Yesterday I slammed my hiking pole so hard against a rock that it actually created a spark. In short, I was pissed.
Let me tell you about my day. It started the day before when I had stayed in a hut. The huts are kind of like primitive motels and they are spaced throughout the White Mountains. People pay upwards of 70$ a person to stay there, but for an hour or so of work, they let thru-hikers stay for free. And you get to eat whatever food is leftover after the guests eat. Then all the hikers sleep on the floor together.
This night, I was crammed in a pretty small room with 5 other guys. We had to squish in and find spots to sleep around this giant table. Shortly after we turned the lights out, one of the hikers started snoring so loudly that I could hear him through my earplugs. I kicked him in the head a couple of times and it seemed to help. Unfortunately, my feet could not reach everyone and another guy snored loudly all night. I barely slept.
The next day when I started hiking, the wind was so hard, I thought it might blow me off Mt Jackson. The straps from my backpack flew up and snapped me in the face several times before I could secure them all. Not to mention that the wind made finding sure footing difficult, and I fell a few times.
Finally, the path descended and I got a little tree cover, but the rocks there were slick and steep. At one point, I fell really hard and had to reach my arms and legs out to prevent myself from being impaled on a tree. I now have a softball sized bruise on my butt, which I suppose could be a good thing as it now matches my legs.
The problem with having a bruised butt is that there are places where the rocks are so steep that you actually have to sit and slide your way down. I had to do this on one cheek as the other one was out of commision. At one point, the half-butt was not creating enough friction on the rock and I slid, my backpack shifted up, and I scraped my lower back.
This is what is called a bad day. I suppose this is only fair as the previous day had been amazing.
I ran into another hiker (not literally, but that would have been in keeping with the theme of the day), and he told me that he had fallen 25 times that day. He said, “At one point I fell so hard, that I would have cried if it would have helped.” It didn’t stop me. He was a really sweet man in his 60′s and I think he was trying to be nice to me. He gave me a smile and a wink that said, “You can do it.” I wasn’t so sure.
Once you have fallen enough in a day, everything begins to hurt. Every trip or misstep made my body ache. It was at this point that I learned I have a very limited vocabulary of cuss words. This did not keep me from using them over and over again (in creative combinations) for a pure twenty minutes straight.
As I was doing this, I ran into (and, again, not literally) a woman in her 60′s. It is not good for your ego to have people in their 60′s skipping up the trail when you are having a really, really bad day. She asked me if I was a thru-hiker and I said yes. She said, “Well aren’t you adorable hiking the whole trail!”
I did not feel adorable. I was feeling many things, but adorable was not one of them.
A friend of hers came up and asked me, “Do you think you will make it all of the way to Georgia?” I did not tell them that I was not sure I would even finish my hike today, instead I said, “We’ll see.”
I tried to tell myself that they were perkier because they were only carrying a lunch and that it was their first day on the trail, but I knew that I was having one of those days and would not make my mileage goal. I tried to do an attitude readjustment. “I think I can. I think I can,” I told myself.
I stopped and talked to some Northbounders and they told me that they were having a really hard day, too. I said that I was trying to make it to Zealand Falls hut and one of the guys said, “Oh, you can totally do it. We made it three miles an hour all of the way here.It’s a very gradual incline.” I did not think that I would be able to run three miles an hour without my pack, let alone hike it that fast with 35 lbs on my back. I smiled weakly and said thanks.
I am realizing that what makes a day hard is relative to each person. I’m pretty clumsy, so slipping and falling just zaps the spirit right out of me. On the other hand, I can do a steep incline all day and be fine, even though that is hard for some people.
I decided that my daily mileage goal would have to be cut in half. Thankfully, this happened in the perfect spot. I took a side trail to a public campground. I must have looked pretty miserable because the ranger let me stay for free and even gave me a ride to an out of the way general store so that I could get some food. (People along the trail are wonderful like that.) By this time, I was ready to fall asleep right then and there. The lady at the checkout counter looked at me, all blood and bruises, and said (I kid you not), “Well, aren’t you just adorable!”
