As anyone who read my early posts knows, hiking through the Maine section of the Appalachian trail was hugely difficult for me. So, when I got to the Maine/New Hampshire border, I threw down my pack and took abut 100 hundred pictures. In
On the Maine/New Hampshire State line
short, I was ridiculously proud of myself. Not quite ready to leave, I sat on a log by the sign glowing and repeatedly writing in my journal, “I just finished the state of Maine!”
As I was doing this, a man hiked up the trail in the Northbound direction. He was wearing spandex pants, and open button down shirt, and carrying on of the smallest packs I had yet seen on a thru-hiker. I asked him his trail name and he said, “Just Ray.”
Poor man. I must have talked to him a mile a minute about how proud I was to be there and how I wasn’t going to let anyone tease me about the weight of my pack anymore.
Before I left, I wrote in my Data Book, “I hereby certify that Adelaide made it through the state of Maine,” and asked him to sign it as my witness. He did, and I closed my book without thinking anything of it.
Ray Jardine's signature
About a week later, a friend of mine was paging thgouh my Data Book when he saw the signature. “You met Ray Jardine?” he asked.
I said, “Who’s Ray Jardine?”
“He’s the father of ultralight backpacking,” my friend told me. “I heard rumors that he was on the trail this year, but I can’t believe you actually met him and he signed your book.”
Even though I didn’t know who he was at the time, it is still pretty exciting to have met a backpacking legend while I was on the trail. I’ve been checking out his site recently. He sells kits for people to make their own lightweight gear and I’m thinking about trying one out, as it would be a pretty cheap way to get a second pack (the kit costs around 50$). I’ll write about this if I decide to do it. I didn’t mind carrying my big pack for my trip, but it would be nice to haul around less weight.
