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!

7 Down... 7 To Go

Pennsylvania is known for how rocky it's trail is.   There are horror stories from other hikers about this as you make your way toward the state.   I really didn't think it was that bad though.  There were definitely sections that were rocky but I found it kind of fun.

For about 5 days in the middle of Pennsylvania I was not feeling well.  This was at its worst during a zero day in port Clinton where I had a headache the entire day as I did my resupply and ran around town.  When I finally got back to the hotel at 4:30 in the afternoon I crawled in bed and stayed there until 6:30 the next morning... It was a really strange, long migraine!  I didn't feel completely better until about 2 days after that.  So in general my mileage was pretty low throughout the state and it seemed to take quite some time but I have been with a pretty great group throughout, mixed in with patches, Indy, and Sir Stooge (who got a bullseye, but no lyme)

Ashby Gap to Boiling Springs

It's definitely been an eventful week!  It's hard to believe that just a week ago I was in Montana with my family!  I flew back to Washington DC last Monday and was now to get in 3 miles that night.  The next 2 days were pretty short, an 18 miler then a 10 in order to get myself to the VA /WV border.  So I got myself there around noon, set up camp, then grabbed my water bottles and some money and headed down 2 miles to Harpers Ferry. I am so glad i went down!  In town I was able to grab a good lunch and hang out at the ATC for awhile & get my picture in the book.  I was also able to find some hiking friends' pictures from previous years.  I ended up getting back up to camp at around 5 and trying to sleep until midnight, mostly without any luck!  

-THE 4 STATE CHALLENGE-

So even though there really isn't a whole lot to tell about this day it was one of the more exciting for me!  I was on the trail right at midnight and night hiked down through Harpers Ferry and made it up to Waverton Cliffs for sunrise 5 hours later... Almost 15 miles in already!  I felt good and awake and was making great time until about 8:30 when I had to stop and take a quick nap right on the trail... My pace went significantly downhill as the day wore on.  When I got to 33 miles at around 1:00 I took a nice 30 minute break with some people at a shelter and this gave me a bit of a second wind.  When I was about 2 miles from the MD/PA border (the end of the 4 state challenge) I ran into another thru-hiker, Bud.  It was great to have someone to talk to for a bit and someone to take a pic at the line!  After hitting the state line at 5:45 I decided I could do more... So I went 7 more miles to a shelter to make a 50 mile day!!  Very exhausting but also very exciting.., and 3 days later I can now say that I have completely recovered:)

-HALFWAY-

The day after my long one I only nanaged 13 miles, but i got some great trail magic at the shelter i ended up in!  There was a group of 4 locals staying there with me and they gave me a steak and a baked potato for, then they gave me apples and snacks for the next day!!  Along with the awesome food they gave me, I was also entertained by tales of unrequited love from the 22 year old in the group and a rousing game of Texas Hold 'Em for pistachios, which I sadly lost.  The next day I managed to get myself across the halfway line and successfully complete the half gallon challenge (eating a half gallon of ice cream in one sitting) in 28 minutes.  This challenge was a bit easier than the 4 states:).