Monastery, which is an amazing place. Hikers get a private room with a bed, a sink, and a writing table. There are hot showers as well as a washing machine and dryer. There was an all you can eat dinner that was fabulous and complete (salad bar, dessert table, any number of beverage choices, plus an unlimited quantity of the entree), and breakfast that I’m sure will be comparable (why is this pen crapping out on me?). There are a lot of hikers here this evening — four southbounders, Roadrunner, me, Antaeus, Yoram Goldhammer (skipped last 40 miles to Bear Mountain), Weary Wanderer, Cal, & Pot Roast (skipped even more to get to Bear Mountain). So, it looks like I am back in the thick of things again.

Oh, yeah, for this monastery, they simply accept donations — nothing requested or required. They probably take in more money that way, oddly enough!

Possible chorus lyrics for verse written in last entry (I have something similar to this written down somewhere at home):

(chorus)
So put your hand in mine
We’ll take it one step at a time
Making our way…through life…together.
Yes, put your hand in mine
And you will always find…
Me…by your side…forever.

Call it rough, but it may be something to work with. I miss my guitar.

Well, the almighty telephone is dialing my number, so I am off to make my phone calls!

P.S. Roadrunner “beep-beeps” every time he crosses a road — started in Georgia & is now superstitious about it.

8/3/93 – Tue.

I felt like pushing myself today, as I haven’t really done for the past couple weeks, and I wound up doing 26.4 miles over my first real dose of Pennsylvania rocks. Water is really scarce through this section, so it was a long, dry day. My feet really wanted to quit after 24miles, but I made it to the shelter (George Outerbridge) and am no worse off for the experience.

I finally caught up with Chocolate Kris & Bill Is Enough today, although they went the extra couple of miles to stay in Palmerton.

I am staying with Antaeus, though. He is in his early fifties, a textbook writer/editor from St. Louis ("stick with architecture," his advice), who started about a week after I did, passed by when I got off in Elk Park, and  was way ahead of me. Then, he took six days off in Harrisburg, PA, and I caught up with him yesterday. His mileage is pretty high, so I might be seeing more of him, but he really tries not to stay in shelters, so I probably won’t spend many nights with him.

I am carrying an overabundance of food, mostly due to my own miscalculations, so I hope to remedy that in Port Clinton.

Julie seems to be on my mind more than ever now, and Massachusetts seems a long way off. With luck, that will help me slip into a groove/routine that is not so erratic.

I’m a little stumped by my "Port Clinton" comment, as I thought I’d already left Port Clinton behind me by this point.

8/12/93 – Thur.

I’m staying at the RPH cabin tonight with Antaeus, a southbounder named Comeback Kid, and a guy named Taro who is here in his truck (John Prine — Jesus, the Missing Years album playing on his stereo, and a cooler of beer & Pepsi for the taking). Taro thru-hiked in 1988 (and/or 1991) and hiked from Neel’s Gap, GA, to Rusty’s Hard-Time Hollow (Virginia) this year. He’s kind of bopping around looking for some guys he had been hiking with before heading home (Wood’s Hole, MA). The important thing is that he is letting the John Prine album play through a second time!

Roadrunner was going to stay here, too, but he decided to press on in the hopes of getting to Kent, CT, in time to get his maildrop before the post office closes on Saturday. Yoram Goldhammer apparently went to a state park to camp — still having foot problems.

I’m starting to get back into a group of hikers, as I mentioned, and they are a really enjoyable crowd. Yoram, Roadrunner, Antaeus, and I kind of bumped into each other off and on all day today, which was kind of nice.

Antaeus and I had a discussion about the definition of "purist." We concluded it lies more in the mind of each individual than anywhere else.

I tried to come up with some more song lyrics today, but I failed. Perhaps tomorrow.