Date: 2009-06-03
From: Stealth at Mile 694.3

To: Stealth near Hay Rock on Tinker Ridge
Miles today: 18.4

Today things attempted to go from bad to worse. I am so eager to be done with this leg of the trip so I can get myself back together. I woke up to a cow standing behind my tent in the river so I decided not to get water from this source. Consequently I had to hike the first 5 miles of the day with no water and of course all up hill. I am trying to hike slower now to reduce the impact on my body as everything imaginable hurts. But I had to go fast this first 5 miles because I needed water so badly. Once I got water, it was a nice slow hike up to Mckaffee Knob. Besides Katahkin, this might be the most photographed place on the trail. It was gorgeous like a postcard and I spent an hour up there hanging my phone from various trees and putting the timer on the camera and running up to the edge to put my feet over. Quite a sight I'm sure! While I was up there I could see way, way off in the distance, Tinker Cliffs, which was only supposed to be 6 miles away but looked more like 15. I got anxious to leave because of time. About an hour into the hike towards Tinker, I realized the weather was going to be an issue. Trying to get radar info from Dad the weatherman, my phone ran out of batteries(possibly from the four hundred pictures I took on McKaffee). A storm was rumbling in front of me to the north and I stopped for 45 minutes to let it go by.      After an hour of being under way again, I fell hard. I was walking on a big slab of rock whose surface was tilted about 30 degrees. Half way over it, I saw a lizard on a tree to my right. When I turned my head, my foot slipped completely out from under me. My left side impacted the rock in 2 places, my hip and my ribs. I had wedged the hiking pole between me and the rock. Immediately I screamed the pain was so bad. I layed there, capsized for about 5 minutes in terrible pain trying to figure out if my ribs were broken. Once I figured they weren't, I unbuckled my pack and rolled over to sit upright. As I sat up, a particularly sharp rock lanced one of the two grape-sized ingrown hairs growing on my butt (some things I have been trying to keep to myself...) and I screamed more. Then I realized that all this screaming was hurting my ribs, and it was at this point that I completely lost it. I layed there a broken mess for an hour and wept uncontrollably for a million different reasons. Because I was hurt, because I was alone, because I wanted to go home, because I'm not really sure why I'm doing this in the first place, because it is so, so much harder than I thought it would be, because I nearly died and nobody would have found me for a day, because I'm withering away and getting skinnier every day. Not a fun afternoon.      But there is always a point in any tradgedy that you get to decide, am I going to let this be the end or am I going to go on? I knew, this time, deep down in my broken body and broken heart, that I was going to choose to go on.      Nature didn't give me much more time to be emotional. When I finally got to the cliffs, a huge storm was on the way and I knew I needed to get out of there. A helicopter pilot couldn't have given a quicker tour of this area. Once again I pushed my aching body hard to do the 2 miles left to the shelter. Five minutes after I got there the sky opened up and it was hell on earth for twenty minutes. Rain, hail, wind, shocking lightning and thunder.      Then I heard splintering, splitting, creaking, groaning- a tree was coming down! I curled up in a ball and this giant tree crashed two feet away from the shelter and sprayed debris everywhere! I already felt so fragile, it didn't take me long to loose it again. I wouldn't let myself try to internalize the fact that I had nearly died twice in an afternoon. And I am not exagerating, they couldn't produce scenes like this one in an Indiana Jones movie.      The storm finally stopped and it was no longer my desire to get closer to town, it was a necessity. I needed this leg to be over so I could regroup. There was no way I was doing 9 miles after all this down a mountain,though, so it was one more night in the woods. I found a spot about 4 miles out of town and pitched my tent. As I was opening the door, the zipper ripped out about 10 inches, just as if to say ha ha, this day's not over yet. No emotional reaction to this one though, just get me out of here. Daleville first thing tomorrow! Because todays been so crappy, you will have to wait to see the McKaffee Knob picture when I am in better spirits...