Date: 2011-07-09
From: (92) Telephone Pioneers Shelter

To: (93) Mt Algo Shelter
Miles today: 21.1
Weather: clear sky

While there are people and things back home that I truly miss while traveling, I cannot help but love being back on the trail. Having been off for so long, I have found it nearly impossible to force my out of shape body to match my old pace (especially with the increasingly mountainous terrain), and can now hike as hard and fast as I want without actually getting far! Therefore, I can challenge myself without finishing the trail sooner than I like. In addition, upon re-entering the woods my rested mind appreciates the simple things to a greater degree; an appreciation that I have not felt since the start of my thru hike. Perhaps it is no coincidence that today marks my 100th day on the AT since I hit the first white blaze on April 1st. I have hiked a century, an amazing feat!Still awaiting the return of my trail legs, I hiked a slow morning to the Connecticut border. There I caught up to Tom, and he and I enjoyed some trail magic in a nearby lot with a trail angel couple who had thru hiked a previous year. They were very generous and so I stuffed my face full of snack cakes, cookies, grapes, and soda. Then I got up and left the swampy state of New York behind at last.Connecticut is a beautiful state when compared to PA, Jersey, and New York. Almost immediately the terrain changed and I was surrounded by clean and drinkable streams, large rivers full of rapids, and pine trees that gave the air a pleasant smell (think car freshener). Towards the end of the day I encountered mountains, like, real mountains! I climbed them happily, having not remembered such challenging and glorious terrain since the deep south.My day ended after 21.1 miles at Mt Algo Shelter, a picturesque place nestled at the foot of a mountain with a creek you had to cross to reach it. On the porch of the shelter was a group of hikers cooking supper, so I joined them. After introducing myself, I learned that the one guy, Smooth, a thru hiker of about my age, had not only started the trail the same day as me but also stayed at Hawk Mountain Shelter in the huge tent city the same night as me (my first shelter on the AT, it would take a hundred days for our paths to cross again). I learned from Smooth that several others from that first night were still on trail, both ahead and behind us. These included: Shenanigans, who I had last seen at Gooch Mountain Shelter in Georgia, H3 who I had last seen the night I had rode out a huge thunderstorm in my Hammock on a Georgian Ridgeline (Blue Mountain Shelter), and Pocahontas (now Freight Train, because with her heavy pack she ran down a mountain like a ¢freight train¢, unable to stop) who I had first met on Springer Mountain and last saw at Neel¢s Gap. It is awesome that I may see these people again and learn how they fared, an opportunity I¢ve often thought about but never dreamed I would get! After a hundred days, I have found myself back in the group from hence I started. The other guy in the shelter is trail named ¢Be-Bop¢. He is not a thru hiker but has been traveling North from Georgia on and off the trail and nearby cities since April 15th, occasionally stopping to find work and save. He told me he plans to hike what remains of the trail to Maine, and when winter hits he will find a job there. I asked if he would leave the following summer, and he responded that it all depends on how he feels, and that he may just stay there forever. I am always amazed by people who take such a leap of faith. Be-Bop¢s life could play out in a billion different ways depending on where he stops, and whether he finds a life good enough to keep. Where he lives, where he works, who he marries¢¦ And who knows, maybe after a winter of work, making friends, money, getting a girlfriend, and making a life for himself, he will pick up and leave the next summer, just like that, never to return. As a kid who grew up on a farm in a small town, this boggles my mind!A woman from Sweden was in the shelter cooking up a delicious looking meal of couscous and vegetables for her two kids and Be-Bop (I think they had hooked up and were undergoing some ¢Trailmance¢). She offered the extra food in her pot to Smooth and I, and we greedily held it between us while shoveling it into our mouths with our spoons. It was an odd moment; I had known Smooth for less than half-an hour before eating out of the same pan with him, both of us eager to consume the most. I never gave a seconds thought to germs or hygiene, and the delicious casserole was gone in seconds. As I sat back I regarded Smooth as sort of a brother at war. We¢d just met, but I knew him well. We were two veterans, hungry after a hundred days of trail.