Miles: 13; Elevation gained: 2,300

Hi camp followers – today we parted ways with the AT at Maine junction. Those guys are in the home stretch – “only” about 500 miles to go, including VT NE to Hanover/Dartmouth; across the Presidential Range of the White Mountains in NH, and then up through Maine (containing a stretch called the “100 mile wilderness”) and finishing at the peak of Katahdin. Good luck to all you crazies and a hearty congrats to those who finish.

I’ve thought a lot about those guys and gals. I wonder, what type of person has the time and the inclination to do this? To do nothing from March to roughly October but hike all day, spend the nights in tents/hammocks/shelters, and once a week emerge into some town or village like a modern day Rip van Winkle to resupply and ask (as one Sobo related) “where’s your all-you-can-eat-whatever around here?”

Well, always dangerous to generalize, even about a niche subculture such as this, but I’ll do it anyway. For the most part the AT thru hiker is young – I’d say between 21 and 32, which makes sense considering the physical demands, but also due to the fact that their lives are relatively stripped down. Likely no kids, mortgage, or mid-career anxiety about that next step up or just hanging on. A lot of them said they had jobs they didn’t like, or were in some other way generally disaffected with “all the BS on the outside” (of the trail). There are a few exceptions to the demographic, like Poppa J from Gatlinburg, TN, a cartooning, guitar-playing, home- brewing grandfather who was immensely popular on the trail. Everyone seemed to know him. There was was also Pine Cone, a sixties-ish woman who arrived at a shelter we were in, unpacked her sleeping bag, got in, and proceeded to snore in a way that shook the logs and beams while everyone else cooked dinner. She then got up at the crack of dawn and fired up a very loud stove, producing a WTF-wake-up for all campers.

But back to the “why and who” of it. It does seem a great way to gain separation from life’s ordinary grind and kind of lose your “outside” skin. Unless you start with a friend, no one knows you on the trail. No one knows any of your ups and downs, quirks, reputation, rap, or whatever you want to call the calcium deposits that build up on all our bones as we go thru life. Trail names are part of this – if you ask someone, they’ll give you the trail name. I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s in bad taste to ask for the real name, but I never heard thru hikers do so. Not once.

The trail is an effective equalizer in that way. Whatever you “are” in all manner of speaking off the trail is irrelevant on it. Popularity in school; rich or poor; clever or not; thin or fat (cuz everyone gets skinny pretty quickly) – none of it matters a whit. The slate is wiped clean and your reputation and currency are based solely on what you do and project on the trail. Let’s say you have a reputation as a cynic in real life – well, this your chance to acquire a trail name like Brightside or Half-full (as in a glass) if you can pull it off. I don’t know about you, but over time I’ve become aware of a certain set of expectations people have for me in what I say and do. Some of it is deserved and organic, maybe, to my nature, but I feel at times like it boxes me in – it prevents me from doing or saying something that might go against type, like a kid who never liked spinach, acquires a taste for it, but can’t admit it maybe to even himself cuz he’s the “doesn’t like spinach” kid! Well pal, here’s your chance: on the trail your very NAME can be Spinach if you want!

So that’s kind of attractive, no? But hike every day for 5-6 months? That’s a tall ask. I think I could go without the creature comforts and the next Avengers movie, but there are too many other things I’d want to be doing and I think I’d miss my family a bit too much. Awwwww.

Back to day 11 which, I am sorry to say camp followers, contains a very sad episode (look away, look away). The LT, after parting ways with AT, was like turning on to a dirt road from the interstate. It narrows considerably, and the forest undergrowth presses in from both sides such that for at least half the time, your legs are brushing by plants. It won’t be like this forever, as the stretch we were on, although pleasant, was unremarkable in the way of views, waterfalls, or other attributes that usually attract day hikers. And now for the sadness.

“Snap, crackle, pop” are the sounds Rice Krispies make when you pour milk on them. They are also the sounds you hear when your 208 lbs plus 40 in your pack come down in one step on a foot that has been rolled over such that your ankle bone, instead of your boot sole, is your contact point with the trail. It was an exceptionally dumbass move: I was humming along at a good pace, came to a relatively flat stretch, took out my phone to cue up some listening, and did not pay enough attention to foot placement. I heard three pops and went down in a heap, in the process bending my trekking pole and twirling over on my pack – coming to rest like a beetle on its back. My first thought was “that’s it – I am done.” My second was “how the hell am I getting out of here,” as there had been no trail traffic, no clearings to land a helicopter, and it was (as I subsequently determined) 6 miles full of ascents/descents to the nearest road. Logic forced the third thought: “you’re hiking on this thing, so get your ass off the ground and see how bad it is.”

I had to unstrap the pack as I lay there to get up on my feet. Though painful, I found I could put weight on it. I didn’t want to take the boot off because it provided compression and I knew from previous experience that once you free the ankle and allow it to swell, you might not get that boot on again. So I got the pack on and started out, figuring Cliff would catch up to my hobbling.

I stopped on the peak of a climb, took the boot off, wrapped an ace bandage, and pulled the boot back on. Cliff came up and started asking questions along the lines of “are we done?” In his darker trail moments, he has muttered wishes that I re-aggravate any of my multitude of previous sports related injuries, which include ankle, toe (surgery last Nov), back (herniated lumbar disc from skiing), neck (cervical stenosis from road cycling), or knee (surgery 10 years ago and fluid on it as recently as 2 days ago). However, he didn’t of course mean this and it was plain to see he didn’t want to go out this way. We were 120 miles in – about to take the turn into the back nine!

I hiked for only 5 minutes before realizing the bandage + boot was too much compression as my toes were going numb. Off comes ace bandage and back goes foot quickly before swelling gets too much. We hiked on – ascending was not that bad – going down was treacherous cuz it felt like the ankle wanted to roll every time I put it down. Now for the extremely lucky part of the day.

Marcia was on her way up to our Springfield house to grab supplies and meet us Sat morning at Brandon Gap, about 13 miles north of the injury spot. The shelter we were aiming for was a mile up from a US Forest Svc road that she could drive to. So we descended a couple of miles down to the trail head and she got there at about 8:15. By that time the pain was pretty special.

So what now? We are back at the house, and I am reclining with ice on the cursed joint. Popping sounds are usually associated with grade 3 sprains that can take weeks to heal. However, I rolled it back on Stratton and heard a bit of a pop and kept going. Weakened it I am sure, but wishfully thinking that ankle sprains are unique like snowflakes and that I can make a quick recovery. I really don’t want to end it here – the blog is Walking to Canada, not Chittenden. Disappointment doesn’t begin to capture it. Hard to be Half Full right now, but must hope for the best.