Barefoot Sisters: Southbound

by Lucy Letcher;Susan Letcher

  My hibernation instincts really kicked in when I reached Upper Goose Pond Cabin the following afternoon. So much about it reminded the of home-the sputtering gas stove, the tea and crackers and canned goods filling the kitchen cupboards, and the shelf full of books in the living room. The cheery, red-painted walls had no insulation, but at least there were four of them-much safer than a shelter in a winter storm.

  I took my zero there, skinny-dipping in the pond at midday when I had the place to myself. I wrote one of my new songs in the register, surrounding the words with color pencil sketches. I searched the woods for a pair of long, straight branches, which I carved into hiking sticks for jackrabbit. In the evenings, I sipped tea and chatted with Sarah, the volunteer caretaker.

  "This is my first time caretaking here, and you're the first thru-hiker I've met," she told me. "So I hope you don't mind if I ask a lot of questions. What do you eat? What kind of gear do you carry? I don't mean to be rude, but how often do you get to shower? Have you seen any bears?"

  These are probably the gitestioHs other thru-hikers get sick of ansil'eriug, I reflected. For me, though, it was a treat to talk with someone who wasn't just interested in my feet. I described the process of resupplying and told her about the hostels and outfitter stores in Trail towns. I recounted my run-in with the bear outside of Dalton.

  "Are you hiking by yourself?" she asked, her eyes wide.

  "Only for a little while," I answered. "I'll be meeting my sister in Great Barrington in three days"

  "I live right near Great Barrington," Sarah told me. "If you need a place to stay while you're there, please give me a call. There's a new caretaker coming in tomorrow; after that, I'll be free in the evenings."

  The second night at Upper Goose Pond, we were joined by Kokopelli and Yahtzee, a young couple on the last leg of a flip-flop. They'd started northbound in February, so they'd hiked through a few weeks of winter in the south.

  "It wasn't had at all," Yahtzee reassured me. "Everyone told us February was the worst month, colder than December and icier than January. We only had one snowstorm, though, up in the Smokies."

  "Actually, that was my favorite day on the Trail," Kokopelli chimed in. "We woke up to four inches on the ground, like a layer of powdered sugar. Everything glittered. By noon it had melted, and the mountains were steaming with blue mist, just like their name"

  In spite of this encouraging news, I had a hard time tearing myself away from the cabin. I made pancakes and dawdled in the living room, reading a magazine. It wasn't just the dark clouds gathering over the pond or the more distant threat of winter. When I left, I knew I would be walking toward the end of my solo hike, the end of my nine-mile days with plenty of time to read registers, pick berries, and swim. The rest of our journey would be a series of compromises, choices that neither jackrabbit nor I might have made alone. That's lum, it was fir the first few months, I reminded myself. And it wasn't so bad. Was it? The answers swarmed unbidden through my mind. No, it wasn't bad. But then, I didn't know the difference. I didn't even realise I was capable of Irikint' alone. I'm stroiiP,r, nou-stronger than I ever thou
  jackrabbit

  hanks so much, Sarah," Isis said, as we pulled into the trailhead parking lot on U.S. 7, a small country road between fields. We had met up the day before in a coffee shop in Great Barrington, and Sarah, the caretaker from Upper Goose Pond, had taken us home for the night.

  "You're welcome," Sarah answered. "It was good to meet you "

  "If you ever need a place to stay in Maine, give us a call."

  Isis reached into the back of Sarah's car and drew out a bundle of long sticks. She handed me two stout poles made of maple. "These are for you. Hiking sticks. I picked mine tip in Vermont, and they really do help."

  We waved to Sarah and headed out across the fields. My feet were still tender; I could feel each separate stalk of grass under my soles. At first, the hiking sticks felt clumsy in my hands. I didn't know quite where to plant them, or how much weight I could lean on theme. Soon I settled into the rhythm of walking, swinging the sticks in time to my stride, and they did seem to help take the pressure off my knees. It was hard to keep tip with my sister, though. On patches of gravel, may progress was slow and painstaking. I tried to have patience with myself.

  My first night back on the Trail, we stayed at Hemlock Lean-to. I lay awake for a long time, listening to the night noises. A light wind smelling of pine and leaf mold sighed in the trees around the shelter, and water murmured far away. .-lm I ready for this? I wondered. Can ii'c do it alone, just the two of us, n'ithout the./riends who are months ahead now? And the largest question, the one I had been avoiding for the whole trip back to the Trail: Why an: I hack here at all? I t'hat's the point, il not to do a thrn-hike?

  In the morning we ate a quick breakfast of granola and hit the trail early. We had gone less than a quarter mile when we heard voices behind us. Turning to look back, we saw two men with packs coming up the trail with the easy grace of thru-hikers. As they came closer, we recognized them both.

  "Highlander! Companero!"

  "The Barefoot Sisters!"

  We laid our hiking poles aside and hugged our friends. I was overjoyed to see familiar faces, just when I had reconciled myself to a lonely hike. And it was especially great to see these two again. I remembered Highlander's songs and poems in Maine and Companero's quiet, steady companionship in the Whites. Compaiiero looked just as I remembered, all lean muscle and sinew, with a kind, clean-shaven face. Highlander had changed, though; his formerly skinny frame had filled out with muscle, his hair had grown longer, and he sported a shaggy beard.

  I blurted out the first thing that came to mind. "Look at you! You look like a real hiker!" A moment after the words left my lips, I realized how offensive they might sound. Anyone who had made it this far was a real hiker, no matter how lie looked. And I, having skipped two hundred miles, hardly qualified as one to pass judgment. But one look at Highlander showed that he was amused and not offended. His brown eyes glinted with a well-remembered spark of laughter.

  "It took a while, but yes, I would say I qualify now." The note of quiet confidence in his voice was even more telling than the physical changes.

  "And you! I thought you'd be in Pennsylvania by now," Isis told Companero.

  "I hiked the Long Trail." He smiled. "It sure is good to see you two again. I thought everybody would be far ahead by now."

  "What are your plans for the next few days?" Isis asked.

  Companero took his Data Book out from the side pouch of his pack. "I thought we'd get over into Connecticut tonight. There's a campsite about fourteen from here, and then I'm meeting some relatives in Salisbury tomorrow."

  Isis unfolded the map and we looked at the profile. The trail would take us over several peaks in Massachusetts, including one by the name of Mount Everett, and down into the steep-sided Sage's Ravine at the state border. On the Connecticut side, we would climb up into another series of peaks. It looked like a long day. Isis glanced at me, uncertainty showing in her eyes: would I be ready for this on my second day out? I shot hack a confident grin.

  "Excellent."

  "Very well," Highlander said, in a tone of high formality. "We shall be the 2()()() Mount Everett Expedition."

  I got in on the fill. "Fourteen grueling miles over perilous terrain, including the very summit of the lofty Mount Everett!"

  "Many have perished in the attempt," Highlander added. "But to those who return victorious, belongs the glory of the ages!"

  Companero raised one of his gnarled wooden hiking sticks like the honor marshal of a parade. "Onward!"

  We did hike the lofty Mount Everett, and others besides: Race Mountain, hear Mountain, a row of barebacked granite mountains that reminded nee uncannily of the granite summits we had crossed in Maine. We ate the last of the blueberries, sun-dried and intensely sweet, that grew on red-leaved bushes beside the trail. It was a splen
did September day, with an utterly blue sky and a crisp feeling in the air, and a light wind. Toward evening, the shadows lengthened in the lowlands and horizontal orange light gilded the granite as we hiked over Lion's Head and began the descent into the valley.

  My feet were beginning to feel the constant impact on the gravelly trail. My soles felt warm and achy, and sharp little pebbles sent jolts of pain up lily legs when I was too tired to shift nay weight fast enough. I was glad to see the sign at last: Plateau Campsite, 0. 1.

  I was less glad when I saw, almost simultaneously, the privy and the water source. The latter was a fetid pool about three feet downhill from the former. Isis and I cast each other a glance of disgust.

  "I think we have enough water still in our bottles to cook tonight. We can stop at a spring in the morning; there's one about a mile beyond the road, I think"

  "Sounds like a plan."

  Highlander and Companero were low on water, so we shared out our remaining supply. The Liptons would be on the dry side tonight, but no one would have to drink privy water.

  We set up our tents on the flattest place we could find-the whole tent site seemed to have a ten-degree tilt-and drove our stakes into the gravel. As evening tell, the air filled with the harsh sound of stridulating insects: nch-neh- nch ... nrh neh filch. 'hhey seemed to be everywhere; the sound was dense and almost overpowering.

  "What are those things?" I asked Compaiiero.

  "I think they're katydids."

  "Wow. I somehow thought katydids had a pleasant, soothing kind of sound. These are almost sinister."

  "It sounds like they're saying something .. " Isis cocked her head to listen. "Yes, I can make it out ..." she imitated their raspy tone: "dig-a-hole .. . dump-your-load .. "When we stopped laughing, we sang the song for Highlander and Companero.

  "Very nice." Companero gave a broad smile and shook his head. "You guys are something else. Have you heard about the talent show at Trail Days?"

  I slept well that night-nothing, not even the dig-a-hole bugs, could overcome the fatigue I felt after fourteen miles. As I was drifting off, I heard Isis shriek: "Nightcrawlers! Everywhere!" I wasn't sure if I had dreamed it. In the morning, she told nie why she had screamed.

  "I went to pick up my food bag, and there were four or five huge earthworms under it. Like, eight inches long." She held up her hands with an expression of disgust and horror. "They didn't wiggle around like normal ones, either. They thrashed. By headlamp light, they looked dark and slimy, like ... like ... leeches." She shuddered. "I hate leeches. There were nightcrawlers under every single piece of gear I picked up, and then I turned my headlamp on the forest floor, and there were thousands of them. I was so freaked out that I couldn't sleep. I kept hearing acorns fall, all night. I thought it was animals going after our food bags. I wanted to go check, but then I thought of all those nightcrawlers ... Ick."

  We packed up quickly and hit the trail before the sun had burned off the early morning mist, glad to be leaving Plateau Campsite.

  Isis

  ompanero left the Trail for a few days to visit his relatives near Salisbury, and jackrabbit and I hiked on with Highlander. I could tell that we were hiking shorter days than he wanted to, as jackrabbit readjusted to the Trail, but he stayed with us and lent his formidable wit to the task of easing jackrabbit's transition. He joked about the slow, muddy river that the Trail crosses four or five times as it winds through Connecticut, and which we crossed even more often, taking short road walks to convenience stores to buy ourselves fruit or ice cream. Each time we reached a bridge, he'd strike a mock-heroic pose, shading his eyes with one hand and gesturing with the other, and intone, "The Mighty Housatonic!"

  One night, we set up camp at a place called Belter's Bump, a small patch of pine woods in the middle of a poison ivy swamp. Highlander had already gotten into his tent, and jackrabbit and I were hurrying to get our food bags hung before the impending thunderstorm struck. As I rushed past Highlander's tent, my candle lantern held aloft, I heard him call out in alarm.

  "1)id you see that-headlights! A car just drove past my tent!"

  "Don't worry," I called back over the growl of thunder. "That was just my candle lantern."

  "You can't fool me," he answered. "That was way too bright and steady for a candle's dame. What I just saw was the Phantom Car of Belter's Bump!"

  The next morning, jackrabbit found the rusted-out skeleton of an ancient station wagon half hidden in a tangle of poison ivy behind the privy.

  "What did I tell you?" laughed Highlander. For the rest of the morning, we took turns coming up with verses about the fate of a hapless city couple, out on a weekend hike, who made the mistake of camping at Belter's Bump.

  They did not know the etiquette for camping in Connecticut, And so they were completely unprepared To face the Phantom Car that lurked within the forest's gloom and murk With doors agape and hubcap talons bared ...

  Even on days when he was miles ahead of us, Highlander found ways to lift our spirits. One damp, gray afternoon, jackrabbit and I came across an old spruce tree with lollipops hung like Christmas lights from its lower branches. Beneath the tree, twigs laid end-to-end spelled out the words, "A.T. candy tree"

  In our turn, we revived some of the jokes that had entertained jackrabbit and Waterfall and me through the Whites. When we found a soggy newspaper, an old sock, and a few beer cans in the firepit of a shelter, we told Highlander about the game in which pieces of garbage we had to pack out became clues to a mystery.

  "Let's see," I said, stuffing the newspaper into a plastic bag. "This was open to the business section. Clearly, the culprit is a drunk stockbroker wearing only one sock "

  The next day, when jackrabbit and I caught up with Highlander at the shelter where we planned to eat lunch, he showed us the culprit's latest leaving; it appeared to be the torn-off corner of a garbage bag with a scrap of duct tape clinging to it.

  "I found some more culpritude;" he announced proudly. "Our suspect appears to be carrying a black plastic bag and some duct tape. This Should make him really easy to identify!" We both doubled over laughing. Most longdistance hikers we'd met lined their packs with garbage bags, and many used them as pack covers also. As for duct tape, everyone carried some, wrapped around water bottles or hiking poles. I'd seen it used for everything from boot repair to bandages.

  Highlander finished lunch before we did, and he set out to hike the six or seven miles to the campsite where we planned to spend the night. Twenty minutes later, when we picked up our packs to hike out, jackrabbit discovered that she was too weak and exhausted to go on. I left my pack at the shelter and ran down the trail, hoping to catch Highlander and tell him what had happened, so he wouldn't worry about us that night. When I finally caught up with him, after two miles and a steep thousand-foot drop in elevation, he insisted on turning around and walking back to the shelter with me.

  "Oh, Highlander, you shouldn't have," jackrabbit exclaimed when she saw him. Tears welled up in her eyes. "I'm really glad to see you, but ... you know that expression the nobos use, `Hike your own hike?' Don't let me hold you back."

  "This is my own hike," Highlander replied, giving her a quick hug. "What does it matter which direction I go in? An afternoon of walking through the forest and an evening in good company. This is exactly what I came to the Trail for."

  A few evenings later, we celebrated the autumnal equinox together in a dingy, brown-painted shelter on the banks of the Mighty Housatonic. I brought out some packages of instant hot cider I'd been saving for the occasion. The three of us took turns reciting poetry by the light of my candle lantern, and jackrabbit read aloud highlights from the register. One northbounder wrote that there was a wonderful restaurant in Kent, a little beyond your average hiker's budget, but well worth the price. He proceeded to describe in excruciating detail the warm pear and stilton salad, trout amandine, and pineapple tart he'd eaten there.

  "There should be a law against writing stuff like this in a register,"
jackrabbit groaned. "We just ate the best meal we were carrying, and now I'm hungry all over again."

  Highlander sighed. "I used to work as a chef. I hadn't realized how much I miss good food."

  I did a quick calculation. Working for two years after college, I'd managed to save more money than I needed for the Trail. "Guys," I said, "we're going to that restaurant. My treat" Highlander started to protest, but I continued. "It's almost my birthday. This is how I want to celebrate it-an evening of good food and good company-''

  The Connecticut A.T. traverses one of the wealthiest regions in the state, and Kent typified the quaint clapboard villages we'd hiked past, full of upscale boutiques and coffee shops. I wasn't sure we'd be welcome there, with our smelly packs and ragged clothing. As we strode up the main street, a slender blond woman stepped out of a shop door in front of me and walked toward us. Not a strand of her pale hair was out of place; her gray silk suit gleamed with the subtle luster of haute couture. She moved with a grace and dignity that would have made her look regal even if she'd been wearing rags. I stepped aside to let her pass, mentally preparing myself for the disgust I expected her to evince as soon as she got within smelling distance of us. Instead, she met my eye, smiled, and asked, "Are you hiking the Trail?"

  I told her we were.

  "Welcome to Kent," she said, still smiling.

  The memory of this encounter gave me courage when we arrived at the restaurant that evening, to find a notice on the door that said, "Formal attire requested." .Jackrabbit and I had had time to shower and change, but Highlander, who'd been busy dealing with gear problems at the outfitter's store, was still dressed in the same clothes he'd been hiking in. They had suffered quite a bit since the day we'd met hint in the Wilderness, when he'd looked too clean to be a hiker. He glanced nervously at the sign.