Days 165-176: Feeling At Home

Your faves decided to hike the Whites together, for old times’ sake (and also we missed each other).

First, though, we spent a record-breaking amount of time vortexed at the Notch.

The Notch is my all-time favorite place, as well as my favorite hostel on trail. It was here that I’ve felt most comfortable being myself during this hike, here that I met other queer and trans hikers doing incredible and awesome work, here that I’ve come to feel at home.

I genuinely think I want to live in this area once I’ve gotten my ducks in a row post-trail in NYC. I just need a driver’s license.

The Notch team is incredible. Serena has curated an amazing group of folks working here, and I love them all and am happy to have felt so loved by them that I’m truly sad to leave. It’s become my second home! I’ve spent a total of 14 days staying here and there’s really no place I’d rather be, other than out on trail living in the woods.

And home life in the woods has been especially wonderful.

I’m relieved to not have to worry about missing out on sharing the views with Achilles in this region. The anxiety about feeling like I’d feel unfulfilled without him, as if I’d have executed a recipe for a meal almost perfectly but not quite, was eating at me. I didn’t want to feel that way. It didn’t feel right to feel that way. I’d been enjoying plenty without him for hundreds of miles, and I felt I was doing myself a disservice not being able to fully enjoy Moosilauke without him there with me.

But as we hiked the Kinsmans and sat atop a peak staring out at the rolling hills and mountains before us, things just felt right.

And, while we’ve only gotten to just before the ascent to Mt. Washington, the few days between the Kinsmans and Crawford Notch were the opposite of uneventful.

We slacked the Kinsmans with the Notch (if you stay 2+ nights the Kinsman slack is free!), so we got back on trail later in the day and stopped at Liberty Springs campsite… where we lazed about the next morning until nearly noon before climbing up to Franconia Ridge.

I’ve realized that, on the first climb of the day, I always feel like something must be wrong with me. Oh god, I’ve packed too much food. I’m carrying too much. This incline is bananas, how will I make it through the day? My body is so sore. My mind is racing. How am I good enough to keep going??? And then the incline grade levels out, and I remember that this is all fine and I’m actually very strong and very good at climbing mountains.

I’ve been starting each resupply with what some would say is far too much food (like packing 5 mountain house meals and 10 oatmeals and 2 ramens and a bunch of meat snacks and oat bars and fig bars… for three days of hiking), but by day 2 I’m always wondering where all my food went if I’m not carrying that much. I’ve been eating like crazy since Vermont and so I’ve been planning for it as well as possible now. My baseweight has become 18lbs, but my total pack weight with food and water when I last left the Notch was 29.5lbs — because I’m hongrey.

So of course, after hiking a few miles to Lincoln, we stopped for a snack. And to stare at the view. And to climb some cool rocks.

We stayed there for maybe an hour, maybe two. It was nearly 4:30 by the time we hiked on towards Lafayette, where we decided to stop and watch the sunset before nighthiking another 1.5 to a campsite Quadzilla had suggested on FarOut. It was a brilliant sunset. I’ve been reading John Green’s The Anthropocene Reviewed recently, and he gives sunsets 5 stars. So do I. Especially this one.

But that beautiful view came with some crazy winds and piercing temperatures. So as soon as Helios dipped down below the horizon, we were out. And that’s where the real fun started.

“Um, BRRRR FOR SURE???” was all we could say to each other over and over as we descended from the peak down to the treeline. At some point I had to pee, so I stopped off at a big rock as Achilles caught some more pics of the light left from the sunset.

I use a pee funnel, and I love the pee funnel, but like any gear occasionally you get a malfunction.

I realized I might end up getting some pee on my gloves, and in my infinite widsom (please read that with sarcasm) decided it would be a good idea to adjust my grip to avoid this. Dear reader, it was not a good idea. I lost my grip on the funnel, the anchor dipped downwards, and I got pee on either leg pouring down my pants and into one sock and shoe. Achilles has a beautiful video of the horizon that gets interrupted by my yell-whining “NO!!! Oh noooooo!!! No no no no!!!!”

He made fun of me for peeing my pants, which I guess is only fair for all the fun I’ve made of him pooping his a month ago.

But onward we hiked, pee-pants and all.

We got to the treeline and checked FarOut to see how far we had to go to the campsite when I decided to be adventurous.

A bit of context: I’ve historically on this trail been pretty anxious about both nighthiking and cowboy camping. I don’t like the dark, and I don’t like bugs. But the stars were doing something incredible that night, and I suggested we nighthike to the firetower box atop Garfield where Ketchup had suggested we “stick it to the man” and camp if we had the opportunity. Achilles was with it, and so on we hiked. In the night. With me, fearlessly in the lead.

And we made it.

For a grand total of two hours before setting up a tent below treeline to get out of the freezing, relentless winds. But it was worth it. The moon was a crescent and the skies were clear, and I’d never in my life seen so many stars. Even Achilles said it was in the top three starriest nights of his life. We could see the Milky Way clearly — a sight I’d never laid eyes upon in person before. A sight that was worth freezing my ass off 4200 feet up on top of a mountain.

The next day, Scatter, Walmart, Kegstand, and some other new friends caught up with us.

We spent that day leapfrogging the gang. We ate lunch at the firetower box together, sharing a communal (and delicious) coffee. Scatter is now the queen of zeroes AND backwash. We made it to Galehead hut and ate potato dill soup together. We climbed up South Twin together, which was no joke — but I left last and ended up hiking fast enough to pass most of the folks ahead of me without trying which was a HUGE boost to my self-confidence regarding hiking. I did so with 3.5 litres of water too, as Achilles and I had decided (from the suggestions of Ketchup and Slingshot) to cowboy camp on Zeacliff.

It was a bit of a nighthike to Zeacliff, which I once again led (like a real cool guy who’s not afraid of the dark).

It was foggy that night, but it was still beautiful. We set up the tent just within the trees in case it got too cold, but made our beds on the cliff. We made dinner and stared up at the stars, where the fog would open and fold back over and the shimmering lights would fade in and out of view. As we watched the fading fog exit and return and exit and return, I read Achilles a few chapters from The Anthropocene Reviewed. One on Halley’s Comet, one on the human capacity for wonder, and one on the Lescaux cave paintings.

We had been talking about how magical it was that, for millennia, humans have been staring at the stars, charting them, using them to figure out everything from science to spirituality. I remembered what I’d read from these chapters, and Achilles humored me by listening. He enjoyed it. I’ve been reading my favorite chapters to him as I go ever since.

At 5AM, I woke up randomly and opened my eyes.

The stars were back.

To our left, we could see the beginnings of a sunrise. Blue light breaking through and spilling into the darkness of the night sky. But all I could think about were the stars. How clear Orion was, how beautiful it was to look at, how lucky we were to see it, how lucky I was to share it with someone I love. I believe that, while it’s its own wondrous experience to take these things in alone, sharing things with others — especially those you love — makes it all far more delectable. And that evening was one of the most delicious I’ve had on trail so far.

I ended up napping through the sunrise. The stars had filled me up, and I felt no need to overindulge that morning.

We had decided to head back to the Notch the next day to zero out some terrible weather on Washington.

We had told them we’d be at Crawford by 1PM, but had no cell service past when we sent that text. We took in a bit more of the sights from Zeacliff and hiked on down the mountain.

We made it to Zealand hut around 10AM, and I realized that we had 3 hours to go 7.7 miles — as we didn’t know when we’d be getting picked up, only when we said we’d be arriving.

I started to panic a bit about time. Could we do nearly 8 miles in 3 hours?? It was all flat and downhill from there, but wasn’t there a blue blaze Ketchup had told me about? Couldn’t I take that to get a shortcut to Crawford and make sure I was there before Achilles in case the shuttle showed up at 1?

So I split off and took the A to Z trail.

This was… a journey.

The A to Z is not a shortcut.

It is not shorter, and it is by no means easier than the white blaze to 302. And I learned this the hardest of ways.

I walked .2 down Zealand Trail to where the A to Z starts and saw a sign that read “Crawford Notch – 5”, and thought to myself, Wow, I’m cutting off three miles from my day! Fantastic! I’ll get there with plenty of time. If only I had Ron Howard narrating my day, and a voiceover saying “They would not be cutting off any miles, nor would they get there with plenty of time.

The A to Z trail was no joke. Between me and “Crawford Notch” was 5 miles of PUDs (pointless ups and downs) and a whole damn mountain. Without the elevation map, I had to zoom in on the topo to see how much farther I’d have to climb. It was brutal on my already sore and wrecked knees, one of which I’d bruised trying to be cool on a rock and failing. But I persevered, telling myself that at least it was a shorter hike to Crawford.

It was not a shorter hike to Crawford because, as it turns out, the Crawford Notch they referenced on the sign was the AMC Highland Center in Crawford Notch State Park. I got there at 12:10PM, with 50 minutes to get to where the AT intersects I-302… 3.6 miles down the road.

I made a pit stop to change out of my thermal leggings, which I’d kept on under my pants as I started the day thinking it would be an easy hike on flat ground and then a short but steep descent. I hadn’t expected to hike 5.2 miles up and down and up and down and up and — you get the picture. I was very sweaty.

The roadwalk to 302 — the actual 302 crossing I needed — was a cakewalk for me. I pumped out those 3.6 miles in an hour, arriving at 1:15PM to the spot I needed to be at. And it was a beautiful roadwalk. I watched the mountains open up before me as I sang a song on repeat on the 13 hour long playlist Achilles put together for me, because he loves me too. It was a song I’d never heard before, one that made me feel loved and special and that I wanted to learn so I could sing along to it over and over and over again.

As I approached him at the road crossing, I was singing it. He had made it there an hour before me. What a guy.

We waited for Patches to pick us up at 3PM.

Scatter and the gang hung out with us while we did. Walmart’s buddy had driven over to trail magic us and run anyone who needed into town for resupply. I sat with my bestie (Scatter) and soaked in the trail time we hadn’t had in a month before splitting off again. I hugged everyone goodbye as Achilles, Kaboost, Starlight and I loaded ourselves and our gear into the Subaru when Patches arrived.

We zeroed here Sunday, and then again yesterday as I’d flared up and Achilles wanted me to rest so I could be in tip-top shape to climb Washington. It’s my favorite place to be.

After two and a half weeks on-and-off at this place, wearing Achilles’s hiking clothes, I felt like I wanted further gender euphoria and was in a safe space to execute such a desire. So I cut off the rest of my hair to feel more like the person I wanted to see in the mirror. It went surprisingly well, and Tricia said I look “dapper”. I feel dapper. I feel whole. I feel full of love and wonder and happiness.

I’ve spent a lot of this hike anxious about posting fully and honestly about how I feel regarding hiking with Achilles.

Sure, you’ve all seen my breakdown when we split off, and have seen how excited and worried and elated and scared I was when we were hiking together. But it has never been fully honest about how I feel. Those of you who have been on trail with us know, but those who haven’t may not be able to read between the lines so easily.

I love Achilles. I love hiking with him, I love the ways I’ve grown hiking without him and sharing that growth with him. I love the silly little things we do to make each other happy. I love the way he loves me. I love every moment I’m lucky enough to spend with him.

My hike is in no way about being with Achilles, but my hime is more fulfilling when I’m around him. Admitting that makes me feel small and weak. John Green writes about vulnerability in The Anthropocene Reviewed in a chapter I love about sunsets, “There’s something deep within me, something intensely fragile, that is terrified of turning itself to the world. I’m scared to even write this down, because I worry that having confessed this vulnerability, you now know where to punch. I know that if I’m hit where I am earnestly, I will never recover.” This pretty accurately describes my fear of talking openly about my love for Achilles. I fear that if it sounds like my love for him has become a big part of my hike, people will think my hike is less meaningful for being attached to someone else. That I will no longer be this cool, badass person who is doing something huge for themself. That I will be reduced to a girl who has fallen in love with a boy, regardless of how untrue that is in many ways.

But I have never loved any other way than loudly. Love requires me to shout it from the mountaintops, to feel it with every fiber of my being, to engross itself in everything I do. I see a downed tree and think of how easy it would be for Achilles to step over it. I sit at a water source and remember Achilles bursting his Sawyer bag trying to help me learn how to filter water for the first time. I see a beautiful sky of stars and am reminded of the time I was journaling one evening in Georgia and he told me to look up at the night sky so I could behold the astral plane in all its glory, or the time he got my glasses so I could “see the stars all the way” on Wind Rock.

I do not think my hike would be less fulfilling, less life changing, more my own had I not met him, had I not fallen in love with him. But I feel like my hike is better for having him be part of the experience. Both in the ways I’ve grown without him, and the moments I get to share with him. And I don’t want to hide that part of my journey, as I feel it does a disservice to myself, to him, and to those of you following along reading this.

Love is loud. Love is special. Love is not something to shirk when it shows up at your door. This is a love that has allowed me to love myself further than I ever have, that has taught me the things I want are not small, that has gifted me with further beauty than I was already experiencing on my own. The love we share has made this hike far more majestic than I had ever hoped for, and that does not make me small, nor does it make me weak. It strengthens me, it makes me large with its power. It is an integral part of this experience for me and I am so lucky to have it.

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Beautiful stranger, here you are, in my arms and I know

That beautiful strangers only come along to do me wrong, and I hope

Beautiful stranger, here you are, in my arms and I think it’s finally, finally, finally, finally, finally safe

For me to fall

— “Finally // beautiful stranger” by Halsey