**NOTE**. I wrote this last weekend and forgot to post! This was from my two amazing nights out in southern Vermont with two amazing women.
I’m in a cramped tent using my jacket as a crappy pillow. I learned too late in the day that my camping pillows no longer retain air. I’m bound for a few tough nights ahead.
My pack is completely overloaded with snacks and cheese and possibly even a box of wine…and a bottle, too. Because, dude… it’s two nights.
The only thing that’s different this time, from one year ago when I was curled up on the floor of a LT shelter, is that one of my favorite girls is with me tonight curled up at my feet.
I’m out for two nights with my friend and her daughter. It’s her daughters first time out backpacking and I am so so lucky they asked me to join. We came down to one of my most memorable spots from last year… Stratton Pond.
Stratton Pond is the largest pond on the LT. And when traveling northbound, it’s, if I recall properly, the first shelter with a caretaker. This site was GORGEOUS. This was the place where a good-looking dad out with his college daughter and her friend, tried desperately to pick up Julia. He failed when he asked her if I was her daughter. Come on, man.
But there are so many things I’m reminded of being out here. Like the time I had some red wine and some white so I mixed it together to make a very terrible rose…it was backcountry rose and very very terrible.
When I think back now on last summer, I’m mostly horrified. I set my tent up a few times under huge widow-makers, and I didn’t even think about it. Every time I remember that now, I shudder.
And all the critters at night!!! The one good thing about having Dolly with me is that I feel slightly better about her scaring off any bears that might come sniffing around.
There was the time I closed my vestibule before bed, with my croc strategically placed inside…only to find the croc on the opposite side of my tent in the morning. I DO NOT want to know what came into my vestibule that night…that was very unnerving. And the bigger question is how did I actually sleep through that? I barely slept at all that night!
The LIGHTENING STORM. On THE RIDGE. That may have been one of the stupidest things I did that summer. That was truly awful. But I was so scared that I all I wanted was to be with someone, and this girl showed up so I just chased after her. But the whole time knowing that I should stop at the ski lift and at least wait out then lightening….ugh that was awful.
Let us not forget the BIG ANIMAL night and the fear that overtook me at 1:30 in the morning…so much so that I almost turned around and started hiking BACK the 3.5 miles we had already hiked during our redneck shot-gunning four-wheeler escape! I don’t know that I’ve ever been that scared in all my life. Until the lightening storm!
And how about waking up on the side of a cliff the next morning that we didn’t see at 2am when we finally made it to camp??? That would have been an unfortunate disaster.
There were those terrifying crevasse jumps on Mansfield and Camel’s, when I decided that I would not take another step forward and that I now lived at the crevasse.
In fact, I spent most of last summer terrified. Terrified, in pain, not sleeping, angry, and hungry. So whyyyyy do I miss those weeks on the trail SO MUCH???!!!
I have great memories of my brother, Scott, taking the Boy Scout troop TO SCHOOL on building a fire in the pouring rain while their leader told us how great he was at literally everything…except, apparently, building a fire in the rain. (Side note: please don’t use privy mulch to start fires. And please don’t let your GIANT GROUP take over the entire shelter!)
There was the LAUGHTER that persisted watching Scott become uber frustrated by the fact that he DID NOT LISTEN TO ME and packed WAY too much stuff. Three pairs of shoes??? Five pounds of trail mix??? The largest first aid kit that I’ve ever seen??? And that PONCHO!
There were all of my friends who came out to join me when I was at some of my lowest times to help keep me moving, and the hiking community at the Long Trail Inn, with the most expensive whiskey I’ll ever buy, that Tawny and I shared that night when I wanted to throw in the towel.
And there were the friends that I made along the way.
And then there was the feeling of finally making it to Canada, and seeing the border etched out of the trees as we looked south. That’s a moment I will never forget.
These days hiking feels different. I ended up with a bulging disc after my trip from carrying my pack and all the impact of the trail. My knees feel like they will forever shake and quiver on a descent. And basically any pack feels wildly heavy at this point!
But being out here these last few days, and out in the woods hiking and camping these last few weeks, reminds me of how much I crave this time and adventure. It feels like I’m never more at peace than I am when I’m camping and exploring in the woods. Everything floats off my shoulders (except my pack) and fades away. There’s a saying that seems to always be at the forefront of my thoughts: “Into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul.” I have never found anything to be truer.