Part 5 of 6: A Day in the Life of an Appalachian Trail Hiker
Part Five
Rivers offered a different experience, and most were crossed on a dirty and busy highway bridge that had to be crossed as quickly as possible. Others were more peaceful allowing the hike to pause and enjoy the view of the river upstream or downstream. In Maine, there are numerous small stream crossings that dictated fording the water on a log, or more safely, just bare feet. I think my boots were perpetually wet in Maine. And then there is the Kennebec, our party forded it early in the morning with no problems. I will go into details about the river in the chapter on Maine.
Notice I am using us and we for the itinerary. If we were a “family” a group consensus would dictate the destination. If someone wanted to go further, or shorter, the group membership would evolve. Sometimes this was a voluntary effort especially if you wanted to get away from someone that did not click, but sometimes it was unvoluntary and was the result of an injury, or for me in Virginia, being broke and wanting to move north faster and to be picked up at the Potomac River for my Flip-Flop.
By this time, we are now in the middle of the afternoon with thoughts of dinner. As I would hike along, the menu would pop up and I would decide on mac and cheese, or something better if I had it. If it was a cool day, soup would be added, at least a cup a soup, if not a larger pot of Lipton. My choice of instant pudding would also be thought about, since that was something, I would start first in order to have it set in time.
Swimming might be on the agenda, but I would save that for the night camp, especially since wet gear could then dry overnight.
As the day wore on, I would get tired, and camp would be reached anytime between 3 pm and 7 pm. The 7 pm ends might be a longer day, approaching 20 miles or so. But also 7 pm could mean approaching darkness, especially in the north and later in the season. In any case, arriving in camp before darkness was important in order to find water, set things up and start dinner. The goal was to have dinner cleaned up, food stashed and take one last tinkle before bed.
Hiking days could be anything from 5 miles to 25. The shorter distances happened in the Whites due to the climbs, or when a storm or equipment failure hit me. For example, my boots fell apart on September 24th on my frozen hike from Kinsman Pond LT to Eliza Brook LT in the Whites. I hitched the next day into N. Woodstock to buy some duct tape and glue to fix the boots, and that would have to hold 4 days until I reached Hanover, NH and shoe repair. I did it in 3 days, even while climbing Mt. Moosilauke.
We could stop anywhere from 3 pm to 7pm depending on the location of the camp, the next day’s journey, or crappy weather. If we knew the destination would be dry, we would pick up water at the last available spring and carry a gallon or so in my collapsible water bag, heavy but necessary.
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