Never too late

While I was hiking, sometimes I listened to General Conference talks on my iPod shuffle.  Because I didn't get to update the iPod very often, I got used to the same songs and talks for a while. I know I'm not normally one to blog about religion, but I just have to share this quote from Jeffrey R. Holland.  I can't tell you how many times I listened to this talk on the AT:

"I do not know who in this vast audience today may need to hear [this] message of forgiveness, but however late you think you are, however many chances you think you have missed, however many mistakes you feel you have made or talents you think you don’t have, or however far from home and family and God you feel you have traveled, I testify that you have not traveled beyond the reach of divine love. It is not possible for you to sink lower than the infinite light of Christ’s Atonement shines."

Video here:

Post Thru Hike FAQ

Since being back, it has been so fun to talk to family and friends about our experiences.  My dear friend and former roommate Kori emailed me a list of questions and I've added some that we are frequently asked.  This would also be a great resource for future thru hikers- I loved reading stuff like this when I was preparing!

What was your favorite thing about the trail? In no particular order: the fun people we interacted with, TOWN, being outside all the time (except when it's bad weather...), trail magic, the hospitality of people in town and in hostels, and working on one singular goal every day. And the culture! I love love love the culture of the Appalachian Trail. I love how it brings all different types of people. I love how it makes people be a little kinder and a little more generous. I love that once you are a thru hiker or AT fan, you have an instant network and family.

What is your least favorite thing about thru hiking? Not being able to be clean.  It's amazing how quickly after a town day your clothes feel dirty again.  Five minutes after getting back on the trail fresh and dry, the feeling of sweat and humidity takes over and all cleanliness is lost.  The strong scent of laundry detergent will forever be one of my favorite smells because there is nothing better than opening your clothes bag to clean clothes. It only happens about once a week- because after one day, the clothes bag will never be the same. Also, day hikers smell really good. 

What did a typical dinner look like? The ones I read about on the blog were usually purchased in restaurants in towns, but what did you do in between? Our standard dinners: instant mashed potatoes packets (never got sick of them! Ever!), Kraft macaroni and cheese (no butter or milk, obviously, just noodles and the powder), pasta sides, dehydrated refried beans with rice and tortillas, cous cous, dehydrated soup or chili, anything else we could find that was "just add water".  Lunch: tuna packet (we tried to grab mayo packets from grocery stores so we could add that to tuna), crackers, tortillas with peanut butter and/or nutella, sometimes bagels, sometimes something like Chips Ahoy cookies, etc. Snacks: Chewy bars (dipped in peanut butter, sometimes), Nature Valley bars, cheese, and protein bars. So many protein bars. Clif bars, Powerbars in all their varieties, Luna bars, Zone Perfect bars, Balance bars. These are usually 200-300 calories and 10ish grams of protein. Oh, and breakfast was always 3 packets of oatmeal.  Unlike most thru hikers, we cooked every morning.

How much did you have to spend weekly for food?  Did you buy healthy fresh foods? Was it expensive? When researching for the hike, I read in a few places to budget for $10 per hiker per day. That sounds a little high, but not too far off. Thru hikers eat a lot! As much as I would love to pack fresher food, those items tend to not keep for more than a day and are too heavy.

This answer would be different if you spoke to someone who did mail drops. We purchased our food along the way, which I found to be a much more manageable plan.  I knew so many hikers who thought they would do mail drops the whole way and had to go out of their way to pick up packages only to have packed too much, too little, or had gotten sick of what they had packed. I would, however, recommend having someone at home who can mail you things as you need them. When my parents came to visit, they brought a  box of food we had bought in bulk as well as refills for our toiletries. They also sent us dehydrated refried beans periodically because we couldn't buy them in the store. We found that the resupply options in Maine were a lot more expensive because the area is more rural.  Buying food from general stores with prices 2 or 3 times more than normal is no fun. So other than Maine, grocery stores are readily accessible from the trail and offer everything you would need for a resupply.

Your hair is getting longer!! I liked watching it progress through the pictures. What are you going to do with it? Is Beau keeping his beard? It IS longer. When I got back, I got it cut to get the mullet look to go away, but I'm now growing it out. I do miss my short spiky hair! Beau is most definitely not keeping the beard. It is now back to a normal trimmed length. :)

One benefit to having short hair that I was not expecting was being able to manage it without conditioner.  Many of the places where we showered did not provide shampoo and I almost never had conditioner.  I washed my hair with hand soap, camp soap, and a couple times bar soap. That would have been terribly annoying to do so with long hair. I had a friend with long, thick, curly hair that carried a little bottle of conditioner for these occasions to keep her hair from becoming a rat's nest.

Meet any new life-long friends? Absolutely! Before Beau came on, I met a couple young solo female hikers that I stuck with.  We were also with some fun groups at random points in the trail and really enjoyed their company.  It's been fun, since we've been back, to friend other hikers on Facebook and share photos.  We will probably go to Trail Days next spring and hopefully catch up with a few of our favorite people.

What did you miss the most while you were on the trail, like food, home comforts, people, or activities? We really got our fill of what we craved while in town.  Almost every town had a full grocery store, so a lot of times instead of going to restaurants we would load up on stuff we normally don't get to eat, such as ice cream, yogurt, chocolate milk, chips and salsa, and fruit. I missed horses and running. Hiking with a pack is so cumbersome and I missed being able to run freely. Beau wanted to ride his bike. I also missed normalcy- having a routine of going running or to the gym, showering, running errands, etc. When we would see day hikers, I always thought to myself, "They get to go to their car in a few hours! And go home and shower and relax!"

Did you ever want to quit? Actually, no. I never considered it.  I had put too much into thru hiking that it never seemed worth it to me to end early.  There were plenty of days that I just didn't "feel like" hiking.  But aren't there lots of days where you just don't' "feel like" going to work?  It was always better at the end of the day when we had put in miles and felt good about our effort for the day than when he had to cut our miles short.

Beau would probably answer this question differently.  In the first couple of weeks, he had a hard time adjusting to life on the AT. Physically, he was new on the trail when everybody else had been hiking for a month.  Mentally, he had not conditioned himself to be prepared for day in and day out hiking. After just two weeks or so, he had figured himself out and was ready to rock and roll.

What's your next big adventure? And don't say getting jobs. What's your next exciting thing in life you're looking forward to? Getting jobs is an adventure! :) We certainly aren't planning another long hike.  Beau started school last week and I'm starting my job (still at Don's Johns, but this time in the accounting department) tomorrow. I am thinking I'll do a marathon next spring, and Beau would like to try to start enjoying running.  We feel like we have always been in a state of transition ever since we got married.  Maybe one day we will be able to have a normal life and normal routine. But it's fun to be able to pick up and do whatever we want. 

Monson, ME to Katahdin

I'm not sure how time is passing so quickly- we summitted almost two weeks ago?

I realized I never did my typical week report for the last week of the trail. So here we are.

Leaving Monson, we were carrying 6 days worth of food.  We scheduled ourselves to do 20 miles a day, and that would bring us to the base of Katahdin. We hiked 10 miles out of Monson and were on track.

waterfall on the first day in the wilderness

The next day was a little tougher terrain than we expected, and we only got 18 miles in before we had to call it a little early because of impending thunder storms.  We were lucky enough to get our stealth camp spot all set up and dinner finished before it started actually raining.  The next morning, we had another stroke of luck that we packed up all of our stuff and started hiking before the rain hit again. It continued to rain allll day long. Like our shoes and socks were so completely soaked there was no point in avoiding puddles.  In some parts of the trail, we were walking in ankle or calf deep water. Oh well.

The rain put us behind schedule, but we also had all the mountains out of the way.  The second half of the 100 mile wilderness (which is neither) is super flat.  The rest of the week, the rain held off and we were able to easily get 22+ miles in by 5pm.

We really enjoyed being able to hike fast again.  Katahdin was getting closer and closer, and we were getting so excited to meet my dad and finish the hike.

Oh! One really fun part: We came upon some trail maintainers that were clipping branches back and repainting some white blazes.  Beau stopped and asked if I would be able to paint a blaze. Check this out!

At several points in the wilderness, there is a view of Katahdin.  Here is the view of only 10 trail miles to the base of the mountain.  At this point, we had just left the wilderness and were about to enter Baxter State Park.

Originally, the plan was to meet my dad at the base of Katahdin in the morning.  We figured out that we would be making good enough time that we could actually go into town and meet him the evening before we summited.  It was great to be able to get good food and clean clothes before summiting the Big K.

The morning of. This counts as my summit, right?

We had an amazingly clear day on Katahdin.  I see a lot of people's photos from their summit and it's super cold, rainy, or misty.  We lucked out. It was a great temperature and we could see in all directions our entire hike.  We loved having my dad be able to share this experience with us! He later admitted that he cried more than I did at the top.

So, what's next? Getting back into real life. Becoming productive members of society.  I start work on Tuesday back at Don's Johns- but this time in accounting.  Beau started school this week and is looking for a job as well.

As far as blogging, I still have a lot of thru hike topics I'd like to cover.  I plan on reviewing the gear we used for others who may be planning a future thru hike.  I also would like to discuss post trail adjustments and random other things that come to mind.  Mostly, we'll go back to the "this is what we've been doing!" posts.  But I'm sure, whether I want it to or not, the Appalachian Trail will continue to be a reoccurring theme for the rest of my life.

Katahdin

10 years of dreaming

16 months of planning

4 months and 18 days of hiking

2,184.2 miles

"Walk with the dreamers, the believers, the courageous, the cheerful, the planners, the doers, the successful people with their heads in the clouds and their feet on the ground. Let their spirit ignite a fire within you to leave this world a better place than when you found it." -Wilferd Peterson

Stratton, ME to Monson, ME

Mile 2069

Welp, here we are in Monson, Maine- the last trail town of our thru hike.  We each ate our final pints of Ben & Jerry's, drank our final quarts of chocolate milk, and resupplied for our last week on the trail.

Before I get all tender, let's recap the hike since Stratton.  It's been raining on and off for several days.  Everything is slightly damp- clothes, tent, cooking gear, the inside of my food bag, EVERYTHING. It's not so much of rainwater getting in as it is the air is to humid to let anything dry.  To add to this, Maine is known for it's muddy terrain, so while I am usually excellent at keeping my feet dry, I've had more than one step in water.  We've also been falling a lot.  Before Maine, I think I had fallen maybe once or twice.  Here, I have fallen at least once per day. Beau falls most days, too.  The trail is so slippery with rocks and roots and mud!

There are a few stream or river crossings that we have to cross, some of which require some fording.  Here's one where the trail club has added a rope to aid hikers across.

At the Kennebec River, there is a ferry service for hikers.  It's actually just a guy in a canoe, but it's still kind of fun.  The canoe even has a white blaze in it!

We've been able to stick to our aforementioned "slightly agressive plan" and arrived in Monson on time last night.  This town is at the entrance of the 100 Mile Wilderness.  It's kind of a silly title, because it's just 100 miles of regular trail that happens to not have any roads or towns go through it.  I  believe there are some gravel or logging roads, but nothing that can get you to a real town.  The 100 miles ends at a road which you can take to get to Millinocket, but since Katahdin is only 15 miles beyond that, we are opting to go straight through.  My dad is meeting us at the base of Katahdin and will summit with us on the 20th.

Monson, ME

Of course, we've talked a lot about things we are anxious to get back to, most notably an income and regular bathing. In fact, here is a little list of the first things that come to mind.

Things we will NOT miss about thru hiking:

- Our clothes and bodies smelling bad. All. The. Time.

- Doing my hair in pigtails every day because it's the only thing that keeps my hair up

- The ever present lower back rash from our backpacks

- Spending money! And not making any!

- Being hungry constantly. In towns this isn't so bad, but on the trail, I get so SICK of eating

I started to write things that we will miss about thru hiking, but I think I'll wait on that one till we've been home for a little bit.  A cheesy country song by Trace Adkins keeps popping in my head when I think about stuff like this: "You're going to miss this, you're going to want this back. You're going to wish these days hadn't gone by so fast."

I am anxious to finish and wanting the days to go by fast so we can get to Katahdin... but as for now I will enjoy this last week being in beautiful Maine.

Andover, ME to Stratton, ME

Mile 1996

It's only been four days since my last post, but we've had a busy few days! We've gone from thinking Maine is trying to kill us to loving it. There have been some awesome panoramic views, lots of lakes, and good terrain. And lots of moose poop, but no moose! Where are they?
We want to see one! Also, lots of French Canadians. Like more than Americans. Who knew Canadia was so close?

One day we were able to hit up two lakes- one with a wonderful sandy beach and the other with a canoe all ready for me to jump in and paddle away.

We've been with a big bubble lately. There are 7-10 thru hikers in the shelters every night in addition to another dozen or so section hikers (mostly speaking French). Maine is such a beautiful hiking spot, so I guess it attracts a lot of people. The towns in Maine are sooo small, so it's fun to have so many other thru hikers to have dinner and resupply with. Last night, Five Pair inadvertently paid us a huge compliment. There was some sort of discussion about things we do while walking, and she said, "You guys are always talking! Hiking, cooking, in your tent... What do you possibly still have to talk about?"

We can't believe we are so close to finishing. We have a slightly aggressive plan to summit the Big K on August 20th. If we get held up by anything, it may be a day after, but the 20th is definitely possible.

We have one more trail town to stop in, so that means one more blog post from Monson... Can't wait!

Mt Washington to Andover, ME

Mile 1937

Mainemainemainemaine!

After a nero and zero in Gorham at a good hostel, we needed to get back on the trail. To get back up to Mt Washington via car would be a challenge, because it costs money to drive up. The hostel was on the trail, but ahead of where we got off. We decided it would make the most sense to hike south from the hostel in Gorham back to Mt Wash (how many thru hikers summit Mt Washington twice?), then hitch down the mountain back to Gorham.

Hiking south was kind of fun! We got to see several hikers we were ahead of that we hadn't seen in a while, including Lady Forward, who had Beau's glasses. We also got to climb up Mt Madison, which is far better than going down. We spent a couple days going southbound and had fun stopping at the huts to eat their leftover breakfast and soup. We had no problem getting a ride back down the mountain and were soon on our merry way north again.

Southern Maine is super tough. I think it's harder than the Whites. I'm not sure who in the AMC (the trail club that manages the Whites and S. Maine) likes putting the trail on steep slabs of rock, but they need to get a reality check. The Mahoosuc Notch is labeled the "most difficult or fun" mile on the AT. It's like a jungle gym of boulders and took us two and a half hours. That day it took us 12 hours to travel 12 miles.

Once the trail crossed over into the next trail club's territory, there was a distinct change in trail quality. We had stone stairs again! And rebar! And ladders! I've never been happier to ascend 1300 feet in .8 miles, just because it wasn't rock scrambling. We were moving quicker than expected and got to Andover a day earlier than planned. We arrived at the hostel just as dinner was being served... Perfect! We stayed up way too late way watching the Olympics and are lounging this morning until we hike a half day out.