Old Lady on the Trail- Triple Crown at 76

by Mary E Davison

  I met Frank, who had helped me through the Mahoosuc Notch, as he came down from Eliza Brook Shelter. He was a day ahead of me SOBO but going NOBO two days meant I ran into him again.

  Needing to turn into a hermit for a good night’s sleep, I walked past the shelter and found a tiny stealth site not far from the crossing of pretty Eliza Brook, just big enough for my one-person tent among bare branches of bushes and small trees. I slept like a tired log.

  The next day was up and over Kinsman and back to the hostel, descending a few tricky spots before the last few miles of level trail. I reached the highway before 4:00. A quick hitch within five minutes gave me the bonus of a local, who listened to Vermont radio. He told me The Green Mountains in Vermont were open. That had been a real question, as the trail had been closed for a month from hurricane damage. Now I could get through the Greens and complete the AT. Yay.

  The hikers at the hostel saved me a lower bunk, looking out for the old lady. Sweet. The Hostel was full that night: The Lazy Bastards, Tonka, Panda, Super Bubba, Fish Hook, Knitty, Gritty, and Rook were my friends. I liked and appreciated them all—even if they were all young and stayed up late.

  I used my headband over my eyes to block out the light and tried to sleep. They all eventually went to sleep, leaving the light on. I got up sometime in the night and turned it off to the sound of gentle snoring emanating from every bunk.

  Catching my shuttle back to Kinsman Notch once again, I started up Brook trail, a steep trail with lovely waterfalls. Rebar in steep rock and wooden steps bolted to the rock aided on the steepest rock slabs. It took me three hours to the shelter and two more to reach the summit, but the reward was great.

  The views from Moosilauke in a bright-blue sky were superb. I also saw Reboot again, who had taken the weekend off to visit friends. Among the many day hikers on Moosilauke were a couple from England on number 24 of their quest to complete the 48 4,000-foot peaks in the area. There are many ways to meet challenges in the wilderness, not all involve backpacking or speed of hiking.

  Moosilauke was my last 4,000-foot mountain. On the descent to Glencliff, I was able to descend forwards, not backwards, though it had a few steep parts. I almost had to ford a river at the bottom, but found a way to rock and tree hop across. I looked pretty funny in the middle of the river, an old lady with a backpack leaning on hiking poles while stepping up to precariously balance on a six-inch-diameter tree and stepping off the narrow trunk to rocks in the middle of the river. There was no one to take my picture, but the mental image remained in my mind.

  The Welcome Hiker Hostel was less than a half-mile down the road, a unique lodge run by Uncle Walt. The shower and bathroom facilities were semi-outdoors behind and under tarps, the loft indoors for sleeping. Other hikers came in that night with wet feet from the river crossing, and I was very proud of my dry feet.

  But my feet didn’t stay dry the next day.

  It rained steadily most of the day, and my umbrella earned its keep. After a number of clothing adjustments, I settled on one shirt. On downhills I wore the raincoat for warmth more than rain, but my rain pants were on the whole day, and my feet were wet and muddy. However, I was cruising at much lower altitude, warm with no wind.

  I walked real trail all day, though it was somewhat muddy with occasional rocky patches and, of course, roots. This was still the Appalachian Trail, not a western trail, but there was a noticeable improvement and no rock scrambling was needed. I wanted to reach the shelter, but I just didn’t have it in me and stopped at Bracket Brook. I could only do what I could do, not necessarily what I’d planned.

  A 15-mile day started in the dark and ended in the dark, over rock changing from grippy granite to glacially polished quartz and quartzite. Quartz was prettier but more treacherous than granite when wet. I mentally sang old Girl Scout songs to keep myself moving steadily over Smarts Mountain, hearing the songs in my head but having no breath on an uphill to sing.

  I met four section day hikers: Goat Boy, Old Geezer, Wildflower, and Tomcat, one my age; none were young. They’d hiked all of the trail from Georgia by day hiking and remarked on the tough trail coming up Smarts Mountain. I had to tell them that was the easy side of New Hampshire. They didn't seem to know weather was a problem in the Presidentials and Franconia Notch or that the trail would become rougher, so I was the bearer of bad news. They looked like they were thoroughly enjoying themselves, though, and I wished them luck, betting they would eventually get to Katahdin.

  When I reached the shelter I was pleased to find another mature hiker, Phoenix, age 75. She was an inspiration, still hiking after a lung had been removed. I was very impressed. Let’s hear a huzzah for older hikers, who keep going though body parts fail.

  Wow. I’m still alive.

  The next day was a 16-mile-long, mostly easy walk in very wet woods, which ended long after dark. Daylight disappeared just before Velvet Rocks. Anything with rocks in the name tells you what’s to come, and in the dark with headlamp it was no picnic.

  While clutching a knotted fixed rope descending backwards down rocks, I marveled at the sudden change in my long but fairly easy day, which had degenerated into one of those wow, I'm still alive and not dead moments. Making it down the rocks, I appreciated the AT white blazes except for one very swampy area, which took me three tries stomping in soggy moss and mud to find the trail in the dark.

  Reaching the highway after 9:30, I’d been trying to call my motel by cellphone for an hour, with no success. The motel was almost three miles away. Who would pick up a hitchhiker, a very bedraggled elderly woman with a backpack and an umbrella in the dark pouring rain at almost 10:00 at night?

  Glaring headlights zoomed by and fast tires sprayed puddles at me, leaving me even more wet and desperate for a ride. Fortunately for me, a young woman (who had hiked the Long Trail in Vermont with her 70-year-old mother) recognized I was a hiker and stopped. Salvation was sitting in an enclosed metal box on wheels that we call a car. I am certain I soaked her car seat and left puddles on the floor.

  She found my motel, and I let myself into my room with the key left on the unoccupied desk, took a shower and collapsed into bed. My knee was REALLY unhappy with me. I hoped it would get happy again after a day of rest, and I rejoiced to be horizontal, dry, warm and clean. I’d finished New Hampshire.

  My rest day was nearly as close to a zero as one can get and still have measureable mileage: .7 miles. Mostly I ate and rested the body, especially the knee. I put ice on it and hoped it would let me continue. I would have to go at a slower pace. I considered taking two zeros, but the motel was full for the weekend with an event at Dartmouth College. I changed my hike plan and hoped to make it to the next road to stay in a hostel there, taking another zero day if the knee so dictated.

  Vermont

  “The Lord Said to Noah, ’There’s Gonna Be a Floody, Floody’”

  In the morning the knee was better. The swelling had gone down, giving it nearly normal flexion. I liked Vermont. The trail was the easiest I would encounter. My knee calmed its anger at its owner, and the forest was lovely, green and, in some places, very golden. Unfortunately, the mosquitoes liked the weather, too, and I was their favorite meal. I’d sent my repellant home as there had been no mosquitoes in Maine. I picked up some natural repellant in Hanover and found it worthless. I kept my long sleeve shirt on, even though I felt like a basted turkey all day with the warm humidity and my sweat.

  In a poor, flood-damaged little town, the hiker-friendly general store was gutted, and even though it still had its “Welcome Hikers” sign, no one was there. There were very few hikers in Vermont following damage from Hurricane Irene.

  With my cellphone, I was in text contact with Reboot, three days ahead. He said he would tell me if he couldn’t get through somewhere. Wildlife in the wetness included small creatures, cute little orange newts, squirrels, grouse, and a variety of birds, frogs, and toads. Wild raspberries and blackberries along the trail were the gift of the morning.

/>   That year the AT was very difficult. I had scheduled too many long days for my old body, and the decreasing daylight added to the struggle to make the miles. When I didn’t make miles at the speed I thought I should, my head was filled with negativity. I told myself to think about the things I enjoyed as an antidote.

  First off, I enjoyed being there even at my age. That was a biggie. I enjoyed the raspberries on the trail, sunshine, gentle breezes discouraging the mosquitoes, dappled sunlight in the forest, golden leaves on the trees, views of farmland and hillsides, trees changing color, occasional bursts of color in late-blooming flowers, bright berries on bushes, apples on trees, people who encouraged me by signing my guest book with encouraging notes, and the stillness of the forest. I might be old and slow and failing to reach planned goals in a timely manner, but there was so much more to enjoy than simply reaching a goal on time.

  Yes, there were more ups and downs than the profile showed in planning, and the last mile was rocky. I had to ford one river, and then I had wet feet. There was a large marshy area lasting nearly forever, a river washed my shoes clean before more marsh changed clean back to muddy grossness. But the trip up Dana Hill seemed easier than the profile had indicated, and I reached the shelter before dark, giving me time for a Ziploc bath and washing socks. Then I discovered I was missing my spare sports bra. Can’t have everything.

  The next morning I was on the trail at 5:30 with my headlamp on to begin a 16-mile day. It turned out to be an earlier rise than planned, but I woke up worried about the day and thought getting started was better than worrying.

  The day was up and down and up and down and up and down again. There is a sameness, a sense of repetition about long-distance hiking, especially on the AT, step by step repeated all day long, day after day. To help the time and miles pass, I created a song in honor of that repetition. My poles beat out a three-tap rhythm on a four-beat measure. (I move the left pole half as often as the right.) My poles were saying methodically and rhythmically, step by step rest, step by step rest.

  Step by step. (rest)

  Step by step. (rest)

  All along the trail.

  Step by step.

  Step by step

  Way to get 'er done.

  Many long days on many long ways.

  That's the way it comes.

  The one long line could be changed to innumerable descriptions such as: Through Rhodie Forests and Hobble Bush Hills or Some trail is easy, some beats your butt or Through snow, sleet or rain and sunshine too or Up lofty peaks and through muddy bogs or Down tree rappels and veggie belays or Up another mountain and down another vale or Through springtime flowers and autumn's falling leaves. The permutations were endless.

  The tune was simple and stayed in my head, helping me get through the miles, especially uphill, while entertaining myself with supposedly clever verses, only clever to the mind-numbed trail walker.

  I only had to use the headlamp for the last mile. The guy at the Mountain Meadows Lodge wasn't concerned whether I would get there or not when I called him on my cell phone. He told me if I arrived, he would give me dinner. Once there, he gave me far more than I could possibly eat, I showered and washed a few things—including my only bra—and fell into bed.

  The next couple days were fairly uneventful walking. I met the four older hikers doing the AT by day hikes on another little section, and I saw the first real trail damage caused by Hurricane Irene as I crossed a river. I had to crawl on all fours on a ladder that had been made into a bridge. A nearby house had lost its access to the road when the bridge was swept away. I wondered where the family who lived there was. Were they in the house? Staying with relatives? Homeless?

  I spent the night at Minerva Hinchy Shelter listening to hard rain falling. Throughout most of Vermont, my feet were never dry until I took shoes off at night and inserted feet, dried with a bandana, into my sleeping bag.

  I started the day with dry feet before the heavens let loose with a gully washer. It rained so hard, water misted through the umbrella from the force of the rain, while I hunched under it not even moving. The umbrella earned its weight again by keeping my core mostly dry.

  After the gully washer eased, it rained most of the day, with a brief letup for part of the afternoon. I might have liked this part of Vermont on a day when I didn’t feel like someone was trying to drown me. Even the fallen bright red leaves looked forlorn and drowned on a trail often turned into either a river or a lake. In ankle-deep water, I slipped and slid all the way to Little Rock Pond for a late lunch.

  The creeks boiled with brown water, making me very thankful for all the bridges still standing. One bridge was a single steel girder stretched across a ditch over brown rushing water instead of the small rivulet it was supposed to cover.

  My gear, especially my sleeping bag, the long underwear, which were my jammies, my bed socks, and my down jacket, were kept dry with multiple layers of protection. As my mother might have said, "I won't shrink." As long as I was moving I would stay warm. The bigger danger was over-heating and sweating up clothes, which could chill me when stopping for a break. I must have dry, warm nightclothes to live to hike another day. So I had an umbrella, a Cuban-fiber pack cover, a plastic garbage bag and Cuban-fiber stuff sacks inside the garbage bag. Everything essential stayed dry.

  In the midst of all this wetness, for some odd reason, I decided being soggy didn’t have to dictate how I felt. I powered up to the shelter and belted out every verse I could remember of the church camp/Sunday school song, “Lord said to Noah, There's Gonna be a Floody, Floody." It seemed quite appropriate and tickled my funny bone so that I giggled up the hill even though soaking wet.

  At Lost Pond Shelter, I had company. Since the hurricane damage had closed Vermont for a month, there were very few hikers on the trail and it was a real treat to have company in a shelter. Hard Candy, Pack Off, and I were glad to be together on bare boards under a roof.

  In the morning, the rain had stopped, but there was standing water everywhere. Apologizing to my feet and promising they would be dry on my zero day, I walked through minor lakes of standing water to the privy. It was a disaster. The hole was filled with water, which I was sure would become part of the raging brook. Everything was standing water.

  Later in the day, I found Griffith Lake had overflowed in two places, and all the carefully set rocks to cross a brook with dry feet were under water. I was already wet, so I just waded through.

  Making it to the road before dark, I caught a hitch from two slightly scruffy good old boys. They thought it was great that I was doing the trail (at my age) and insisted on shaking my hand like I was a celebrity, which I accepted with good grace but thought very funny. I was just a soggy, bedraggled old-lady hiker. They took me to my lodging, and I splurged for dinner that night at a very nice restaurant, although I was a little ashamed going to a nice restaurant before taking a shower. The tables were very close together, and I had a definite layer of hiker stank. My server graciously took my order and brought me my steak, but my closest table neighbors probably were not happy to be near me.

  Sleeping late, I luxuriated in bed listening to the rain outside. Yep, more rain. The weather forecast was for nothing but rain for the foreseeable future. Five more days to go, and they would be wet ones. I was very thankful for the existence of shelters. My tent could have kept me dry, for the most part, but over the course of multiple rainy days, wetness eventually comes in with you in the small space of a tent. I wasn’t looking forward to walking through five more soggy days, but I was glad there would only be five.

  At the laundromat, I ran into OD Green, a past SOBO thru hiker. Seeing my duct-tape-patched raingear, which I was wearing while everything else suddsed in the washer, he recognized I was a hiker.

  We talked trail, and he gave me a ride to the nearby grocery and back to Sutton's Place, where I was staying. Most wonderfully, he got all excited about the project of finding me a ride at the end of my hike. I needed to get from the Lon
g Distance Hiker Association Gathering to West Point, NY, and my daughter. We exchanged contact info, and I was buoyed up in spirit to know someone was working on the final necessary leg of my journey.

  I usually had good luck hitching into towns. Going back to the trail, I usually paid for shuttle or taxi as I needed the time spent on the trail, not standing on a road with my thumb out. On OD Green’s advice, I decided to try hitching. But no one wanted to pick up the old lady with pack, umbrella, hiking poles and duct-tape-patched rain pants on an early Sunday morning. Perhaps they were all on their way to church. I felt like I was in the story of the Good Samaritan, except I hadn’t been beaten by thieves and left for dead at the side of the road. Eventually I reached the trail, but it took two hitches and more than an hour.

  Kathy had written to ask if the fall color was at the height of the season in Vermont as I walked through. Well, not really. Much of the forest was still green although there were a few red maples, yellow leaves, and Hobble Bushes in color. But the rain was knocking the colored leaves off the trees into the trail, making temporary color mats of glistening red, orange, and yellow, shining like somewhat bedraggled jewels. Sometimes the jewels were just sunk under water or trampled in mud.

  MUD. Vermont lived up to its muddy reputation. Everything was so wet and muddy that falling was a real threat. I fell near White Rocks and wondered if I’d broken my wrist, a common fracture in the elderly. I hiked with my hand cradled in my pocket for a good long while until it felt better. Falling later, my new knee hit a book-sized rock hard enough to dislodge the rock from trail. Plastic and titanium seem to be strong stuff, and the knee replacement seemed none the worse for wear. I tried to be careful but felt like I was pushing my luck in all the wetness, four more days left to hike without damaging anything.