Made it into Maine yesterday evening. I spent the night in a shelter with twelve guys after a downpour suddenly blew in off the Whites.

Two years sober today.

I’d highly recommend staying with Paul at the Libby House BnB and Barn.

As I write this I am seventeen miles south of the Maine border. I’m resting at The Libby House Barn and BnB in Gorham, NH. The Whites whooped my ass. I haven’t felt this wrecked since my first few backpacking trips, some six years ago. Part of me just wants to take another zero tomorrow, but the other part is aware that I don’t sleep well in bunk rooms.

Jelly is 48 miles away, pitched in a downpour, and I would do just about anything to be out there with her right now. If I leave now, carry no food, and run across the wet rocks, I might reach her in thirty six hours? These are the thoughts you start to have sometimes.

Also, Sage is here. If I zero tomorrow he’ll be seventeen miles away. With less than 300 miles to Katahdin now, I might never see him again. The dude’s fast and I’d like to keep up as long as I can. It would be fun to finish this leg of the hike together.

It’s odd to be a flip flopper. Everyone I know out here will be going home at the same time I flip south. It’s another 1025 miles for me, and the end of the hike for them. The mentalities are vastly different. Many NoBos are completely burnt out. They’re finishing just to finish at this point. I’ve been avoiding them like the plague.

Attitude is everything out here, and the negativity can spread fast. That’s why I like hiking with upbeat people like Sage, and more recently Cedar, a PCT 2600 miler. Cedar is a complete badass, and understands both the realities of post-hike life, and the pitfalls of making long distance hiking a life style.

“For all I know, long distance backpacking is the only thing that keeps me from going crazy.”

I sympathize with her words. I feel exactly the same way. She’s planted as many deep seeds of thought as she has taught me basic things. Things like, if butter is freely offered as a condiment, it goes on everything. Stealth in the Whites, and always buy the most calories for your dollar. We’re similar hikers, with similar paces. We both love to push ourselves. She made it through the Whites without a sleeping bag, stealthing the whole way. Her balls are made of solid iron.

A photo post will follow. My neglect of this blog is proportional to my presence in the trail experience itself. The Whites demanded one hundred percent of that presence.

Im sitting on the floor of Hexacube Shelter, on a raised platform quite damp from the sudden rain. I made it in minutes before some of the scariest lightening strikes I’ve encountered on trail. Literally *flash* BANG! That fast. The shelter shook as the thunder continued rolling its way down the mountain.

I’ve been hiking with a lady named In A Day for forty miles now. She just checked in, and I’m happy to say she was able to get her tent up safely some two miles north of here.

This has put the Whites in perspective. If I were on an exposed ridge, I would have been fucked. One of my mentors Garrett, recounted literally running across a slick granite ridge with his wife during their thru hike. They were in the Whites and the choice was to either get hit by lightning or risk losing their footing and taking a substantial fall. They chose the latter. A nightmare to be sure.

Jelly just broke her digital fast to tell me about the weather she just survived up there. She managed to get into a hut minutes before her own lightning fest. This after twenty miles (including Mt. Washington) with a dog in tow.

I’ve met and hiked with some truly impressive people.

Here’s the view from my bivy on Moose Mountain this morning. New Hampshire is beautiful!

I’m currently camped on top of Moose Mountain’s south peak. You can do these things when you have a little tiny bivy that can be pitched anywhere.

There are bats flying about ten feet overhead, and this makes me giddy happy beyond belief. I love bats. They’re cute, and they eat my mortal enemy; the mosquito. Similarly, I love possums. They’re also cute, and eat my other mortal enemy; ticks! Who can fail to love an American marsupial? Seriously you guys!

My writing has been all over the place, a lot of it is very embarrassing, and I’m just letting it fly. My mental state is a little off right now, but in a good way. An uncomfortable, but growing way.

“Happiness is not always comfortable.”

I’m not sure where I heard that sage advice (some girl on YouTube, but I don’t remember the channel) and it’s become a personal mantra. It sums up the trail experience beautifully.

I do know for certain, that I am way happier than I was when I did electrical work. I think it was the lack of stability in the day to day hours, which really got to me. Hiking is very rhythmic and consistent. My warehouse job also had a set time for every task. I find happiness in repetition.

There’s no way to link 30,000 steel rings together, much less bend and cut all of them by hand, unless you are a repetition person. Chain maille was a hobby of mine, as has been crochet. In light of this, distance hiking makes perfect sense.

I spent the morning with Reverend Anderson, the steward of the parishioners house I mentioned in a previous post. What a fascinating woman, and an open book about it! She was a welder, pile driver, and carpenter for many years. She admitted to me that she had to interchange “fuck” with “blessed” when she started ministry. I almost spit my coffee out laughing at this.

I’m always weary of Christians, too often hiding behind a veil their “element of human rascality” as Watts liked to put it. This woman made no effort to hide her fucked up humanity from me. I made no effort to hide mine, and the discourse flowed deeply. She’s the real deal, and I’m glad she’s in the church. She had a lot to teach, and left me with some book titles too. I look forward to my homework!

Again, if the AT is just a hike, in the woods, over mountains, through the rain, blah blah blah. That’s cool. Having a reverend show me the trailer to the movie “Short Bus,” after explaining some of the most difficult tragedies of her life with me? That’s why I’m out here.

I’m here to learn how to be a better person from better people. That has not changed from my last hike. If you’re not on the trail long enough to start questioning what the AT actually is, do a yo-yo and head back. Or hike your own hike, I don’t really care.

Till next time. Be kind to yourselves out there. Much love, and I hope, a moment’s peace as well.