AT: New Jersey

Timber at the Gathering

New Jersey has the highest bear population per square mile in the US - 1 bear per square mile. They even enter suburbs and towns to raid trash cans - but I did not see any single one of them. I just keep seeing turtles all the time. But another hiker - Timber - was actually chased around by one. He got so paranoid that he came running back to meet me and hike with me. So there is this 43-year-old ex-military and carpenter who is so shit scared that I - weak single German female - has to hike with him (meaning to hike in front of him) to scare away the bears. My opinion of American men has never been that good but it has suffered substantially since this incident. But seriously now: This is Timber's first long hike and I guess he just has to learn a bit more. Beside that he is a great guy!

There are also other good things to report: The weather improved, there were blueberry bushes everywhere, resupply was easy and life was generally very good.

AT: New York

Bear Mountain zoo

Hiking through this state was quite a cultural experience. On the one hand hiking was surprisingly remote and the scenery very nice, but on the other hand every weekend half of New York including their mother and kitchen sink was out there, too. I hit Bear Mountain on a Sunday and almost got a claustrophic attack. There is small zoo there where the AT goes through and I could not decide what was more interesting: The animals or the other visitors! I saw my first and only bears so far in this zoo - behind cage bars of course. But the most amazing thing for me was the variety of visitors. There is a picnic area nearby that was bursting with people. I saw orthodox Jewish families in their old fashioned black suits picnicking next to Arab families with headscarves next to Indian women in Saris. The most amazing thing for me were the Jewish families who still spoke Jiddish, which consists of many German elements. I ended up in a long discussion with one Jewish family (in English).

There was also one very outstanding trailmagic in Unionville, NY. The mayor of Unionville is hosting hikers after his wife died a couple of years ago. In order to show his love for the hikers he calls them "stupid assholes" all the time which took me quite a while to get used to. The mayor himself is about 70 years old. He has some friends that help him with the hikers and are about the same age so the whole set-up reminded me a lot of a male version of "Golden Girls". There are several rules in this house:

• Don't even try to do dishes. (I liked that one very much.)
• The first beer is free and any other beer is 25 cents. (Luckily that applied for sodas, too because I don't drink beer)
• Don't use any word with more than 3 syllables. (Luckily that rule was not enforced because I received some very interesting language lessons there).
• You have to spend 25 minutes to watch a video. This video is about Paul Potts, a guy I had never before heard of. Paul Potts is a completely uninteresting and unattractive British sales guy for cell phones who won a British TV talent show by singing a Puccini aria. The mayor's message is that you just have to believe in what you are doing and you will win. So now picture about 10 dirty stinking hikers sitting in the mayor's living room and listing to the Puccini aria out of Turandot "Nessum dorma".... It was just hilarious.

The only drawback of the Mayor's house was that all of the male "Golden Girls" where chain smoking - I decided to camp outside instead of staying in the basement where the mayor had put 10 bunk beds.

Another place that I had looked forward to a lot turned out to be a big disappointment: Graymoor Monastery. I had visions of a peaceful and scenic little monastery where I could get a bit of a spiritual rest. Instead Graymoor monastery turned out to be huge - and I could not even find a church. The hikers are not allowed inside the monastery buildings any more but have to camp on the ball field - and that field today was occupied by hundreds of Latinos celebrating mass and having a huge barbecue afterwards. Although the rather expensive food was nice I was very disappointed by the lack of spirituality of the whole place - and just hiked on after an extended lunch break.


By the way: In New York there even is an active train station called "Appalachian Trail". And at some point on the trail you have to cross a busy highway - hitching on it would get you into New York City that is only 40 miles away! Although a lot of hikers take a break here and do go into New York I personally could not stand the noise and stress of a big city during such a long hike - it was difficult enough to just get across the highway!

AT: Completely happily hiking in Connecticut

Redmond and his sister

Life is good again! First of all I am experiencing a lot of trail magic. It started with a nice break in Salisbury, CT where I went to see Redmond and his sister in Pine Plains, NY. Redmond is American but has spend a lot of time in Germany where I had met him. It was weird to see him in the US for the first time. We had a great evening at his sister's place eating barbecued steak! I got all cleaned up (included my finger blister), washed my toxic hiker clothes and started to look like a normal human being again. And best of all the blister of my infected finger finally busted - I nearly fainted when all the puss came out, but the finger is healing pretty well now and I hope to be able to use all 10 fingers again pretty soon. Redmond brought me back to the trail and it took exactly 17 minutes before the sky had another one of its diarrhea outbreaks and all my nice clean clothes were soaking wet and dirty again...

Radar on the beach

Only 2 days later I am now staying with Radar whom I had met on the PCT in 04. He picked me up from the trail but he forgot to mention how far away he lived - it was a very long drive and I felt a bit bad about causing so much effort. We had not arranged an exact pick up place in town. Radar insisted that he would find me anyways through his hiker instinct - and he was right. He had first gone to the outdoor store where he was told that a tall German hiker had just come through. He had then tried the cafe assuming that I would eat breakfast and when he could not find me there he looked into the library where he eventually found me. Thruhikers are so predictable.... Radar lives in a fantastic huge house that feels like a luxury hotel. We even made a trip to the sea and ate fish and chips. It is so nice to talk trail all the time and exchange memories of the good old PCT times. I just wonder how long it will take until I am soaked again once I hit the trail.



Blueberry giants

But not only meeting old friends is nice, the trail has become really nice now, too. There are a lot of pastures and fields and even some nice relaxing (=flat) river walks. I am eating most of the time and I happily realized that everything is bigger in this country - not only the thunderstorms, but also the blueberry bushes which helps while harvesting them while hiking. They are so tall that I did not recognize them as blueberries first....

Not Mother



The only bad thing that happened recently that I finally met another sobo single hiker my age and as soon as I had caught up to her she had to leave the trail because of a sprained ankle. I still hope to meet you somewhere somehow, not Mother. I really admired her: She was hiking the AT despite suffering from MS - and she has such a positive attitude and some pretty amazing stories to tell about her life.

AT: Happily hiking in Massachussetts

I finally made it into Mass and things are getting better every day. My infected finger is very, very slowly getting better - it least it doesn't hurt any more. The trail starts to resemble trail again and I can actually hike 20 miles per day again - if I wasn't distracted all the time by talking to nobos, going into town and eating or bad weather. I have met some interesting people, but unfortunately they are all going the wrong direction....
My time at the library is running out, so more is to come next time.

AT: Vermont - happily hiking again - almost

Mysterious cairns

 Vermont is my absolute favourite state - eventually I am hiking again instead of rock climbing. There is actual trail here! And there are switchbacks! And there are places where to stealth camp and lots of them. But I did not understand why I encountered a short stretch of trail where people have built hundreds of small rock cairns.... Even the weather is good - it has not been raining for almost a week. Actually it is very hot, but anything is better than the tropical rain storms I had a week ago. And the landscape changed: I am hiking through pastures with flowers, there are a lot of raspberry bushes on which to snack and life is generally good again. I love Vermont!!!!!

There is only one problem and that is a health issue: I have an infection under the nail of my right index finger (Nagelbettentzuendung or onychia) and it hurts like hell. First I tried to cure it with my own medical invention: In order to soak my finger while hiking, I filled soap water in a condom and fixed it around my finger. Pretty creative! This contraption earned me some pretty curious looks from other hikers.But it did not help much and I decided to detour to Rutland and see a doctor. The doctor prescribed antibiotics but so far it has not gotten better - but I have just taken them for 3 days. I can hardly move the finger any more (and I am right handed!), but at least it does not hurt any more like before. I do hope it will get better soon. If anybody has had that before and can tell me anything about it, please do!


Beside that I am getting worried about my appetite. I have been hiking for 1,5 months but hiker hunger has not kicked in yet. My dinners take forever because I just can't stand Lipton side dishes any more. And if I have to eat oatmeal again, I will probably scream. I still enjoy snacks, but I definitely do not eat enough I have been losing weight rapidly. Hopefully they have different dehydrated food in Australia...

Still smiling despite infected finger

I real highlight of this section was my stay with a trail angel in Manchester: The Green Mountain House. This is definitely one of the best organised trail angels I have ever met. Luckily he was recommended to me by another hiker from whom I learnt that you have to make a reservation to stay there - which I did and was accepted. Because of this reservation system Green Mountain is never crowded and actually feels more like a B&B than a hiker place. I stayed in a posh room that I only had to share with another lady and was treated with free Ben&Jerry's ice cream and soda pop. Because I am not used to caffeine I avoided Coke and still ended up having a sleepless night. When I wondered about that next morning my room mate informed me that the innocent sounding "Mountain Dew" that I had consumed in great quantity instead contained even more caffeine than Coke. Well, I have learnt that lesson now.

AT: Zero day or when the skies have diarhea

The last couple of days have been a real challenge. I am out of the rough terrain (thank God), but all of a sudden the sky got diarhea meaning that it started to rain like I have never seen any rain before. Everything is bigger in America - even their thunderstorms. It was just pouring down and every 2 hours or so there would be a new dump or eruption or whatever you want to call it. No rain jacket stands weather like that and unfortunately my tent did not either. Well, the tent itself coped pretty good, but there was so much downpour that the ground could not absorb it and so I ended up in a "water bed". That means that the water came up through the floor of the tent and in the end everything was soaking wet. My sleeping bag was more a rag filled with wet feathers than anything else.

Wildflower

But now comes the good part: I was meeting Packman and Wildflower (PCT 04 as well) the next day and that meant that I would sleep under a roof the next night! I was excited! Everything worked out well: Packman met me in Hanover and brought me to Montpelier for a zero day. The irony of all that: The sun was shining all day long on my zero day....I spent a fantastic time chatting about the good ole times on the PCT with Packman and Wildflower and even sightseeing in the capitol of Vermont. I was treated with great healthy vegetarian food and even self brewed cidre. Alas - I had to leave soon. I took public transport back to the trail in Hanover and of course the last bus on my planned route did only exist on the internet - it never showed up in reality. So I had to take a taxi for the last few kilometers to Hanover. 

AT: White Mountains

 The White Mountains posed a bit of a logistical problem as you are not allowed to wild camp there. Hikers must either stay in the luxurious huts or designated camp sites. Although the scenery is quite spectacular for AT standards as there are lots of views it is a very  demanding stretch aggrevated by the fact that you have to finish at a hut or campsite. I definitely did not like these restrictions but I must admit that the authorities have found a good solution for thruhikers: They do not have to make reservations for the often fully booked huts and they do not even have to pay the hefty fee these huts charge for food and accommodation. Instead they have to arrive in time to do a "chore" assigned to them by the hut wardens and in exchange get left over food and can sleep on the benches in the common room when everyone else has gone to bed. At campsites you can either pay a small fee or do a chore as well.

It is a very sensible system but I still could not wait to get out of the White Mountains. Why? The chores in the huts were usually quite simple: In my case I had to clean the freezer which was done in less than half an hour. And getting a huge amount of left over food (that has to be carried to the huts on foot by the wardens!) in exchange was a very profitable deal. But at night I had to wait till the last person went to bed until I could roll out my sleeping bag and sleep myself - only to be woken a couple of hours later by the first early risers. I mostly tried to stay at the very basic camp sites where the warden was either absent or told me he had no chore for me and let me stay for free!