Date: 2004-09-27
From: Trident Col Tentsite

To: Carlo Col Shelter
Miles today: 10.1
Weather: clear sky

It was a brutal day today. Moon Pie, the 04 thruhiker who finished in July and gave us a ride into Gorham warned us that the 40 miles out of New Hampshire were the hardest on the trail, and she wasn't kidding. The Mahoosucs make the Whites look like the Shenandoahs. Someone also told us, back in Virginia, that Warren Doyle once did a 27-mile day here--the entire Mahoosuc range in one fell swoop--and that we'd understand why that waws insane when we got here. Now I do. This is my least favorite kind of hiking, too. Big boulders going up, sheer rock face coming down, and even when it's flat, huge rocks block your path. I spend all day clinging feebly to pine needles from the trees that grow on the side of the trail, sticking my toes in the cracks of rocks, scaling up and down pencil-thin roots for grip, leaping off ten-foot-high rocks and praying for both my safety and sanity, trying not to destroy my knees, sliding down wet boulders on my butt, balancing on log bridges, trying to avoid whacking my head on tree limbs as I veer through the mucky woods and avoid an impassable crevasse. County spends his day waiting for me. Trying not to kill me, I imagine, or at least that's what I'd be doing if I were he. I'm moving, still, at about a mile-per-hour pace, which I feel is ridiculous for a thruhiker at this stage.Ten miles today, starting relatively early, pushed me to the limits of my endurance and into dark. I did well for about seven miles, then plunged into dark despair as dark approached and I realized I had to do two miles in the last hour before dark to make it to the shelter. Dapper Dan, still a purist and scornful of us sometime yellow-blazers, came upon me and passed me just as I came to a huge tumble of boulders. County had waited for me there, and I had to try to get across with both of them watching. Nerve-wracking, to say the least. I hate being observed when I'm trying to do this, especially by strangers that I can't have complete and utter breakdowns in front of. I got stuck, of course, halfway through, and County had to come rescue me. I had one moment of terror where I thought that I was actually going to fall and kill myself. I didn't, thanks to County. I have no idea how I would have done this by myself. I probably would have made it through eventually, but how many times have I come to places that would have been impassable alone?We progressed, and I made an effort to go twice as fast as I had been going, in order to still make it to the shelter by dark, which made me scared and teary. Then--the Maine state line, and I dissolve into tears. I'm not sure if I was happy or sad or both, but County snaps a picture of me as I try not to sob. I'm so, so relieved to be here. One of my goals all along has been to walk to Maine, where County lives and the only state on the trail I've never been to, and now I've at least done that, even if I don't make it to Katahdin. And thence we only have a half-mile to the shelter. We had come to a group of kids at the state line (that we later found out were part of a Hoods in the Woods program, from the Shackelton School), and as we keep moving we pass them. I'm shocked that the leaders have them out this late, in this terrain--this is hard even for thru-hikers, let alone inexperienced and overweight children. But now, with dusk upon us, I have my two least favorite pressures on me--the pressure both of dark, and of people behind who may be gaining on me. Because the kids are moving fast, even though they're inexperienced. They and their leaders know that dark is coming too.I don't know why, in these situations, I worry what other people think of me. Why is it so important to me to do better than these kids? Why do I think that will somehow prove my worth as both a person and a thruhiker? Why does it matter so much? Who cares if I can't hike as well as them? I'm still out here, hiking, persevering, and that's what matters. Not what anyone thinks of me. But it's getting dark, and it does matter. I run, most of the next half-mile, until we get to a series of shelter-size boulders, tumbled straight down the mountain into the col. They're huge. I get down a couple of them, still trying to move quickly, and hear the dog with the group behind begin to whimper and bark because he thinks they're impassable. As do I. At one point, clinging to the rock above me, my back splayed out against the boulder behind, my feet at least two feet off the rock below, I break down again."I can't do this," I say, weeping.County, who has been sympathetic up to this point, finally breaks, too--and yells, or at least says sternly and loudly--"Melissa, you're going to have to pull yourself together."So I do. And I get down. Tough love is necessary, sometimes, I suppose. At the bottom of the boulder tumble is the shelter path, a rocky .3 down to the shelter, and it's dark by this point. I'm furious, and both of us, out of stubbornness, refuse to pull out our headlamps. The group catches up to us, with their headlamps on, and they dog us all the way to the shelter. There we find the Garland Five, a family of five who is doing the trail in two long sections. They're very kind and make room for us in the shelter--the group pitches. As it turns out, County met them at Muskrat Creek Shelter, back in North Carolina. They let us use water from their water bag, which is a blessing, since we don't have to get water, and County makes me mac and cheese, my favorite. We even have leftover pepperoni to put in it from County's mom. My spirits rise, marginally. And County tells me that he was really afraid for me, back there on the rock. Somehow it never occurs to me that he could be worried about me out here. I have breakdowns, but I never really worry about my own safety. Even in the middle of that stretch, I knew I would get down. It makes me feel better to have someone worried about me, and it makes me feel better to have got through it fine.Tomorrow--Mahoosuc Notch. Another milestone of which I'm terrified. I'm allowing three hours for it. And I'm still not very hopeful.