Date: 2003-09-13
From: Crawford Pond Campsite

To: Potaywadjo Leanto
Miles today: 13.7

I played an audience of one to a terrific loon serenade last night. Their strange cries echoed across the lake, lingering in the air for a beat or two after the actual call. With the mist rising up off the still water, and the moonlight highlighting the mist, it made for an ethereal scene.This is my fourth day in The 100 Mile Wilderness, and the charm has not worn off (although my last shower has, long ago). Yesterday, the guys were talking about racking off a couple of big 20 mile days (something we haven't done - or been able to do - for at least 500 miles). Of "getting it done." Of being worn out. Also of hiking being a chore, of "not so much fun anymore," as Finch admitted atop White Cap. They don't really have strict schedules to keep, so I wonder... why not take an extra day? But there is a momentum now. I don't blame them, they want to go home!I'm also ready to return home. I just want my last days on this "experience of a lifetime" to be more than the grim march into which it was turning. Dreamwalker tells me he is trying to slow down. His wife won't even be here until the 20th, and there's only 60-some miles left! "But that magnet in the mountain keeps pulling me towards it," he says with a grin.I'd noticed myself getting mileage-oriented too. Thruhiking IS work, don't ever let anyone tell you differently. It IS about the miles.One day recently I caught myself regarding it as a chore, not an adventure to be approached with pleasure and anticipation, and I knew I had lost an important thread for myself. I remember reading a register entry on the same day I saw the cow moose. The entry was from Trailfrog, a solo female just a few days ahead of me: "Hiking in Maine with a light heart," she'd written. With thunderbolt insight, I realized: "I don't have that light heart anymore! I used to. Where did it go?"I didn't want to remember my thruhike as an athletic achievement, although it IS that. Hiking the AT is HARD!Once again, it comes down to the tricky art of balance. For me, slowing down a bit and camping by myself at night restored the timeless little joys of experience again. I got off my internal hamster wheel. The "chore" aspect disappeared. The light heart returned. My encounter with the old cow moose near Caratunk had turned out to be a watershed moment for me. In recent conversations with my friend Anna, who was struggling with her own thruhike, I realized precisely what was bugging me. It was the simple, practical need to fulfill a daily mileage goal. That's what thruhiking is about. I knew, watching that lame cow moose splash and feed and negotiate on three legs in the bog, that I wanted - with all my heart - to spend the morning watching this rare sight. Yet I left this unique experience. There were miles to fulfill.I had to choose, and I chose to walk. And I needed to walk, if I was going to finish this Big Hike. What I learned, though, was that I needed to tweak it, or lose the joy."Grimness" became my red flag, my canary in the coal mine. When the automatic, compelling urge to "get there" came up (wherever "there" really is) (if "there" is ever really gotten to), I just let it be there. It was going to be there anyway. I just didn't have to act on it blindly. That is quite a good lesson from an old cow moose. Teachers are everywhere we let them be. The lame cow and I had been close enough to see the light in each other's eyes. Thank you, good madam. Namaste to you too.My "smell the roses" campaign is in full swing this morning. I make myself a pot of coffee on the tiny sand beach, and cup my hands around the pot, letting the bean oils work their way up my sinuses into my foggy brain.My tent is soaked again, as I would have expected it to be next to water. I am hoping the sun crawls across the beach and dries it before my coffee pot empties. I am playing Russian roulette with my touchy pocketmail screen by typing in here as the condensation "rains" down. One trick I learned was to slip a ziplock over the LCD screen as I type.I hear a human cough, and fish out my mace. I'm not really scared, just alert and aware of my solo vulnerability. But the footsteps pass on. Later, more footsteps, and they head this way, down to the beach. I remain quiet until I see Dreamwalker, who can't see me until the last moment, tucked in as I am.He admires my campsite, and tells me it's 9:15 am. Ah, the watchless life...Finch has already passed by and the rest of the shelter crowd is right behind him. Dreamwalker and I visit a bit about that irresistible urge to "make miles" and then, with a laugh, he gives way to it and is off.It's 9:30 when he leaves. It will be 10 am by the time I pack up. My latest start yet. I'm rather proud of myself. It's not practical on a daily basis, unless one prefers night hiking. But today it is the perfect adjustment "to fit the situation," as my old cowboy teacher Tom Dorrance used to say.Plus, now my tent is dry!After about two miles of easy walking, I came to a clean brook that crossed the AT. It's already hot and humid. A clear pool formed below the spot where folks might draw their water, so I took off my shoes and had a soapless rinse. It was cold, and took some will and fortitude. But I felt tingly and clean as I marched on, refreshed.I stopped at Copper Brook Leanto to see the swimming hole in front of it. Pretty spot, with a small falls just upstream. But the water was quite brown silty, and I passed on a swim. "Beaver water," we call it, which probably isn't fair to the beaver. They didn't put the tannins in, or the silt.The walking was flatter after that. The miles unrolled easily. Before I knew it, I was at the famous Antlers campsite. Wow! The camp was spacious and open, by the side of a boulder-studded lake. What a sunset there would be! The privy was a little log cabin, complete with curtains on the window. The register log was kept in the outhouse. I signed in "And I didn't even have to go!Too early to stop, I rolled along to Potowayjo Spring. The frogs are singing in chorus. I haven't heard frogs in a long time. Another unusual spring, a pool with a sand bed and quite a good flow, cold. I decide to stay at the shelterA fellow North Carolinian, John, told me Chief and company had just left for White House Landing, lured by the promise of whopping hamburgers and beer on credit. I plan to go there for breakfast, so perhaps I will see them. Section hiker Jason limped in near dark, a huge blister on the ball of his foot. I give him my last Compeed, which I have been carrying since Virginia. I am happy to lighten my load.Tomorrow . . . hot coffee!