Date: 2003-07-22
From: Hanover, New Hampshire

To: Smarts Mountain Ranger Cabin
Miles today: 23.8
Weather: moderate rain

23.8 miles from Hanover to the Smarts Mountain Ranger Cabin. I got up at 5:00 in the morning and basically said just screw it. The knees are not much better. But I decided to get out of town and start walking just to see what was going on. I just couldn¢t keep hanging in town and spending money and wasting time. So, I got my stuff packed and was ready to go by 6:00. I woke up Spiderman real quickly to say goodbye to him because I¢m not going to see him again. He¢s going home today so I decided to wake him up. Then I started walking out of town. I stopped in a Mobile gas station and got an ice tea and a sandwich before I headed out. I used the bathroom and just kind of sat there and played around. I got started walking about 6:30 heading north out of town. The Trail goes down the street and then wraps around a soccer field, I believe, then heads back in the woods. Today was a treacherous walk all along. Basically it started raining. It was raining very hard before I got in the woods. As I sat there at the Mobile getting my ice tea and sandwich it started raining about 6:30 in the morning and it didn¢t stop raining until probably about 11. It drizzled off and on the rest of the day. At some points the rain was so hard there were puddles in the Trail where it was flat. Where the Trail was not flat it was actually running down in little streams down the Trail. Of course everything got soaking wet in terms of my clothes and shoes and stuff like that which I¢ve gotten kind of used to. The walk was very treacherous the whole way. Even coming out of town. Although it wasn¢t a bad walk in terms of grade or steepness. Pretty easy for about a dozen miles or so. It was very rooty and rocky and muddy. Of course slipping on the rocks and roots when they¢re wet is a very slippery, very treacherous affair. So I took it very, very easy. I did 22 12 miles today but it actually took me 12 hours to do it. I didn¢t get in to the Ranger Cabin here until 6:30 tonight. The walk wasn¢t too terrible until after Moose Mountain. Then we got a steep uphill and a steep downhill and a steep uphill. I got to the Trapper John¢s shelter which was at 17 12 miles at 3:00 and decided I was going to keep on going and try and get some miles in which would have been another 6 or 7 miles to Smarts Mountain and the cabin. This was really rough. I mean, I did less than 2 miles an hour. There was quite a bit of climb. As a matter of fact you went about 2400 feet in elevation changes in about 4 miles going straight up for the most part. It was a little flat in the middle but the worst part was the last mile which was extremely steep continuously with huge rock faces and smooth rock faces that you had to traverse and try to walk across at a very steep angle.   Very scary stuff. All you had to do was lose your footing and you¢d go sliding down and hit something. Break something. Just short of that on the ? Ridge, on a flat area of some rocks, I ran in to 2 adults with 7 boys. They were hiking for a few days. They were working with a program sponsored by the Salvation Army where they took kids out. These were 8 and 10 year olds. I stopped and talked to them for a few minutes. One of the leaders said to the kids¢¦¢If you think you walked far today ask this guy how far he¢s walked¢. One of them said ¢ How far did you walk?¢ I told him ¢1760 miles so far¢. The kids were disbelieving. So, I sat there and talked to them for a bit about what it takes to do the Appalachian Trail and all that. It turns out they were headed up to the same place I was. I told them I¢d see them later and I finished the walk which was just plain scary with wet rocks going uphill and stuff. I actually slipped a couple of times but I did not fall today. I¢ve been falling an awful lot lately but I was extra careful today. I did slow miles to take care of the knees and to also make sure I don¢t hurt myself. I¢m right at the edge here where I think if I hurt myself one more time I¢m going to end up not being able to walk any longer. So, I got to the cabin and there were a bunch of girls inside the cabin. Three college girls and three young girls who were also a part of the group that was walking with the young boys. They were staying inside the cabin. I elected to sleep on the front porch and there was another guy there who is a SOBO and I cannot remember his Trail name. We sat there and talked for quite awhile. We ate and stuff like that. Now it is after dark and I¢m out here in the woods trying to quietly record this before I go to bed.