gorham, nh to rattle river shelter
15 July 2022
i slept well in the hotel. beds are pretty comfortable. who knew.
a wookiee walks a lot.
15 July 2022
i slept well in the hotel. beds are pretty comfortable. who knew.
14 July 2022
the privy was really comfortable. the roof was clear plastic so i could see the light from the moon, and when the sun came up we woke up naturally. it rained a bit last night and we were both happy to not have to pack a wet tent.
13 July 2022
we had a late wake up in the hotel. the guy who shuttled us to and from town had offered to shuttle us to the trail head at 09:00.
12 July 2022
our zero was pretty low key. a relatively late wake up followed by a hitch into town, again riding in the back of a pickup. we passed a sheriff and looked up the legality of riding in the back of a pickup.
11 July 2022
i decided not to set an alarm last night. the sun is coming up pretty early these days, so it's really not necessary. i'm not really sure what time i got up, but i was on trail at 06:30.
10 July 2022
i didn't sleep all that well at the hostel. the bed was far too short. my pillow fell off the bed a few times and i had to climb down and get it. (i was in a top bunk.) finally i shoved the pillow under the fitted sheet so it couldn't fall anymore.
09 July 2022
we were able to sleep through the night unmolested by park rangers. i slept pretty well. there was a nice cool breeze all night which kept any dew from saturating my tent.
08 July 2022
we woke up at 04:30 to two crows screaming at each other. it literally sounded like one scared the other (aaah!) who scared the other (aaah!) and back and forth. i rolled over and dozed until 06:00.
07 July 2022
i woke up a little before 06:00. my tent was on the opposite side of the shelter from everyone else, so i couldn't tell if anyone was stirring. i didn't feel like dealing with mosquitoes, so i had my breakfast in my tent before packing up.
06 July 2022
i slept pretty well in the hostel. the mattresses were foam, so they were very comfortable. it was a little hot, but i just slept without a sheet. early in the morning i saw bugs get up and adjust the air conditioner, and that helped.
05 July 2022
we woke up around 06:00. magz and i were on trail right at 07:00. it was a tough day for magz. she was tired pretty much immediately. thankfully the elevation profile for the day was reasonably mild, not even 3000' ascent over the 14 miles we had to go.
04 July 2022
i slept well in the lookout. the temperature dropped and it was just the four of us, kick, maestro, magz, and me in a shelter that could fit 15 people.
03 July 2022
i didn't sleep well last night. the room in the hostel was so hot. i slept in nothing but my hiking shorts and with no sheets whatsoever, but anywhere i was touching the mattress i was sweaty. i kept having to turn over to dry off.
02 July 2022
i set my alarm for 05:00 for two reasons: 1. i wanted to get into town early for more town time, and 2. it sounded like maybe a lot of folks from the shelter were aiming for the hostel. (this turned out to be both untrue and a non-issue as they have tons of beds.)
01 July 2022
i woke up around 06:00. i was awake, so decided to get going even though we had no rush. i had breakfast in my tent to avoid the mosquitoes - they were a big part of dinner last night.
30 June 2022
i got to sleep in a bit this morning. bugs had friends that were joining her for the morning and they offered to pack up some bagels to the shelter.
29 June 2022
my alarm went off at 05:00 and i quickly got up the fire tower to see the sunrise. bugs, lyric, and rocket had a cold night at the top and didn't stir much.
28 June 2022
slept pretty well. the temperature dropped and it was nice and cool. i waited until i heard signs of stirring from nearby tents before i got up. it was pretty late, the sun was already well up.
27 June 2022
i woke up around 06:30 this morning and definitely didn't want to get out of bed. when 07:00 came i forced myself to get up and get going. i focused on the tasks i had to do; shower, coffee, pack, etc.
26 June 2022
i forgot to write a journal entry for my last day on trail before my week off. it was a short day. i hiked from the cheshire town tent site up greylock and down the other side to north adams where magz picked me up.
14 June 2022
it felt like i got up really late today, but after i packed up, had breakfast, and got on trail it was exactly 07:00.
i didn't sleep particularly well. my legs were extraordinarily twitchy all night. i assumed it was due to dehydration, so i drank some water.
12 June 2022
when i woke up this morning i didn't want to get out of bed. i didn't really want to get back on trail. what can i say, i'm a homebody.
10 June 2022
i spent 2 days at home. the back to back 30 mile days got me an extra zero.
09 June 2022
when i woke up it was raining. i lay in my tent, cozy and dry, but i wasn't feeling good about the day. i considered doing a short 12 mile day to a road and having magz pick me up there. my joints weren't feeling all that great, but i decided to move around a bit to see how bad they were. i was surprised to find that once i moved a bit they actually didn't feel too bad. okay. plan a it is.
08 June 2022
the rain wasn't too bad last night, and had stopped before i woke. i packed up and was on trail a little before 6.
07 June 2022
another 30 miler in the bag. that's 3 in a row. two more and i get a free sandwich.
just a quick update today. did the 30 i planned without much fanfare. the morning was spent hiking out of harriman state park, which is a beautiful place that i'd definitely come back to.
05 June 2022
and then there was one.
04 June 2022
rocket and i got on trail pretty late. we waited for the sun to dry out our tents before we packed them up.
03 June 2022
it rained a bit last night, so i was happy to be in the shelter. the rain was supposed to stop before we woke, but it was still going. thankfully it had stopped by the time we got on trail.
02 June 2022
rocket and i got up early as we had a 25 mile day ahead of us. we had both got small pies from the bakery for breakfast, strawberry rhubarb for me and peach for rocket.
01 June 2022
we finished pennsylvania! tomorrow we cross the bridge into new jersey, where there are more rocks, but not for long.
31 May 2022
today was hard. we slept in a little since the grocery resupply wasn't open till 08:00. but i am pleased to report that we woke up feeling good. at around 07:30 we walked around to the restaurant side of bert's steakhouse. half the restaurant was a diner, the other side looked more like a steakhouse.
30 May 2022
the muggles with the tinny phone music stayed up until 10 despite the other 20 people in camp turning in at 9. lame.
29 May 2022
rocket and i were on trail just before 07:00. the pavilion was a decent place to sleep, though it was between two roads, one quite busy, so it took my brain a bit to figure out how to tune out the noise.
28 May 2022
the 501 shelter got a little strange last night. there were two non-hikers there, an older woman who slept all afternoon, and man who hung out with the hikers. at some point nearing dusk, the older woman started talking, and she was a little nuts.
27 May 2022
a second day of quiet moving. it rained last night and was very foggy. even in the shelter, everything got pretty damp.
26 May 2022
just a day of moving and not much more. rocket and i did 18 miles across flat ridge with literally no views all day. there was one descent and one climb as we transitioned from one ridge to another. at the bottom there was a single road crossing. the weather was cool and grey.
25 May 2022
and then there were two. the morning was spent descending into duncannon. the trail wasn't bad save a few rocky places and some treacherous stairs.
24 May 2022
we got up early so we could be on trail by 06:00. the trail out of pine grove furnace was a flat few miles through the park before entering the woods.
23 May 2022
today may have been the easiest day on trail yet. the weather was spectacular (at least for hiking). it was cool and dry and not particularly sunny. the trail itself was wide and for the most part flat.
22 May 2022
i didn't sleep well last night, i'm not really sure why. there weren't really any bugs, but my skin decided to interpret everything as a potential mosquito bite. we had some serious thunder in the distance, but it didn't end up raining.
21 May 2022
easy day today. i'm going to try something different today. i feel like my writing here is very formulaic. i explain how i got up. (duh.) i ate breakfast. (duh.) and packed up. (duh.) none of that is particularly interesting. the question then is what do i write about? i haven't a clue.
20 May 2022
i had trouble getting up this morning. i'm definitely having trouble mentally the last few days with home sickness. when everyone else was already moving i finally got up and went to breakfast where i didn't really feel like eating, but i did anyway.
18 May 2022
i slept okay at bear's den. the bed was so short even on a diagonal i didn't really fit.
17 May 2022
i slept well in whiskey hollow shelter except i have confirmed that my new nemo sleeping pad has a leak. i wasn't quite sure the past two nights, but i kept waking up with a soft pad. i thought maybe i didn't fill it up all the way, but last night i filled it up and made a mental note. this morning however my hips were on the ground. i'm not sure what's going on with nemo. this is really disappointing.
16 May 2022
i slept pretty well last night. it was a little strange being in bed with rocket, i was worried all my tossing and turning would keep him up, but he said he slept solidly.
15 May 2022
so many big days lately. today we did 26 miles into front royal. thankfully the weather held off and aside from a small sprinkle just after we left shenandoah we stayed dry.
14 May 2022
it rained pretty much all night. my tent stakes didn't stay put in the soggy ground and my tent went slack and let a little water in, but not much. my new sleeping pad seemed to stay full all night long, and because of it's thickness neither my sleeping bag nor i got wet.
13 May 2022
long day today. i'm going to keep this brief. we made it to elkton around 10. it rained on and off on the way there. when we got to town it was a pretty nice day, but we could see that the tops of the mountains were enshrouded in rain clouds.
12 May 2022
i'm not going to bother to check the weather anymore because i can't actually predict what the weather will be based on the forecast. the weather called for a 20% chance of less than a tenth of an inch. it actually rained most of the day, at times pretty hard.
11 May 2022
the morning routine was the same as yesterday. get up, eat breakfast, pack up. i noticed bugs and lyric got up a full half hour later than yesterday. fatigue is setting in.
10 May 2022
we woke around 07:00 and went to the quality inn's complimentary breakfast. it was pretty good. we returned to the hotel room and started packing up. bugs climbed back in bed.
09 May 2022
we woke to sunshine! bugs, lyric, and i packed up and moved our tents to a sunny field to dry out and found a picnic table in the sun for breakfast. i had left over short ribs and oatmeal.
we woke to what sounded like rain. the weather forecast had us hoping for a day that we could dry out, but it wasn't to be. while it technically wasn't raining, the fog was condensing on the trees and dripping enough to make you wet. it was also still quite cold.
07 May 2022
a very hard day. last night just as we were going to bed, a thunderstorm rolled in and dumped a deluge. the wind drove some of it directly into the shelter, so i had to huddle at the back until the storm passed through.
06 May 2022
i woke up pretty early despite the rain. there was a pause, and i took the opportunity to try and get on trail before it started again. i went out of the shelter to grab my food bag from the bear box (this shelter was one of the very few that had one) and i swung by maestro's tent to see if he was awake.
05 May 2022
it was a beautifully dry night andwe had some heat lightning which was fun. i was up first, but only barely. breakfast was had and i got on trail, but nkt before maestro.
04 May 2022
i slept well in the hotel bed. i was offered a bed because of my sleeping pad. maestro was happy to sleep on the floor as there was a game on he wanted to watch, and he thought it would bother us less.
03 May 2022
the night was warm and dry. it started with a very noisy whippoorwill, but it moved away thankfully. it was nice to be in my tent again. so much more room and i didn't have to worry as much about disturbing the others when i blew up my sleeping pad.
02 May 2022
i spent the night again reinflating my sleeping pad. my slow leak is now a medium leak and i'm reinflating every 30 minutes. the way these pads work, they also have no insulative value when they aren't inflated, which meant i was also cold.
01 May 2022
oh lucky day! the weather called for rain and thunderstorms starting at 1, and a 90% chance of getting wet. other than a couple sprinkles and some distant thunder it never manifest.
30 April 2022
hard day today. the weather called for rain and it did. we got a little lucky in that it was not raining when we left camp, but not long after it started.
29 April 2022
a relatively easy day on trail. the crew, bugs, kick, lyric, rocket, and i slept great in the barn on the farm. we packed up and breakfasted and were packing the mini van by 8.
28 April 2022
another massive day. i slept so well on the mattress in woods hole. it was a little short for me, but otherwise very comfortable. i slept pretty late, but woke up, rolled out my muscles, and was dressed before the breakfast bell rang.
27 April 2022
i woke up a few times during the night when my hips contacted the floor. reinflating my pad isn't really all that bad.
26 April 2022
short day today. i'm using the free time to get caught up on my journal images so when i have wifi i can upload it all.
25 April 2022
slept really well last night. the only thing that woke me up was my sleeping pad deflating and maestro's noisy pad when he rolled over.
24 April 2022
another long day hiking in the blistering sun. most definitely looking forward to some leaves. i left camp this morning at 08:03 and was sweating by 08:10.
23 April 2022
these full days are starting to wear me down a bit. i start looking forward to crawling into my sleeping bag before the sun is down.
22 April 2022
not much to write today. it was a day of travel without much else. slept pretty well last night, but noticed this morning that the hole i patched, i can clearly see the air working it's way through the adhesive.
21 April 2022
the wind continued all night. small sticks rained down on my tent, and just as i was settling in for the night a fairly sizeable one clipped the tent. i spent some time reminding myself that i had taken a good look at the trees above my tent and had evaluated them with the wind in mind, and there weren't any spots that looked safer.
20 April 2022
it took us a while to get out of damascus. the town vortex is strong. we woke up late, took a very long time to clean and pack up, and ended up with two grocery bags we wanted to donate to our extended tramily that had just got into town.
19 April 2022
our 33 mile day brought us to town a day early, so instead of the one zero day we had planned, we had two. we spent our days resting, tending injuries, eating, fixing gear, watching movies and a lot of seinfeld since it's now on netflix.
17 April 2022
this will be a very short post. we walked 35 miles today.
16 April 2022
an exhausting day. we all decided last night that we'd get up at 06:30 since we were planning a 24 mile day. when the first alarm went off, it had been raining for hours. no one moved.
15 April 2022
it was a great day. the weather was beautiful. warm and sunny all day without almost any wind. the trail was pretty flat and dry.
14 April 2022
it was pitch black outside when i woke to quick's stuffing sounds. i powered on my phone and checked the time. 05:45. time to get going. the plan was to be on trail by 06:30 and motor so we could have as much time at the hostel as possible. my sleeping pad definitely has a small hole in it. i had to top it up a few times during the night.
13 April 2022
the weather report was true! it stayed dry all night! i slept well, except my sleeping pad kept deflating and i kept having to top it up. i'm not sure if it's because i have a leak, or the plug didn't seal correctly.
12 April 2022
slept pretty well despite the plastic mattresses. i forgot to drink anything all day so i had to get up and get some water as my muscles were twitching. when i woke up it had been raining on and off all night.
11 April 2022
we decided to take a zero at uncle johnny's today. not a lot happened, and i didn't really take any photos.
10 April 2022
despite the lack of hot water at nature's inn hostel, the mattresses were memory foam, and the bunks didn't squeak. it was a little hot, but ultimately i slept really well.
09 April 2022
it snowed all night long, and all day. i'm pretty sure it was our coldest night yet as well. i think my sleeping pad was not quite enough, as i slept pretty cold. i lay in my tent not wanting to leave the relative warmth of my sleeping bag.
08 April 2022
slept well and woke to no rain. the forecast had predicted a wet morning turning to snow, but we were spared. packed up and hiked down to the shelter for breakfast, grabbing my food from the bear cable on the way. a couple packets of oatmeal later and i was on trail.
07 April 2022
wow was it hot in the bunk room laat night. i just lay on my bunk with my sleeping bag shoved in the corner by the wall wishing it wasn't there.
06 April 2022
slept pretty well despite sheltering. today was an easy handful of miles into hot springs, nc. the walk in was a very long descent out of the mountains. i had expected to be able to chat with magz on my way in, but hot springs has no at&t cell service. interesting.
05 April 2022
slept pretty well, despite the overly packed shelter. got a late start none the less because i took my time packing up and breakfasting.
04 April 2022
didn't sleep all that well, or at least it felt that way. i spent a lot of the night changing position to satisfy my twitchy joints. one person in the shelter snored and i swear it sounded exactly like a palm nailer.
03 April 2022
i woke to the sounds of the shelter packing up. it wasn't even 5 yet. i waited just a couple more minutes before i got going myself. quick, intel, dan, and i skipped breakfast and just got on trail. we hiked in the pitch black freezing wind and fog by headlamp.
02 April 2022
it was pretty cold last night, and i spent a lot of it fighting my sleeping bag and joint discomfort. my sleeping bag neck closure system pretty much pops open every time i move, so i have cold air blasting down my bag until i close it again.
01 April 2022
woke up to the birds. i wanted to stay in the sack for another 30 minutes, but the sounds of quick packing up got me moving.
31 March 2022
last night was pretty rough. despite our good position, we still got a good amount of rain. most of the wind was well above us, but about once an hour a mighty gust would shoot up the valley and almost flatten us.
30 March 2022
i woke a bit before the sun came up and layed in my tent until i heard the sounds of nico packing up. breakfast was a couple packets of grits that i found in a hiker box back in franklin. not bad, bit too salty.
29 March 2022
slept well at the NOC. no one snored, which was unusual. there was definitely farting however.
28 March 2022
it was our coldest night yet, but the new-to-me wear everything experiment was going pretty well. i wore everything and this time draped my puffy over me inside my sleeping bag. i slept decently, waking only to pee and eat the protein bar i had kept with me.
27 March 2022
we got up pretty late. we had the curtains drawn in the hotel and the sun came up without notice. we packed up, ensuring our batteries were topped up and headed across the street to mcdonalds.
26 March 2022
it was our coldest night yet, and extremely windy. i was happy nico and i moved our tents to a spot where the wind was a bit less intense. the trees above us creaked all night.
25 March 2022
last night was cold. the water in my bag had ice crystals all through it when i poured it into my pot to make oatmeal for breakfast.
24 March 2022
dan and nico shared a bed, toby had the other bed and i opted for my sleeping setup on the floor.
23 March 2022
i have a trail name! i am hereby known as 'the ghost in the machine'.
22 March 2022
i'm way behind in my writing, and am having a hard time rembering all the details. another short day today. the four of us were the last to leave the cheese factory camp site. we hiked together for most of the morning but split up in the afternoon.
21 March 2022
nice easy day today. the weather was dry and breezy. the trail out of camp was a beautiful, gentle incline for a few miles, and it was very easy going.
20 March 2022
woke up after daybreak and the wind was still pummeling the tent. i lingered for a moment as it was close to freezing, but mustered the motivation to get going.
19 March 2022
it rained most of the night, and finally stopped about an hour before i got up. breakfast in the shelter and on trail pretty quickly.
18 March 2022
so far i'm hitting all the same spots i did in 2020. it's pretty crazy how little i remember. the shelter last night i had pretty much no memory of. only some of the terrain around it.
17 March 2022
this will be a very short post. we walked 35 miles today.
17 March 2022
woke up at 06:65 in gainesville, ga. we breakfasted and headed to amicalola falls. i listened to the brief sermon about bears, tent site selection, and pooping in the woods.
16 March 2022
here i am again, in the same hotel i was in two years ago to the day. family again is making the trek to see me off, but no magz or pups this time - the drive home by herself was too much.
18 March 2021
a year ago yesterday, i was in georgia taking my first steps on the appalachian trail amidst the backdrop of the first days of the global pandemic. time is no longer linear.