Day 53

Time to break that silly 20 mile mark. Did a 21 mile day easily. Sucky part is after I get to the shelter I realized I left my hot weather shirt hanging from the last shelter. I tried contacting some of the sobos behind me but I don't have much hope of seeing it.

Day 52

I wanted to make up for yesterdays short day by doing a 20+. That didn't happen but only cause there was nowhere to camp after the shelter 19 miles away. It kinda worked out anyway since I got to do a morning view from a firetower then do an evening view from another one 18 miles away.

Day 51

Got a good start out of manchester. The owner of the hostel was nice enough to drop me off at the post office to let me mail my winter gear home, then come pick me up and drop me off at the trail later. Usually that costs money but since he was driving by the po on his way to drop off the early hikers he didn't count that as my free ride out, like I said very cool. Even with my summer gear I just couldn't get moving and ended up only doing 10 miles. I've noticed that trips into and out of towns tend to be short days no matter what. The only exception was Rangely where I only stopped for a resupply.

Day 50

I have a nice easy 15 mile day into Manchester where I will be getting my summer bag and bug repellant pants. As well as sending home the rest of my winter gear. In manchester I stayed a the Green Mountain house hostel where I got free pint of ice cream with my stay.

Day 49

Inspired by the kids yesterday, and by calling in a reservation to stay at a hostel in Manchester in 2 days I decided to do a 19 mile day. Not much else exciting happened so I'll talk about how hiking is now that I left NH and Maine. Outside of Hanover I came across a hill according to the terrain profile it was about 800 ft. of climbing. So I get to the hill go up along an nice, easy, gentle graded, switch backed slope for about 400 ft. and a mile. Then I hit what looks like the steep part. I can see the top and the trail starts going straight up to the top. Now this is what I'm used to. So I take a pee, synch my straps down, have a drink of water and start the long hard trek up the mountain. About 40 yards later the damn thing switchbacks. Welcome to the south.

Day 48

It rained. Rained like it hasn't since the 100 mile wilderness. I had actually had good weather the last few days. Fun part was there was a section of the trail that had been rerouted due to a bridge being destroyed by hurricane irene last year. With all the rain the little brook was definitely not fordable. Luckily someone had made a bridge by lashing some fallen logs together. They even added some hand rails for good measure. So I didn't have to take the reroute. Which was a good thing because I would have missed the 500 mile sign. I ended up staying the night at the nicest shelter I've seen yet. It was an old cabin and whoever is in charge of it still keeps it like an active house. There is a nice mown lawn, planters with flowers and some precut wood. That night a family of 5 walks into the shelter around 6 pm, still plenty of hiking time left and cook dinner before hiking on. They had done 19 miles already and were planning on doing 5 more. The remarkable thing is the kids were 8, 11, and 13. There is no way I would have or could have hiked this trail at that age. They were doing sections but had already hiked all the way from Tennessee.

Day 47

Off to town. I had a short half mile hike to get to Killington. So after sticking around the Lodge until 9 I headed over to the Killington Post Office only to find out that I didn't have a package there after all. Very much not happy about that and I'm going to be calling Black Diamond up via phone to sort that out. I then did the 4 miles on the trail to the junction to Rutland which was a much bigger town and managed to get a hitch with another hiker named Shepard. I had run into Shepard before up in Hanover when he dropped Stinky Jesus off. Shepard is having a very interesting hike he's hitched like 60 times to get off trail and do some Contra style dancing. Since he's hit NJ where he's from he picked up his truck and is now doing section hikes. He was nice enough to drive me down to the local outfitter where I picked up a new pair of Leki brand hiking poles as well as some gators. I've done a few other gear changes which I will go over once I hit Manchester Center where dad is supposed to hopefully be sending me my summer sleeping bag and pants. I then watched a terribly amazing movie, Pacific Rim, which Shepard was supposed to join me for but he was in the middle of his work for stay when it started. I then did a short 2 mile hike to the next shelter.

Day 46

Another easy day today. The weather was nice and I had a fairly easy hike to killington. My plan was to hike to the town after Killington and stay at a cheap hostel run by a Jewish cult(very nice people though and great to the hikers) then ride the bus back to killington. But, as I reached the road to Killington there was a lodge on a crystal clear pond with a huge lawn. So I stop to take a break and soak in the sun a couple NoBos show up and say they are going to try and stay at the Mountain Meadow Lodge which sometimes let hikers do a work for stay. We ended up getting the work for stay and after doing 2 hours of work we played volleyball with the staff for another 2 hours. Then we got to eat all the leftover food from a wedding they had hosted over the weekend and soak in a hot tub for a bit.

Day 45

So I had two days to get to Killington after the short day yesterday. There were no fun fields full of berries today but I did hit a farm which was selling fresh made mixed berry pie. It was only a 6" pie but I total devoured it, so delicious. I stayed at a cabin on top of a mountain which had some incredible views. The cabin owners leave it open for hikers and have built a lookout platform on the roof. I actually had a clear day and could see the sunset and rise the next day from up there. Not much more happened today so I'll tell a story to freak dad out which I found amusing. The other day when I was having blueberry feast I had my first tick crawl on me. The amusing part was I was less then 1 mile from Lyme, NH. The epicenter of sorts for the Lyme outbreak. It was just a dog tick not a deer tick though so even if I hadn't felt it as soon as it started crawling on me I wouldn't have gotten Lyme from it.

Day 44

Had to either do a 25+ day today and a 20ish day tomorrow to make it to Killington before the post office closed on Saturday. Since in theory my replacement hiking poles would be there, even though I've not received a response to my email saying to send them there. Or I had to do three shorter days and get to Killington on Monday. I'll let you guess what I did. I did get up early and try to do the 25 mile day but it was by far the hottest day yet. They said the temps were in the upper 90's and low 100's counting in humidity. So at 2 when I roll up to a nice shelter with a water source that falls off a 3 ft rock ledge and forms a perfect shower I called it a day. I sat under that shower for a good 20 minutes until I started freezing then setup my tent and took a 2 hour nap. On my hike there I ran through a field with raspberries as far as the eye could see. I pigged out more on raspberries, which I never really liked before but am now of a different opinion, then I did on the blueberries the other day. I think it was cause they were cool, moist, and vine ripened which made the difference in me liking them.

Day 43

Spaceman's house was beautiful and I slept the entire night. Which i almost never do in the woods. He was heading out for a 2 day bike ride so I didn't get to spend much time catching up with him. I took the bus to the next town to the outfitter to get new shoes since mine were falling apart. When I got back I decided to move on instead of staying in town and taking another zero. While I was hiking a storm blew in and a lightning bolt struck a tree about a half mile from me. The tree exploded and there were tree shards all over the trail.

Day 42

Headed into Hanover one of the best trail towns in the whole at. A few years back they were voted the least friendly trail town and have been trying really hard to fix that rep. From what I saw they succeeded. Lots of places to stay, free bus service to the next town where an outfitter is, free food, a brochure explaining the town services,and everyone was very nice. This seems to be paying off for them cause almost every hiker I talked to planned a zero in Hanover. Which is going to have them spending some $. I was meeting up with spaceman again. He had completed his section hike and was going to host me for the night. While I was wandering around town I ran into another pair of sobos that I had been following, Smiles and Dave the Pirate. I had wanted to catch Dave for a while, in Maine he had written "arrgh walk the plank" on a piece of birch and posted it on a bog bridge. Later in the day the sobos from lincoln also showed up so there were more sobos than I had seen at once since Monson.
On a side note Hanover had Man of Steel in it's movie theater so I finally got to see it.

Day 41

Last night as we were about to goto bed a bear ran though camp. I was all the way in the back of the shelter but it ran right between the two guys that were tenting. We decided to actually hang our food properly from the tree instead of the shelter after that.
Leg was feeling good again so I pushed on. On the way down the mountain I ran into a huge blueberry patch right at lunch time. So I made some peanut butter and blueberry tortilla sandwiches. I then proceeded to spend the next 2 hours stuffing myself with blueberries. Same deal as yesterday the final climb up to the shelter hurt the leg.

Day 40

Leg felt better in the morning so I decided to continue on rather than take another zero. Same deal a yesterday I was fine for the morning but at the end of the day my leg was hurting. On the bright side I got to eat my first blueberries. I ended up staying at the hexacube shelter on cube mountain and it had a pentagon shaped privy. Silly Dartmouth outdoor club. They have themes for all the camp sites they maintain.

Day 39

While I was debating to take another day off or just do a few neros until the leg felt better, the guy from the hostel in the next town south showed up and dropped off some nobos pack and offered to take mine and let me slack the 10 miles. My leg was feeling better, still not healed but I could go up and down stairs with no problems. The 10 miles was over my last white mountain and the one the nobos complained about the most. So I took the offer and continued south. I had no issues going up the mountain the nobos greatly exaggerated the difficulty. There was no view from the peak but I was treated to a view from the south peak. The way down was a long gentle slope which eventually proved too much for my newly healed leg. By the time I reached the hostel my leg was hurting again.

Day 38

Not much to say here I took a zero to let the leg heal.

Day 37

Smithy and I decided to do a 17 mile slack pack over the Kinsman mountains. Unfortunately this didn't work out for me. It seems I strained my quad or the tendon below it trying to keep up with the day hikers from the previous day. So even though the terrain we were doing was really easy compared to the stuff we were doing in the whites and Maine and I was slackpacking I was not making very good time. We had to take a blue blaze rather than finish the section.

Day 36

Got a late start cause the rain was so bad. The other sobos started at the usual time and ended up skippin mount lafayette due to thunderstorms. When I made it to the mountain it was just cloudy and windy. The wind was pretty good about a windy day in waikoloa. The peak was still cloudy when I got there but as soon as I crested it the clouds blew off and I had a great walk along the ridge. On the way down the mountain I ran into a pair of day hikers who gave me a ride to Lincoln.
I had been really looking forward to Lincoln since it has a movie theater and I was hoping to see world war z. I got there to late it had left the theater the previous Friday.
I stayed at the house of a local named Chet who added bunks to his garage for people to stay in. Nectar and spits were staying there along with some other sobos, Smithy, Stinky Jesus and Moose legs.

Day 35

Plan was to hike to Greenleaf hut. I had heard Greenleaf loves through hikers since we never visit. They are a mile down a steep spur trail so must hikers skip them. I only made it up to Garfield shelter before calling it a day. It was raining bad and I didn't want to try climb two 5000+ ft mountains in bad weather. When I got to the shelter there were two other sobos that I had run into in Gorham, Spits and Nectar.

Minor Injury!

Strained my quad muscle coming down off Lafayette. I managed to bum a ride off some day hikers and strained my quad keeping up with them while we went down the mountain. I thought it was just cramping at the time so I tried doing a slack pack yesterday but it still hurt going up and down mountains. Its not a major injury just needs some time to rest and recover so I'm taking the day off to let it rest before finishing the whites.

I've uploaded all the pics on my phone. There are 3 albums,
https://plus.google.com/photos/110751814062212004022/albums/5900126328336576225?authkey=CNzbzKmj1rjTDg

https://plus.google.com/photos/110751814062212004022/albums/5900119281492255745?authkey=COCDg-OFptffXw

https://plus.google.com/photos/110751814062212004022/albums/5900120749156435377?authkey=CLXby6q1yvaoEg

I'll be back on the trail tomorrow and will finish updating my blog sometime in the future.

Day 34

Decided to do a 19 mile day today after talking with the nobos. Except for a 2000 ft. down with some cliff scrambling the rest of the hike was just a nice easy gentle down slope. The last 5 miles was along an old railroad so it was graded and smooth. I managed to do it in 1.5 hours even after that long day. If only more of the trail was like that. I stopped at zealand falls hut and was the only hiker again.

Day 33

Another short day planned as I wanted to stay at the Lake in the clouds hut. It was supposed to have the best views in the whites. Unfortunately it was cloudy and rainy the whole time I was hiking so I skipped doing mt.Adams and Jefferson. I also misread a sign and took the mt. Washington traverse instead of the peak trail so I had to do an extra 2 miles and had to backtrack to hit the peak. Which of course was cloudy. On the way down the mountain my shoe lace broke which made trying not to slip on the wet and very slippery rocks a serious challenge. The huts have minor resupplies which include shoe laces so I got that fixed at the Lake hut. There was a brief 30 minute window where the sun popped out and I had the gorgeous view. I was not the only through hiker there were four nobos and a sobo couple I had not encountered before.

Day 32

Woke up to another sunny day had a great sunrise with the sunrise reflecting off the ponds near the hut. I didn't get any pictures of it unfortunately. I wanted to do a tough day hiking to the next hut so I didn't stick around for breakfast. There was a ski resort in top of the third peak of Wildcat mountain that operates a gondola to the peak and will carry your pack down the mountain. I totally did that.The climb down wildcat is one of the longest and steepest in the whole trail so doing it without a pack was a knee saver. The only problem was I didn't have a good way to carry water. After I retrieved my pack I had the long hike up Madison mountain. The first 2500 feet was a nice gentle slope over 5 miles followed by a steep 2000+ climb in 1.5 miles. The final half mile was a nice ridge climb and I had clear weather with great views until I reached the peak. At which point it got cloudy again. I spent the night at Madison springs hut and was the only through hiker again.

Day 31

One month on the trail and it's rained all but 4 of them. I got a late start as part of my work for stay deal I had to help the caretaker clear brush from the trail south of the campsite. It was rather easy and I had another short day planned to Carter Notch Hut. It was actually sunny for the whole day and I had some good views from the top of mount hight. The hut was really neat. It's the oldest hut in the whites, built in 1914. I was the only hiker staying there and got to de-ice their fridge. In exchange I got treated to a left over turkey dinner.

Day 30

Decided to do a relatively short day to have a better hut experience in the whites. The whites hut system is pretty nice for through hikers. We get to spend the night at one of there enclosed heated huts, have all the leftover food we can eat and sleep in the hut all for doing one hour if work. The same experience costs the tourists $100-125 but they get bunks with blankets and pillows. There is a limit to the number of hikers they accept each night. I knew there was a couple in front of me heading south and the hut would only accept two hikers. I had heard from a few nobos that the first hut was a really good one to stop at. So I decided to do a short day and stop at imp campsite. The shelters up in the whites are all pay to stay but they let through hikers do a work for stay. There was a boy scout troop taking up the entire shelter which was annoying because the site only had wood tent platforms which doesn't work for me. My tent needs to be staked out to be water proof and the wood platforms make that hard. I eventually got it staked by sticking the stakes in the grooves between the planks but a strong wind would rip it out and there were thunderstorms in the horizon. Luckily they skipped me and it just drizzled.

Day 29

My first zero. Very lazy day I sat around reading a book until 2 then I headed into town with another sobo, Puck he carries a hockey stick, for the fourth of july festivities. It was perfect. The quintessential New England town festivities. The mayor opened up with a speech about how the had the longest running 4th celebration. Followed by the miss something all decked out and wearing her I'm pretty sash singing the national anthem. There was a parade, a small town carnival with all the small carnival rides like the zipper. I of course pigged out on all the fried food like a good through hiker. All topped off with the local cover band and fireworks. A great day to take a zero. It even thunderstormed in the evening so I didn't feel bad about not hiking.

Day 28

After the short day I had a simple 12 mile hike into Gorham. Once there I stopped at the white mountain hostel. Very nice couple ran the place unlike the other hostels I had stayed at this place had a flat rate for everything instead of nickle and diming you for everything. The place had the perfect location it is literally right on the trail. Since I was doing a zero there I could have saved 5 bucks by staying at another hostel but the people running the place were so nice I decided to stay.

Day 27

After doing some math I realized that if I take a short day I can make my first zero day be on the fourth of july in Gorham. So I took a short day. not much to say other than the weather was really bad.
On a side note this was the last day I was in the Mahoosuc range so I could finally stop giggling at every trail sign and people talking about the Mahoosuc this or the Mahoosuc that. For those of you who don't get why I'm giggling go goggle mahoo and hawaii. I had a great time making people say the full name for the notch, trail, arm, range, mountain, hard, fun difficult, tiring, and any other words I could get them to put Mahoosuc in front of. The only problem was there were no other sobo around that I could let in on the joke.

Day 26

The Mahoosuc notch lived up to it's reputation. One mile straight of bouldering. Malia, Heather, and Sean would thoroughly enjoy it. Very much reminded me of canyoneering without the repelling. I had a great time doing it. Definitely made the right choice waiting for the nothing and fresh legs. It was very cool, literally, there was still snow and ice down under the boulders and when the wind blew through the notch it was like air conditioning.
After the Mahoosuc notch I had another 8 miles to go to reach my shelter for the night. Pretty easy trail once I got back up on the ridge. There was a big dangerous trap up there according to the nobo's I ran into. It seems some of the bog bridges had sunk into the bogs and you couldn't tell where the next one was. One nobo I saw had fallen into the big waist deep. He was a very unhappy hiker. I took it slow and probed out the bridges using my poles so I survived the trap with only soaking wet nasty boggy shoes and socks. So no different from any other day in maine.
At this point I'm going to stop pointing out the fact that it rained every day and just say when out doesn't.

Day 25

Woke up with plans to do 15 miles. I didn't look at the map very well because I missed the note saying I would be going through the Mahoosuc notch. The most difficult, and most fun, mile on the trail. I made good time and hit the shelter before the Mahoosuc section around noon. my legs felt ok a little wobbly from the ups and downs I did that morning but I would have made the milage easily. Luckily I pulled my guide book out while I was eating lunch and saw the note about the fun/difficulty. So I decided to stop at the shelter and do the Mahoosuc notch in the morning with fresh legs so I would have a fun experience rather than a difficult one.

Day 24

Arranged the slack pack out of Andover. My thinking was it would take me about 5 hours to do the 10 miles between the drop off and pick up location. The guy that runs the hostel in Andover suggested that it would take closer to 7 due to the terrain and trail conditions. So I arranged for the pack switch to take place at 2 pm rather than 12. Turns out my estimate was right. Luckily there was a nobo that had cellphone service and was able to call the hostel for me. So I only had to wait 45 min. Slackpacking was super easy I went up and down steep 3000+ slopes without having to take breaks. When I got my pack back I had planned to push on for another 8 miles but the weather wouldn't cooperate. Another thunderstorm blew in and I wasn't going to do the 2.5 miles above treeline in a storm.
for slackpacking when there are those that walked with 40 lb. packs.

Day 23

I was still planning on pushing on to the second road to Andover so I had another 13 mile day planned. It was yet another cold, wet, rainy day and I made it to the first Andover road right around lunch time. Right after the road was another "Brook" fording so I decided to stop for a bite to eat before dealing with the thigh deep fording. As I was packing up after lunch a truck rolls up and offers me a ride to town. I took it. The thought of a nice hot shower and a warm bed sounded nicer. The place I stayed offers a slackpack, basically means I hike with only a day pack with water and a snack, service between the two roads for $6. So I decided to do that on the next day. There was a local diner in town that was offering a 20 oz prime rib dinner that night for $17. I ate the whole thing easily. The hiker hunger had finally kicked in the previous day.

For Prime Rib, when there are those that eat Mcdonalds McRibs.

Day 22

I wanted to do another 17 mile day to hang out with Wallaby again. That didn't happen. I made it the 9 miles to the next shelter and the weather got to me. It was a relatively nice day up until I  hit the shelter. That's when more wet, cold, rain came pooring out of the sky. So I stopped there. Met another SOBO that I had been slowly gaining on who had the best name yet, Manly the Pterodactyl. There were also some Nobos including a really happy pair of section hikers doing their last section.

Day 21

Wake up to a mostly clear day and plan to do a 12 mile day while hitting the town of Rangely to resupply. Went over the two mountains I was supposed to do yesterday with no issues, and no real views due to clouds. Made it the 8 miles into Rangely easily and stocked up. As I was getting ready to leave town it starts to rain, and rain hard. So I arrange a ride out with one of the local outfitters and start my hike to the campsite. About half a mile from the trail there was a camp group sitting in the middle of the trail hiding under a tarp. Made it the 12 miles to the tent site easily but it had rained so hard all the sites except one was flooded out. I decided that since it was early enough and there was only 4.6 miles to go to the next shelter I decided to just push on. I was about 1/2 a mile from the shelter, didn't know it at the time though, when I hear a loon calling out. Now at this time it was starting to get dark, raining and thick clouds everywhere. It was a very eerie sound, but a good one cause it meant there was a pond nearby which meant the shelter wasn't far. When I make it to the shelter I run into Wallaby again. He had taken a 0 in Rangely after his big push earlier so he could better arrange his hiking to meet up with his father. Spaceman, Scott, and Amen were there as well.

Day 20

Set out to do a long 17 mile day over 3 more 4k+ mountains. Beautiful morning with great hiking weather. But I could start to feel what the summer was going to be like. It was upper 70's with high humidity so going up these "big" peaks had me dripping sweat. I made it about 8.5 miles to the first 3600 ft peak when I hear some thunder and start to feel the temps drop. When I make it over the peak I see a thunderstorm about 20 miles to the left. I dash over the bald mountain top practically running the half mile over the peak and head for the next campsite in the saddle between two mountains. So only did a 11 mile day. When I get to the campsite there is a cute young couple who just graduated from VT. The were doing the hike with a brand new puppy. The pup was only 10 weeks old at this point and they had been hiking with it for a month. They mostly have it stuffed into their pack but let it out to hike with them occasionally. It was supper cute.

    Positive Thought of the day: For puppies because there people without puppies

Day 19

Short day but lots of elevation gain and loss. The knee didn't hurt as bad at the end. I think that was due to less downs with big steps which are the worst on the knew. There were no good views until I got to the last peak. I kinda regret not going up the 1 mile side trail to Sugarloaf since it was supposed to be one of the bigger peaks in Maine and have a slight glimpse of Katahdin. It rained btw. One cool thing about the trail today was one of the big types of trees up here was shedding its flowers. So all along the trail there were these white petals. Some stretches were so covered that you could only see the white petals.
    Positive Thought of the Day: For walking on flower petals when there are those that walked on cement.

Day 18

Headed down to stratton. The walk down to it did a number on my bad knee. So I decided to make it a short day and stay in town. The Inn was nice but the manager was mia. I paid her up front then never saw her again. Made the right choice cause a big thunderstorm blew through town.

In Gohram updates coming soon

Stopping off in the "city"of gohram. Debating taking my first zero here for the fourth of july. Right now it boils down to the weather. If it's raining like it has been I'm staying. If not I'm going to walk on tomorrow. No cell service here.