Mountains Under Foot

Hello to all the wonderful MUF Addicts out there!

I have found Internet (in Stratton, Maine) for the first time since Rutland, VT and have gone through the therapeutic motions of checking my email and world news. After absorbing all the good feelings involved with being reconnected with the world, I figured I would give everyone a much needed update on our journey. In a nutshell, Vermont was absolutely beautiful…when it wasn’t raining all the time and the White Mountains of New Hampshire blew my mind beyond belief. After snapping my right pole again going up Mt. Moosilauke I thought things were starting to go south again. But when I got to the summit of that mountain I literally had no words to describe the awe and wonderment of the 360 degree views around me. What was so insane was that this feeling didn’t go away as we hiked for 4-5 days through the Whites and the views kept getting more and more dramatic and the weather remained perfect. Unfortunately, the weather didn’t last and on August 21st (Crocstar’s birthday) things shifted from sunny and hot to cold, wind, rain, and lightning storm! We woke up that morning at 5am, donned our party hats that Croc had packed in for 50 miles, and hit the trail hoping for good weather to summit Mt. Washington and at lower elevations it looked like we might have been in luck, but as we climbed thousands of feet up it got worse, and worse, and worse. At the Lakes of the Clouds Hut we were excited to run into UCOC (Nick) who had also started on May 11th with Croc and we decided that the newly formed team of the “May-ers” should roll together to Mt. Katahdin. But first we had to get to the top of Mt. Washington:

and throw a party!

After all of the festivities, that at least for me, included cake and ice cream we moved on Mt. Madison where we were caught in a thru-hiker traffic jam as eight people were trying to descend out of the alpine zone as lightning was striking all around us and the wind was tossing us around:

So despite the scary “I’m-going-to-die” feelings on that day, I am kinda glad to have experienced the insanely fast and unpredictable weather change that can happen above the tree line. I have a whole new respect and understanding of dangers of alpine hiking. From that day onward we had 4 days of straight rain and miserable weather. Just look how happy we are to have reached Maine:

I think Maine was a little misinformed as to what life should really be like that day.

Maine, so far has been pretty enjoyable. I broke my left pole before descending into Mahoosic Notch for an hour long rock scramble over rocks the size of cars where moose apparently go to die as there were bones strewn all about. We got some magnificent trail magic from Peter Bingham, Crocstar’s second cousin, who has a ski condo near Grafton Notch. We got cleaned up, resupplied, and taken out for a nice dinner. Thank you, Peter! We had a couple of really cold mornings here the past two days and it is really starting to sink in that we are only a week and a half from looking up at Katahdin from the base. Each day as we get closer to the end, I look out over the mountain range and think to myself just how far I’ve walked to get here and I think about all the things I’ve seen and how beautiful the earth is when viewed from above. This whole experience just hasn’t had a chance to sink in, but thankfully I’ll have lots of time while I recover to digest and share it all with you when I get home.

Happy Trails,
Hazard

Hi MUFaddicts,

I spoke to Hazard on Friday evening (8/21), at that moment they were in Gorham, NH. He said that they would be crossing over to Maine in the next 48 hours. He called me again this evening letting me know that they would (hopefully, fingers crossed) reach their final destination, Baxter State Park, Maine on 9/9/09; thus completing their epic Appalachian Trail Thru Hike in less than 4 months…! (Well, 1 day short of 4 months, since they began their journey on 5/10/09…) They’re down to the wire and because of that there will, unfortunately, be no more journal entries for the moment. I am also sorry to say that there will be no more photos either… But fear not, when they return home Hazard promised to complete the journal entries and we’ll upload all of the missing photos as well. At the moment they only have ‘tunnel vision’ and are super focused on powering through the last leg of their trek.

The last leg of their journey has proved to be the most challenging, but also the most beautiful. Hazard mentioned that the spectacular views of the White Mountains in NH restored his spirit and reminded him of ‘why’ they chose to hike the AT in the first place. As you can imagine the guys are focusing on the ‘light at the end of the tunnel’, they’re incredibly trail weary, but super pumped at finally finishing their long journey.

A funny little side story: Croc, their hiking companion for the last several weeks, celebrated his 23rd birthday last week and the guys (or their packs) all wore party hats while they hiked… I love that they still have a fantastic sense of humor in spite of all of their challenges…

If you’ve been wondering how or who will meet our guys in Maine and bring them back home to North Carolina, the answer would be my fantastic husband, aka Hazard’s Dad. He’s planning on flying up to Bangor, Maine and renting a car then driving up to Baxter State Park where he’ll pick up the guys, return to Bangor and fly them home to NC all within a fast 3 day turnaround. Hazard has informed me that I should expect him to go to bed at 6:30/7:00pm at night and wake up at dawn!!…. That is until he becomes reacquainted with the ‘real world’ and leaves his ‘hiker’s hours’ behind… I am only too happy to have him home again and will spoil/indulge him just a tiny bit and then I expect him to decide what he’s going to do with the rest of his life and get his act together…
(Seriously, I’ve missed my eldest son and I look forward to catching up and spending time with him…)

On that note: I would like to give a huge ‘Thank you’ to everyone that’s been following this blog; also ‘Thank you’ to all of the wonderful, helpful, kind and generous folk that the guys have met along the way…

Happy Trails and Regards,

K

Hi MUFaddicts,

We’re finally back at it after taking a little holiday, my only one this summer. Myrtle Beach was lovely, but now it’s back to updating the blog. I’ve posted Hazard’s journal entries from Days 82-88 (through August 5th). He only just sent them to me as he was having issues with his iPod as well as trying to type out his notes with his bum hand. I spoke to him last Wednesday and he mention that he was really far behind on his journal entries because of his hand issue as well as them not having WiFi access. Things may start to get very sporadic from here on out, but I will endeavor to keep this blog and you all updated as much as I can… I will begin to post more photos in the next couple of days, hopefully catching them up to the current journal entries. We had a bit of a photo glitch when Hazard left his camera battery and charger in NYC, but thankfully Sara sent them to him so we should be good to go now photo-wise.

So, I basically wanted to let everyone know that we haven’t bailed on you, we’re just catching our breath and we’ll be back at it in full force buy the end of the weekend… Well on my end at least, but I cannot speak for our illustrious AT heroes, Hazard and Spoon… (and their new comrade, Croc) This blog is really driven by them, I am just the messenger…

More soon!

K

From Hazard’s notes:
Day 88: August 5, 2009
Travel:
From: Mt. Wilcox North Lean-to, MA
To: Lee, MA
Beginning: 9:00am
Ending: 4:00pm
Number of miles hiked:
a) Trail – 15.6
b) other – .3 back to trail, wanderings around town.
c) AT Mile Marker – 1539.8 cumulative
Weather:
AM: Overcast. Clouds rolled in last night trapping heat. Thus, mosquitoes all night.
PM: Sunny and nice.
People: Photographer that gave us a hitch to town, Post Office lady that told me to take my stitches out myself.
Animals: Mosquitoes!
Money: $20 resupply, $30 hotel room at the Pilgrim Inn, $15 dinner at Athena’s. $1642 cumulative.
Notes of the day:
AM: So that night sucked. There are few things worse on the trail than not sleeping. Thankfully we were headed into town and there was only one big uphill. We all sort of zombie walked down the trail today. After only a few miles we stopped at a grassy overlook that surprisingly didn’t have mosquitoes. I think we sat up there for the better part of an hour. The motivation to leave and start hiking again was severely lacking. The rest of the day was kind of a blur.

PM: We stopped to eat at Goose Pond Road and we sat down just off the road in the grass. Then some lady comes out of her house and yells at us to move off her property to keep the dog from barking. So we moved literally 10 feet over to make her happy. If you live that close to the AT and hate hikers you should move and let someone who loves us live there. After leaving the road the trail came up on Goose Pond and skirted around one side of it then to a side trail to the cabin. From there we could hear the highway that would take us to town and I was excited to get off the trail. We were lucky to get a ride right away from a guy taking pictures near the highway. He dropped us off at the Price Chopper and we walked over to the post office to grab our packages. My camera battery and charger was waiting for me along with three rice crispy treats from Starbucks courtesy of Sara. Thanks Sara! Another package from Tyben was there as well packed to the brim with snacks and jokes that made us say “wow!”. We hit up the grocery store and then went to find a hotel room. Showers were had by all and then it was time for dinner. We ate at a place called Athena’s down the road and then came back for ice cream and lying in front of the TV. One well deserved night of rest followed.

From Hazard’s notes:
Day 87: August 4, 2009
Travel:
From: The Hemlocks Lean-to, MA
To: Mt. Wilcox North Lean-to, MA
Beginning: 8:00am
Ending: 5:30pm
Number of miles hiked:
a) Trail – 21.5
b) other – .3 to Wilcox shelter
c) AT Mile Marker – 1524.2 cumulative
Weather:
AM & PM: Sunny and blue skies
People: Ladies at the Dolls and Dwellings, West.
Animals: Mosquitoes!
Money: $3 on snacks at D&D, $1582 cumulative.
Notes of the day:
AM: Slow to get out of camp this morning as we were the last ones to leave besides Goose and his girl who came in late and tented. We had a really steep downhill from Jug End to the road. From there it was an easy, flat walk across the valley between the two mountain ranges. The mosquitoes were awful down in the lower elevation and it was a hard fought battle to try and keep them off. We made a stop at US 7 because we heard of a place that had snacks and water for hikers in a shop called Dolls & Dwellings. We sat in the gazebo and enjoyed homemade brownies and cold drinks for awhile before moving on down the trail.

PM: Rest of the day was spent climbing mountains that seemed to not have peaks. I also spent much of my time fighting with my boot to keep it together, but that was another losing battle. We decided to stop at Mt Wilcox North instead of pushing on since we needed to stop in Lee tomorrow. We met West at the shelter and had a relaxed evening. Goose and his girl came in late again and pitched their tent away from the shelter. Then the mosquitoes got horrible. There was no escape and another awful night without sleep was underway.

From Hazard’s notes:
Day 86: August 3, 2009
Travel:
From: Salisbury, CT
To: The Hemlocks Lean-to, MA
Beginning: 11:00am
Ending: 6:30pm
Number of miles hiked:
a) Trail – 14.1
b) other – .4 to trail
c) AT Mile Marker – 1502.7 cumulative
Weather:
AM & PM: Complete 180 from the previous day before. Sunny and warm, clear skies.
People: Rocky, Some SOBOs that graduated from UNC hiking with an old guy and Gozer.
Animals: Chipmunk throw down on Bear Mountain. Mouse.
Money: $25 for the Inn, $15 for breakfast. $1579 cumulative.
Notes of the day:
AM: What an awesome night sleep. I really didn’t want to leave that bed. I called Lowa and told them about my boot falling apart and I arranged new boots to be shipped to Cheshire, MA. We packed our stuff up and checked out of the room. We walked with Rocky down to where all the restaurants were and she stopped in the coffee shop while we went back to The Bistro. I had some killer Eggs Florentine while reading the NY Times. The iPod was passed around to check emails and Spoon called up Tarptent to order a tent to replace the hammock system that wasn’t working. On our way out of town we noticed Rocky was just ahead of us and as we passed her I noticed she engaged each of us in conversation, but it wasn’t long before we had passed her. I hung back and chatted for awhile but eventually I had to speed up or else be left far behind. It seemed such a shame to leave such a nice and friendly person in the dust.

PM: All throughout the hike I felt really good about being on the trail. It had probably been weeks since I last felt this energized to be out here. I remember thinking to myself that days like this one were the reason why I wanted to hike the AT. The weather was perfect and we had a couple challenging climbs that ended with fantastic views. Bear Mountain was the first we climbed up which had a stone monument that we sat on top of while enjoy some lunch. The CT/MA state line was .7 north so it was exciting to change states finally as CT was not kind to us. We had Race Mountain and Mt. Everett to conquer before descending to the shelter for that night. Gozer was there without Fancypant because he took a zero at the campsite where I had last seen him. A couple SOBOs that graduated from UNC came and we had a good time ’smack’ talking each other. You win a couple of national championships and you think you are the greatest thing since sliced bread…pfft. I crawled up into the loft early while some of the others made a fire for the first time in about a month. My iPod wouldn’t turn on again so I got to read some of ‘The Time Machine’ that Cat had sent in my care package. Thanks Cat!