Seeing Tramily on the Flip Side of the Hike

Chuckwagon wasn’t the only person we crossed paths with once we flipped. We started seeing familiar faces in southern New Hampshire. Snacks ran into Ninja early in the morning at a campsite. I wasn’t up yet and was bummed to hear I missed her. Needless to say no photos with her, but she did send me her summit pic! Way to go Ninja!!


We came across Parker at an overlook near Moose Mountain. He saw me first as l came through the opening in the woods. He was talking to another hiker who had her back to me and he gave a yelp when he saw me, much like I did when I saw CW. The lady thought there was a bear behind her, haha.

I can’t explain the feeling when you run into tramily like that. It’s the best. It’s so good to see the other person still on trail, chipping away at this massive undertaking.




Around Stratton, our buddy, Waiting On, came to visit for a couple of days on his drive up to Maine. He runs the Broken Fiddle Hostel down in southern Virginia and had some time off and used it to come up North and see/provide trail magic to hikers he met at the hostel, who are still on trail up this way.

We were super grateful to make that cut! Since he had a car he helped us resupply, and we visited the super fancy mountain bike park at Stratton Mountain. We even rode the rollercoaster for a change of pace. Thanks for all your support, Waiting On!


In NY, Snacks came across Moon at a shelter at lunchtime one day. Moon is another hiker we met early on in North Carolina, who flipped up like us and is now working back to Delaware Water Gap, PA.

Funnily enough, Moon kept in touch with another hiker, Professor Plum, who we started out with in Georgia and lives up with way. He was on his way to join Moon for a section in NY/NJ so we got a two-for-one special running into Moon! We all ended up hiking/camping together for five days or so and it was fun having a tramily again!



We all spent the night at West Mountain Shelter together. This was one of those exceptions to the ‘not hiking more than .2 off trail’ rule. The shelter is 0.6 off-trail and getting to the water source is a climb, but the shelter offers the most amazing view of the NYC skyline (roughly 50 miles as the crow flies from the shelter) and that made the extra hiking worth it. We could see the corner of a fireball sunset through the trees and a pretty nice sunrise as well.


Magic Hat, a hiker who lives nearby was already at the shelter when we arrived. We found out it was his 60th birthday and the overnight trip was his gift to himself. He also brought some tastyyyyyy pastries with him, which he graciously shared an eclair and danish with me and Snacks…and I enjoyed both, haha.

There were lots of other hikers we crossed paths with again and got to have trailside catch-ups and exchange well wishes for the rest of the trek. Many have since sent their summit pics at Katahdin to us and we are so happy for all our friends. To everyone we came across and those we didn’t, way to go everyone! ?

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