National Parks and Recreation

Long Trail Miles: 8.6
Extra Miles: .9
10.4.20
55˚ and sunny
Canada’s house!

Guys, I’ve found my soulmate. Remember that 60 year old man I shared Taylor Lodge with last night? That’s him. I’ve probably said this before, but without fail, no matter what I do, I always have to pee about two hours after getting into my sleeping bag. I’ve tried everything, including just not drinking water after getting to camp. Nothing works. Anyway. Last night was particularly bad because I had to get up twice in the night. And the door to the shelter was really creaky so I felt especially bad getting up. But then my guy also had to keep getting up in the night. FOUR times in fact. Including waking up at 6:15 to go pee and then still getting back in his sleeping bag after. And then both of our alarms went off at 7am at the same time with the same tone. Soulmates!

The sunrise from the front porch was even more beautiful than the sunset.

I came to the conclusion this morning that my contact cleanser case doesn’t work below a certain temperature. I usually leave it out on the picnic table at night, but after like 3 days in a row of nearly burning my eyeballs out when putting in my contacts, I’ve realized that they don’t clean properly in the cold. Duh. It probably shouldn’t have taken me that long to figure this out, but at least I got there! I’ll wrap it in a bandana and stuff it in my pack from here on out and hope that works.

I got ready pretty quickly and prepared to make the 13.7 mostly downhill mile hike to the interstate where Vlad would be waiting to take me home (after a stopping at Wendy’s and ordering one of everything off the menu.)

Very early in the my day I came across this beaver bog.

Sadly, I didn’t see any little guys hanging around.

The next three miles were pretty boring as I did my only uphill climb of the day. I got an adorable surprise at Puffer Shelter when the caretaker’s dog greeted me on the trail. There were actually two caretakers at the shelter. They were both very nice and said I was the first SOBOer they had seen in awhile. That kind of surprised me.

There was also a beautiful view looking back to Mount Mansfield. Notice the cloud that is covering only the summit. You can even see Whiteface Mountain way back in the distance. I didn’t linger too long here, just enough to get some water and chat politely for a few minutes.

From there it was another half a mile up to the top of Bolton Mountain. It was easy peasy, hiker legs are in full force. I can also take my pack on and off with ease. I just throw that puppy over my shoulders like any old backpack. Huzzah!

(This is honestly the most frustrating part of what’s to come. My body finally got strong and ready to take on the world right as the pain was about to set in.)

The summit of Bolton Mountain was nothing to write home about, but there were pretty nice views about mile later.

It was mostly just these dead trees, but it was very peaceful. There were a lot peregrine falcons around and I love the SWOOSHing sound they make as they fly and swoop around. (Those are all technical words.) I found a nice rock to sit and chill on, send out some text messages, and take a water break.

And I got one more good view of Mansfield before I began the 3,000 foot descent to the interstate.

Doesn’t it look like a volcano about to erupt? Super bizarre.

So I’ve mentioned many times how this was mostly a downhill “stroll” to the interstate, as if it would be super easy. Well, here’s the thing. Uphills are fine. Especially now that my legs have gotten strong and I’ve gotten in shape. I can power through them with no problem. Downhills, however, have only gotten worse and worse. My ankle is acting up again. If I step on just one branch the wrong way, it takes everything in me to not yell out in pain. It’s just so weak that even a minor tweak is excruciating.

But it’s not just my ankle anymore. My knees hurt on every single downhill step I took, causing me to have to take it really slow and carefully. My feet ached every time they touched the ground. The further I went, my shins and the sides of my lower legs also started to throb. It was not fun.

(I know in retrospect that I probably should have just gotten hiking poles. Most people had them. But I’ve tried them in the past and I just don’t use them. I end up dragging them behind me. They would have just been extra weight [and they’re SUPER expensive.] Sure, they would have been useful for downhills, but I couldn’t justify it. Probably a huge mistake. The 34 pounds on my back that made the first week of my hike absolutely brutal on the uphills had only been adding to the crushing weight that my legs had to support with every downhill step I took. And on this tenth day, after two days in a row of descending some of the tallest mountains on the trail, I was beginning to pay for it.)

It was still 10 miles from the top of Bolton Mountain to where Vlad was picking me up. And I pretty quickly realized that I physically would not be able to make it that far. Luckily, I had my handy dandy Guthook app and was able to check out some side trails to see if there was a place I could get off the trail even sooner. I was passing a bunch of trails that led to the Bolton ski trails, but I didn’t have enough service to confirm where they went or if there were open roads that led there, so I just kept going.

Worst case scenario, there was a spur trail 5 miles away that would take me down to a dirt road that Vlad should be able to get to. I texted him the location of this new pick-up spot and prayed that the text would get through. The pain was excruciating at this point (I know I’m overusing that word). But I’m so stubborn and still wouldn’t take pain meds (I have this whole thing about them. I don’t like taking them because I worry it’s giving me a false sense that everything’s better and I’m just going to hurt myself more. It’s dumb. I should’ve taken them).

It’s unfortunate because the hike was actually really beautiful through here. It was a very nice stroll through the woods with crunchy fall leaves and complete solitude. But I couldn’t enjoy it at all.

After what felt like hours, I arrived at Harrington’s View, the last real thing of note that I would be passing. It was a nice place to take a rest, eat a snack, and check my phone. My text to Vlad hadn’t sent. And I seriously considered for a second that maybe this was a sign that I should just stick to the original plan and power through. And then I realized I was still almost 8 miles away. There was no way. So I re-sent the text and gave him a time that I should be there in case I didn’t have service the rest of the afternoon. The message went through right away.

Harrington’s View was really cool. It was basically a giant rock above a large drop off toward the Bolton Valley Resort. I’m amazed I managed to smile so genuinely in the above picture. I guess even excruciating leg pain isn’t enough to take away my affinity for climbing on big rocks.

I was saving myself nearly five miles and 900 feet of elevation change with this change in pick-up location, but I still had three miles to go and it wasn’t going to be easy. In fact, by the time I got to the mile long spur trail to the road, I was basically in tears. It didn’t help that I missed a turn and hiked a quarter of a mile the wrong way before realizing. It was demoralizing. If I wasn’t half a mile from the car where Vlad was waiting for me, I probably would’ve sat down on the ground right then and there and just gave up. Do I sound like a drama queen? I know it’s over the top, but I’m trying to properly express my state of mind at the time. It was not good.

But I did hike that last half mile. And I made it to Vlad’s car just a few minutes after I said I would (which is a miracle). And I’ve never been more happy to see a person in my entire life. I truly can’t thank him enough. That 900 feet of downhill climbing I saved myself? Well, he had to do that in his car. Up dirt mountain roads. I don’t deserve how good my friends are to me.

I spent the rest of the day stuffing my face with food and lying on the couch watching Netflix. It also took a good amount of time to unwrap and untape my feet and blisters and give them a good washing. They were in rough shape. But I vowed to take a true zero day the next day and only let myself walk between the kitchen and the living room and that’s it!

I’ll close this out with my verbatim thoughts from my journal:

“I made the difficult (not really) decision to skip a few miles of the LT today. Maybe it will haunt me enough that I have to go back and do them some day, but I doubt it. On Friday, I was literally hysterically crying, having only hiked 6 miles, and was convinced I needed to quit. So if the only lasting effect of that is that I needed to skip a few miles of straight downhill hiking, then so be it. There weren’t even any mountains or points of note that I skipped. Plus, the side trail I took to get off the trail used to be the old Long Trail so HA! Whatever, I make the rules. And my legs/feet/ankles/knees physically could not have made it the 4 more miles to the interstate.”

(And guess what? I hadn’t even thought about those 4 skipped miles again until I typed out this blog post.)

Day 11: My First True Zero Day

10.5.20

(I didn’t want to waste an entire post on a day where I did nothing, but I do have some thoughts from my first actual zero day of the trip.)

It’s really hard to give up such a beautiful day by not hiking in it. At least the last time I had to get some rest it rained and I was happy to be inside doing nothing. It looks like Wednesday afternoon will be the only rain I see for the next week or so though so that will be nice.

And I’m not being completely useless. I really needed to reorganize my stuff, do some laundry, and repack all my food boxes for the rest of the trip. I’ve also been reworking my schedule to see when I can reasonably be at my next checkpoints.

I added some more cold weather clothes to my pack. And I’m finally breaking down and adding my hiking pants (I’m still not ready to leave behind my shorts though because I get really hot during the day while hiking.) I’m also adding an extra thermal layer for my torso. Luckily clothes aren’t too heavy and I’ll be wearing a lot of them most of time. I’m still not going to bring a winter hat or gloves. I’m so warm while I’m moving and I have my sleeves and hood if I need them.

I woke up and ate a delicious sesame bagel with butter and an entire avocado on top. It was exactly what my body was craving. This was followed by a lot of Netflix (Emily in Paris, don’t judge me), a nice, long foot soak in some Epsom salts, and catching up with my friends.

I’m also switching shoes starting tomorrow. I got some Altra trail runners. I liked my Keen’s, but I think they might have been too hard on the bottoms of my feet. Plus, now that it’s getting colder, I should probably have enclosed shoes instead of sandals. I will be sad to lose the “waterproof”-ness of my Keen’s though. I also loved how grippy those shoes were when climbing up steep rock scrambles, even in the rain. I know I complained about slipping a lot, but it would’ve been a lot worse with less grippy shoes. Regardless, here’s hoping this switch will provide some relief to my aching feet!

I’m very, very excited to do Camel’s Hump tomorrow. It’s the highest non-developed peak in Vermont and one that I haven’t done before! The weather is also supposed to be really nice and since it’s a Tuesday, it shouldn’t be too crowded with day-hikers. But mostly I’m just anxious to get back out on the trail.

Only 30 miles to Lincoln Gap where the trail gets MUCH easier!