It helps sharing a shelter. Even Bunny Tracks was guilted into appearing by 8. By 8:20, we had the shelter all to ourselves. Yes, Pete, we got our earliest start yet—on the trail by the wee hour of 9:30.
As old people who hike know (or are about learn), the third day is the hardest on your body. Since today was Valentines Day, it was fitting to feel like we had nearly survived the Valentine’s Day Massacre—nearly. Bunny Tracks made every ascent look like she was climbing Mt Everest: pole, pole, step, step, breath, breath, pant, pant, curse, breath, repeat.
The weather didn’t help her mood much either. We were experiencing a GR10 flashback with all the fog and drizzle. It did eventually warm up to slightly above 50 which is not really a good thing because it then becomes too hot to wear your rain gear but it’s too cold to go without it. Towards late afternoon, the rain just decided that it wasn’t worth continuing suck a pitiful drizzle so it called it a day.
Two Nobo’s passed us on what was for us a long hard climb. Hopefully we will look back on this in a few weeks and think how much we have improved. Bullfrog and Lotus had just met each other yesterday at the start of the trail. It turns out that they live less than 30 miles from each other in New Jersey. They left us in their mud splatter in no time (no dust with the drizzle).
As we were nearing the end of our will power for the day (and hopefully our predetermined end spot) we met a young man wearing shorts and what appeared to be an empty pack. His name was Sparks and he was out performing some trail magic. He told us we could look forward to a cold beer at the shelter less than a mile away. It’s amazing how much pep Bunny and I both got in our step after meeting him. We weren’t really craving beer, but we were excited to partake of our first certified magic. We still assume the trail mix yesterday was supposed to be magic, but mice and rain ruined that one for us.
When we got to the shelter, Bullfrog, Lotus, and St Nick were already there. It was real nice having our first social night on the trail having a beer getting to know some new people. Bullfrog got his name from the movie Easy Rider and realized he WAS bullfrog one night in high school after he had “accidentally” had some bad mushrooms. Lotus chose his name from sitting in the lotus position and actually being able to fall asleep in it. St Nick just looks his part.
It’s exciting to start meeting people and wondering if we will develop a trail family like we did on the Camino. It’s a little disheartening to think that since we are in such bad shape that we probably won’t be able to keep up with them. It’s only the third day so who knows what will happen. At Bunny’s and my pace, we are easily going to have another couple hundred days to figure it all out.
Just as everyone was getting ready for bed, one more hiker came in—Patches. She hiked southbound from Katahdin to New York and stopped when the weather got too bad. Now she’s hiking Nobo back to New York.
EFG
Exactly how I remember my first few days on both of my hikes. Same weather, same struggles to get up the climbs, meeting other hikers and being left in their dust (or mud). You guys are doing fine.
We’re having fun, it’s just humbling how fast these young whipper snappers go