Date: 2009-07-25
From: Norwich, VT (home of Trail Angel)

To: Norwich, VT (home of Trail Angel)
Miles today: 1.5

Greetings, all, from Hanover, New Hampshire. That's right ... Dartmouth, sculling , etcetera. Out of the woods and into the ivy. (Yes, we walked the 2 miles into NH on our day off.)We left Manchester, Vermont surrounded by good friends. Loon and her boyfriend, Dom (who was joining for a section), Wags and Gangsta all scampered up the trail with us. It's always nice to have someone to talk to as day draws to a close; someone to turn to and talk about how sweaty the day was or whether it will rain or not. These folks have become dear friends and a truly wonderful aspect of our thru-hike. Friends we plan to keep once this is all over.And, man, can we see the "over" coming down the pipe. We have only about 450 miles between us and Katahdin, the high end of this peregrination. The chant has become "Onward North" as we move across the heights. Another four to five weeks and we'll be standing there, on the peak in the clouds wondering where the time went. In fact, we already have train tickets from Boston, though they are set for slightly later than we think we'll be finishing (so, if you or someone you know in the Boston, MA or Portland, ME are wants to be a trail angel and put up to just summited thru-hikers for a few days, please let us know).The trail continues to surprise and delight us. Several nights ago, sleeping heavily in my tent, I was awakened by a shrill scream rolling through the darkness. I sat bolt upright, getting my bearings, remembering: Wags and Gangsta are tented just a few feet away from us, I recall. We are near a rain-gorged stream, so the sound of the water is intense and harsh. I sit still in the darkness. I hear nothing but the rush of water on rocks. I lift my headlamp and shin it into the dark forest. Nothing. Then a small voice wafts through the evening. "Mr. Right? A raccoon tried to get in my tent. Can you see if it's still out there?" It's Gangsta. I climb out and check the surrounding area. I find a platypus bag some thirty feet down the bank from the tent, but other than this all is in order. The story goes that Gangsta woke in the night to something brushing against her through the side of her tent. Of course, mere hours before, the batteries in her headlamp, her only light source, gave up the ghost, so she was unable to examine the intruder. Therefore, she reached for her ipod, which she had been listening to before falling asleep. As she fumbled with it, trying to turn it on, she heard something moving to her right ... in her tent vestibule where her backpack was resting. With shaking hands, she finally got the ipod on and its light filled the tent space. She turned and found herself face to face with a sly, large raccoon, no more than a foot from her face. This produced the scream in the night, a scream which ultimately made the creature flee. The rest of the night passed without incident, but, several days later, in a bar in town, we ran into The Brothers, three brothers who are all hiking the trail together and had been about a day or so behind us. After several pints they unfolded their own tale of terror. Seems that they too slept in that camp site, the day after us, only to be awakened in the night by raccoon attacks as well. That was their word: attacks. Seems that beyond just waking the three up, the raccoon and its friends hung around, walking the perimeter of the camp like hungry hyenas as the brothers stayed up all night expecting another rush of fur. Remember, there were quite a few pints in these guys by that time.Speaking of wildlife, I can add porcupine to my list. One evening, before dinner, I took some time to climb a peak next to the shelter. On top was a chair lift, used by skiers in colder, whiter times, a view across the Vermont Green Mountains and a fat porcupine. It didn't seem to care that I was there. It simple waddled along as I walked behind it, watching. My first porcupine sighting of the trip.We also found ourselves in The Long Trail Inn for an evening. It has a history and connection to this area of the trail that goes beyond anything we've encountered up until now. Essentially, when the Long Trail was being built through Vermont, on which the AT was based and shares much of the trail with in Vermont, this building was made to house the workers. Now it is a quaint little ski inn with an Irish pub in the lobby. If you ever find yourself in the vicinity of Rutland, Vermont, you should stop in.And now we break out into New Hampshire ... our next to last state. And the true climbing and challenge begins. The nightmarish White Mountains of New Hampshire are on our doorstep and Southern Maine is no piece of cake. There is the One Hundred Mile Wilderness just before Katahdin to tackle and its is exactly what the name implies ... no exit from the trail for 100 miles. These next few weeks will be our most challenging and most rewarding to date. It's not apocalyptic when I say the end is near. I swear, I can smell Katahdin sometimes when a cool wind finds me on a clean mountain top. And then I feel cold, pressed on, touched by the life that waits for us after all this has faded into the recesses of memory. It's a little frightening to think of a world without tents and backpacks, without miles under your feet every day or places where mountains are not your home, but something to be viewed from a racing car on a black, dark highway. I don't really know what to expect ... what dreams may come once this dream has found its terminus.Onward North ... onward into the unknown of life.