Day 3: Laura Woodward to Jay Camp

Today, a 5K distance took me 4 hours -- about as long as many people take to run a full marathon. To be fair, I was dragging ~60 pounds of junk up and down a mountain -- Jay Peak. 

I set off in the morning after burning some clothes (and putting the fire out). Heading stoically up an unnamed peak before Jay, I caught the thought "am I actually enjoying this?" For the first time on the trail, it turned out I actually was. It was sunny, though still moist, and the trail involved a lot of bog-hopping. 

The LT climbs a ski trail. 

I enjoyed the climb more than I expected.

At the top of Jay Peak, a deli was open. I plodded in, set down my pack, and sat on a stool drinking orange juice and eating crisps while my phone recharged. Some construction workers recommended solar-powered chargers that can juice up a phone, iPad or laptop.

Jay Peak is a knobbly, bouldery mountain. On the way down I was extra careful not to fall, often sitting and sliding down the rocks as my pack pushed me southwards. I ate my Kendal Mint Cake a little way south of the summit. I noticed that my left boot had split open on the passenger side, the upper separating from the sole. I took it steady. 

Got to Jay Camp in the mid-afternoon, the first enclosed cabin-type shelter on the trail so far. This caterpillar was pretty keen on my sleeping bag. I carefully put it outside. I sat outside trying to eat down some of the food weight in my pack, trying to stay warm, and writing a piece for zippers. 

Two other hikers rolled up as the afternoon wore on -- both AT veterans as well. I made a plan to hitch down to town the next day for glue and tape to try and hold my boot together til my mid-trail break at home. Slept on the top bunk in the camp, waking up a few times because of the cold. 

Day 2: Shooting Star to Laura Woodward

My plan had been to hike from the Shooting Star shelter over Jay Peak to Jay Camp today -- just under 8 miles -- but I'm so much slower than I'd anticipated. Day-hiking the Long Trail, I've quite easily done double-digit days, and on the Coast-to-Coast last year my sister and I did some daily mileages in the upper 20s.

The Long Trail is not the Coast-to-Coast, and with my monster backpack it will take however long it takes. I'm simply not willing to hike in the dark, so I decide to take it easy and hike only as far as the next shelter on the trail. I've already completed this northern-frontier division of the LT as day-hikes in the past, so in terms of trail completion I do have some mileage already "in the bank" if I need to bypass sections to get to Johnson on time.

Every hour I take my pack off for a few minutes. I've also invented "table stance", in which I stand with my back parallel to the ground, my hiking poles supporting the weight of my backpack together with my own legs. I start bargaining with myself, using "table stance" as a reward (just get to the top of this hill, then you can have some table-stance time...). I hope nobody comes along the trail behind me while I'm in table stance. Nobody does.

I only cry once today, near the start of the hike. I'm not physically hurting really, mostly just lonely. After 9-and-a-bit years as an emigrant/immigrant, I've got used to missing people pretty much all the time. I think of my Mum every time I see a cardinal, because she is always excited to see them when she visits the States. Chipmunks make me think of my best-bud Lindy. I try to imagine what my spouse would probably do in any "camp craft" situation -- I'm carrying this massive tent partly because it includes an empty space for him. I think of my brother's advice about bivvy bags ("you won't be comfortable, but you'll survive") and wish I'd taken him up on the offer of checking my pack-list for total viable weight. I think of my sister every time I perpetuate our tradition of grumpily "flicking off the view" -- I do this at the top of Doll Peak, a boring, wooded summit after a quite boring and boggy climb. I stay out of the at-least-thigh-deep boggy puddles, balancing on slimy logs and prodding the mud with my hiking poles. I have a few good slides, but don't actually fall down. It's misty, moist and eerily quiet on the LT today.

I have much in common with this snail today.

I've way overpacked on food, coming down on the heavy side of the balance between caution and uncertainty. I'm surprised that I'm really not very hungry so far -- in fact, I feel nauseous a lot of the time. I'd envisaged snarfing calorie-dense snacks every couple of hours; instead, I'm struggling to finish my oatmeal in the morning. I get to Laura Woodward shelter -- 4.3 miles having taken me a little over 6 hours -- and cook some ramen on my little solid-fuel stove. The fuel smells a lot like old dead fish, with the regrettable effect that so does much of my pack.

I fill my water bottles from a seep, and pop little grey iodine pills in each. I hadn't tried out iodine-water before starting the hike, but decided I'd just Have To Deal With It in any case. Turns out, I quite like the yellowy-brown taste. It makes bacteriologically-questionable water safe to drink.

There's a clearing big enough for my tent, and I've set up my little nylon home hours before dark. A gent probably my Dad's age arrives to sleep in the open shelter for the night. This is his third time hiking the Long Trail, and he's also completed the AT. Today he fell in a bog up to his hip. Tomorrow, he's planning a 16-mile day. I am not. If I can drag myself and my pack up and down Jay Peak, I'll stay the predicted frosty night in an enclosed camp the other side. It's a windy night but I sleep early.

Day 1: Journey's End to Shooting Star

Minutes after the taxi driver’s beaten-up Subaru leaves me at the trailhead, I’m floundering on my back in the dirt – limbs flailing – like an upended tortoise. My backpack, which weighs in around 60 pounds (27ish kg, or an average 9-year-old) pulls me back down to earth every time I try to stand. Eventually I roll and slither, worm-like, onto my belly then all fours then carefully crouching I grab my hiking poles and hoist myself unsteadily to my feet. I sign in at the trail register and begin the mile-and-a-half approach trail to the LT.

It is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. The pack's weight and backwards-downwards momentum is almost unbearable. Twenty minutes in, my heart is doing blastbeats and sweat is streaming. I put the pack down next to a stream, sit next to it and swear for a few minutes. In the mud, I wriggle back into the straps then inch, groaning, uphill to the Canadian border.  The blazes turn from blue to white and the Long Trail begins.

The silver post is the U.S.-Canadian border. I almost couldn't be bothered to go and prod it.
 

The LT begins. I high-fived the welcome sign with my left and the first white blaze with my right. 

Immediately, the LT kicks my arse. Up and down, I’m wobbly over roots and slippery boulders on minor, forested mountains. Pushing the pack-weight uphill makes every step a battle. It’s sort of like moving house, all day. Carrying a 13-lb. tent, I suppose I am moving house.

I average something less than one m.p.h., and a few hours in I arrive at the first road crossing – VT Route 105. I sit in a layby and have a quite serious think about calling home and asking to be picked up. Purely because I’ve made a big public fuss about this trip, going on barely wins out over going home. I cross the road and continue south, uphill. Despite the physical challenge of carrying an over-heavy pack, the sharpest, most urgent pain I’m feeling is homesickness. I’m walking alone into the woods, when within a couple of hours’ drive I have a warm bed and three furry creatures I love dearly. I start taking regular crying breaks in addition to my leaning-on-my-hiking-poles-or-a-tree breaks. I keep telling myself: it’s tough, but at least it’s not raining.

It starts raining. I crawl to the top of Burnt Mountain, set my pack down, cry, and send a text home to say I’m within a mile of the shelter (cell phone service is pretty spotty around here, so I tend to check in from summits). Another hiker appears through the trees, strides purposefully to the view, and joyously proclaims “wow”. I hadn’t even looked at the vista. 

I slip and slide down boulders to Shooting Star shelter, where Nathan (the other hiker) already has a tent set up in a clearing. He’s three days past finishing the Appalachian Trail (2,200 miles from Georgia to Maine), and seems to be doing the other half of the Long Trail as a kind of cool-down. His pack weighs 35 pounds. Non-creepiness is quickly established, and he suggests I could put my tent up inside the open shelter (as there’s no flat piece of ground big enough for this 3-4 person abode). I pitch the tent; the shelter is now full. I put all my clothes on, including hat and gloves, and tell myself I’ll see how I feel about the LT in the morning. If I still feel this homesick and defeated, I give myself permission to turn around and go home.

In the morning I tie my boots tight, strap an almost-unbearable weight to my back, and stumble south. 

Live video: 'The Forest at the South Field' by Dennis Bathory-Kitsz

I made it from Canada to Mansfield, and came home for a laundry break (and to replace my boots, which finally gave up on the trail).

Here's live video of 'The Forest at the South Field' (2013) by Dennis Bathory-Kitsz, performed September 10th at Johnson State College.



More live video, and trail reports, to follow very soon!

and we're off.

Here we go. See you soon!

Tara Isabella Burton 'Dangers Of Traveling While Female'

Just dropping in to share this article, which I very much like:

Tara Isabella Burton 'Dangers Of Traveling While Female' 

on a bootstring

An old UK pal, and geography teacher, took a year-long trip around the world a little before I joined his band. The trip sounded great. Apparently, for a long time afterwards students would draw him aside, and ask if it was OK to ask him a Personal Question. They wanted to know... how much the trip cost (the answer: just squeaking into five-figures).

Money is boring, but relevant. I'm doing the LT hike on a "bootstring" budget, definitely. For anyone interested in doing a similar trek, I'll share my budget details. I'm trying to strike a balance between thriftiness and not compromising on safety.

So far, I have spent $240.47 towards the trip. Just under $20 of this was on four flowerpots and skewers/glue to make mallets. The rest: ramen, ziploc bags, Dollar General generic poptarts (a band name if ever I heard one), Country Time pink lemonade, 3 DEET-sprays for $10, dollar baby wipes, dollar hand sanitizer, $4 for a tube of NuSkin (I've not tried it, but want all the blister-weapons in my arsenal after a very blistery Coast/Coast hike last year), $1 laundry sheets for repelling purposes, various toiletries and some spare-tyre antibiotics. Hooray for current health insurance and a kind PCP.

I spent $174.42 in CostCo -- more than I'd usually lay out on food in a month. That's 150-odd servings of instant oatmeal, two big cheese bricks, Fiber One bars (at $2 apiece and 1-2/day, my preferred MetRX bars are out of budget), 12 pounds of peanut butter, and intimidating sackfuls of raisins, trail mix, dried blueberries, coconut strips, and enough cod-liver oil to keep the levels topped up through the month. I felt a bit tired just carrying all this in from the car.

Still have to buy some camping stuff. For example, a stove. Thinking I'll go with one of those tiny solid-fuel burners that apparently makes everything taste like mothballs.

My dear mum sent 2kg of chocolate and Kendal Mint Cake from the UK. Plus a chick that apparently needs to come with: