Date: 2010-07-25
From: Belter's Campsite

To: Salisbury, CT (US 44)
Miles today: 10.5
Weather: clear sky

Very rough beginning, great ending.   This morning I had another meltdown. (I know, shocker, right?) When I woke, my chafing was somewhat better. When I took my bear bag down, though, I managed to get the end of the rope stuck in the tree. In trying to get it down, I managed to have an accident and give myself a nasty rope burn on my neck. I thought this was a pretty great addition to the chafing. On top of those, all of my stuff was at least a little damp from all of the rain and high humidity and ALL of it smelled horrendous! The combined effect of all of this made my ten and a half miles seem nearly impossible. I am, however, an AT thru-hiker, so I hiked on anyway.   After just a half mile or so, I came to a trail detour (not in any of the books, of course). Looking at my map, I saw that this would add about 1.5-2 miles to my day. That was just enough to push me over the edge. Looking back now (clean and dry, with ointment on all my chafing, a friend by my side, and all my stuff clean and dry) it's hard to see how I felt so desperate, but my thoughts were basically this: "I *bleep* hate this *bleep* trail! I need to go home! I can't do this! What was I thinking? I can't even make it to Salisbury!" etc.... I cried and walked and cried and walked. After about two miles of this detour, I finally sat and just cried it out for a while. As soon as I (finally) got up and started walking again, I, on a whim, stuck out my thumb to a passing car. He stopped and turned out to be a trail maintainer. I asked him to drop me at the spot where the AT joins back up with the detour, but he said, "oh, nah, I'll take you on up to the Great Falls." I didn't protest too much. All told, I think I skipped about a mile worth of that original section's distance. This is the first time I've yellow-blazed anything (even one mile of a detoured mess). I initially felt a bit guilty, but this simple thing turned my mood around completely.   When I was having my meltdown, I had pretty well decided to ask Braids to cancel her trip and instead go home for a week or so. If, after that rest, I regretted my decision and missed the trail, I could still come back and finish. When my mood improved, I got into some pretty serious thought about what I can do to help myself stay out here and enjoy the trail. Here's what I came to: I have been getting bogged down (and terrified) thinking about all 689.7 miles I have left to do. Now, however, I will only ask of myself one more week. Right now, I will hike 2 1/2 days with Storm, slackpack 4-5 days with Braids and Storm, and then zero 1 day. Then, and only then, will I ask myself, "Can I hike just one more week?" I feel pretty certain that the answer to that question will always be yes. If I ask myself, however, "can I hike eight more weeks?" the answer that come to mind is, "Are you freaking kidding me? No way!" Actually, I take that back. When I ask myself that question, I just cry. So, this is a big shift for me. I also get intimidated by other hikers a lot and feel like I'm not tough enough. This is MY hike, though, and it's certainly the hardest thing I've ever done. I am going to try to shift my focus more to what I need to do for ME to get to Maine.   I hiked into town around 12:30 feeling pretty good. I've had an amazing afternoon with Storm and others at Maria McCabe's. She is a wonderful lady and this is definitely a recommended stay!   Feeling good!