Date: 2004-10-09
From: Campsite near East Flagstaff Road

To: Pierce Pond Lean-to
Miles today: 15.9
Weather: overcast clouds

Today was a great day. Maybe my favorite day of hiking on the trail so far. When we woke up this morning, Underhill was already taking off on his slack of the day, and Knuckles offered us a slack too. They were heading to Harrison Camps, 4/10ths past the Pierce Pond Lean-to, and she said she could leave our packs there. I was thrilled, but County was hesitant, as usual. He¢s still only slacked once. And this was only my third slack. But we went for it, figuring the opportunity to make mileage was too good to pass up. County took all of the stuff we needed in his Golite, so I was completely pack-free. I didn¢t even have a water bottle. It¢s a wonderful feeling, hiking without a pack. My back pain has become so severe, though, that my back hurts even when I¢m not wearing a pack. I¢ve stopped talking about it as much because it¢s continually present, and I still don¢t have any idea what to do about it. After a while, when you have chronic pain, and no one knows why or what to do about it, people stop believing it exists. Only you know it exists, but even you stop believing it exists, because no one else does. How can one gauge one¢s own pain anyway? I have no idea how much pain anyone else encounters in her life. This could be a normal feeling for anyone else.It¢s like that old philosopher¢s conundrum about whether or not the colors we see are the same that anyone else sees¢if we call them by the same name, we have no idea if what we¢re seeing is the same or not. Except with pain, there are no names. You don¢t know if it¢s legitimate pain or not¢to you, it¢s just pain. To me, this is pain. But I don¢t know why I have it or what to do about it either, so I guess I¢ve stopped believing it too. It¢s clear to me that I have a problem, though, when my back hurts even when I¢m slackpacking. I just feel like I¢m not doing something well enough, not walking correctly, or not packing my pack well. Or maybe my back¢s just not strong enough. Maybe I¢m just too weak. But far weaker people have hiked this trail without the same complaint¢I just don¢t get it. The weirdest thing of all is that I¢ve never even had anything that could remotely be called back trouble before this. I don¢t know what to do about it. At this point, I¢m just waiting to be done.But it was still a beautiful day, back pain notwithstanding. The first thing we encountered on the way was the 2000-mile road, where the white paint marks the 2000-mile point for northbounders. It was an exquisite feeling to cross that milestone, as you can see by our pictures. I don¢t know if I¢ve ever seen two pictures that more accurately capture a mood than those. And they¢re such perfect icons of thru-hiker life, too¢our hair disheveled, we¢re skinny, sweaty, our gear worn out, torn, our packs empty. What a great life. The hiking was relatively easy, too, for Maine, and probably the wettest day so far. We passed numerous ponds, crossed brooks, walked across bog bridges in low-lying swampland. One sees why Maine would be torturous with insects in the summer. But the water is so beautiful, especially on a misty, foggy day like today. At one point the trail actually passed down a BEACH¢for at LEAST fifty feet. Why don¢t they ever tell you that??? The Appalachian Trail is occasionally beach? Very occasionally, I suppose, but STILL. I adore beaches. Adore them. And these Maine lake beaches are particularly spectacular. They have a surreal beauty.Everything is pale: the water, the sand, the sky. The beach is littered with bleached driftwood that looks like old animal carcasses. I could live out here. I would live out here, if I could¢just set up a tarp on one of these points and never move. But that¢s always been my fondest and most cherished dream. I want to end up on a beach one of these days, end my life on a beach. I will end up on a beach one of these days.I digress. As we hiked, County and I split up, he pulling far ahead. I always think that I¢ll be able to keep up with him when we slack, but I forget that he gets the same benefits to speed that I do, which means that he can go that much faster than I can. Today, though, he was really booking it, for whatever reason¢sixteen miles still being a fairly ambitious goal for us of late. And I was having such a thrilling time that I wasn¢t worrying at all about where he was. Until I passed West Carry Pond Lean-to¢it happened once before, in New Jersey, that he stopped to wait for me and I missed him and walked right by and so got ahead¢so I worried that the same thing had happened today. It seemed odd to me that he would have passed a shelter without waiting for me, especially since I didn¢t even have water. I knew that Flyin¢ Brian and Silver Girl were around, mainly because Knuckles had told us, but at this late stage of the game we know pretty much everyone left on the trail, especially everyone behind us. We know that pretty much the only people left behind are Poptart and the Caboose Crew.Besides, we had seen them pass first thing in the morning when we were just rolling out of our sleeping bags, but they hadn¢t seen us. County had met Flyin¢ Brian way back in the day, before he even got his trail name, before he hooked up with the Offensive Six, in the Standing Indian Shelter just inside of North Carolina. We knew that Flyin¢ Brian and Silver Girl had started in March, too, and that they had been on track for a three-month thru-hike, so we didn¢t know how they had gotten behind us. The rumor on the trail was that Silver Girl had hurt her foot, but we didn¢t quite believe it, because we knew she was an ultra-marathoner. County had thought that she had a marathon to run in July, so we thought maybe they had got off the trail for that.(For those of you who don¢t know who Flyin¢ Brian is, he¢s the first and only person to have completed the Triple Crown¢the Appalachian Trail, the Pacific Crest Trail, and the Continental Divide Trail¢in one calendar year. He¢s the only person who¢s ever been crazy enough to conceive of such an idea. Other people have tried since, but no one has succeeded. He also has the second fastest completion time on the PCT and is a trail legend. This was his first thru-hike with Silver Girl, his girlfriend, and only his second thru-hike of the AT. And her first thru-hike ever. He¢s a controversial trail figure¢some people, especially anonymous libelists in the registers, like to insult him and call him arrogant, just because he claims the title that is rightfully his, the only person to have ever completed the Calendar Year Triple Crown. County thought he was a humble, low-key guy, not at all full of his accomplishment, when he met him in NC. I had never met them.) In any case, I passed the shelter and kept walking, to where I ran into a couple eating whole-wheat tortillas and Nutella off to my right. I stopped to talk to them, to try to figure out where County was, if I had passed them or not, and rapidly figured out that they were Flyin¢ Brian and Silver Girl.We had a great conversation¢I tried to remind them of who County was and when they had met him, which they vaguely remembered. They remembered Vocal a lot better, County¢s, ahem, vocal counterpart, and the chief reason why the Offensive Six were termed such.Eventually County came traipsing back southbound along the trail, looking amused at my tardiness. Of course I hadn¢t passed him. Silly me. We had a nice chat with Flyin¢ Brian and Silver Girl, they left, and we shared our lunch¢a remaining fudge brownie and fudge round. Very satisfying. I only wished we had some whole-wheat tortillas and nutella. Amazing how much of a difference whole grains make out here. I made a whole bunch of homemade instant oatmeal before I left¢I ground whole rolled oats in a food processor, added soy, powdered milk, wheat germ, oat bran, chopped nuts, and dried fruit. It cooks just as fast as instant oatmeal in the morning, but makes all the difference in hiking. Don¢t let thru-hikers tell you that they stop cooking in the morning¢we haven¢t yet. It¢s all what you¢re cooking, I suppose. A protein and whole-grain filled breakfast satisfies you like little else on the trail can. Unfortunately, we ran out of it weeks ago when we missed our last two mail drops. Ray Jardine was right about whole grains at least. We finally took off, and after a couple of miles, County pulling ahead, as usual, he caught up with Flyin¢ Brian.He was talking with the section hiker we had met yesterday on top of Bigelow, who had been keeping pace with us, more or less. The five of us stood on a bog bridge and talked for a while, about Golite, sponsorships, Snickers, etc. Typical hiking talk. Eventually we all took off again, leaving the section hiker behind, Flyin¢ Brian and Silver Girl ahead. County caught up with them again, and stopped to wait for me. He said, ¢Let this be recorded as the day I caught up with Flyin¢ Brian¢not once, but twice!¢ So noted.It was only a few miles left to the shelter at that point, and we actually hiked with Flyin¢ Brian and Silver Girl for a while. Or County hiked with them to the shelter¢I managed to keep up for, if I¢m being generous, a half-mile. But the destination was achieved nonetheless¢with 4/10ths to go to our packs. We weren¢t sure where we were going to stay, if we were going to stealth somewhere near Harrison Camps, hike back to the shelter for the night, or hike on past the Camps. We found our packs at the camp and decided to head back to the shelter¢if it rains as predicted, we might as well be under cover rather than have to carry a wet tent tomorrow. Besides, it will be fun to spend a night with Flyin¢ Brian. And, to make things even more odd, Bramble is also at the shelter tonight! I met Brian when I was hiking with my father, way back out of Hiawassee, in Georgia. He was a clean-cut former Army Ranger, hiking to raise money for those who can¢t pay for breast cancer treatment, in honor of his aunt, who died of breast cancer while he was on the trail. He had tattooed the AT symbol on his ring finger, saying that he was married to the trail until he finished it. He took a real liking to my dad, and they had a nice talk about rehydration and hiking.I had followed him in the registers the whole trail, always wondering what had happened to him, especially since he seemed to be hiking little faster than I was. He seemed so strong, an ideal candidate for at least a four-month thru, if not faster. As it turns out, he did a flip-flop of sorts, hitching up to Katahdin to summit with his friends. He was now hiking back to Andover. Yet another person I thought I¢d never see again in my life. If I had seen him, though, I wouldn¢t have recognized him. Never has there been a better example of what thru-hiking does to a person. When I met him he was a clean-cut all-American picture of good health and patriotism, military patches all over his gigantic backpack. Now, he¢s wearing a kilt and a fuzzy fleece, with an ultralight pack, long hair, and a Grizzly Adams beard. He looks the very opposite of a clean-cut all-American: a crazy stinky left-wing Unabomber-wannabe pinko hippie homeless person. What most people think of most thru-hikers. If I would have expected this transformation to happen to anyone, I wouldn¢t have expected it of him. But it¢s happened to all of us, I suppose, even the most upstanding among us.So we actually did an extra 1.4 today, according to Wingfoot, going to the camp and back, bringing our total to 17.3, carrying our packs for .7, but I don¢t believe Wingfoot. It felt like barely 2/10ths to the camp. I fell on the way back across the dam, though, on the loose rock, bruising my tailbone. And I¢m hungry. Really, really hungry. We have ramen with dehydrated vegetable soup out of a hiker box tonight plus our last mac-and-cheese. I¢m jonesing for everyone¢s tuna and beans. And we have no money for the famous hiker breakfast with twelve pancakes at Harrison Camps tomorrow. Still, it¢s a great night. The shelter is a beautiful spot, looking right out at Pierce Pond. We can hear the loons calling. Bramble built a huge fire to cook on, and our friend the section hiker caught up and is asking us for thru-hiking stories. Flyin¢ Brian is telling us Triple Crown stories (County and I want all the PCT info we can get). It¢s crazy to have ended up at a shelter this close to Katahdin with six days to October 15 and five people who started in March.