Date: 2021-05-10
From: Davis Cemetery

To: Bear Garden Hostel
Miles today: 8.8

It was so hard to say goodbye to St. Mike this morning! For multiple reasons, mainly that I would miss him, but also that the whole character of my hike would now change. The vacation aspect of my hike was now over, and I was on my own. My support team was gone. I also felt bad for him making the long drive home alone, and essentially living alone for the next few weeks. Have we discussed my goals yet? I'm hesitant to commit them to writing because that sort of commits me to doing and makes falling short of the goal a failure, but here it is: I want to hike for four weeks, and 200 miles. That sounds reasonable, doesn't it? At fifty miles a week that's less than ten miles a day, with a zero day every week.  So with butterflies in my stomach and a lump in my throat I walked away from Mike on a quiet country road, across a sunny meadow and back into the woods. I hadn't gone very far when I came across a sign that made me very happy! It was a small rustic wooden sign that said simply "1/4 GA-ME". I have walked one fourth of the way from Georgia to Maine! Yahoo! On the back side of the same tree was another sign that said "3/4 ME-GA".  I kept walking. I was still wearing a light daypack because in his final act of sainthood for this leg of the hike, St Mike drove the Green Monster, my backpack, to a hostel which was 25 roads miles away, but less than ten trail miles. I was hiking to it. I was supposed to call the hostel from the top of Walker Mountain late in the day ( because that was the only place I'd have cell service,) to remind them to pick me up.Farther down the trail at the base of a tree near a creek someone had set up a tiny colorful gnome garden or fairy garden! It was so cute! Strictly speaking, this is against Leave No Trace principles which are so important to the hiking community, but it made me smile. That's good, isn't it?I climbed Little Brushy Mountain, which was indeed little and not a problem. But then, late in my day came Walker Mountain, and a weird thing happened. The mountain has about 856 feet of elevation gain in two miles, and it looked pretty steep in my guidebook. But I girded my loins (figuratively) and set off. Then I must have entered some sort of time warp or something. I was prepared for a long slog of a hike, but within minutes I found myself heading downhill. Surely this couldn't be the summit already, could it? Yes it was! What happened? How did I walk two miles uphill and not notice it? Weird. I called the hostel to remind them to come get me, and started walking down the mountain.  I made it to the bottom in good time and sat down on the grass to wait for the shuttle. We had an agreed upon pickup time, and I was early. But the designated time came and went with no shuttle. I can be patient and I don't mind waiting, but as time went by I started to get very nervous. I felt very vulnerable with no phone service, no more food or water in my pack, no tent or shelter, and no idea where I was in relation to a town. It was a quiet country road, there were no houses to be seen in either direction, I walked both ways to check. Night was coming on and the temperature was dropping. There was no cars on the road at all. I prayed about it and decided to wait five more minutes and then I'd get back on the trail and hope for the best. Just then the shuttle arrived, with great apologies. I am now safely ensconced in a nest of hikers here at the hostel, and the Green Monster was waiting for me on my bunk when I got here. So all is good, the slackpack is over, and I'm on my way!