The Wildcats, Carters, and on to Maine

After neroing (nearly zeroing, which is generally accepted to mean that one hiked less than a half-day) in Gorham with my White Mountains tramily, but still with aching knees and overall exhaustion as I continued to deal with what I can only now assume is some form of long COVID, I decided that I would head back out the following day to complete the Wildcat/Carter/and Moriah Mountains and then I would reward myself with a proper zero day back in Gorham at the Barn Hostel.

The Barn Hostel has a deal where if you zero with them, they will slackpack you. Theoretically, if one starts early enough, one can make it these 21.1 miles in one day. However, because I had not stayed at the Barn Hostel the night before (I split a hotel room with Popeye and Recon), I had to walk to the Barn Hostel and ask if I could leave my stuff there until I returned. By the time I motivated myself out of the comfy hotel bed and made my way to the Barn Hostel, it was far too late in the morning for me to slackpack the entire 21.2 miles in one day— this 21.1 miles over the Wildcat/Carter/and Moriah Mountains is no easy 21.1 miles. The climb up to Wildcat Peak is known as the steepest mile on the AT. Then it is a constant battle of ups and downs (as I was told early on in my journey “uphill burns calories; downhill burns cartilage”).

So I settled with a plan to “lightpack” my way across the mountains and do the section in two days and one night. So, I took everything out my pack except for the food I would need: leaving me roughly with my clothes, my sleeping set, tent, and enough food for two lunches, one dinner, and one breakfast. Everything else went in a bag that I left at the hostel.

I then caught a hitch out of town back to Pinkham Notch Visitor center. Lucky for me, the car which gave me a hitch was an AMC car, driven by the man who manages getting all the food to the AMC huts. A difficult job, to say the least. They have to fly food in via helicopter and also they hire folk to strap these giant 50-60lb set of boxes onto wooden packboards and hike the food to the huts! Even though I know I carry around 30lbs on my back every day… I still wouldn’t want to be one of those folks…

By the time I was dropped off at Pinkham notch visitor center it was ~10:00 a.m. The first mile was an easy flat walk, if you ignore the mud and roots. But after that, it quickly steepens up to a boulder field climb with an average grade of only 2,000 ft / mi.

Needless to say, I needed to take a break on my way up the mountain. 

Once I reached the top, I ran into Clueless, Elf, and the Little Prince taking a lunch break near the top of the ski lift.

Apparently, in years past, the lift would take hikers up and down the mountain for free. But this year it was not running. Clueless and Elf were pretty winded by the climb up Wildcat. They told me they had started early that morning, I think around 7:00, and that they were worried it may take them longer than two days to get through this section. I had a couple extra protein bars in my pack that I left with them to make sure they had enough food in case they did extend their time and then I headed out because I wanted to get as many miles under my belt that day as I could. I hiked past the Carter Notch Hut, the last AMC hut on the trail that I would see, without stopping.

On my way down one of the mountains, I ran into a group of women who were hiking to the hut itself, and who were fans of the AT. One of them, Katie, was extremely kind, asking what she could do for me, and unprovoked she gifted me snack-sized snickers for energy and a $20 to help me with the costs on the trail.

I ended my day at the Imp campsite around 7:00 p.m., wiped and exhausted from the constant elevation gain and loss, 13 miles from where I began that morning.

Motivated to turn my nero the following day into as long of a day off-trail as I could, I woke up the next morning at 5:00 a.m. and hiked the remaining eight miles (which, in comparison to the day before, was relatively easy) and arrived at Highway 2 by 8:00 a.m. It was this morning I realized I had forgotten to pack myself a spoon and I discovered the art of pouring my boiling water into my freezer Ziplock bag full of oatmeal, then cutting a corner in my bag and simply extruding the mush into my mouth as a means of eating my breakfast… all things considered… not a bad way to eat breakfast… far less dishes than the alternative.

I hitched into Gorham relatively quickly, and then caught another hitch to and from Walmart in order to resupply and to buy myself food for my planned restful town days… and then I proceeded to do nothing for the rest of the day but lay in my bed at the hostel. It turned out to be a great plan because halfway through the day it began to rain terribly and many hikers came in, having cut their hiking day short to get out of the rain. Recon and Popeye neroed in the day that I zeroed, having stayed an extra night in Gorham after I left them, and I learned that Popeye had rolled her ankle coming out of the mountains. She was strong though, and being as close as we were to Katahdin, she had no plans of calling it quits. 

The day I zeroed in the Barn Hostel was filled with eating, laying on my bed, eating, sleeping, and eating some more. The perfect zero day. At one point, a fellow thru-hiker from The Netherlands whipped up a million crepes and all the other hikers in the house pitched in any food/drink we had, and we created a mini hiker feast.

The night before I planned to head back out onto the trail, I decided it was time to cut some more items from my pack and lighten my load even more. I decided I would mail off my thermals (which I no longer needed to sleep in, as the nights had gotten warmer) and my kitchen. I would then cold soak my food the rest of my time on the trail. I mailed these items up to a friend in Maine who had offered to pick me up after Katahdin, so that if I hated cold soaking, I could get my kitchen back for the southern part of my hike. 

Unfortunately, since I came up with this idea at night, I could not mail off these items until the following day. So instead of being able to get on the 7:00 a.m. shuttle back to the trail, I had wait until 8:30 a.m. for the Post Office to open. Then, I realized I wouldn’t have a pair of bottoms to sleep in once I mailed off my thermals, so I got a hitch to Walmart (the hitch was from Deanne again! She was the woman who gave Popeye, Recon, and I a shuttle from Pinkham Notch into Gorham). Since Deanne could only get me back to Gorham and not the trailhead, I had to hitch again (seriously, I hitched sooooo many times when in Gorham).

This time, a woman pulled over, rolled down her window and said “Let’s Roll,” which, to this day, is the best way someone has offered to hitchhike me. However, she thought I was going to Pinkham Notch (which was on her way to work) instead of to the trailhead I needed. That being said, even though it was going to make her late for work, she decided to take me anyway (for the record I told her she did not have to and I could catch another ride). But she insisted, which I thought was just the kindest thing.

I didn’t make it back on the trail until 10:00 a.m., at which point I was ~2.5 hours behind Popeye and Recon. So I spent that day with my head down, legs pumping, taking as few breaks as possible as I tried to catch up to them. I was not sure where they would stop and my cell service cut out pretty quickly after I left town (T-Mobile is not the strongest in New England), but luckily Popeye and I could communicate through our Garmin’s (shoutout to my Uncle, who let me use his Garmin for this trek). That was a hot and humid day, and I got a heat rash from wearing my hiking pants. Near the end of the day, I crossed the border between New Hampshire and made it into the last state on my northward journey: Maine, the “jewel of the trail.”

Thus, I had the sketchiest night of my life as I came down Mt. Success as the sun was setting, and I found myself having to boulder hop down as my vision got dimmer and dimmer. In addition, the trail figured “why not through some deeply muddy trails in her way as well?”

At one point, I was so annoyed by the giant boulders and my backpack, which made downclimbing so much harder, that I took off my pack and tossed it down as far as I could…

I made it to the Carlo Col Shelter about an hour after sunset and learned that I really hate how hiking with a headlamp restricts one’s vision so much. When I got to the shelter, it had only enough room for one more person. Popeye and Recon were there… as were a group of girl scouts who were camping around us. Unfortunately, I do not believe anyone taught the girl scouts trail etiquette. They set up their tents in broad strokes, taking up enough space for two tents with just one of theirs… they also stayed up late that night, talking loudly and generally keeping others awake who would have preferred to be asleep. For those who do not know, most hikers like to start going to sleep at “hiker midnight,” which is when the sun sets. We then tend to wake up when the sun rises. So it was our surprise when, the next morning, as we sat around our stoves cooking breakfast at 5:30 a.m. (or in my case, with my bag of oatmeal), we heard the shout of a woman yelling “5:00 A.M. COMES EARLY ON THE TRAIL, DOESN’T IT GIRLS?!”

We looked around at each other, a bit groggy and confused until a woman with a large backpack hiked by us and apologized. She explained that she had been kept up late that night by the girl scouts, and whether it was mature/appropriate or ight, she had decided that she would return the favor by waking them up early in the morning.

And thus began our day… the day we were to go through… the Mahoosuc Notch… which will be the topic of my next post!