Taking drugs from strangers on the long road

tToday is my last full day on my hike from Massachusetts to Canada along The Long Trail. What a crazy sentence to write!

First of all, I want to thank everyone who followed this little look at the journey on a comedy level. This walk has only been a success because I am lucky to have so many supportive friends and family cheering me on as I walk.

As with every little sitcom, I think we should conclude with a little episode of the show. So, without further ado, enjoy four little moments from my last full day on The Long Trail.

See a porcupine fall from a tree

After camping at Tillotson Camp, my morning consists of a gradual climb to the top of Haystack Mountain. I walk without music, listening to the sounds of the forest around me as I wake up.

As the leaves have begun to fall en masse and become perfectly crisp, I am often startled by noises near the trail. A little chipmunk here makes more noise than grizzly bears in Montana, and it’s taking me a while to train my brain to abandon the idea that a loud noise necessarily equals a loud animal.

After two weeks, I’ve gotten pretty good at this. By the type of rustling of the leaves, I usually accurately predict which of the most common wild animals I am about to see: chipmunk, snake or toad.

At that moment I hear a crunchand it’s definitely not a chipmunk, snake or toad. Whatever is making this noise has some mass.

It’s not a bear, it’s a porcupine!

Before seeing one in real life, I used to think porcupines were about the size and shape of a hedgehog. At the CDT, I discovered that they are actually more physically reminiscent of the fattest cat you’ve ever seen in your life. I scare this porcupine even more than he scares me, and he makes a mad dash to climb the nearest tree.

Unfortunately, the porcupine chooses its tree poorly; the dead trunk is dry and only about 15 feet tall. Every time I start walking next to the scared animal, it climbs a little further up the tree. Right now, I can’t remember if porcupines can shoot their quills (they can’t), so I’m hesitant to continue walking with him visibly in danger.

Eventually, the inevitable happens: I step forward, the porcupine climbs the trunk, and a series of small creaks echo through the forest. Almost in slow motion, the top of the tree breaks and falls to the forest floor while the porcupine is still hanging on for dear life.

Everything goes completely silent for a few seconds after the tree and the porcupine hit the ground, other than me stupidly asking, «Are you okay?» Fortunately, the porcupine gets up, shakes itself off, and wanders off into the woods. I’m left alone, laughing a little at the unlikelihood of it all, before continuing up the mountain.

The wasp nest

I barely slept last night. For days, southbound hikers have been warning me about a wasp nest on the trail just after Haystack Mountain. Call me crazy: I hate hornets.

I asked everyone I’ve seen what I can do to avoid these hornets. Which side of the road is he on? Did putting on all the layers help you? Should I run fast or sneak slowly? They all had similar answers: there is nothing to do; Accept the inevitability of your impending wasp attack. Most people I spoke to told me they had been stung between 5 and 10 times.

Ready (and clearly excited!) to walk past the hornets.

To put it mildly, I start the day in a pretty bad mood.

As I approach the mile marker with the supposed nest, I put on all my layers, including my rain gear. I record a voice note for a friend, telling her that the only way to not cry about the situation is to laugh at it, and I promise to send her a recording of me being attacked. Then I start walking.

The terrain complicates the situation. Not only have I not gotten a straight answer as to which side of the trail the wasp nest lives on, but the trail is incredibly steep and rocky with a relatively steep slope on one side. Everyone I had asked about trying to explore the nest’s surroundings had warned me that if I was still attacked, I would be stuck in slow-moving terrain and would probably end up stung many more times.

So, I move down the trail as quickly and smoothly as I can.

swarmed

After a few minutes, I allow myself to hope. Perhaps the hornets were eliminated by a trail team. Maybe I passed them early enough in the morning that the colder temperatures dulled them. Or maybe I’m just lucky! I hear the buzzing about two seconds before the first sting.

The first hornet hits me on the left leg through the sock. Two more stings quickly follow: one on the right calf and one on the left quadriceps. I’m running before I even process what’s happening. I was hoping to avoid running up the steep trail to protect my injured leg, but all those ideals go out the window as the buzz intensifies.

Every time I have to run with my backpack on, I feel very uncomfortable. I run for what seems like five minutes, but is probably more than 45 seconds, before stopping. True to my word, I record a little voice note for my friend, crying, breathing heavily, and laughing a little. Halfway through the voice memo, I get stung again behind my right knee.

I run away again as the hornets swarm again, this time without stopping until I’m half a mile from the original nest site. Immediately, I see two hikers heading south, and I warn them about the nest and apologize for my hysterical crying. Much like the useless advice I received from previous hikers, I really have nothing to tell you about how to avoid the nest. I never saw it, I don’t know which side of the trail it is on, I can’t imagine walking through that area and I don’t know if going faster or slower would have helped me.

I handle the experience with grace and dignity.

All I know is that my legs hurtand they are starting to itch a lot. I can’t win them all!

Accidentally go to the Canadian border

A little further down the trail, I encounter a hiker heading north. This is strange; I have met less than five NOBOs in this entire journey. He moves slowly and tells me how, when the hornets attacked him, he fell trying to escape and was attacked much worse than I was. He estimates he was stung about 20 times on his legs, hands and neck. At the age of 73, he tells me, this is quite worrying.

From where we are, he and I are about 15 miles from the Canadian border, but he tells me he doesn’t care anymore. He says he has nothing to prove, that he doesn’t like the trail’s terrain, that his legs hurt, and that he’s talking about giving up on the next trail. I’ve been saving a Jolly Rancher (Blue Raspberry) for my last big mountain climb, but this guy needs it more than I do. I take it out of my shoulder pocket and hand it to him. He takes it, unwraps it and thanks me.

I continue down the trail, a little upset at my lack of Jolly Rancher, but happy to be able to do something to help a guy who has a awful day. Also, if there’s one thing I know, it’s that the trail always provides. My karma comes in the form of Jeremy, the caretaker at the top of Mount Mansfield, who meets me on the way and offers to take me into town for lunch.

Lunch in Canada

Obviously, I say yes and get into his car, excited by the prospect of food and Benadryl. In the hour since the hornet attack, my legs have started to itch, red welts around each of my stings. Then, when I count them, I realize that they stung me between 8-10 times (there are two marks that I don’t know if they are bites or small scratches from other moments along the way).

Jeremy drives us north to Troy, at which point I see a sign advertising one mile to Canada. By trail, I only have 8 miles left. Even though I know how close I am in my head, it’s very strange to drive five minutes and be at the Canadian border. Tomorrow I will walk back here and cross the border line. Today we stopped at a sandwich shop and bought panini and slices of pizza. Unfortunately, I can’t find any Benadryl.

Jeremy takes me back to the trail with another sandwich for dinner tonight and promises to come pick me up at the border in the morning. I say goodbye to them and begin my final climb to a big mountain: Jay Peak.

There’s a lot I could say about Jeremy and Mary (who let me stay at their house while I figured out the situation with my quad), but it’s nothing I haven’t said before. At one point, it’s difficult to continually articulate how much this generosity and kindness affects a walk. I truly believe that anyone who has ever hiked can understand how impossible the trip would be without these random, unexpected moments of selflessness from the people around us. Jeremy and Maria, thank you! Maybe putting it in bold, italics, and underlining will convey even a fraction of the gratitude I don’t have the words for.

Accepting drugs from strangers (from my parents: it was only Benadryl)

The weather on this trail has been pretty kind. With just one day of rain, I have enjoyed almost two weeks of clear, sunny days. However, the forecast calls for some rain tonight and I really hope to be on top of Jay Peak when it starts. During the ascent, clouds begin to appear quickly.

Jay Peak marks one of the few times on The Long Trail that I clear the tree line, and the incoming weather sends powerful, cold gusts of wind my way as I scramble over rocks next to a ski run. When I don’t need to fear the rays, and knowing that in a few minutes I will be warm in my shelter, I let myself enjoy this wind. The drop in air pressure before a big storm always gives me a feeling of such power. Nothing makes you feel smaller than standing on top of a mountain and feeling the air transform around you.

It starts to drizzle on my descent, but the rain politely waits to start raining until 45 seconds after I get into the shelter. I share this shelter with Megapod, and it’s one of the first times on the entire trail that I’ve shared camp with another northbound hiker. We chat about how tomorrow he ends his stretch of hike after 50 years (!) and how the hornets also It stung him the week before.

I complain about how itchy my legs are and he offers me some Benadryl from his medicine cabinet. The trail provides!

From inside my warm quilt, I listen to the downpour on the shelter roof and let the Benadryl lull me into a deep sleep. Tomorrow, Canada!