Appalachian Trail

Emergency blanket: win

September 11, 2009

It’s 3:30 on a cold, foggy night and a woman tells me that my attitude is not helpful. “We’re all in this together,” she says. And I think, “I’ve been ‘in this’ for 6 hours. You’re just now showing up.” Let me rewind a little and say this: an emergency blanket is a windproof, waterproof [...]

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Fruit cakes

September 10, 2009

Yesterday a woman about my age came up to me and said, “I have a present for you.” She held out a ripe orange. I felt like she was handing me a glowing, golden orb. Seriously. I cannot in my life remember a time when I was this excited to eat fruit. She said, “You’re [...]

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Shoving my pack through the Mahoosac Notch

September 6, 2009

The Mahoosac Notch is known as “the hardest mile on the Appalachian Trail.” In it, you wiggle under big boulders, stuff your backpack through holes, and hop from rock to rock. It was incredibly fun. Here are a few pictures of me shoving my pack ahead of me as I climb through a tunnel.

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When Addy met Sally

September 5, 2009

When I hiked onto a gravel road right after Caratunk, Maine, I came across a woman and her energetic golden retriever. “Hi,” she said. “I’m Tortoise.” I said, “No way! I’m Turtle.” We were immediately a team. Tortoise (real name Sally) and I hiked together for several days. She is a retired professor of Nursing [...]

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Basic information on the Appalachian Trail

September 4, 2009

Northbounders (Nobo’s)- Hikers who go from Georgia to Maine. Most people head this direction. Southbounders (Sobo’s) – Hikers who go from Maine to Georgia. Southbound represent! Flip-floppers- People who go one way for part of the trail and then jump down and go another direction to finish it. Trail names- Every thru-hiker chooses or is [...]

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Portrait of my life on the trail

September 2, 2009

My life on the trail: a lot of Ramein, peanut butter, wet boots, wet socks, graham crackers, and hairy legs.

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Bugs and Slugs

September 1, 2009

This morning I flicked eleven slugs off my tent, two off my hiking poles and several off my backpack. So, in the bug category, I would like to add a subsection: slugs. Reader: Slugs are not bugs, they are invertebrates. Ok, in the category of creepy, crawly, stingy, biting things in the woods, I would [...]

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No one’s in the kitchen with Dina

August 31, 2009

I’ve decided to go no cook, which is to say that I have decided that my trail life should match my home life. No cook hikers don’t bring stoves and subsist largely on powerbars and poptarts. You can end up carrying more weight than other people because you don’t have the freeze dried dinners. But [...]

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