9/17/93 – Fri.

Well, we have now finally made it through that infamous obstacle, Mahoosuc Notch, “The Toughest Miles on the A.T.” It took us 3 hours, which is pushing the long end of average time. Buck has a really tough time on big boulders, what with her short legs and trashed boots. Buck, at separate times, dropper her hiking stick and her fanny pack (water bottle, iodine tablets, and mace) down rock holes, which I wound up retrieving. At one point, I found myself literally doing a handstand in a cave — all Buck could see were the lower half of my legs kicking in the air, the rest of my body submerged in a hole. It was fairly comical.

We only did 4.8 miles total today, though, so it now looks like Buck will have to yellow-blaze to make her October 3rd deadline, which, again, saddens me. I feel like I learn more & think more when I hike with her than I have at any other time on the A.T. We seem to have a really “deep” discussion every other day. She is infinitely will to listen to me talk about Julie, which is good therapy for me.

My deep thought for the day: the earth may be like a person’s first new car. He tends to not maintain it all that well because he thinks it shouldn’t really need it. When the car does start to wear, he may start maintaining it, but it is often too late. The next car, though, is often not the same case, because the person has learned his lesson. The analogy gets continued, though, in a sci-fi kind of dream for the future, in which man manages to colonize another planet, yet doesn’t screw it up like he has screwed up earth. All this stemmed from a rather depressing list of how many different ways mankind has screwed up the earth — so many that it hardly seems possible that they could all be reversed.

A flip-flopper named Morgan is here tonight. She and Buck hiked together back before Buck got off for the wedding in Hot Springs, so it’s been a big gossipfest/reunion. One’s on one side of me, the other on the other side, so I’m pretty much right smack dab in the middle of it.

Still missing Julie — actually feeling kind of heartsick. The days drag on interminably and the miles get longer and longer.

Mahoosuc Notch is memorable, and I wasn’t making up the “toughest mile” label — that was and still is the general consensus (although it is sometimes referred to as the toughest horizontal mile). Keeping in mind that, by this point, I was conditioned to the point that I could cover 20-25 miles in a day over any sort of terrain that allowed me to just hike, regardless of whether that was up and down hills and mountains. I covered 4.8 miles that day. Mahoosuc Notch is a mile-long section of the trail that is, literally, just a huge ravine filled with massive boulders. It was sort of fun, as it was as much rock climbing as it was hiking, so it definitely added some variety. There’s a nice Flash presentation with pictures that gives a pretty good sense of that section of the trail on the MaineToday.com site.

9/16/93 – Thu.

Some days are tough! Rock scrambling slowed us down so much today that we only hiked a bit under 10 miles. Tomorrow is the day we tackle the big bad Mahoosuc Notch and Mahoosuc Arm, so it’s shaping up to be another 10-miler.

I thought a little bit today about the religious philosophy we came up with yesterday, and I concluded that I am still not absolutely convinced that there is “something else” at all. If there is, though, I am still much hapier with an un-personified force rather than a God-in-the-likeness-of-man.

This is Buck’s and my second night in a row alone. She reminds me more and more of Josie B_____.

4+ months on the trail. I can adjust to a life without the comforts of home, but it seems never again to a life without Julie. I miss her terribly.

 

9/15/93 – Wed.

I’ve got a lot to write tonight, so hopefully I’ll get everything down.

First of all, Buck is still with me. It was going to be just too costly for her to get to Monson, so she decided that it was not meant to be. She went to the grocery store with me and said she had called Joe and had an excellent conversation, so she was glad I had pressured her.

When I got back to the hostel, sadly, it was to find several police officers there. Just Jane’s dog, Max, had just been hit and killed by a passing car. I had first met the dog in Hanover, NH, and had played with him and petted him a lot while I had done laundry yesterday in Gorham. As I told Jane, I have yet to spend the night in a shelter with a dog, which is unfortunate, but I certainly enjoyed Max when I got to see him. I felt so bad for her, as I got the feeling she was really close to the dog. Some hikers dug a grave behind the hostel and made a wooden cross that said “Max,” which was rather touching.

Roadrunner also showed up that night — I hadn’t seen him since Connecticut.

Tomorrow we will cross our last state line and be in Maine!

Buck and I had a really good talk today about relationships and religion, which I will now try to summarize.

Here is what I/we came up with as a possible “religion.” A very basic premise is that whatever God/Force/Afterlife/etc. there is, it is behond the comprehension of the human mind — beyond words, beyond images, beyond human ideas. All legitimate religions are human attempts to describe the same indescribable thing.

Having said that, here is now our attempt to describe the indescribable. We settled on the term “force” rather than the term “God” as a label for the center of the spiritual scenario, as “God” is too much of a personification of something that is decidedly non-human. Now, we assum also that every person has something inside of them that is slightly beyond life — something that does not simply cease to exist with the stopping of the heart (more on this later). This “something” is most commonly referred to as the “soul.” The soul itself is a small force. It may be good, bad, happy, sad, or any combination o such attributes, depending on who (and how) the individual is. So, when a person dies, his/her soul goes back into the main force, taking with it not human consciousness, but human attributes. This force does affect the world in some subtle, unknowable way. But this force is not all good or all evil. It is whatever mixture the souls make it, thus being able to simultaneously play a role in war and famine as well as in the beauty of nature and the miracle of love.

All religions (pretty much) work towards the same end, of having people leave this world with as much good in their souls as possible, regardless of the premise under which that good is striven (?) for.

Two loose ends:

One, why must there be “something else?” There might not be, but there are so many unexplained things and so many “spiritual moments” (star-gazing, a majestic mountain range, love) that it is hard to attribute it all to genetic mutations and scientific realities. It is much easier to live a life that has a point than one that is simply ashes to ashes and dust to dust.

Two, how does this tie into relationships? Two people who go through life together have love in their souls. If they work through problems rather than giving up, then that love comes out stronger in the end. When human live does end, then, their souls contribute that ultimate good of love to the force.

All this came out in a two-hour conversation. I’ll see how it stands up to further thought!

9/14/93 – Tue.

Exactly one year ago today I reached that magical age of 21 where I legally became old enough to purchase and consume alcohol. To celebrate that event, today was the first time ever that I was denied that right to purchase alcohol — no New Hampshir I.D., no sale! Happy anniversary!

I did remember to set my alarm for midnight last night so that I could wake up and celebrate John Teichert’s  and my “magic” moment — the split second where we share a birthday.

We were in town by 8:30 this morning, and it seems like just about everyone is here — Missing Person, Chow Hound, Special K, The Last Ones Out, The Mushroom Man (N.J. Ridgerunner), Cloud & Scout (!!!), Old Man Sundance & Terrapin Flyer, Pooh Bear, Maniac & his girlfriend, Seeker U.K., Jane, Airplane, Mosquito Lunch, Buck, and myself. It’s quite a reunion!

Sadly, Buck is probably going to jump ahead to Monson, ME, and spend a slow 20 days doing the 100-mile wilderness.

(Buck got off phone — end of entry)

This stop, I believe, was the first place that I ran into flip-floppers with whom I had hiked much earlier in the trip. A flip-flopper was someone who started the trail at either end, hiked towards the other end, then, at some point, got off the trail and headed to the other end and started hiking in the opposite direction, thus completing their thru-hike somewhere along the trail rather than at its northern or southern terminus. This was more common with people who were heading north from Georgia and realized that, by the time they reached New Hampshire and Maine, it would be too late in the year to hike. Cloud and Scout were the sisters I met back in the Shenandoahs and hiked with off and on for a week or two.

9/13/93 – Mon.

Brief update: We stayed another full day at Madison Springs Hut because when we got up it was a wind chill factor of -0.9 degrees Fahrenheit with driving ice/sleet/snow. Yesterday, we finally hit the trail and hiked to Carter Notch Hut, but we got kind of a late start, took a long break at Pinkham Notch Camp (I called Julie), and didn’t roll into the hut until almost dark. Today, we had a lazy, tired day and again walked into the night, this time with another thru-hiker named Airplane. The shelter we had planned to stay at was full of some card-playing yokels, so we mushed on down the trail and actually camped on it, about 1.5 miles from the road to Gorham.

All three of us are tired — tired of the trail, tired of having aching bodies.

I actually remember the first part of this update clearly as well — the hike to Carter Notch Hut. I’m surprised I didn’t write up one of the anecdotes that has stuck with me for years about that hike. It was a weird day overall — the late start after spending two nights at Madison Springs Hut, the long lunch with the call to Julie, and hiking much later. It was chilly, and, as it got dark, it got even chillier. Buck and I started fantasizing about warm food — specifically apple pie. The hut system only operated through Labor Day. After that, they would have a caretaker stay on through the winter, but they weren’t open to the normal traffic. Thru-hikers were an exception, but, still, after Labor Day, there was no “work for room and board” at the huts, because there was no “board” provided to a full house. What made the evening memorable was that, when we finally did arrive — a little beat. As we hung out, the story of our warm food fantasies as darkness fell came up…and the caretaker busted out a No. 10 can of apple pie filling on hand left over from the summer!

9/10/93 – Fri.

Continuing on the Buck-Julie thing: they can both make me feel utterly helpless when they are upset. We started climbing Mt. Madison this morning in the rain, and the strong winds combined with the slick, rocky footing to make the going pretty rough. Buck fell a couple of times, and we debated turning around and going back to the hut at the base of the mountain, but decided against it, as I though that we would be out of the wind once we got over the top. Wrong. Buck fell again pretty hard and was actually bleeding in a couple of places, so got off the trail and behind some boulders to get some shelter from the wind and decide what to do. Buck has no rain pants and limited warm-weather gear, but she donned what she did have and we ate a little food. A bit further down the A.T. was a side trail that looped back to Madison Hut — 1.0 miles around the mountain. Buck by then was dead-set on returning to the hut and she’d cried a bit, so back we went. Of course, as we got about half-way back to the hut, the sun came out, but Buck had pretty much had all she could take emotionally, so we came on back, called it a day, and scrubbed floors for 3 hours for our room and board. I have to take the blame for the whole mess, as we probably would have turned back much sooner had I not been so mile-conscious. Buck is also a somewhat weaker hiker and she has a lower tolerance for cold, despite her being one of the toughest people I have yet met on the trail. Although I am quite sure that I was not in any real danger today, I think that Buck might have been on the brink. I felt like something I would find on the heel of my boot as I stood up there with her shivering, crying, cold, wet, and miserable, and there was not a damn thing I could do to make it all better. As much as I wished Julie was with me yesterday, I was infinitely glad that she was not with me today. It would have killed me to have to be in that situation with her, and I hope that realization will serve me well in the future.

Glen is now ahead of us by a half a day and is planning on getting to Gorham on Sunday afternoon, while we are now shooting for Monday morning. If he takes Monday off, we will soon be hiking with him again.

We read an entry of the Aetherius Society in the hut register, and the hutmaster showed us their book The Twelve Blessings. Premise: Jesus taken by aliens, 19 mountains aroudn the world “charged” by aliens in the late 50′s/early 60′s — Mt. Adams is one of five in the U.S.

The experience described in this entry is one of those that is permanently imprinted in my memory — it’s easily the most unpleasant memory of the trip for me, pretty much for the reasons described in the entry. Now, while I have a vivid memory, for the life of me, I can’t imagine that I didn’t have some warm weather gear that I could have given up to make Buck more comfortable. To be clear — I remember that it was miserable weather, and that I was extremely uncomfortable as well. It would be Romantic to recall that there was a Code of the Trail whereby One Got By With One’s Own Gear or something…but that wasn’t it at all. As best as I can guess as I think about it now, I was still traveling pretty light, and my warm weather gear consisted of one pair of long underwear, rain pants, and maybe a pair of nylon pants, all of which, presumably, I was wearing at the time and which didn’t make sense to shed.

Oh, and The Aetherius Society is still alive and going strong!

9/9/93 – Thur.

It’s just Buck and me at a tentsite tonight. It seems we have managed to do the impossible and find a designated campsite that has no weekenders within a half mile. Glen had some leg cramping problems that started yesterday afternoon. He was feeling better this afternoon, but still opted to stop a couple of miles short of where we had planned to go. He should catch us in Gorham on Sunday, as we are planning to get there Sunday morning, and he should still be able to get there Sunday afternoon.

I was able to get my maildrop at Mt. Washington today, but my boots somehow did not make it, so hopefully they will be in Gorham on Monday. We killed a good two hours on top of Mt. Washington trying to get all that straightened out, and Julie was in Houston, so I didn’t get to talk to her (by the way, more Buck-Julie similarities: both have had knee surgery, both have vanilla as their favorite yogurt flavor). The White Mountains are indeed spectacular, especially above treeline, and not a mile goes by that I don’t wish Julie were out here to enjoy them with me. She is such a special person to me, and I pray that 40 years from now I will be able to look back and be thankful that I only suffered one extended separation.

On to lighter things.

Buck and I both had a “falling” day. Buck won the sheer quantity award, but I managed to capture the creativity award, as I fell flat on my face while trying to put up my guidebook. As I went down, the guidebook went flying, and it took us several minutes of digging through the bushes to recover it. Buck managed to put a pretty big lump on her knee, and I scraped up my upper thigh a bit, but neither of us is any worse for the wear.

We are sharing a tent platform again tonight, and the wind has really picked up quite a bit. I managed to knock my pot off my stove while I was fixing dinner and trying not to let anything blow away, but I didn’t make too big of a mess. Buck was really worried that her rain fly was going to blow off in the night, and so she kept circling her tent and fussing over the guy lines (she has a North Face Tadpole, too). Finally, I pointed out to her that the fly was very securely attached to the tent, and since she was going to be in the tent, there was very little chance that it would blow away. I was really stating the obvious, but apparently the obvious had not clicked with her, because she got a rather sheepish look on her face and admitted that she now felt much better. Buck had done virtually no camping before she got on the A.T., and it sometimes shows. To her credit, though, she consistently is done with dinner and ready for bed before I am. On the whole, we’ve done a lot of laughing at ourselves and each other today. That, combined with beautiful weather as we hiked above treeline while climbing Mt. Washington, made it, on the whole, a good day.

But, Julie was not here and I did not even get to talk to her, so it was far, far away from being a perfect day.

9/8/93 – Wed.

Glen, Buck, and I continue to hike together and tonight we are staying at a tentsite — Buck and I have our tadpoles pitched on one platform, and Glen is just across the trail on another platform in a bivouac sack. It’s been raining lightly off and on since shortly after Buck and Glen got here, so Buck and I both threw caution to the wind and cooked in our tents. Buck pitched her tent, tossed her pack inside, went to the privy & got water, and than crawled into her tent for good for the evening. I was in and out between showers so as to try to get my gear organized and ready to go tomorrow.

Back that undescribable “it” that I wrote about several nights ago. We talked about it again today, and I think I got it. “It” is the lesser degree of emotional involvement that men share with those they are close to…so Buck alleges. Or maybe it is the lesser degree to which they show that involvement. If a man achieves something he is proud of, his partner will be equally enthused, if not more so. If a woman does the same thing, the man tends to show less excitement for her accomplishment, whether he feels it or not. The same is true for disappointments. These are Buck’s allegations, and I can begin to see where she is coming from. It is not that the man does not have the feelings, it is just that he does not express them in the way that the woman would herself. This is all old news, but an area that I had never really delved into before. I have to wonder if Julie has ever been disappointed by the way I have responded to some of the ups and downs in her life in the past two years. Overall, I think I have done pretty well, but I can think of a couple of times when perhaps I could have done better — meaning that I was still thinking of myself when by all rights I should have been thinking only of her: 1993 Nationals — the “glory” moments as well as the “mall” moments; when she got the award at the awards banquet (see — I can’t even remember exactly what it was); and when she got the NCAA scholarship. All those things are in the past, but I think by thinking about the issue now I might actually be able to be a slightly better boyfriend in the future. I certainly hope that I don’t read back over this in a few months and think that it is a bunch of nonsense.

I realized today, too, that Buck’s presence is a bittersweet thing. She is so easygoing, so quick to laugh, and so much out here for similar reasons as myself, that she takes away some of the daily grind of the hike. But, too, she makes me miss Julie even more. Here I am in daily contact with a female whose company I enjoy, who is only a couple of years older than me, who is fairly attractive…who is not Julie. Buck, like Julie, hates to be cold, always orders a cinnamon raisin bagel with honey walnut cream cheese at Bruegger’s, and has a birthday in late November (B – 24th, J – 20th). Buck is a constant reminder that I am apart from Julie, and I was painfully aware of that already on my own. More & more it seems that Katahdin cannot come soon enough.

9/7/93 – Tue.

We were planning on going 13.8 miles to a shelter today, but we found out that there was not room for all three of us in “The Dungeon” at Lake of the Crowds Hut tomorrow night, so we stopped early at Zealand Falls Hut and worked for dinner, lodging and breakfast (two hours of hauling wood). There’s a good chance that the Mt. Washington P.O. closed as of Labor Day, and my maildrop & boots are either on their way home or are being sent to Gorham. Glen & Buck both have maildrops in Gorham, anyway, so we can’t really get there before Sunday afternoon, so this unscheduled short day doesn’t really throw us off.

The mountains and scenery out here are indeed spectacular, but the number of people out here trying to enjoy it detracts from the beauty. Although the White Mountains are not a national park, the AMC has done a good job of making it seem like one, what with the hut system, the large shelters, and all the campsites that have caretakers & a fee.

I’ve quizzed Glen a lot about what was different about the A.T. when he hiked in 1973. He stayed in one motel room during his entire hike, had less than 10 showers during the whole trip, and saw a lot fewer people on the trail — not that many more people total had hiked the whole A.T. up to 1973 than will hike it this year alone.

The natural jump in the discussion was to what would the A.T. be like in 20 more years: virtually all hikers wearing spandex?, a hut system along the whole trail?, up to 2,000 people completing the trail each year? Is the current high number of thru-hikers a cyclic phenomenon that is peaking, or will the numbers just keep getting higher? We agreed that the trail is already too crowded, but how can it be regulated fairly? A permit system for the whole trail, perhaps, that would limit the number of hikers on the trail each year? All questions and no answers.

At least I have company on the trail, and we are having fun, which is not to say that I am not still very much looking forward to being done. I miss Julie.

Heh-heh. Well…15 years isn’t 20, but this was an interesting entry to stumble across? Having recently spent a few hours on the A.T. and talked to a multiple thru-hikes hiker, I gleaned:

• Spandex – no (thank goodness!)
• Sleeping pad of choice — still Therm-a-Rest (I hiked with a RidgeRest out of obstinancy — Therm-a-Rest was already the preferred pad in ’93)
• Total shift in stove technology from white gas (Coleman fuel) to isopropyl alcohol stoves
• Internet access in many hostels (and largely expected as an amenity)

According to the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, approximately 9,000 people have reported that they have hiked the entire length of the trail. The ATC makes a semi-big deal about not aggressively tracking that sort of statistic. But, if 9,000 is anywhere in the ballpark of being close, then there still aren’t 2,000 people thru-hiking each year.

9/6/93 – Mon.

We headed into Lincoln, NH, last night and stayed at a hostel there (Loon Mtn.). This morning, Buck, Glen, and I headed out, while Chow Hound puttered around. He was kind of mad that we were up and about by 7:00 when he wanted to sleep in. He kind of made it clear that he was going to take his time getting out of town and not necessarily go the 10.1 miles that the rest of us were. He has indeed not arrived, and it looks like Buck and I (and Glen) will be hiking together for a while. We pretty much walked together all day today, which was really enjoyable.

Buck and I got into a discussion on relationships that got pretty deep but which is far from being finished. The real sticking point is this intangible, vague thing that supposedly all women would like to get (or have, or see) from their partner. Men, according to Buck, are incapable of providing (or being) this it, and the key to a happy relationship is the woman accepting this shortcoming in men, rather than trying to force it from him. This “thing” is still without definition, although Buck claims that all women know what she is talking about.

Is that true? Is Julie missing something? It’s hard to write on this when I so desperately fail to understand. Possibly there will be more on this later.

Hiking with Buck now is as fun, if not more so, than hiking with her back in North Carolina. We wind up in a number of deep discussions, she has one of the easiest laughs I have ever seen (meaning she laughs often — as often as not at herself). With luck, I’ll be with her through Katahdin — I may figure more out in the last month than I did in the first four.

Will I ever see Julie again? She is on my mind almost constantly, and I find myself babbling about her countless times throughout the day. I desperately need to spend some serious, uninterrupted time with her when I get off the trail. At every outstanding view (of which the White Mtns. have had unmatched ones) I feel her absence by my side. The trail would be so much more if I could share it with her moment to moment.