The Gear

There are certain things that stand the test of time... It is a little weird how attached to gear a Thru-Hiker gets but I feel these items deserve mentioning!  

This first picture is of all the items that I had with me throughout my hike of the Appalachian trail.

This next picture is of the few items that made it through BOTH of my thru-hikes... From Mexico to Canada, then Georgia to Maine:)

If only smell could show in pictures...

Maine!!

Such an amazing state!!  I spent about 3 weeks in the last state of my hike... The longest I have ever taken to do 289 miles, but I had so much fun.  Maine was split into 3 pretty distinct different sections for me:

First there was southern Maine where we experienced horrible weather and rough terrain at the same time.  In this section was the famed Mahoosuc notch, known as the hardest and most fun mile on the AT.  This is a boulder field where you have to crawl under, over, and between rocks for a mile straight.  It took me just under an hour to do this mile but it was so much fun!  In this section of southern Maine I had multiple days where I was only able to do 10 miles... It was due to difficult terrain and cold, wet weather.  By the time I got to Andover, 50 miles into Maine I was ready to take a zero day.  I ended up staying at 'the cabin', a nice little hostel that felt kind of like being at grandmas house...  After Andover the terrain got a got better and the weather also warmed up a bit until getting to Stratton.

The second part of Maine for me was the week when my dad came out, where I hiked from Stratton to Monson.  We had taken one zero in Stratton already and decided to take a second on the Sunday that my dad arrived.  During this day we decided to drive to Canada where we discovered that my dad shares a name with a bad dude and we spent an hour detained at the border before they could clear him.  The next day we took off out of Stratton where dad was planning to head to Caratunk with me.  This day was one of the coldest I experienced during the trail!  It was not the best day, dad got a little off trail and we only made it 5 miles  to the first shelter before bundling up from 3 pm until the next morning... That morning dad decided to head back to Stratton while I headed north over the Bigelows toward Caratunk.  The weather over the top of these mountains was a little less than ideal but I made it over getting hit by hail and sleet and keeping warm only because I kept moving.  Luckily after this day and a half the weather eased up and the rest of the time my dad was there I was spoiled in towns and had a buddy to hike with me for short spurts.  He also helped out a lot of the other hikers, so fun to have him around:)

The third section of Maine was the part after Monson, going through the hundred mile wilderness and up Katahdin!  Throughout this section the weather was remarkable!!  The wilderness was an amazing experience, one night cowboy camped under the stars, walking by ponds every day, swimming in October, beautiful views, northeast foliage, all with a great group of people, including the group I had been hiking with this past month (Shady, Grrenblaze, Twigs, Bojangles, Homeward Bound, and Wyoming) and my friend from earlier on, Patches!  The climb up Katahdin was also a great day!  I got up early and made it to the summit by 10am, it was one of the most fun climbs of the whole trip and an amazing end of the journey.  I definitely had mixed emotions on the top, while I was excited about completing my hike I was also incredibly sad that it was over! I was lucky to be taken in by the group that I finished with and had such a great last month or so with them, made some hiking friends from all over the country that I will hopefully keep in touch with:). 

New Hampshire

Leaving Hanover there were a few more days of mild terrain until the small town of Glencliff.  There is not much to the town but there is a hostel, Hikers Welcome, where one of my friends, Legion, was care taking.  During my zero at Hikers Welcome we played a game of monopoly  one night and poker the next, great time!!  Leaving Glencliff we headed into the Whites!  It was amazing to be above treeline, so many beautiful mountains, waterfalls and views.  The Whites were also filled with 'Huts'. These huts created a strange environment for thru-hikers.  The huts catered to crowds with a lot of money but a chosen few thru-hikers each day were allowed to sleep inside and eat a meal in exchange for doing some work... I decided that this wasn't really for me through the beginning due to the fact that in order to have a chance you had to stop hiking around 4:30.  However, near the end I decided I should do it just to know, so I did a short day into Madison spring hut and got a work for stay.  Here I met Twigs, Shady, and GreenBlaze.  I actually ended up around these 3 guys for the remainder of my thru-hike... Maybe my longest hiking relationship on both trails that I have completed!  After the night at Madison Springs hut we headed to Pinkham notch where we met Blis, an awesome trail angel that had thru-hiked last year, who took us in for a zero of movie watching and yummy meals:). We then went from Pinkham notch through the end of the White mountains, sad to be out of the views etc. but happy to be done with all of the hassle.  Shortly after the Whites ended do did New Hampshire...

Vermont!

I absolutely loved Vermont and have to say it has been my favorite state so far!  For one thing there were actual mountains, and even though we did not make it above treelike there were at least 3 with lookout towers and one with an open summit due to the ski area.  It was nice to have some beautiful views of the green mountains every once in awhile and all of it made me very excited to get to the White Mountains of New Hampshire!  The very first thing that you do when you cross the border into New Hampshire is walk through the city of Hanover where Dartmouth college is located, and more importantly a great co-op grocery store and a post office where I picked up some cold weather gear for the rest of my trip, when I crossed the border I had only 440 miles left to hike!

Connecticut and Massachusetts

Connecticut

  So the trail through Connecticut is 51 miles.  I really enjoyed the 3 days that I spent there though!!  For a good portion the trail walks right along the Housatonic river and it was really flat and enjoyable!  Another gem in this state was the Toymakers cafe.  The owner allows hikers to camp behind the cafe... This is definitely a good business decision because in the morning any hiker that stays there is going to go in for breakfast!  I had a salmon and capers bagel and coffee and was filled with energy for the morning!  

Massachusetts

The trail through Massachusetts is about 90 miles.  After one day I was picked up and whisked away to Boston for an awesome couple of days off trail with my mom, her cousin Ruth, my sister, and her friend Sadie.  After the days off Ruth came out with me for 8 miles.  It was really fun to show someone else what I had been up to all summer and have a little company for the day (I also got a free lesson about picking an ear of corn). The rest of Massachusetts went by pretty quick, climbing to the top of Greylock (the highest point) and revisiting that and climbing the tower was definitely one of my favorite part.  

New York

The trail passes through New York for about 90 miles.  This took about 5 days for me and it was a bit funny to me how crowded the trail seemed to be.  There are many different reasons for this: it was through a weekend, I have began to hit 'the bubble' going northbound, also I am hitting the beginning of the southbounders.  The trail also passes through quite a few towns.  People told me that you could go get a deli sandwich every day from the trail in New York if you wanted... I managed to resist this urge.  

Other than the crowds, the trail in New York was kind of cool, lots of steep, rocky, quick ups and downs.  There were some awesome lake views.  At one point it went through a little zoo where the bears den marked the lowest point on the trail!  Just after the zoo, it crossed over the Hudson River.  

Although the amount of people was overwhelming at times it did provide some amazing trail magic!  At many of the road crossings in the first half of the state people had put out jugs of clean water, which was great because many of the water sources were absolutely disgusting!  Also one man put out an ice chest full of food, including fresh New York bagels!!  The best however was near bear mountain.., I came up on 2 young men singing and playing a guitar at around 8pm , I sat down, listened for a minute, clapped and then chatted for a bit, telling them I planned to just set up camp at a relatively flat spot on the way down the mountain.  One of them told me I could just stay at his place... This was a great offer, so I accepted and got even more than that!  This guy took me and his friend out to dinner, let me sleep on his couch, use his shower, then bought me breakfast in the way back to the trail!  The kindness of the trail community just continues to amaze me!!

New Jersey

The trail spends about 72 miles in New Jersey, which means I was only there for about 3 and a half days.  It was an eventful 3 and a half days though!  The entire time I was there it was either raining or threatening to rain.  This resulted in the swamps being very wet!  

The first night out I was staying at a shelter with 4 others, Patches (another girl), 2 younger guys, and an 87 year old man.  The old man headed out to get water and look for the privy and after about 45 minutes the 4 of us decided we should go look for him...  For some reason Patches and I were nominated for the search and rescue mission.  Luckily it only took us about 5 minutes to find him but he was in fact lost and very grateful to us for coming out and showing him back to the shelter... I felt a little bad that we hadn't gone out sooner.

One of the highlights of New Jersey was seeing the high point again!  I had driven there before but it was fun to walk the surrounding area and get different views. I also really enjoyed the boardwalks through some of the swamps and wildlife areas.  Other than the rain and the grumpy guy that owned a coffee shop right on the trail, New Jersey was an awesome state to hike through!