Date: 2004-05-22
From: Eliza Brook Lean-To

To: Liberty Springs Campsite
Miles today: 11.4
Weather: light rain

Log entry: 112Too much happened today to mess around with format.At about 2200 last night a mother and son stumbled into the shelter. They alsogot up around 0530 which was when I should have gotten up too. Instead I waited to start my day until 0615. By 0700 I was ready to go and that's when the rain started. A drizzle at first but before long a solid, steady rain. The trail flowed in most spots and even the deepest watebars were ineffective.Toss in temps in the low-mid 40s and I was not enjoying myself. To make matters worse, the climb up Kinsman was ferocious. The ideal plan for today was to do 19 miles to Garfield shelter. The originalplan was 11.4 to Liberty Springs campsite, no shelter. I wasn't too keen on the idea of spending a rainy afternoon in my hammock but the 7.7 miles past Liberty to Garfield is almost all above treeline. The summit of Kinsman is about 40 yards of ridgewalk above treeline. The wind was so fierce up there I knew that walking Fraconia ridge was out of the question.To make matters even worse I slipped on a wet root and fell gently on my rightside cracking my trekking pole in half. Bummer. The funny thing is I wasthinking about how hard it would be to walk the dicey terrain without them. Well at least I had lefty yet.It took a miserable 3.5 hours to make it to Lonesome Lake hut. This morning was by far the worst/lowest point on the trail. All I wanted was to be warm, dry, and not on a mountain. Had it not been for the Hut...I stepped inside and was greeted warmly by Frankie, a dark haired dude thatlooked like the guy off from Joe Millionaire. He invited me to sit down and dry off, which I did. Also present was Emily, the other winter caretaker and Sandy who was staying at the hut. She was making soup.They all really took care of me. Great conversation with Emily and Sandy. Sandy would like to thru-hike and we spent a good hour talking about planning and the usual AT stuff. Emily thru-ed last year. Good times. We also tried to figure out my options for a place to stay tonight. I wasimmediately offered a spot inside the hut and was super tempted to take them upon it. But I really needed to do some more miles today. I did have plenty ofchoices if I wanted to blue-blaze (cheat) and take a side trail. But the mental anguish I would go through would be more severe than any wind/rain/climbcombination. My only option was to stay put or press onto Liberty Springstentsite. Fraconia ridge would be too harsh.So I ate lots of soup and drank lots of hot chocolate and read some back-issuesof Outdoor magazine. A simple quote caught my eye, which had a huge impact onme.The article was written by Peter Stark, "Last Time Round" from the October 2003edition of Outside. The author wrote it about his father. He quotes:"If you define yourself only by your exploits, your feats of physical courage,when the time comes that you can no longer perform them, you've lost the standard by which you measure yourself."Boom, pow, zammy. That has pretty much been my motivation the last 1800 miles.I have heard similar quotes before but this seemed almost directly aimed at me.Recently, it seems, that I no longer have to do big miles to prove to myself Iam adequately strong. I can't think of a good word to describe the way I feel,or why I had to do big miles earlier in the trail to prove to myself something?But prove what? That I am an athlete? That I can hike farther than the average Thru? But who cares if I can? Does it put me in some other tier of Thru-hikers? No. Just to prove it to myself. I guess the trail had become more a personal challenge than when I started out; my motivation was "love for the outdoors". 23 glorious weeks in the woods. Turns out that after 3 weeks I realized the trail was trying to kill me and my motivation was and has simply been the physical/mental/emotional challenge of it. Racing only against myself. Being the #1 northbounder mattered not and matters not. Never for one mile. Being true to the blazes and beating Katahdin was all that matters. I still remember back to Georgia when I sat on the picnic table at Low Gapshelter thinking about doing a 14.9 mile day, "Great men do great things". While the basic creed stays the same, "great things" doesn't have to be big miles or beating some rough mountain in tough weather. I used the "great things" to get me to do my first 25 mile day and doing 108 miles in 3 days (the infamous "Race to Harpers"). The general thought was, "If you do this Ben, not only can no one take it away from you, a select few can repeat it. If you do this, you will have earned it". It is the exact same principle of the scene from Saving Private Ryan, where Mike (Sgt Horvath, Tom Seizmore) and Captain Miller (Tom Hanks) are sitting on the bridge talking about staying to protect the bridge. "But part of me says what if we stay and by some miracle we protect the bridge. Then, I think, we all earn the right to go home." If you haven't seen the movie or if you have but haven't really sat down and thought about the significance of that scene the point is probably unclear or lost.By now I don't have a thing left to prove to myself. I don't need to do a 19mile day through the Whites to think of myself as a "great man". What's betteris that if I don't feel like a failure if I don't pull a big day. I still won't let the trail beat me, I am just picking my battles a little more carefully.The quote stuck with me and as the rain eventually quit I decided to try my luck at some hiking.By 1430 I was again Northbound on the AT. I was still a little cold but I was in high spirits. That is until I reached Cascade Brook.As I approached I could hear the roar of rushing, unhappy water. Then I got tothe stream's edge and noticed there was no bridge. The brook was high, fast, and a "tea color". For the next 20 minutes I scanned upstream and down to look for either rocks to hop or at least a slower, wider place to cross. No luck. Faster and scarier up and way deeper downstream. I figured the the best place was a straight route from the AT. So I removed my boots and slid on my sandals. I rolled my pants up to my knees and stepped into the icecold torrent. When the water reached mid-thighs and was only getting deeper I turned back for the shore. My pants were now soaked and my heart was racing. My biggest fear in life is failure. Second is murky rivers. I have seen too many episodes of Rescue 911 and spent too many hours back home watching Peter's Drain (the creek that flows through my woods and near my house) erode banks and take trees. For that matter I have seen it take chunks of asphalt hundreds of feet downstream. Once back on the bank I began shivering, not due to cold but genuine fear. Izipped my shorts on and decided to try a different route across. There were some "flags", marking tape, on either bank. I figured maybe this was a desired route, so I gave it a shot.There were several large boulders in the stream that I thought maybe I couldwork my way across, and use the boulders for refuge. I think in low water onecould rock hop but the rocks were covered by 8 inches of rushing water. If Iwould slip off one, game over. So I decided to wade.Within a few feet the water was already over my knees and halfway across it wasup to my thighs and splashing up to my stomach. The current was rough, moving me against my will. The boulders I used as "goals" were actually where the current was most dangerous. As I progressed I was making a series of involuntary, primitive grunts, a noise that can't adequately be described by a keyboard. Fear in audible form. At somepoint I lost my right sandal, the current sucked it off and I am not sure where it ended up. The deepest the water got was just below my belt and that was only for a couple feet. Mercifully, I finally stepped ashore on the other side.I sat on a rock facing the stream with the intention of crying. The emotion was there but no tears. It is generally believed that beating one of your fears will lessen or remove the fear in the future. Not the case today. As I sulked on the rock, my waldie (sandal) came poping up out of the river, it had been caught in some underwater current that eventually gave up its prize. It floated lazily in an eddy and for a second I stood up intending to get it back. But before I was fully upright the sandal accelerated downstream and out of sight.With a heavy heart I laced the boots back on and as I stood up a group of about8 college age kids showed up on the other bank. We tried shouting back and forth but all you could hear over the roar of water was shouting. So I turned and headed downhill towards Fraconia Notch.Not long after the crossing I ran into an older couple who were quick to pointout another wet crossing up ahead. They didn't look all that wet so I hoped itwouldn't be as bad. I did advise them of what was ahead and we went our seperate ways. The stream they were talking about I think was Whitehouse Brook and I was ableto rock hop that.Once down in the notch, the trail passes under Interstate 93 and much to mydelight there was a small package addressed to me. The small note on it wasunsigned but from a follower of my journal. Inside were some fresh veggies, abanana, some Oats and Honey Bars, some bread, and a couple Heinikens. Mint. Inailed the bars and banana and saved the rest for dinner.The climb up to Liberty Springs was all business and I dropped my gear on thefirst tent platform that I came to. I dropped the Heinies in the spring and set up my hammock. Then I ate a quick dinner and spent the rest of the eveningwriting and sipping on the brewskis. The good thing is that tomorrow is only17.4 miles. Wait, that may not be a good thing.