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July 23 -A Southbound Slack-packing Sojourn
**July 23** **12.4 miles, 2000 ft of gain**
So the plan was to do a 15-mile day, but we decided to call it a bit early so we can do laundry, have dinner, and be in bed by hiker midnight. We also got a late start—having stopped for bagels before we got to the trail. So, we didn’t get out there until about 10:15. Today, we’re walking from Canopus Lake back to the Appalachian Market. We passed the market on the way out to the trail, and I saw a bunch of thru-hikers I know hanging out there: Wing It, Pathfinder, McTwistyflop, and a few others. I think I last saw this crew at Angel’s Landing. I’m happy, because we’re SOBO today, we should pass them on the trail, so I’m excited about that. We also get to end at the deli/gas station, so I’m pumped about that too. Nothing like finishing your hiking day someplace that is full of soda, chips, candy, and other snacks to immediately meet your hiking hunger needs.
We get dropped off and bid farewell to Nancy. We’ll see her in 7-ish hours, but you never know how long a trail will take these days because trail conditions massively affect speed. Today’s trail is pretty nice for the first few hundred feet, but then there is something odd: a random rotary telephone attached to a signboard. The sign tells us this is the Telephone of the Wind, intended for you to talk to loved ones who have passed. I just want to talk to the Domino’s man, but there is no dial tone. We play with the phone for a bit then hike on.
In that first mile, I pause to take lots of photos of mushrooms, as you do. At one point, my water bottle jumps out of my pack and down a 6-foot rock wall. So, I take off my pack and chase the bottle. I have it back in no time, and we’re off again.
The beauty of going SOBO is that we’ll pass all the NOBO hikers. Normally, unless somebody is taking a break or is much faster/slower, you don’t see very many others. These make for chattier days, and you get to see people who are up to a day ahead of you on the trail.
First, we see a girl that I haven’t seen since the Riff Raff camp before Damascus, Tripping Turtle. We chat for a bit, then she hikes on. Later, on a decline, we pass three other thru-hikers, but I don’t remember them. We briefly talk about being oddly fatigued; they report this is common right now, and most people are blaming the extreme humidity. I’m glad it’s not just us. But it’s not getting us to Katahdin any faster.
We next meet Speedgoat and Lugnut and chat for even longer. They are among the few who aren’t oddly fatigued, but they report the miles are taking longer for them because of the terrain. So, I feel a bit better about our slower pace lately now too. We all keep hiking in our respective directions. Earlier in the week, Darwin also reported slower miles on account of the terrain. He said 15-mile days are great out here. It’s still hard to take this to heart.
The trail is thin, overgrown, wet, and rocky. We’re chugging along, but it’s slow going. At one point, while descending in a rocky area, I have fall 5. My last fall was May 1, where I tore my plantar fascia in my right foot. This is actually an impressively low number of falls. I attribute this to hiking a bit slower than others, especially through some of the rougher areas. I called out my fall number, and afterwards, I tell Flamethrower I’m fine. This fall was much like the pool fall, where I stepped down, slipped, and slowly lowered myself/fell to the slippery rock. It helps that my pack is light because we’re slack packing. We hiked on immediately.
Three hours after we started, we’re only about 4 miles in because of the terrain, and we come to a parking lot. We run into Matt, Tinder, Mongoose, Stealth, and two others. There is a pumphouse with a water spigot that is reportedly not potable (we all use our filters to clean the water, but it looks pretty good to us) and a port-a-potty at a camp nearby. We visit that camp and eat all the wine berries that line its driveway. Then we snack at a picnic table and head back to the trail. Actually, now we return to our hike. But because this section of trail is wet, slippery, rocky, overgrown, and otherwise not enjoyable, we decided to road walk.
It’s a thin, lightly used road, and we can use it to skip the next 3-5 miles, and possibly further if we’re willing to walk on more heavily traveled roads. I’m a bit sad about this because that means we’ll miss the southbound folks I saw earlier. A few miles later, however, we run into five hikers coming the other way on the road. This is Wing It, Pathfinder, and McTwistyflop, along with Thrive and Papa Smurf. We all compliment each other for the good thinking. This seems to be a trend when the trail sucks. This wasn’t normal further in the south, to my knowledge, but by this point in the trail, we’re exhausted and tired of undermaintained trail.
I should note that even as we were leaving the earlier parking lot, a trail maintenance team had just pulled up. Trail maintenance is a hard job, and there aren’t a lot of volunteers. We need more people willing to help out in the woods to keep these trails walkable. Trails in state parks tend to be nicer because of better resourcing, but outside of that, they suffer. I’ll always try to help remove fresh blowdowns or fallen rocks from the trail if they are dangerous or obstruct the path, but not everybody does, and it’s not like we can logically carry a chainsaw or a weedwacker. So, there is just some stuff that we need locals for. What bothers me most is tall grasses encroaching a thin trail. These are basically a highway for ticks to get onto hikers. Also, when it rains, these funnel water right down our legs and soak our shoes.
Anyway, our road walking proves to be quite delicious with lots of berries and easy walking. We keep a pace of about 3 miles an hour and make good progress. We still had 8+ miles to go. Based on what we heard from others, we road walk almost all of it and got to the deli just before 5 PM.
We meet a section hiker, Alpiner, and chat with him a bit. There is a bit of a language barrier; he’s from Switzerland and typically speaks German. So, words like “Flamethrower” and “Forager” are not known to him, so we break it down.
Flamethrower and I both snack as we wait for Nancy. Then we need to decide on dinner. A deli sandwich sounds good right now. Nancy recommends a place near her house. We go there first. We walk in, and it’s a perfect Italian deli—lots of food from the old country and all the right meats in the deli case. I get an Italian sandwich with extra vinegar. Then Nancy asks if we want to go see the Croton Dam. It’s a quick tour, only 20 minutes, so we say we’re up for it. I later admit that I wasn’t super excited by the proposition, but the dam ended up being one of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen. It has man-made cascading falls on one side and natural cascading falls on the other. It lets out into a cute park with lots of flat areas for picnicking and hanging out. From there, we drive up to the reservoir to see the beautiful body of water where this all starts (and where NYC gets its drinking water). Again, another beautiful scene. I still struggle to think of where it reminded me of, but it is a large lake with rolling tree-covered hills behind it.
It’s a bit backward, because we haven’t had our sandwiches yet—but we move on to an ice cream shop. Unfortunately, I already had a bar of ice cream at the deli we hiked to, and my stomach would struggle if I ate too much dairy, so I can’t partake, but I do taste Flamethrower and Nancy’s ice creams. Flamethrower gets two flavors, lavender and basil. Nancy gets rum raisin and chocolate. I love the basil.
We head back to the house and eat our sandwiches and hang out while doing our laundry. Soon, we’re showered and ready for bed. Hiker midnight again approaches.
It’s going to rain tomorrow, so we’re not sure if we’re going to hike out first thing in the morning. I hate rain, but really, I hate all the extra time required to clean up and dry off after the rain, plus how much it slows you down, with everything being wet and slick and muddy. I think it’s often not worth being miserable for a day to get a few miles further. Tomorrow, we’ll look at the weather report again and decide how to proceed. If it’s going to be a big rainy mess, we’re going to zero and hike out the next day instead.
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