Day 5: 23 June, 12.8 miles today, 65.9 miles total, Taft Lodge, Mt. Mansfield State Forest
Days without rain: 1
The climb out of Bear Hollow was gentle and the walking was easy, but only long enough for me to get used to it. The last mile to the summit of Whiteface Mountain was the sort of gruesome ascent I’d come to expect from the Long Trail’s taller peaks—a series of problems that needed to be solved, one after the other. The descent down the mountain’s southern face was identical in almost every way, including the blowdowns I had to navigate in the middle of a slick, complex boulder scramble on each side. I kept thinking to myself, this is like those things on that show American Ninja Whatever, where they have to complete a thing then move on to the next thing and complete that thing, and so on with all of the things. It didn’t occur to me until some time later that those things are called obstacles. I was thinking of an obstacle course.
Which is an apt way to describe the LT, and I think the NOBO I met at the shelter at the base of Whiteface’s descending obstacle course would have agreed. He received the news of what lay ahead for him—what I had just completed—with a look of grim determination. “Yeah, that’s what I had heard.” I asked him about the trail south to Mt. Mansfield, where I hoped to end the day. “It’s not terrible,” he said, considering, “but it’s still the Long Trail, so, like, still not easy.” He was sitting on the floor of the shelter, his knees wide and his baggy shorts flapping around his thighs as he bounced his feet. I noticed three bright red lines running up the inside of his left legs into his shorts. A nasty scratch, and fresh from the look it, most likely from climbing over a fallen tree and slipping partway across.
I met more NOBOs making their way up Whiteface than I had seen on the entire trail this far. Each one seemed thrilled to meet a SOBO, and everyone was friendly and chatty. It was still pretty rare that I would see anyone most days, but it was now starting to feel a bit like a community. I was far enough in to have something worthwhile to say, and happy to get whatever information I could about conditions ahead.
At midday I hit the climb to the summit of Madonna Peak, a ski slope with large grassy runs cut through the trees. It was the hottest day of the year so far, and the sun beat down on my head until it felt as if my blood were starting to boil. At the top, a small cabin for the ski patrol gave me some much needed shade as I unpacked the mushy and defeated block of sharp cheddar I had packed out the day before. You can comfortably carry sharp cheeses for up to a week unrefrigerated, but not in the armpit of summer—which it now clearly was, judging by the the soft, oily mess still in its unopened packaging. Cheese in that condition is still safe to eat; it just isn’t very palatable. But it was what I’d brought up to this burning place so it would have to do.
The rest of the day was a slog, a seemingly endless series of sawtooth ups and downs through close and narrow forest that left me worn down before even starting the last climb of the day: a 2,000’ climb over two miles. Such brutality in hiking is a blessed rarity, but I’d heard nothing but good things about the cabin 3/4 of the way up Mansfield—the highest peak in the entire state (and the high point of the Long Trail)—and I was determined to spend the night in its famed environs. But first I had get there, one overheated and wearied step at time, over and over, and over again.
Day 6: 24 June, 12.9 miles today, 78.8 miles total, Harrington’s View, Mt. Mansfield State Forest
Days without rain: 0
When I’d first walked into Taft Lodge, I was greeted by the summer caretaker, part of whose job was to tend to the outhouse, but otherwise seemed to be there just to hang out, read, and chat with hikers as they passed through. I was the first SOBO he’d seen for the season—possibly the first one actually on the trail. I’d never have assumed as much, but my shuttle driver from Burlington had said the same thing, and the only other person I’d seen hiking the same direction as me was a ghost wearing knee-high gaiters who had disappeared into the rain never to be seen again. Southbounders are a relative minority on any trail, and if I was well out ahead of the few who’d come later in the summer, it only meant that while I might camp a single night with a few NOBOs, I’d be doing the whole trail by myself.
The caretaker had mentioned something about how I would be doing some climbing in the morning, and I just nodded and said, “yeah, I did some of that this morning, too,” while he gave me a sidelong look. It wasn’t until after he’d gone to bed and I started looking over what the guide had to say about the route over Mt. Mansfield that I understood what he’d meant. Every day on the Long Trail includes some complicated trickery to get up (or down) a boulder pile or a rock face, but this peak featured the only bit of technical climbing on the entire hike. The idea unnerved me, and I’d hoped to asked the caretaker about it in the morning, but when I was packed up he was still tucked into his sleeping bag. I’d spent most of the night tossing and turning, every rustle of my sleeping pad amplified across the shelter by the wooden platform I was on until it seemed deafening. I didn’t really want to wait around to pump somebody for information if I’d possibly kept him up half the night squirming loudly.
But at least I was potty trained. One hiker had come in after me—not a thru-hiker but an over-nighter, I assumed, based on the hard-cover book he pulled out of his pack to read while he ate tuna from a tin he’d opened with a full-sized can opener. I’d shrugged it off the night before—who was I to judge? But the judgements came quickly and fiercely when I visited the outhouse shortly after he’d left in the morning to find that he’d pissed all over the seat.
The facility was what is known as a composting privy, wherein waste is mixed with layers of mulch that are added to pile with each use. These systems need the right Ph and moisture levels to break everything down, which is why this particular outbuilding had no fewer than five separate notices telling visitors not to pee inside. Not only had this chucklehead broken this toilet’s most prominent and emphatic rule, but he’d left a fucking mess for me to clean up after he left.
Mt. Mansfield was everything I’d been promised, though smoke from wildfires somewhere in Canada made the view hazy. The climb up included a demanding scramble; the climb down the south slope did indeed require the sort of high-exposure shuffle that would make an acrophobe like me nauseated if they had the foolishness to stop and think about what they were doing. And in between were two miles of open alpine tundra, with sweeping views in every direction, vanishing slowly into the the haze. I even ran into my now-intimate friend, Seat Pisser, who was, in keeping with his standards of etiquette, blocking the entire trail while he and another pair of hikers snacked and chatted.
After the descent from the Mansfield peak, the day quickly settled into a muggy, grueling slog. Every inch of trail that didn’t run up (or down) a slick, moss-covered boulder was buried in an unknowable depth of mud. The air was heavy and thick, and though I kept forcing liters of filtered water into my body the only thing that ever came out was sweat. I was dehydrating, burning up even in the shade of the endless forest canopy, listening all the while to the strange combination of booms and blasts coming from the US Army base located somewhere nearby.
I’d become numb to the sound by the late afternoon, and it faded into then background until I no longer noticed it. It wasn’t until the light around me began to dim that I realized the quality of the sound had changed—no longer the dull percussive thud of heavy ordinance, but the long, rolling boom of approaching thunder. I had just crossed another peak—one whose name I’d honestly forgotten by the time I’d started down the far side—and now I hustled to get as far down the mountain as I could before the storm hit. When it came, I was low enough to be safe from lighting, though of course nothing could save me from the deluge that fell from the sky like some colossal wave crashing into the mountainside. I could barely see beneath the canopy and the dark clouds, and my feet were soaked through at once. The bandage on my still-fuckered toe came loose, and within a few minutes the wound started to howl, then scream. By the time the storm passed, and the light returned, I was soaked through and limping.
I thought about the NOBO couple I’d met at the shelter on the other side of the peak I’d just crossed, where we’d each come to filter water and take a quick snack break before finishing off the day. I thought about their air of permanent exhaustion, the fact that, though they were very friendly, they nonetheless seemed distracted by something just out of sight. I realized I’d seen that thousand-yard stare in the eyes of every NOBO I’d met—and that probably already I was giving the people I met a similar impression. Everyone comes to the Long Trail expecting a challenge, and it would seem everyone is even so surprised by the relentlessness of the challenge they face once they get there. This wasn’t just the country’s first thru-hike, this was a hiker meat-grinder, and every one of us was getting chewed up a little bit more with every step.
Day 7: 25 June, 7.3 miles today, 86.1 miles total, Waterbury, VT
Days without rain: 0
I awoke, once again, to an irregular plinking against my tent. And once again, I rolled over and went back to sleep instead of getting to up to make my way to town in the rain. Soon enough I would have to slide into my still-damp hiking clothes, currently piled in a rancid heap in the far corner of the tent, and ease my battered feet into one of the drier pair of hard-crusted socks, before lacing up my soggy shoes for the day. But that could wait until this latest sprinkle had passed. Through the thin dyneema fabric I could see that in the east the sun was already shining.
I was disgusting—a true monument to the depths to which a human body can sink in only a week. My feet, though I tried to keep them at least relatively clean, had nonetheless been left semi-permanently pale and slippery as a pair of dead fish, from being waterlogged the majority of almost every day. The suppurating wound on the ring toe of my left foot seemed as if it was finally healing, but the hyrdocell bandage I’d used to cover it somehow made it look more grotesque than it did when it was naked.
I hadn’t showered since leaving Burlington, though I did frequently soak my face and hair in cool, clean flowing water most any time I had the chance. My clothes never dried, though whether they were wet with sweat or rainwater I could never totally be sure. My sodden shorts clung to my legs, irritating the skin and causing it to break out into thick and vivid constellations of dark, pink pimples across my thighs. My shins, calves, and forearms were Jackson Pollocks of scratches, nicks, bites, rashes, and spattered mud. My nails were all lined with mud, and any time I ran my hands through my hair, small twigs, lichen, pine needles, and other debris fell out. Whenever I hiked, it seemed, I was enveloped by an endless succession of spider webs and silkworm strands, even as I was continuously swallowed by a cloud of insects: mosquitoes, black flies, deer flies, horse flies, biting midges, and some unholy, cursed species of gnat whose members were driven several times each day to commit a cruel and monstrous suicide by diving straight into one of my eyes, where their bodies were maddeningly difficult to remove.
I got up as soon as the rain cleared. Just a half day’s hiking and I would arrive at the road that would lead me to Waterbury—once some bored and thoughtful soul had taken pity on the human-shaped wreck standing by Route 2 with its blackened thumb in the air. There would fresh, hot, delicious food in town, and frosty New England craft beer on tap. But more importantly there would be laundry, the chance to clean and air out all my gear, and a long, long, long, long steaming hot shower with all the soap I could lather. It didn’t take me long to pack up, but I had one more thing to do before I could make my way into the paradise at the base of the mountain. I was struck then by the pristine beauty of the woods where I had made my hasty camp the night before, the intricately gnarled pines, their trucks a rich, dark brown, and the lofted beds of vibrantly green moss, almost shining in the dappled sunlight as it carpeted rocks and logs and much of the forest floor. It was a kind of Eden, a jewel of the great green earth so few of humankind has ever gotten to witness firsthand, a true work of art, breathtaking in its complexity and design. I stood for a moment to take it all in, then headed into the scenery, trowel in hand, to poop in it.
