Today was our 200th day on the AT. By latest NASA estimates, it would take less than 300 days to get to Mars. We should be 2/3 of the way to the angry red planet by now, yet here we are only about half way through the angry white state of New Hampshire. We’re eating the same food we would be eating on an extended space mission. We are bathing about as often as we would on an extended space mission. We smell about the same as we would on an extended space mission. About the biggest difference is it only costs about $12 each time we poop in the Whites whereas it would cost over $20,000 for a BM in space—we are, literally, saving shitloads of money by hiking the AT.
The Brown students were friendly, but they are taking a zero day, today, so they stayed up much later than us. They sat outside of our tent telling stories and talking until the late hour of 9p. Bunny and I tried drugging up on Benadryl to sleep, but we couldn’t fall asleep until they went to hang their bear bags. They were a very enthusiastic lot cheering for each throw of the rope until Sassy had had enough and yelled “shut up.” They were afraid to move or make any sounds for the rest of night, but we were finally able to sleep.
This morning, they offered us pancakes to make amends. We gladly accepted and pretended that none of us had yelled at them or threatened their short lives last night. Unlike Sassy, Bunny and I did not verbalize our thoughts, but it was clear that they were hanging in the air. We could almost hear the sighs of relief as we headed out of camp. I looked back to see one young girl crying and begging to go home because she had been so frightened by the old people. I could hear her between sobs saying “I haven’t been that afraid since my parents threatened to take away my credit cards freshman year.” She was clearly suffering from PTSD.
The hike we planned for today was a very non-strenuous 7ish miles to Crawford Notch. We stopped at Thoreau Falls side trail and agreed to hike the .2 miles to have a look. It was a beautiful Falls, but more than the Falls was the view back up Zealand Mountain where we had been just yesterday—well worth the side trip. When we returned to our packs, we met one of the girls that had gotten a “work for stay” slot at Zealand Hut last night. Like the vast majority of 20 somethings hiking the trail, she had her ear buds in. She seemed annoyed to have to take one out to be able to communicate with the non-electric world. She just meekly smiled, said thanks for the info about the falls, and hiked on. God, I love technology.
It had cooled off quite a bit already today and the wind was picking up. We all agreed to stop at Ethan Pond Shelter to have lunch. Since we hadn’t stayed at a campsite last night, I had not had the opportunity to drop a $12 load on the AMC as of yet. I put my head down and barreled on ahead in anticipation of relief to come. I saw the sign when I entered the revenue protection area, but in my sweaty, brown blaze haze, I completely missed the turn to the campsite. It wasn’t until I hit the other end of the revenue protection zone that I realized what I had done. Time was now critical. I had to run 1/4 mile back to find the side trail. Instead of being first to the shelter, I was last. To my joy and relief, everyone else was already done with the privy. I almost felt like tipping the AMC because I knew this one would cost them much more than usual $12 to deal with.
When I wobbled in, it was apparent to everyone that they had a bit more time than they had originally thought. Bear tried to dry out his tent at the shelter while they ate and I did my thing. After my $100 lunch break, I was feeling more like myself and could enjoy the hiking once again. I took off.
I quickly caught up with a couple of old ladies out for a day hike. They had been up to Ethan Pond looking for moose but didn’t have any luck. They tried to let me pass, but I was too far ahead of everyone else so I just stayed behind them. I had another idea in mind. I was hoping to befriend these ladies and parlay this into a ride to the AMC Highland Center where we wanted to spend the night. We needed to dry out and resupply. Bunny quickly caught up with us.
The four of us were having a pleasant walk and discussion. They were telling us of things to do once we got into Maine. I was thinking my plan was going to work up until we ran into another college group from Bates College. I’m amazed at how many colleges in the NE have outdoor programs for orientation of new students. While we were talking to the Bates group, the old ladies took off. I thought we’d easily catch up with them again, but they must have sensed we wanted something from them and hid in the woods because we never saw them again.
Bear and Sassy caught up with us while we were talking to the students. We just had a couple of easy downhill miles to go to the notch. Unfortunately for Sassy, the easy downhills tend to be the hardest on her knees. We tend to look for excuses to break on the downhill sections (as well as the uphills and level sections—who are we kidding, we just look for excuses to take a break, any break) and we met a sobo coming up the hill that gave us the excuse we were looking for—Forager Mike. FM had flip-flopped so he gave us an idea of what to expect ahead of us.
We got to the road which leads to the Highland Center but there were no old ladies waiting to perform a good deed. The Highland Center is supposedly “hiker friendly” but it’s ran by the AMC—that means, no shuttle service. From past experience, I knew not to even bother trying to stick my thumb out for a ride. Instead, I started doing the one sure fire thing that always gets us a ride: I got Bunny and Sassy to stick out their thumbs while I got out the nail clippers and started trimming my nails. I don’t know if it soothes passing motorists seeing a man clip his nails or if it just assures them we aren’t serial murderers knowing that serial murderers do not have manicured nails (or maybe it’s having 2 women standing on the road), but we got a ride before I could finish my first hand.
It was a father and son in two vehicles that were going to the Highland Center to park a car over night. They are planning on hiking the entire Presidential Traverse in one day (tomorrow) and wanted a car at their ending spot. Eric, the dad, picked us up while his son followed behind in the second vehicle, making sure we all behaved.
The Highland Center is a brand spanking new hotel, restaurant, and convention center that caters to hikers. That is, they cater to rich hikers. The bunkhouse costs $80/person/night but does include a supper buffet and a breakfast buffet. We got there in time to make use of our $6 beer and soup special that we get for staying in AMC campsites. This is as close as they get to being thru-hiker friendly. They have no resupply options on site other than $2 drink mixes and $3 protein bars (choice of four to choose from). Nor do they have a shuttle service to drive hikers to town (we don’t expect shuttles to be free, but not even a paid shuttle was available). The kicker was, this $10M+ Hiker Center doesn’t even have a coin laundry machine for hikers to use to clean up. The AMC clearly has a target audience for the Highland Center and, we, clearly, are not that audience.
The AMC staff was very nice once we agreed to spend the $200/couple to spend the night. They even allowed us to dry out our gear in the basement over night. As far as laundry goes, they offered no suggestions. There really was only one choice…a nice long shower starting fully clothed and ending up under a blow dryer. Our room did have a box fan which we could keep on all night to help dry clothes out. As far as resupply goes, we’ll figure that out tomorrow morning.
It was misty and cold outside when the four of us, after showering, got together to partake of the supper buffet. When you include how much thru-hikers are capable of eating at a buffet and multiply that by 2 meals, we actually made out ok. Unlike in Spain, wine is not included in the price of the meal but we were in need of alcohol after the last few days.
EFG