Reaching Stafford Notch as darkness descended, I could barely make out my feet on the trail with my rather pitiful headlamp low on batteries, but there was a very bright headlamp in the campsite. Ja El, a four-time thru hiker on the AT, was kind to the old lady with the useless light and loaned me his bright one to get my water and make camp. I returned the light and settled in my tent, vowing not to go more than three steps from its enfolding walls until it was daylight.
At daylight, I headed up Avery Peak. Some of the trail was rough rock requiring use of hands as well as feet and poles. The descent from the Bigelows to the road was a fight against time, going down what was sometimes very demanding, steep trail requiring hands and feet again. I was well aware that it would only take one miss-step to come crashing down, banging soft body parts and bones on unyielding rock. I moved slowly and carefully.
A mile an hour was a great accomplishment for me on some of Maine’s trails. I did enjoy the challenge of the more difficult parts; when young, I’d always liked climbing around on rocks. Each difficult rocky section was like a puzzle. Which way would be the best and safest for an old lady with a bad leg? I like puzzles.
I laughed at myself as I turned around like a cat getting ready to lie down while I tried to decide which possible route to take over rocks or cliff-like trail. Straight down? Back down? Go sideways? Right side? Left side or in the middle? Which hand holds or footholds would be best? Which route wouldn’t require me to trust the left knee in a bent position? It all took time. I could do it all. I could do it safely. But I was dreadfully slow.
Yet those difficult places, too, were pretty. The lower I went, the more fall color was apparent, the trail lined with orange and gold as well as green. I came close to getting to the road before dark but had to travel the last half-mile by headlamp.
My zero day in Stafford was much needed. Both lower legs ached for hours that night in spite of Vitamin T (Tylenol) and in spite of the fact I wasn’t moving any more, lying down on a good bed. By morning my body parts recovered, though my brace had tried to rub another section of skin off the side of my leg.
Billy Goat, a trail icon on the PCT, is a Maine boy. He told me, when I was planning this trip, not to overestimate my abilities in the southern section of Maine. He told me of a young woman who bailed out crying hysterically that she just couldn’t stand the roots and rocks any more. I wasn’t planning on bailing, but I could understand what she’d felt. It was a very difficult trail.
Looking at what lay ahead the next few days, I saw one section would require going up 1,000 feet in half a mile. That’s steep. I was sure I would be using hands as well as feet to climb, with a full pack. It would be challenging.
At every town stop with cell reception I checked my email and my trail journal. I was collecting fans. Some of them I knew, like Ursa Minor, and some I’d not yet met, like Winkle. Short notes left on my guest book page were immensely encouraging to me, and I needed all the encouragement I could get. A sentence or two could turn me from the edge of discouragement to an optimistic hiker.
Leaving Stafford I took a break and set the pack down on my water bladder mouthpiece, inadvertently draining most of my water onto the ground. Oops. It was a good thing it was a cold day. I wouldn’t be as thirsty. The weather had changed to the 40s in the day, forecast to be 28 that night.
My campsite by the Carrabasset River was cheery with the company of hikers, who had a nice campfire to ward off the cold as darkness settled. Lovely fall color contrasted with evergreens on the riverbanks.
In the morning it was freezing, but I was off early. I needed all the head start I could get as I climbed another mountain, enjoying the beauty of thick frost on groundcover beside the trail, glistening in the early morning sunlight. I started out with two shirts, a fleece top, and my down jacket. Before lunch I was down to one shirt.
I SAW A MOOSE. Many hikers make their way through Maine without seeing one. Some hikers see many. I was glad I saw one. He wasn’t in the lowlands but up on the ridge. I heard a crackle of a branch broken and turned to see him through the trees. He moved amazingly quietly for a large animal moving through thickly placed Maine tree trunks. I had one good view through the trees, and he was gone, no time for a picture. Nice bull moose with rack.
Reaching my campsite with enough time to set up the tent and move in before dark, I also pumped my water in the daylight, camping alone by a pretty stream on an old railroad bed. Waking before 5:00, it was still dry, but I knew the rain was coming. I ate, packed up, and was on the trail at 6:15, by headlamp for 10 minutes before the day dawned. I picked my way backwards down the steep trail to the stream crossing in dawning light and was glad I wasn't doing it in thick darkness. As I crossed the stream and it started to rain, I stopped, making sure everything was thoroughly rain proofed. Everything important to keep dry was behind about four layers, plastic plus rain covers.
Rain poured down in buckets. I decided to only go three miles to the next shelter because of the horrid weather. The first thing I did when I unpacked? Yep, I took a bath. Don't laugh, at least not too hard. After two days and no bathing, I reeked, and I was going to have to live with myself in the shelter all day.
I had extra fuel so I heated water and washed in warm water, which felt really good as the temperature was 47. I filtered the three liters of water I needed, climbed into my trail jammies and all my extra clothes too and snuggled in my sleeping bag to stay warm. Oh, by the way, the sleeping shelf in that shelter wasn’t made of flat boards but of baseball bat sized logs. I was glad I had a Thermarest air mattress, even if it was a short one.
I spent the rest of the day horizontal. When not hiking, it is hard to stay warm any other way than inside a sleeping bag. Besides, the rest felt good. Night Train, a SOBO section hiker from Bainbridge Island near Seattle, sloshed in about 7:00. He was an older gentleman, who hiked twice as fast as I could. (Doesn't everybody?) He’d also section hiked the PCT and CDT. The rain was a gully washer all night long, and I was very glad to be in the shelter.
Wanting to be on the trail as soon as there was light, I was up at 5:00. I told Night Train I wished I hiked as fast as he did, so we could come down Saddleback together. The map description and other hikers had us worried about slick rocks in wet weather.
Wet weather was what we had. Streams were running everywhere, including in the trail. I laughed. I’d been saying I enjoyed the streams and cheerful waterfalls. Now I had the opportunity to walk in streams and step through the waterfalls on what was supposed to be trail. Nice stepping stones to keep feet dry in a little bog between large rocks were 2-3 inches under water. Pretty funny. Yes, my feet were more than just wet; they sloshed.
Night Train and I did walk down Saddleback together as he considerately started late. Thick rainclouds tried to lift, giving us cloud-framed views as we descended. The slopes were generally not too steep, and the rock was nice bumpy granite that grabbed the soles of our shoes.
Reaching the road, we tried hitching without much luck. I decided sticking out a thumb wasn’t conveying the urgency I felt and vigorously waved my white bandana at cars. That worked. Two young women turned around to see what the emergency was and took us into Rangely. Remembering that method for all future hitches, I rationalized it would have been an emergency if I couldn’t have reached town and my food box.
On the next day’s slack pack, the sun came out, making it a lovely day. After a couple hours, my right heel started to hurt, a lot. Even when slackpacking, pain cut down my speed. Roots and rocks and lots of bogs slowed me down even more. It took a long time to cover the miles.
Closer to the highway, on really steep, rocky, rooty trail, it started to rain, at first lightly and then hard. I finally hit the highway at 6:20, in the dark. That day was supposed to be the easy 13 miles and the next day the more difficult 13 miles. I was really concerned. If I couldn’t manage a day slack packing in daylight, I surely couldn’t do it with full pack. I vowed to start a half hour earlier.
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p; “I don’t think a 68-year-old woman should be doing this alone in the dark in the rain.”
That next day was rainy and every bit as difficult as I’d feared. It took me almost four hours to walk the 4.4 miles to Bemis Mountain Shelter, where I stopped to eat and evaluate. This was the last chance to eat under shelter for the day. I looked at the hiker log in the shelter and saw that Night Train had gotten in at 8:30 the night before. I told myself that if he could hike a little in the dark, so could I. I was from Washington, too; I could hike in the rain.
Bad Camper exchanged greetings with me, saying, “Oh, you mean the weather stinks, and you’re all wet, but it is so good to be outside?"
I laughed at the hiker humor and agreed. His comment helped me chuckle through the day.
I needed the good attitude. It was a very hard day. I walked on slick boards over bogs and up and down rocky trail. I only stopped once to water a bush. I reached the top of Old Blue at 5:00 and called David, the shuttle driver/hostel owner in Andover. David said he would be at the road waiting for me. I estimated I would be another 2 ½ hours, more than half in the dark. Leaving the top of Old Blue as the rain turned to sleet, it took me three hours to make the descent.
There were six pitches where rebar had been embedded in the steep rock to make stairs. The first steep section the trail lost 650 feet in less than a quarter mile, the last 750 feet in half a mile. Walking the last section in the dark with only my headlamp, I was grateful for the rebar and fresh white blazes on trees and rocks that caught my light. I kept telling myself over and over, at nearly every step, "Just be careful; go as slowly as you need to. Just be careful. Don't fall." I alternated with, “I don’t think a 68-year-old woman should be doing this alone in the dark in the rain.”
Seeing lights on a road in the far distance, there didn’t appear to be anything between me and the lights. The book said I was on a cliff. I couldn’t spare the energy to be scared. All my concentration was on carefully and safely taking each individual step.
When I neared the bottom, David turned on the car lights below me, and I cheered. I was almost there. I was going to survive intact. But I was still extra careful for the last few steps.
I decided I should get off the trail in Maine and head to New York to see my family. Perhaps the weather would be better there. I was thankful for getting down that last mountain alive and didn't want to push my luck. I didn't want to hike in truly unsafe conditions. Night Train, already at the hostel, said he felt the same way. David drove us to Grafton Notch to pick up my last food drop and then to Gorham, New Hampshire to catch a bus to Boston. Baldpate, which I’d been scheduled to climb over in another day, had a snow line considerably below the cloud-shrouded top, confirming I’d made a good decision.
Arriving in Gorham, we found Bookworm at the hostel after having had a rather terrifying experience on Baldpate. He’d fallen on black ice and slid 50 feet, very lucky not to have been injured, doubly confirming our decisions to stop. Night Train and I bought our bus tickets and went to the Chinese Buffet, enjoying our leisure and consuming three plates of food each—while dry, warm, and safe. What a contrast with hiking the day before, not taking time to stop for food.
On the bus to Boston we saw the White Mountains, white indeed, peeking out with fresh snow under layers of gray clouds. From Boston another bus took me to New York. But in New York City, the Short Line Bus to my destination was closed for the day. I needed to take a train, but this was the bus station. Where was the train? I could find my way solo in the woods, but public transportation by myself terrified me. I was definitely out of my element standing there with people streaming by me at a New York City pace while I wore a bewildered, scared look, dressed in hiker duds and carrying a backpack. The lady in the information booth looked at me like I was a country bumpkin, not far from the truth. She disdainfully gave me bad directions to the subway, not the train I needed.
Starting to have a meltdown, I tearfully called my daughter and her husband on my cell phone. They told me to go outside and get in a taxi. “It won’t cost too much, Mom. Let the taxi driver take you to the train station.” With great relief, I did as I was told. A very nice man in a yellow vest personally escorted me to the correct train in Grand Central Station, and a nice guy on the train helped heave my pack into the overhead bin. I liked the train station a whole lot better than the bus station. My old age showed in civilization more obviously than on the trail.
Chapter 20 New York and Tramper
Not fully recovered from my Maine adventures, I still had the urge to be on the trail. Sara had three little boys under four, who got up very early most of the time anyway. So three little boys and I were bundled into the van, and Sara drove me to Seven Lakes Drive on Bear Mountain, where we found the AT crossing. After they left me, they saw four deer and a flock of turkeys, which made their trip exciting.
Later in the day, I saw two eastern coyotes and three black bears in the zoo. Yes, the AT goes through the Bear Mountain Zoo.
Glad to be on the trail, my first steps were accompanied by inner and outer grins. After the zoo I took the side trail to Anthony's Nose, a hunk of rock 300 feet above the Bear Mountain Bridge over the Hudson River. There I met Tramper, a fellow section hiker, and we chatted a bit. Wonder of wonders, he said he could possibly help me with transportation in New York and gave me his phone number.
I had lunch with a large contingent of Koreans on a field trip on the Nose. As I ate lunch, I watched two eagles and three turkey vultures soar above and below me.
At the end of the day Sara met me at the little convenience store, The Appalachian Market, and we drove home. My knee ached, my heel hurt, and I was very tired, but my psyche was restored. I loved the trail.
After three days’ rest with my daughter’s family at West Point, I started off again from the Appalachian Market. The forest smelled of decaying wet leaves, while fresh ones wafted down with each gust of wind. I ate lunch sitting on a Revolutionary War house foundation. Amazing. I walked on the road Washington had traveled to visit his troops. I am partial to the West, but there is a lot to be said for the woods and history lessons in the East.
That night a great number of Cub Scouts, their parents, and other campers camped nearby, and one of the adults offered me a hot meal, which I declined, as I had already eaten my own dinner, though I appreciated their thoughtfulness.
The following night, I came to a unique shelter, an old cement-block clubhouse with one wall removed. Inside were bunks for six, a table and chairs. Outside was a covered patio with two picnic tables, lawn chairs, benches, and a clothesline. Sweet, except it was within sight of the nearby road, which made me nervous.
After I moved in a hiker came by for a rest, said he lived nearby and was going for a four-mile hike. Whether it was the nearness of the road or something about his manner, I had a disturbed feeling about him. That impression was deepened when he came back about half an hour later saying that his feet hurt, and he had the wrong shoes. I wondered if he’d seen me bathing before he’d stopped the first time and had come back to see if I was still there. He knew I was in the shelter. What if he came back again with bad intentions?
What to do? There was no nearby approved shelter or camp spot going north, and I didn’t want to hike in the dark. So I locked the door that was in one wall and built a barricade across the open wall space made of benches, table, upside down and precariously balanced lawn chairs, brooms, my pot, poles, etc. It was a Fibber McGee’s closet sort of barrier. (That phrase references a very old radio show from my mother’s era that had the trademark sound effects of a closet overfilled with objects of all kinds noisily crashing to the ground every time the door was opened. You have to be pretty old to understand Fibber McGee’s Closet.)
At any rate, that was what I tried to build, something no one could enter without crashing something down to make a lot of noise. I put my tiny opened pocketknife on the bunk near my head. At least I would wake up if someone was after me, and I could try to defe
nd myself instead of being a defenseless sleeper. All that was pretty silly, as there were no problems during the night. I’d just scared myself into thinking there might be a problem. But I felt better with my barricade, which no one breached.
Waking to a crisp fall morning at 38 degrees, I walked through crunchy, crackling, swishy leaves, and met day hikers, who accessed the trail from a nearby train station. (Parts of the AT in New York were quite close to civilization.)
On the trail before 7:00, under overcast skies, I walked by Nuclear Lake. (Nuclear fuels used to be processed nearby giving the lake its name.) The trail was a wonderland of pathways on fallen leaves wending through the lacy yellow of the understory of the forest. The lake itself was beautiful with bright fall leaves on the trees surrounding it, the sun playing tag with the clouds, intermittently shining on red and golden leaves. Everywhere I went, the colors were enchanting.
For unknown reasons, my heel was feeling much better, and I took out the gel inserts and needed no pain medication. I stopped for lunch at a lovely overlook above farmland and the town of Pawling, watching turkey vultures soar below and above me. At Telephone Pioneer shelter, I found an umbrella abandoned at the shelter and later in the day I tried it out in sprinkling rain.
After crossing Swamp River and the boardwalk over the swamp, I came to the hiker friendly landscaping business on Highway 22. I talked with the owner, and he had one of his employees take me to the motel.
After showering, I ate pizza 'till I was stuffed and talked to Tramper on the phone about picking me up on Hoyt Road.
The next morning, my driver from the motel was ready, and so was I, promptly at 5:45. After scraping thick frost off his windows, he dropped me off at the trailhead at 6:00 on his way to work. The stars and the moon were still out, and at 31 degrees, it was far too cold to stand around waiting for dawn, so I shouldered pack, turned on my headlamp, and started walking.
Old Lady on the Trail- Triple Crown at 76 Page 17
