Marigolds and Mushrooms – Day Eleven Long Trail

Day eleven, Tuesday, August 26

Brandon Gap (Route 73) to Sucker Brook Shelter.

Distance: 5.4 miles (133.1 miles total).

Sleep with bad news, wake up with bad news

When I woke up, the first thing I thought about was my son’s cancer. However, it is interesting how the daily events of our lives capture us and take over us. Soon I was washing, packing and getting ready to leave. I wasn’t thinking about the cancer at all, although the memory came up intermittently.

My friends Larry and Julee were driving some distance from New Hampshire to meet me that morning. In our childhood, Larry and I met at the Edron Academy in Mexico. We were about 12 when he played Sir Andrew Aguecheek and I played Feste in a production of Shakespeare’s play. twelfth night. Later, when he married Julee, she was warmly welcomed into our circle of friends.

A visit with friends

When they arrived, we walked a few doors to Mae’s Place for a hearty breakfast and a chance to catch up. We then walked to the Hannaford supermarket to pick up some snacks that I was still missing. As I walked back, I remembered one more item I wanted. My headlamp worked fine, but I wasn’t sure how long the batteries had been inside. So we detoured to Walgreen’s and bought AAA batteries. I put in the new ones and gave them the old or not so old ones.

Walking now to the car, we stopped at small Brandon Central Park. The attraction there was the plantation full of marigolds! We filled our cameras with bright, cheerful colors before my friends very kindly drove me to the trailhead.

When they dropped me off it was almost noon. This wasn’t a problem as I was deliberately taking a short, easy day. I waved goodbye as I crossed the grassy field filled with wildflowers and entered the tree canopy.

Mount Horrible and Great Cliffs: Names from a Tolkein fantasy?

The first climb from the road ascended Mount Horrid. Who comes up with these names? Along the way, I took a slight detour towards the Great Cliffs to look towards the mountain ranges from which I had come and towards Brandon Gap. After resupplying, I was worried that the climb would be too strenuous with my heavier pack. It didn’t seem like it, which indicated that I was really developing my trail legs. Good news! Also, sometimes when you ascend into the trees, you lose track of how much elevation you are gaining until you appear in an open view. This was one of those times.

The view from the Great Cliffs: looking back towards where I came from

In early summer, the Great Cliffs are off-limits as they are a protected nesting site for peregrine falcons. When I got there, there was no sign of them.

Crossing the map divide (I looked at the ground, but never saw the fold…)

After Horrid came Cape Lookout Mountain at 3,320 feet elevation. Despite the name, it didn’t have a particular view, but it still had great symbolism for me.

Several blog posts ago I explained that the Green Mountain Club map of the entire Long Trail consists of eight north-south vertical strip maps, four on one side and four on the other. Just past Cape Lookout, I flipped the map. I finished the fourth map and began walking through the fifth. Mileage-wise, this wasn’t the halfway point, but I was getting pretty close!

Next was Gillespie Peak and then on to the very romantic Romance Gap. Once again there were knockdowns along the way, but they didn’t bother me because I could deal with them slowly and carefully. For a while, my focus was on the little things. Mushrooms, for example, are everywhere and have fascinating shapes and colors.

Just a random mushroom on the forest floor…

Also, I was starting to see occasional colored leaves along the way. I’m too early for foliage season, but there are always the odd individual leaf that decides to get ahead of the others.

Just random fall foliage on the forest floor…

Maybe Sucker Brook really is for suckers?

After walking just over five miles, I arrived at the Sucker Brook Shelter. It was still early, but it was already over.

The water source turned out to be more of a “sucker” than a “stream.” As I struggled to fill my squeeze bottle, another hiker showed me his effective technique. He was a young, outgoing guy who called himself Far Out. He scooped water out of the small mud puddle and then ran it through a handkerchief to keep most of the mud and debris out of his “dirty water” bottle for filtering. I was impressed with his ingenuity and thanked him when he shared some of his filtered water.

Anymore!

As usual, I began to question Far Out about his background. He was hiking the Long Trail during a break from his job as a waiter in New York. His real dream was to become a professional actor, as it is for so many New York waiters. He had studied theater at the University of North Carolina. When I mentioned that I had a theater background, he seemed interested. When I told him I was learning Poe’s famous poem, “The Raven,” he asked me to interpret it.

An older solo hiker was also present. It was friendly and we all went in different directions to collect firewood for the fire ring. As he walked away, I noticed how thin he was. His stick-shaped ankles left me wondering how he could support the weight of his backpack! When we met again by the fire, I learned he was a Philadelphia homeowner. When the conversation between Far Out and I turned political, he listened but didn’t comment.

A third guy arrived as we gathered by the fire. When Far Out offered to help him collect water, the new guy seemed to reject him. He left alone with his filtration equipment. We all shrugged our shoulders and finally I began: “Once upon a sad midnight, while I reflected weak and tired…”

I guess the poem is not for everyone. Halfway there, the boy from Philadelphia walked away. Well, it’s a long poem! Far Out, on the other hand, loved it and enthusiastically praised my performance when I finished.

A strange coincidence!

This brought us back to his acting career. I told him that I had attended the National Shakespeare Conservatory’s summer program in Kerhonkson, New York, in the early 1980s. When Far Out admitted to having other interests beyond theater, I told him what our eccentric acting teacher, Mario Siletti, told us at Kerhonkson: “If anything, anything Anything else you can imagine doing besides acting, then do it. thatbecause a career as an actor is too difficult.” The subtext was that many are called, but few are chosen.

While I was at Kerhonkson, I had a girlfriend who was a very good actress. We eventually broke up, but we remained friends, and she also became friends with my wife after I got married. We saw her in some performances and were always impressed by how well she lived in the role she played. She became seriously involved with another actor named Ray Dooley and they remained together for several years. Both my wife and I appreciated Ray’s acting skills, but we thought he treated our friend condescendingly. Although he had much more formal education than her, she was just as good an actress as he was. Because of his treatment of him, he was not someone I held in high regard.

As I spoke further with Far Out, he told me about his mentor and favorite theater professor at UNC, who annually did “A Christmas Carol” as a one-man show, playing all the roles. He said it was wonderful. I don’t know why, but I asked him the teacher’s name. You can imagine my surprise when he responded, “Ray Dooley.” After I got over my shock, I had to tell Far Out that Dooley wasn’t one of my favorite people, but he was a good actor, that was true.

The joy of fire… and putting it out!

Now Far Out got serious about lighting the fire. He used twigs and grass to start, but also pages from a book he was reading. He said he was getting ahead of the story and burning only the pages he had already read. It was cozy to sit around the fire and enjoy the warmth.

The man looking for water eventually returned complaining about the challenges of filling his bottle. I pointed out that Far Out had offered to help him; He replied that he had not heard the offer. He stood by the fire for a moment and then went to his tent.

It just so happened that I was the only one NOT using a tent that night.

As the only person in the shelter, I guess those must be my socks…

For this reason, I felt that fire safety was my responsibility. After putting out the flames and going to bed, I returned to the fire circle several more times that night as my bladder dictated. Each time I peed on the embers to make sure they were going out. Each time they sputtered in protest.