Melissa and I both love the trail, and we did a lot of hiking together in the mountains of North Carolina. On most of our hikes, we spent hours talking about the wonders of nature. In the first few days of our record, she had hiked several miles with me each day. And during those stretches, it was great to hear her talk about how awesome it was to be in the woods, and how amazing the forests in Maine were, and how free she felt on the trail.
But tonight, Melissa hiked fifteen feet in front of me, rambling on about how perfect everything was. The only time she paused was when I stubbed my toe and yelled curse words to the sky. I think she was gushing positive comments and romantic rhetoric to try to motivate me and make me remember how much I loved hiking. But it didn’t work. So now, not only were my legs bothering me, but Melissa was, too.
I do love to hike. Melissa didn’t have to remind me of how I felt about the trail. That was understood. But what she didn’t understand was how much pain I was in. And when you are consumed with hurt, the last thing you want to hear is someone telling you how wonderful everything is.
I had warned Melissa when she volunteered to help that it wasn’t always going to be fun or easy. I also told her that there would be times on the trail when I would be highly unpleasant to be around, and I didn’t want her to come if she thought it would affect our friendship off the trail. She was not deterred. Before today, I had been nice. But now I was hurting too badly to be anything but honest.
“Do you hear those sounds? I love listening to the insects at night. And look, you can see the last tiny speck of the sun setting over the horizon. Isn’t it beautiful?”
“Melissa,” I said curtly, “it’s really hard for me to hear about how great everything is when I am in so much pain.”
There was a pause. I could tell she was not expecting criticism. And I didn’t want to give it, but I was suffering too much not to say something.
“Okay,” she said. Then she hiked a little farther in front of me.
I couldn’t tell whether or not I had hurt her feelings. But I also couldn’t spend any time thinking about it. The pain was too consuming.
After an hour of hiking with my headlamp, watching Melissa’s beam weave in and out of the trees farther up the trail, I heard male voices. It was Brew and Warren!
I was glad to be done for the day, and I was really glad to be with my husband. I crawled into the tent, forced down some dinner, then cuddled up next to him. He started to say our evening prayer, but I wasn’t paying attention. I was so tired. It was hard to focus, hard to move, and hard to keep my eyelids open. It even felt hard to breathe.
That night, I did something I have never done before. I snored. I must have snored loudly and for most of the night, because Melissa said she heard it from her tent thirty feet away. But Brew never woke me up, and he never complained. The next morning, he helped me get ready, then packed up all of our gear and hiked back to the nearest road, where he got in the car and drove around to meet me later that morning.
All day, I felt horrible. At my first road crossing, Warren was there to meet me. He had some duct tape in his car and I wrapped my shins with it to try and alleviate the pain, but it didn’t work.
At the next road crossing there was a river, and instead of taking a break near the car, I stopped at the water to submerge my red, swollen shins. Brew gave me medicine and athletic tape to rewrap my legs.
Melissa hiked with me on the next stretch, which was a huge help. She was relatively quiet. I assumed she didn’t know what to say to make it better. But her presence and staring down at the back of her shoes helped take my mind off the discomfort.
Melissa continued with me to the base of Baldpate Mountain, where I once again set out on my own. Swollen flesh sat on top of the white athletic tape that surrounded my shins. I had dealt with the shin splints long enough at this point to realize that they were painful going uphill, more painful on level ground, and most painful going down. Above all, catching my toe on a root or rock was unbearable.
After concentrating on every step and trying with all my might not to graze the obstacles strewn along the footpath, I reached the exposed apex of Baldpate Mountain. Once there, I turned my body and walked backward down the steep slope since hiking backward didn’t hurt quite as much as hiking forward.
Once I made it past the sheerest section on the descent, I noticed Warren hiking in front of me. So far, the only portion of the trail we had traveled together was the Kennebec River. However, he had wanted to hike this segment to work on his current section hike that, when complete, would mark his seventeenth completion of the trail.
“How far do we have to go?” I called out.
“It’s two more miles until we reach the road.”
That was all we said. I was in too much pain to have a conversation. I walked in front of Warren and within minutes, the sun set and we pulled out our headlamps. Something felt symbolic about the encroaching darkness. I felt like I had lost hope, and everything started to feel worse. I began to cry. Warren still didn’t say anything.
I screamed every time my legs were jolted by the unexpected impact of a fallen branch or stone littering the trail. Usually, when I cried on the trail, it had at least a little to do with fatigue or hunger. But even though I was at the end of a long day, that night my tears were entirely caused by pain. In twenty-eight years, I had experienced many illnesses, injuries, and a broken bone, but I had never hurt this badly.
Roads can be deceptive. I heard the road at Grafton Notch about a mile before the trail crossed the highway. And because I could hear the constant purr of passenger vehicles and the loud roar of semi-trucks, I thought my agony was almost over. But it wasn’t. I kept stumbling along, shrieking and crying, with no end in sight. I felt like the mythical Greek figure Tantalus, faced with the eternal punishment of being almost within reach of his heart’s desire yet not being able to obtain it.
Finally, I saw a light through the trees. It was Brew standing at the trailhead with a headlamp. My crying turned to sobs as I fell into his arms. He held me for several minutes without saying anything.
Finally, when my gasping breaths relaxed a bit, he took my hand and started to lead me across the road. As soon as my feet hit the pavement, I began to sob again. The pain was consuming. I reached the other side and fell to my knees. Then I crawled the next thirty feet to reach our tent in the forest. I had said that I would not quit this hike, that I would hike until I had to crawl. But there I was, on day six, already crawling.
That night in our tent, I continued to sniffle and cry while trying to choke down a freeze-dried mac and cheese dinner. I had my legs propped up with ice on my shins. The slightest movement hurt. The worst pain was in my legs, but the sensation was so overwhelming that it pulsated throughout my entire body. I couldn’t even bring my fork to my mouth without cringing. Brew lay beside me and pulled the wet wipes out of his pack. He took out one damp cloth at a time and began gently wiping the dirt off my legs. I had several scrapes, which he carefully blotted, trying hard not to cause any further irritation.
He softly tried to soothe me. “It’s okay, honey. It’ll be alright.”
“No it won’t,” I sulked. “Maine is eating me.”
That was the truth. Maine was chewing me up and spitting me out.
Brew started to chuckle. “Maine’s not eating you.”
More tears started to flood from my eyes. “It is, too!” I yelped. I didn’t know how else to describe it. Maine had swallowed me whole and sucked the life out of my body.
After Brew wiped down my limbs, he handed me some ibu-proffen and Gatorade. I shook my head at the sight of Gatorade. I had drunk so much of it over the past few days that it had caused blisters on my tongue. Brew understood what I was saying. With a simple nod, he left the tent and went into the land of the black flies to retrieve some water from the car.
But when he came back, I was already asleep.
The next morning, my alarm went off at 4:45 a.m. I didn’t sit up or
try to get out of my sleeping bag. Instead, I simply flexed my toes.
“Ahhh!” I cried out.
Brew turned over to look at me.
“It hurts too badly,” I said. “I don’t think I can hike.”
Brew looked concerned. “Why don’t you try to sleep some more?” he said.
I reset my alarm and woke up an hour later. Once again I tried to point my toes. But the results were the same.
I gasped in pain and quickly drew my knees up toward my chest. Then I looked at Brew and grimaced. “I can’t do it.”
“What do you want to do?” he asked as he reached out to rub my shoulder.
“I think we need to go to the Cabin.”
The Cabin was a hiker hostel in Andover, Maine. I had stayed there on my first thru-hike, and I knew the owners, Bear and Honey. I was sure they would try to help us and let us stay there if we needed to. I never said the word “quit,” but the game plan implied that it was a strong possibility.
Brew drew back his hand into his sleeping bag, his eyes barely open. “Well, let’s get a little more sleep first,” he suggested.
I fell back to sleep for about thirty minutes and then woke up again. Out of curiosity, I tried to flex my toes. I pointed them toward the tent wall and held them in that position. It hurt and caused my teeth to clench, but it didn’t make me scream.
I unzipped the tent and crawled outside and then I slowly tried to stand. Pain was present in my shins, but I could support my weight. Gingerly, one step at a time, I began moving around. My motions were so uncertain that I looked like a toddler learning how to walk. It didn’t feel good, and I doubted that I could make it through another long day of hiking, but I wasn’t ready for my dream to end.
“I need to try and hike,” I called to Brew. “I want to keep going.”
The hardest stretch of the entire trail is Mahoosuc Notch. It is not a place where you hike with your feet; it is a boulder field stuck in a narrow canyon, and it requires climbing, crawling, and scrambling. I had to get through the hardest stretch of trail when I was in the worst pain. However, because I was forced to use my hands, core, and butt to pull my body weight over the boulders, I didn’t have to put quite as much stress on my legs. And I didn’t have to hike as many miles, either. Even before contracting shin splints, I knew that the thirty-mile stretch through the Mahoosuc Range would be my lowest mileage day of the entire trip.
Warren hiked in twice that day to meet me and bring supplies. At the second stop, I was worried that I was doing irreparable damage to my body, and I was still uncertain about whether the pain in my legs was caused by shin splints or stress fractures. Based on calls that Brew made to my two college roommates, a nurse practitioner and a physical therapist, I knew that shin splints were caused by muscle tearing away from the bone, whereas a stress fracture would mean there was a literal crack in my tibia or fibula. I was convinced that I was suffering from whichever one hurt the most.
“Warren, how do you know when to stop?” I asked.
I wanted a straightforward answer, but he responded in his typical cryptic manner. “There is a difference between stopping and quitting,” he said.
I felt like I was close to both. Mentally and physically, I was worn down.
A few miles past my second meeting with Warren, I heard a distressed squeaking noise near my feet. I quickly located the source. It was a frog caught in the jaws of a garter snake. I watched the snake unhinge his jaw to devour his meal, while the frog struggled to get free.
I was mesmerized by the spectacle. I had never seen a snake eating its prey in the wild. The fact that this omen would appear on the trail during my darkest hour was not lost on me. I’d told Brew that Maine was trying to eat me!
However, even with my fate forecasted there in front of me, I resolved to be like the frog. My journey might end, but it would not be a decision I made—it would only be because I literally could not go any farther. I would not quit. I would fight until I was fully devoured.
That night, at 8:30, I arrived in New Hampshire. Maine had finally unclenched its jaws.
• 7 •
EXPOSED
JUNE 21, 2011—JUNE 24, 2011
Making it into New Hampshire gave me hope that I could survive my shin splints and continue my pursuit of the record. I had made it out of the remote forests and unforgiving terrain in Maine, and the following state, Vermont, would be much kinder—the path much softer—than anything I had experienced so far on this hike.
I was convinced that my shin splints were caused by repeated high mileage days on rocky terrain. I had trained by stringing together thirty-, forty-, and fifty-mile days this spring, but my practice hikes had all taken place in the southeast, where the trail is composed mostly of dirt. And in Maine and New Hampshire, the trail comprises granite slabs and rock steps where the tread doesn’t offer any cushion or comfort. So far, each foot strike was like being hit in the legs with a wrecking ball. But if I could just make it through New Hampshire, I knew the trail would be more forgiving.
I had to make it to Vermont. If I could do that, then my legs would begin to heal and I would feel better.
The key to getting to Vermont was good weather. I needed three days without lightning and thunderstorms to make it over these mountains. The exposed ridgelines in New Hampshire were deadly in an electrical storm, so if a front settled in, then I would not be able to continue until it lifted. The memorial crosses in the exposed alpine tundra were constant reminders that no matter how badly I wanted the record, it was not worth risking my life.
I tried to make it as far as I could on my first day in New Hampshire. The fronts of my shins were on fire during the descent into Pinkham Notch, and I traveled with my hands on the rocks, bear-crawling backward down the steep slope to ease the pain.
When I got to the Pinkham Notch Visitor Center, I knew that I needed to keep going, but the question was how far.
“You need to make it to the top of Mount Washington,” said Warren.
But it was another fourteen very difficult miles to the top of Mount Washington.
“Should I take my pack with a tent and sleeping bag in case the weather turns and I can’t make it?”
“It’s not worth the weight,” Warren said. “If the weather turns, you can stop at the Madison Springs Hut after eight miles. Otherwise, you need to make it to the top of the mountain, and you won’t be able to do that with a full pack.”
My stomach churned, partly due to the 1,000-calorie McDonald’s Value Meal I had just ingested in ten minutes’ time, but mainly because I did not have a good feeling about this. Mount Washington was notorious for bad weather. At one time, it had the fastest recorded wind speed in the world. There was the potential for a snow or ice storm during any month of the year, and there was no protection leading to the summit.
“I’m nervous about night hiking alone on Mount Washington,” I protested. “And even if I do make it to the top, there is no place to camp up there!”
I was running into logistical problems because I had fallen off Warren’s schedule. Not only could I not make it to a road, but there was no camping allowed around the buildings on Mount Washington, and there wasn’t any camping allowed alongside the trail, either. Even if camping had been allowed, the only place to set up a tent would have been on sharp, jagged rocks. Still, an uncomfortable, illegal, half-pitched shelter still seemed better than risking my life in a storm.
“I will hike out to you,” said Warren. “Brew can drive me to the summit, but he will have to leave when the building at the top closes. They don’t let any cars stay in the parking lot. I will pack your food and sleeping bag and come and find you. Then after you reach the summit, we can hike down to Lake of the Clouds Hut together and sleep indoors.”
Planning to stay at Lake of the Clouds was a gamble. Not only was it farther down the trail than the Mt. Washington Observatory, but there was also the chance that there might not be room for us there.
The huts in the Whit
e Mountains are very different from the wooden shelters that are located every seven or eight miles along most the Appalachian Trail. In the Whites, the accommodations are designated for paying customers, and reservations for Lake of the Clouds Hut were made months in advance. I knew there wouldn’t be any spots for the two of us in a bunkroom. But hopefully we could stay in the basement that is sometimes available to thru-hikers. Usually thru-hikers will “pay” for their lodging in the aptly named “Dungeon” by providing manual labor in return for their stay. Obviously, I didn’t have four hours to spare washing dishes, but I knew Warren would do my chores if he needed to.
I silently nodded at Warren. We had a plan. I still didn’t feel good about it, but I couldn’t spend any more time thinking it through. I had to keep hiking.
Three hours later, after eight miles of climbing, I hiked past Madison Hut. I walked quickly and quietly, hoping not to draw any attention to myself. I was afraid that some of the staff members would come out and stop me if they saw what looked like a “day hiker” heading toward the summit so late in the day. Thankfully, no adults left the building, but two young children ran around the dirt courtyard, playing games outside before the sun went down.
One of the children stopped when she saw me walking nearby and looked at me curiously. She knew that all the other grownups were sitting inside the hut, enjoying their evening coffee and tea. The sun was going down and I was going away from the safe haven. I hiked higher and farther away from the hut, and every time I looked back, I could still see the young girl watching me.
When I could no longer see the girl or the hut, the wind on top of the mountain began to grow stronger. I continued hiking, tilting my head to shield my face from the strong, cold currents that ripped over the mountain.
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