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!

AT: Trail magic so far

One evening I am at a road crossing - as usual way behind schedule, because I had been climbing up 3,000 ft and then down 3,000 ft on slippery rocks. Two older guys appear and try to convince me to come into Andover with them - they are just waiting for their shuttle. I don't want to have another town stop and I want an early start so I decline, but I keep them company until their shuttle turns up. Just for fun I ask the hostel owner what other hikers are there. Garlic and Pickle! I can't believe my luck. I know the 2 from the PCT in 04 and I knew that they were hiking the AT nobo this year and had hoped to meet them on their way north. So I took another town stop and had a happy triple crowner reunion with them exchanging hiking ideas. The also give me the good news that the terrain will improve after Mount Moosilauke - and this becomes my new mantra now: I just have to make it to Moosilauke and things will get better.

But that is not all: It turns out that the hostel owners helper is from Guatemala - where I have been before. It also turns out that he has not been speaking Spanish for about 2 years, so we end up talking in Spanish till 1 am in the morning.... The guy is producing "jewellery", so I end up with 2 earing made out of moose shit as a gift. That is no joke - he collects the moose droppings, fixes them and makes jewellery out of it. Interesting... The only problem with this nice and unexpected town stop is that I hardly got some sleep that night and end up almost sleep walking the next day.

Gossamer Gear The One tent

Not so good is that my new Gossamer Gear The ONE tent is making problems. It turned out to be fiddly to set up to start with. And then I had to discover that it is leaking as well. I spent one horrible night in a thunderstorm inside my tent protecting me against the rain with space blanket. I wrote them an email and they will change it into a new tent, but still I would not recommend anyone buying the ONE. Gossamer Gear blames the problem on a faulty patch of tent fabric. And of course, another Platypus bottle broke, but I could change it here in Gorham.

And I have seen some interesting wildlife: Turtles (yes, I mean Schildkroete) right on the trail, all sorts of giant frogs, snakes and moose. The moose were actually kind of annoying. Last night I camped next to a lake and there were moose feeding in the water all night long. It is pretty bizarre to lie in a tent with all those splashing noises nearby... made me sort of uncomfortable. What happens of they run over my tent?
Anyway, I am glad to be out of Maine now. One more week of rock hopping in the Whites and then the worst should be over. I hope I do survive without any injuries....

AT: Out of Maine or French Guyana

If you ever wanted to know what a boot camp of the French Foreign Legion in French Guyana would be like, just go and hike the AT in Maine in June! Eventually I am out of there, but it was a hell of a trip. Millions of mosquitoes are eating you alive, you are either hiking through knee-deep bog or sliding down slippery rocks on your butt and it is so humid that you are constantly soaked - either from sweat or rain. The terrain is so difficult that my mileage is below 15 miles per day now. Sometimes I do less than 1 mile per hour - this is pathetic. I got the impression that this trail has been design by the American association of knee surgeons in order to get more patients! Everything is out here to make you slip and fall: Rocks, roots, soil, leaves - just everything. Luckily I haven't broken anything - yet!

AT: My birthday in Mahoosuc Notch

Near Mahoosuc Notch

I wanted to be in a nice trail town on my birthday and I was hoping to make it to Gorham for it, but unfortunately I had not taken the terrain into my consideration. And so I was way too late and I ended up doing Mahoosuc Notch on my birthday. Mahoosuc Notch is just 1 mile long but it is considered the most difficult mile of the whole AT. And I think that is right. For 1 mile you climb over and under all sorts of huge, slippery boulders. It took me three hours to do that mile. In the beginning I thought that it would be a nice birthday present just to survive that climb. Everything worked out fine - in the beginning.

Rock climbing on the AT

And then it started to rain, not like a normal German rain, no, it was a bad-ass American downpour. And I was right in the middle of Mahoosuc Notch on slippery man-sized rocks. Everything was out there to kill me. When I saw a moose carcass in the rocks that just matched my mood.... and it smelled pretty bad. Then I saw Tibetan prayer flags on the rocks - and remembered the reason for them. A young AT hiker had died there - not by accident, but because of a brain hemorrhage and his parents had erected the flags as a memorial.  Somehow I made it out of the damn notch UNHARMED! I don't know how I managed but I survived and had only lost the mouth piece of my platypus bottle. When I arrived at the next shelter it was totally full. At least I managed to secure the last tent platform next to the shelter. I was so exhausted that I did not want to talk to anyone. I just went to sleep in my damp tent... pretty exciting birthday!

Out of Mahoosuc Notch

I finally arrived in Gorham 2 days late, but I decided to take a single room in a motel in order to celebrate. But it was a weekend and everything was booked so I ended in a dump called hiker hostel. I had even invested in an expensive room but the owners were incredibly unfriendly. After having checked out on time the next morning I was not even allowed to stay in the hostel's common room for another hour. I guess they had made bad experiences with other AT hikers. I decided to leave town and just forget about birthday celebrations. But I got lucky when I was about to leave Gorham. I went to a very nice local cafe and wanted to at least splurge on a luxurious breakfast - but all the tables where taken. The waitress made me share a table "with our nice Gary" who introduced himself with: "I love my country but I hate the government."

Gary

Very nice introduction indeed and it got more interesting from there on. In the end he invited me back to his home. I wanted to have a zero day anyway so I came along. He had sort of forgotten to tell me though that his home was build somewhere in the 1700s - and not much restoration had been done in the meantime. The place was heated by a woodburner, water came from a well and everything was damp - but at least it was a roof over my head. I got to know the magazine "Mother Jones" and learnt everything about recycling in the US. Gary had a garage with a self-built tractor, a timber-mover and a century old welding machine. I have never seen so much junk in one place but it was fascinating. So in the end I had had a very nice birthday - just a little bit late.

AT: Kathadin to Monson or I want to be hiking again

Rain and mist on Kathadin

I took the hostel shuttle to Baxter State Park, pitched my tent and met the first Northbounders on their last day. It was a funny coincidence that they were friends of Skittles - a fellow Triple Crowner who had told me about them and asked me to give them his greetings in case I ran into them. Although they were quite happy to see me (and hear about Skittles) they were exhausted and wanted their hike to be over with. That was a feeling I have never had at the end of a thruhike. On the contrary: I have always been sad that the hike is over now. Baxter State Park also has an interesting policy for thruhikers: People starting their thruhike have to make an official reservation for their campsite and also pay for it whereas hikers finishing their thruhike can stay for free and without reservation in a specific thruhiker shelter hidden in the woods. I guess there is very little abuse of this policy as rangers can easily tell the dirty, smelly UL thruhikers from the squeaky clean day hikers.

The official start photo

I summited Kathadin in a rain/snow storm. Nobody had warned me that this was more a climb than a hike. I knew it was going to be difficult, but I didn't know how difficult. Most of the time I was sitting on my butt trying to come down some vertical rock slabs. I was already thinking of turning back, but I finally made it to the top where I even found somebody to take my photo! Back down at Kathadin Stream Campground the sun was shining... and I was starting to wonder if the trail would always be difficult like this.

I asked a ranger would they do in case of a medical emergency in this difficult terrain. "Well," she said. "we used to helicopter people out to the next hospital. But now that we are fighting a war there are no more helicopters available. I guess we now have to carry out people on a stretcher...." How this is going to work in terrain where even hiking with just a daypack is a problem she did not elaborate on.

Then I hiked through the 100 mile wilderness and I must say that this trail kicks my ass. My body looks like a battle field after a bomb attack - depending on the form of the "bomb crater" it is a mosquito or black fly bite.... Hiking here is like an exercise in meditation: You have to concentrate very hard not to go crazy with 5 million bugs flying around you. DEET is my best friend now. Hiking with a head net is almost impossible because it is so hot. Luckily there is good swimming in lakes and streams but due to the mosquitoes this is a logistical exercise. First you set up your tent and get into it as quickly as possible. Inside your tent you undress and then make a mad dash to the water were you submerge yourself as quickly as possible. When done swimming and cleaning you get out of the water and run back to your tent. Drying yourself and dressing again can only be done inside.

I could only hike 15 miles per day because the footing is so bad - it is all slippery wet rocks, slippery wet tree roots and anythings else is slippery and wet, too. But I will not complain about the weather: After the initial rain on Kathadin it has actually been quite nice which means I am sweating like a pig. I drink 4 liters of water every day and my pee is still almost black (well, not quite black....) I have never hiked in a climate like this. This is my first town stop and instead of dreaming of good food I was dreaming of a washing machine to clean my clothes again. And that should tell you something...

100 Mile Wilderness

Unfortunately, I left all my hiking buddies way behind and hiked alone for a week. (I started out with 7 other people). But I met some nice section hikers and day hikers. I am still surprised how unprepared people come to start this trail... Two of the people I started out with have already quit. I am surprised how ill-prepared and unexperienced hikers are on this trail. I had expected that going Southbound would eliminate the rookies, but no: Some fellow hikers are carrying tins of sardines, dress in self-knitted sweaters and carry hand-carved wooden hiking sticks instead of trekking poles. I have already heard several stories of hikers losing their trekking poles in river crossing just because they had forgotten to stick their hands through the loops. And in the hostel in Monson I am next door to a guy who has already been here for over a week - his hiking boots have rubbed his feet down to open flesh wounds that he is trying to heal now.

Right now I am in Monson, ME. The place is so small that they don't have a decent store - and I have to do resupply for one week. Which also means that I will be outside civilisation for a week and there will be no further posts... Hopefully, this will soon become a hiking trail again! I am fed up with climbing...

AT: Before the start

The famous sign on top of Katadin

Back in Dekalb with Raru I went through my stuff and started distributing it around the US by sending out parcels. I went to Chicago, spent an afternoon in the Chicago Art Institute and stayed at an airport hotel overnight because my flight to Bangor left early in the morning. And then all started to go wrong... The flight was overbooked and I was assigned to a different flight. I was shit scared about my checked bag! And of course they fucked up my reservation on their computer system and I had trouble getting on my new flight.... But in the end everything worked out. I arrived in Bangor and my bag was there - I could have kissed the Continental Airlines ground personnel when they handed me my backpack.

I then had my first experience of trail magic. I tried to find the bus stop and asked at the information desk which was coincidentially staffed by 2 German women. They took pity on me and gave me a ride straight to the bus station and a shopping mall where I could do all my resupply for the first stretch of the AT. I have met the first AT hikers already in the bus to Millinocket but I was not impressed. None of them seemed like an experienced long-distance hiker.

First AT signpost in Baxter State Park

The hostel in Millinocket is offering thruhiker specials that I am taking advantage of. They pick you up at the bus stop, shuttle you to the hostel where you stay the night. And the next day you are shuttled to Baxter State Park after a huge breakfast. Good arrangements and nice hostel. Right now I am in the hostel in Millinocket and will get a shuttle into Baxter State Park in the afternoon. Tomorrow I will summit Kathadin. And guess what: It is raining......