Trail & Mail Update #2

Miles Hiked: I don't have the guide on me... somewhere over 200
Miles Ahead: We're under 2,000! Woo!
Mail Drops: To send us something, it has to come USPS (the post office won't hold anything from FedEx, UPS, etc). Address it like this:

Andy Jensen/Jess Quig

C/O General Delivery

[Town, State   Zip]

Please hold for AT hiker

ETA [Date]

Next up:

• Gorham, NH 03581 (ETA 7/31)
•  Hanover, NH 03755 (ETA 8/10)

We're coming up on some of the most notoriously difficult parts of the AT--Mahoosuc Notch and the Whites of New Hampshire. Hopefully we'll pick up pace after those!

From Stratton to Rangeley

We left Stratton after our 4th zero day. When we arrived in Stratton Jess was having some knee issues (more muscle related than anything) and we decided to take another day off to allow her knee to heal up. Our spirits were high as Sue dropped us off at the trailhead and we prepared for the five mile climb to the top of Crocker Mountain.

Remember that shirt I was super stoked on? The one I thought would be a lot tougher and last a lot longer? Yeah, big holes. Didn't make it 5 miles.

The top of Crocker Mountain was unfortunately just as dissappointing. It was the first mountain we had climbed with an altitude over 4000 feet that didn't have a view. Wasn't above treeline. We decided to push down to our next stream fording and camp by the bank. It started to rain that day. We climbed up and down super slippery rocks and slogged through some more mud. Kind of a bummer.

That next day we climbed again in the wet and the cold, trying to get past that next lean-to. The hiking that morning was pretty incredible though, it wasn't raining and we were dipping in and out of the clouds along a ridge, so most of the walk was through the misty forest. Definitely a neat experience.

Along the trail, we then ran into a mouse! Poor little guy was curled up into a ball sitting on a rock on the trail shivering. He was so helpless, doing anything he could do get some sunshine or warmth, he didn't even move when we walked up to him. As he was sitting there I realized I was confroted by my first hiker philosophy/karma crossroads. Should I just leave the little guy to fend for himself and live by the hiker code of 'don't feed the animals'? Or should I give him what help I can and take this as an opportunity to earn some good mouse-karma? I chose the latter and gave him two pieces of dehydrated strawberry and a few almonds, hoping that the sugars in the strawberry would help to warm him and the almonds would keep him going until he could get more food. I sure hope he's alright.



 Shortly after leaving Biscuit (we named the little fella), we hit our 200 mile mark at the plaque that commemorated the completion of the last section of the Appalachian Trail!

 

2,054 miles long!? That would've been nice. It's 2,186 now!

Things really started to pick up then, as we arrived at the next lean-to we completed a quest that we were set upon many miles ago: The Quest To Find Rayo! This particular lean-to (wish I could remember the name) was off the trail on a blue blazed route. We got there and met two French-Canadian section hikers and two other SoBo's called Poncho and Pepper. It's always nice on the trail to have a) company and b) a roof over your head in the rain, so we decided to stop short and stay there, rather than press on a have to set up our tent in the wetness. It turned out to be perfect, because in comes a northbounder stopping for lunch.

Here's the backstory. Miles ago we got an email from Patti, asking us to tell her son Rayo that she says hi when we pass him. Naturally we thought this was awesome, and I'll be darned if I didn't ask more than a few NoBo's we crossed paths with if they were Rayo. But when we started talking to this particular NoBo in the hut, I chose just to ask him his name. When he told us it was Rayo, we both just stared at him with our mouths open before telling him that we'd been looking for him and his mom says to say hi! To this he replied, "Who are you guys?!" It was all very funny.

From Left: Left Hand, Rayo, and Aves ;)

So, with our spirits back up (one of the French-Canadians had green thread and allowed me to repair my shirt) and the sun out once again we strolled on. We put in a good day complete with a stream crossing and over Jr. Saddleback Mountain, and stopped at a new campsite at the base of our next summit. Poncho and Pepper had planned on stopping there too, and we found them on one of two decks built for tents. Quite the luxury item!

The next day we only planned to hike seven miles, so we spent the morning in our tent relaxing and watching tv shows on our iPods. It was a good little break but it sure did make it that much harder to get going. Especially since this was about the time that Jess developed a swollen bump underneath the skin on her right shoulder that was making it difficult to carry her pack (more about this in a little bit). We made it though, up and over two more peaks with incredible views and down the other side to Piazza Rock Lean-to. The wind had kicked up at the tops of the mountians, so we didn't get to spend as much time as we would have liked up there, but the hike was really great.

Jess descending Saddleback Mountain

Our plan was originally to try and get through Rangeley without paying for a night. It's more of a resort town so the hotel rooms are pretty expensive. From our campsite at Piazza Rock Lean-to to the road was under two miles, and we did that hike fast early in the morning. When we got to the road, Jess couldn't have any pressure on that swollen part of her shoulder, so I grabbed her pack as we headed toward Rangeley (9 miles away) trying to hitch a ride. Hitching didn't take long but we did have to walk past a couple long sections of road with guard rails so that somebody would have a spot to pull over. Joe, a local business owner scooped us up in his truck and drove us to the medical center.

We weren't there for long even though they didn't really know what was going on under Jess's skin. The guess is that it's an infected bug bite, so they put her on antibiotics and told her that she needs to make sure she doesn't start running a fever, which would be a sign that the meds aren't working and we need to get her back to the doctor. Since yesterday, so far so good.

Then, Rangeley turned magical. The company Outdoor Research is warranteeing our gaiters, my head net and my other shirt for us, all of which got holes or had broken buckles. The store where I bought my new shirt allowed me to exchange it for another of a different material. We had tons of awesome stuff waiting for us at the post-office (a massive thanks to both our Moms and to my Grandma for everything that's going to keep us going on the trail)! And in the hours that we were at the post office sorting through our stuff and trying to figure out our next move around Jess's shoulder we met our first trail angel! 

To be fair, we did send two of these boxes to ourselves from earlier on the trail. Still an impressive haul! OH and my newest shirt!

She and her parents took us in, allowed us to shower and do laundry and are keeping us today so we can zero while waiting for the antibiotics to kick in (and hopefully while the pain subsides). Not to mention that she is a retired nurse and has been helping Jess by putting on charcoal compresses to draw out any bacteria and administering hot and cold treatments for the swelling. We find ourselves truly blessed to meet such wonderful, caring, kindhearted people in our time of true need.  

We're both still doing great, but Jess is currently in a good bit of pain. I'm not sure what our pace will be like from here, but we have trailnames and 200 miles under our belts!



Trail Names

We have our trail names! Mine is Left Hand (after Longmont's Left Hand Brewery, and not to mention I'm left handed) and Jess's is Aves (pronounced Avies, after the biological classification of the bird family). Hers is also funny because her prescription sun glasses are aviators, which is the connection everyone makes upon hearing it for the first time.

We've made it to Rangeley, ME on schedule and hope to get to the library at some point today to put up a quality post.  Aaaand, the new Batman movie is out today so we're gonna try and squeeze that in too. Busy day!

Oh and another highlight-- We've also completed more than 200 miles of the trail! Hooray us!

Ponderings

Before leaving for the trail, I had a lot of conversations revolving around our hike-but the one that's lingered in my mind the most has, perhaps ironically, been about all the thinking time I'd have out here. What the heck would I think about? (I wondered with my coworker) So much of my world has revolved around teaching for the past few years. I worked intense out of school hours, all of my local friends worked in the district, and Andy spent half the day in the same building I did. So we talked about school a LOT and (inevitably... sadly) school would wind up I'm my dreams. If that's not bad enough, sometimes I even dreamed about being back as a high school student myself. Which leads me to the question I pondered with my coworker: What would I think about when the main objective of each day was just to hike? Well... it's kind of weird, to be honest. For the first week or so, my thoughts were kind of like radio stations. Sometimes I'd even get the kssshh noise as I switched from one thought wave to the next. The same Joshua Radin song played in my head for at least five or six days... only to reemerge again after a few days of peace (at which point I pulled out my iPod). I searched my memory for the most delicious flavor of ice cream I could fathom (Ben & Jerry's Cinnamon Bun: "Caramel Ice Cream with Cinnamon Bun Dough & a Cinnamon Streusel Swirl") and then fixated on it so intensely that I passed up ice cream altogether at the next town because they didn't have the right kind. Andy and I have pondered questions like 'why do beavers build dams?', 'what do mosquitoes eat when they're not eating us?', and 'what do frogs do in winter?' One evening we were still hiking when darkness was closing in and all of the AT's horror stories started sloshing around in my head, haunting the growing shadows. But there's also a pretty good bit of time when I'm really not thinking about much of anything but whether going to the right or left of a tree looks easier or if stepping on that rock or that root is less sketchy. But my favorite description of the funny tracks of hiker thoughts is here: http://appalachiantrail2010.blogspot.com/2010/09/water-spigot.html?m=0
And as a notable aside, I very nearly finished a half gallon of ice cream all by myself (cookie dough, I'm a bit sorry to say). Near the end I was just picking out the chunks of dough, but it shouldn't be too long before I can polish it all off! Yeahhh hiking metabolism! :)

No Laptop...But WiFi!

It seems we have begun to hit the crazy north-bounder rumors that included a loaner laptop at the Stratton Motel. Along with these false rumors we also heard that the 'Wolf Burger' at the Wolf Inn down the street came with an egg on it. That one wasn't so bad, the burger still had cheese, bacon, an entire sausage party (a burger first for me), lettuce, onion, mustard, mayo, and relish. All the calories a thru-hiker needs. But still, no lap top so we're going to have to try and find another way to get our pictures up here. Bummer, too, because we are building quite the collection.

Our last post came from the top of Avery Peak which was a monster climb. From there we headed down and up again to West Peak, about another 500 feet of elevation gain. West Peak was actually about 100 feet higher than Avery and the view opened up to a full 360 degrees. We get amazing views from the peaks in Colorado and the views from these peaks in Maine 10,000 feet lower are equally amazing. Even with the haze brought by the heat of the day our line of sight was still barely impaired. There was Canada to the north and west, we could see Sugarloaf mountain to the south and a whole lot more I can't even name.

Alas, what goes up must come down. We heard from an uber-hiker trail named Lake (he's done the PCT, CDT, an we met him on his third AT hike, only this time he's going from Key West, FL all the way to Newfoundland) that the AT is the hardest of the long trails for this reason: hikers go up one mountain, hit a few peaks along a ridge and then drop back to the bottom to hike a few miles before heading up the next. It kind of makes me feel like a bouncy ball.

Early on in our hike, more NoBos (just a wealth of wisdom) told us we'd come to love the ups more than the downs. I've figured out a few reasons why:
1) Up causes temporary muscle burn, down causes lasting joint pain.
2) Up generates a massive amount of endorphins, or a "runners high" resulting in smiles, laughter and a desire for more.
3) Up there's a breeze, a summit and views ahead, down there's humidity and bugs. Lots of bugs.
4) Down isn't really any faster when climbing down generally requires either butt sliding or chucking hiking poles downhill so that hands are free to grab onto tree trunks for better leverage.

Last night we made it to the Horns Pond Lean-tos which actually was an established campsite with a caretaker. We met some locals and a little girl gave us some delicious sugar-snap peas. Delicious. Fresh produce has become a delicacy I'm happy to say. There were two lean-tos that were clean and well kept, and the privy didn't even smell too bad. This morning we had to get into Stratton before the post office closed and we made the 6 mile gap in just over two and a half hours. For almost the whole hike I was forcing myself to breathe through my nose. It was a stretch of fresh, young pine forest. I couldn't get enough and the funny thing was it reminded me of the smell on the E.T. ride at Universal Studios in Orlando. Which is exactly what they were going for. I tip my hat.

Sue and her dog Knucklehead who thru hiked together in 2004 and own the motel picked us up at 10:55. The post office closed at 11:00, but we made it. Got into town, hit the grocers and the outfitter and saw our second bull moose eating in a stream next to the road! Thanks to Amy and Jess's grandparents for the package with the cookies! Right now they're actually hidden upstairs. Just too good to share at the moment.

For the moment we're dry, full and fully resupplied which is a great feeling. I also got another new shirt, this one is tougher and will hopefully last longer than the two weeks the last one made it. Seriously, I sneezed and that shirt got a hole in it. I am looking forward to showing off my new found spiffy-ness in the upcoming photos. But it's bedtime, more smiles and more miles on the 'morrow!