10/2/93 – Sat. (Night)

People I saw in town today: The Last Ones Out (Wayne & Lise), Old Man Sundance and Terrapin Flyer (Chad & Hillary), Airplane, Pooh Bear, Roadrunner, Porcelain Dreamer, Toe Truck, Pan, Jumpin’ Jak Flash, Iguana Donna, Chow Hound, and The Seeker U.K. Wow! Of all those, Donna and I are the only two at the shelter tonight (except for a southbound section hiker named Darryl). I just met her today, but I had been following her entries for some time, and we got along really well. She recently graduated from Rutgers with a degree in Comparative Literature.

I am almost to the end now, and it hardly seems real. After tomorrow, I will be less than a hundred miles from the top of Katahdin. A hundred miles. Two years ago, a 100-mile hike would have seemed like a major undertaking, but after 2,000 miles, it seems more like a gently denoument (spelling butchered, I’m sure). So, where was the climax? On second thought, I think the real climax will be on top of Katahdin.

Although I am not there yet, I am confident that I will be soon. Did I ever really think that I would not finish? Maybe the answer is “No.” I remember thinkign that perhaps a thru-hike was too ambitious of an undertaking, but I also remember that I could never imagine myself making the decision to leave the trail. Perhaps that decision would have taken more courage than hiking on. Would that mean I am here now because I “wimped out?”

I have persevered — set myself a very difficult goal and then achieved it. That has given me some confidence that I think I lacked before. If I think I can, I can.

Before I go nuts and ramble all over the place, I’m going to make a start of a list of topics of reflection for the next week:

• Self-confidence
• People on the trail — meeting, interacting, & learning from them
• Religion
• Pushing myself to limits
• My future — what I want & what I expect

10/2/93 – Sat. (Morn.)

I’m making an entry now while I have the time so I won’t have quite as much “catching up” to do tonight.

I am in Monson, ME, at the Shaw’s Boarding House. As of my last entry I was at Pierce Pond Lean-to.

Sunday: Ate breakfast at the Harrison’s camp, hiked to Kennebec River, was ferried across and driven to Trailside Cabins by Steve Longley, later driven to Augusta airport (again by Steve) for $10, sat in Logan for a long time due to flight screw-ups, finally landed at BWI around midnight.

Monday: Ate breakfast with Julie, hung out at and around the farm all day, went to service for Dee that night.

Tuesday: Ate breakfast at Cliffside Inn, set off alarm at the farm, drove to Arlington for funeral, burial, and reception, drove until 10:30 PM to get to a Holiday Inn in Greenwich, CT.

Wednesday: Drove all day, got to Rangeley Manor to discover that Papi had mailed my rain gear home, spent night at Trailside Cabins, where I saw Strider (again) and Hopalong.

Thursday: Julie slackpacked me about 12 miles and then we spent the night in a hotel.

Friday: Did a 24+ mile day with a pack to get to Monson, passed The Last Ones Out, Old Man Sundance, Terrapin Flyer, and Roadrunner in the process, caught up with Chow Hound and The Seeker (U.K.) at Shaw’s. Pooh Bear & Airplane also supposedly are in town.

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.

9/6/93 – 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.

9/4/93 – Sat.

Today was our first real day in the White Mountains. We got above treeline for the first time when we ascended Mt. Moosilauke, but the weather was too misty to see anything. Some weekenders had pretty much taken over the shelter when we arrived, so we are all tenting tonight (Buck, Chow Hound, Glen, The Seeker, & myself). This is my first time in a tent since way back in the Smokies.

We only went 14.9 miles today, but it was the roughest terrain I have seen yet on the trail, so it was a long, tough day. I felt that I was teetering on the brink of both physical and psychological threshold. I kept waiting for a shooting pain that would be a sprain, a stress fracture, or some other calamity. At the same time, Mt. Katahdin seemed farther away than it has in quite some time, and I wondered if I would ever make it there. Over four million steps taken so far, and less than a million to go, but less than a million is still a lot.

Buck is thinking about dropping off the Oct. 3 ETA in favor of Chow Hound’s Oct. 10 goal. The 3rd is feasible, though, and I am afraid that I will have to part with Buck if she slows down, as do not think I could bring myself to hold back on mileage like that. It hardly seems fair that I worked so hard to catch up with Buck only to pass her by. Nothing is set in stone, of course, so we will see.

It’s interesting that, just as I hit the most spectacular section of the trail — the White Mountains in New Hampshire and on north from there — I was planning my end point pretty hard.

9/3/93 – Fri.

My pack is now heavier than it has been since I got on the trail, and the first real climb in the White Mountains is tomorrow morning. Nice planning, Tim. Dad seems to have gone way overboard all of the sudden on the cans — I’m toting about one per meal. I also got most of my cold weather gear.

Salomon is going to overnight mail me a new pair of boots to Mt. Washington, which is good news.

Ben is sick, so Mosquito Lunch did not go anywhere today. I’m back to having to think for myself again. Buck, Chow Hound, Glen, and the Seeker are all here tonight.

It seems like hiking is more and more becoming a real chore. I am about to get up above treeline to some of the most spectacular parts of the A.T., but will I notice? Chow Hound preaches his “go slow” sermon, but I continue to just be ready to get to the big “K.” I enjoy the company in shelters quite a bit, but not so much as to want to consciously make the trip last as long as possible. I am burnt out. Nothing that I see or do occurs without a twinge of sadness that Julie is not seeing or doing it with me. I am oh-so-tired of having her in my thoughts more than in my arms. “And if you ask if I have second thoughts I guess I’d have to say, ‘Every second, every minute, every hour that you’re away.’”

9/2/93 – Thur.

We did a whopping 12 miles today to Hexacuba Shelter — Buck and I were here around 2:30, so we got the whole afternoon off. Mosquito Lunch got here around 5:00, Chow Hound & The Seeker got here an hour or so later, and then Glen (GA–>ME 1973; North Adams, MA –>ME 1993) came in just beore dark, but the shelter is big so it’s not really crowded.

Buck said today that she thought I would make a good father — not out of the blue, we were talking about parenthood. She never elaborated on why she thought hat, but it was kind of nice to hear.

We also talked about how our journal entries are getting weaker & weaker, so it’s not just me. And so ends another one-pager.