Date: 2013-09-08
From: Osgood Tent Site

To: Pinkham Notch/Gorham, NH
Miles today: 4.7

It rained last night but since I stayed with Mooch I didn't have to take down a wet tent in the morning! Yay! As I hiked down to Pinkham Notch I looked for stealth camping spots--just to see what would have been available had I not accepted Mooch's offer--but didn't see anything, so I was all the more grateful for his offer. My gratitude faded when I got to the picnic tables by the visitor's center and heard Mooch in typical style tell everybody that I spent the night in his tent. I was mortified. Then he said, "Whatever Poppins said happened--the opposite happened!" oh, great. But then it occurred to me that two can play this game! So I countered by joking that we had hot sex all night long--the opposite of absolutely nothing happening!! And everyone laughed. I felt relieved. Now it was Mooch's turn to look mortified. I *almost* felt bad for totally deflating him by my response, but he deserved it! When I expressed my fear that this incident would damage my reputation and that rumors would start to fly, Ahvoh told me, "Poppins, you're the holiest person I've ever met! I couldn't knock that halo off your head if I had to." Wow! What a compliment! That sure made me feel better.It was starting to get rainy and cold, so Mooch, Ahvoh, Zeus and I went into the visitor center to get lunch and wait out the weather. When I checked my messages I was shocked to get a text message from Weatherman's wife, which was so sad I burst into tears. She asked me to stop texting him--it was a strange message, like she had suddenly decided we couldn't be friends. When the guys saw me crying I explained what happened. They knew Weatherman because we had all hiked together in Georgia and they understood how much Weatherman had supported me up til then. They tried to make me feel better by saying what nasty things I should respond to her with. I didn't know what I would say, but I knew that I had to respect her wishes. But it still felt like a slap in the face.Though I had only hiked 4.7 miles, I felt so drained that I was in no frame of mind to keep hiking. So I called a friend of a friend I had never met, who lived in nearby Berlin, and made arrangements to get picked up. A few hours later, Leane and her adorable daughter Lillie took me home and gave me the royal treatment. I took a long hot shower, enjoyed grilled salmon for dinner, played with Lillie, and talked with my parents and my spiritual director. It lifted my spirits a bit, but I still felt a great sense of loss. Honoring Weatherman's wife's request meant I was cut off from saying goodbye or thanking him for his support throughout my hike. What could I do? Nothing. I just had to let it go and focus on the rest of my hike. I have questioned whether I ought to write about these very personal, emotional experiences, like what I just wrote, thinking people who don't know me and who don't understand trail life might raise their eyebrows in wonder, and maybe I shouldn't even mention what happened. But in reflecting on my thru-hike, I've realized that it's as much an emotional and interpersonal journey as it is a physical one and these experiences deserve to be acknowledged for they significantly affected me on my hike. The relationships we hikers have with other hikers is the most wonderful and most difficult part of a thru-hike. Sometimes I have to edit my thoughts regarding people because of the public nature of this journal, but whenever I can I try to be honest about my experiences. I hope you understand. If you have never been on a thru-hike you should know that we hikers see ourselves as one big family and look out for each other. We're always asking what happened to so-and-so, because we care and want to know that everyone is okay! We hike with people who are nothing like us, and it's okay! You'll find the oddest kinds of hiking partners out there: young single women hiking with older married men (like Weatherman and me), a older single woman hiking with a young married man, Athiests hiking with Christians, liberals hiking with conservatives, you see it all....The trail is often called "the great equalizer." It's a beautiful thing. It's a shame when people don't understand this.