Hello from New Hampshire. Friends hiked with them today to hike The Gentle Giant, Mt. Moosilauke. Since I last checked posted on the blog a lot has happened.
Some of you know, Hollywood and Backtrack came home last weekend. They did a triple zero here at home before heading back to Finish off Vermont and head into New Hampshire. There is a lot of stuff to catch up on when you’ve been away for four and a half months. Hollywood is a landlord and there was house stuff to deal with, people to catch up with, mail to return, and all sorts of other trappings of everyday life. She came back to deal with the most important of these because when Tyler gets home he is jumping right onto the trail to finish up the grand adventure with his loving wife.
I sent ten days of food up to her today so Backtrack is going OK with food. When she was home she picked up some but I had measured incorrectly and an additional care package needed to go up to top off Jordan’s backpack.
She called me on Friday while on the top of Smarts Mountain 1762.6 NoBo. The night was crystal clear and it looked like there were a billion stars out in the sky. She has been doing a lot of night hiking to catch up the miles and now that they are in the big elevations well above treeline when they hit the peaks, the nighttime sky lights up like it hasn’t done before. It is both awe inspiring and humbling to lay on your back on top of a mountain and take in the boundless visage of the universe. They are deep in the mountains where there is no light pollution blocking out the wonder of the night sky. They have passed through Hanover, NH and are now well into the White Mountain National Forest. This was at ten PM and they were headed to the Trapper John Shelter 1755.9 NoBo. It was there very first time summiting so late at night. The shelter was only one tenth of a mile from the peak.
In New England, you find the shelters near the peaks of mountain very frequently. While further south, you most often found them in the valleys between the mountains. They are in for many nights just like Friday night laying on top of the mountain with the stars so bright you can practically see the trail by them.
They had done 26 miles Friday through over 8000 ft of elevation change. Uphill a thousand, down a thousand, up a thousand, down a thousand, up a thousand, down a thousand, and up two thousand. A saw tooth say. That is the Whites for you. Yesterday was another seven thousand foot day over two peaks and today was 3000 feet straight up to peak Moosilauke. And 2500 down the other side. This kind of elevation change really puts those 900 ft sawtooth days that were such a bother way back in Virginia into perspective. Tonight is most likely spent in Kinsman notch, where lies Lincoln, NH. 1791.9 NoBo.
Not only were her local friends Nikki and Jack hiking today, Y- Knot , Y-Know, Pryor and another friend, came up and hiked with them too. Also she has caught back up with her friends. She has ‘caught the bubble’ which is some of her hiking friends from the past months on the trail. She now has companionship again. She is currently thru-hiking with Aaron, Dillon, and Do What.
Vermont was quickly torn down last early last week. The first day back on the trail, they got turned around and unintentionally hiked ten miles down ‘The long Trail’ instead of the Appalachian Trail. It was 6:00 PM before she realized they had been hiking the whole afternoon on the wrong trail. A call to Pete revealed there was no close crossroad coming up to catch a ride back to the an AT trailhead, so they had to slog back up the trail the ten miles just to get to the start again. That night they did a ‘stealth camp’ right on the trail side.
This was one of the few nights she was truly bored out of her mind while hiking and camping on the trail. She was all alone with no shelter, or the companionship the people in them provide, nearby. She wore her phone battery down calling everyone to stave off the tedium, and called it a very early night at ‘trail midnight’ for the first time since starting the trip. They packed up and got going very early Wednesday morning to get back on track. Wednesday Thursday and Friday was head down nose to the grindstone hiking to try and catch up with to ‘the bubble’. Tuesday and Wednesday were the first two days when Hollywood and Backtrack truly hiked alone, not seeing anyone they knew or had hiked with before. It was an odd feeling to have been hiking with so many people and now finding yourself truly solo hiking the AT.
Wednesday night was spent in West Hartford, VT in a trail angels’ back yard. There was only one other hiker there. He was intoxicated and camping in a different area of the yard and didn’t get a great vibe from him. Thursday was out of West Hartford, 10 miles into Hanover, and catching up with the bubble. A day of pizza, beers and hang time in Hanover for the morning and early afternoon put them on the trail just in time to summit Smarts Mountain. Catching up with fellow hikers she knew was great motivation to pack on the miles though.
So there you have it, New Hampshire, we welcome home Backtrack and Hollywood. Only one more state to go. The high peaks of the White Mountains are calling your names. We cannot wait to sit by the fire with you and listen to all the tails of one of the greatest adventures of a lifetime. Here are a few Moosilauke pictures.
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