Project Eveningland

“That’s me. I’m watching you. You’re doing great” –Naomi Nagata

3/17/2023 Friday

Dear Reader, please help me. I’m trapped listening to just the worst conversation while waiting for a shuttle from the hostel that’s 20 minutes late. For the last few days, I’ve kept running into a person who just sets my teeth on edge. They make my skin crawl. And why am I breathing cigarette smoke outdoors?! Where is the fucking shuttle?!

When I arrived at the pickup point where I was set to get off trail, there were trail angels there and I sat down for a Gatorade and some cheese. Then others caught up. Trail angels were lovely. But oh god the vibe makes me want to run away.

Earlier today: I woke up this morning at 7:15 to the sound of rain. Woke for the last time I mean. I got up 2-3 times during the night but I’d say that’s an impressively good (low) number on trail, on a tilted site. The rain was far lighter than it sounded from inside the tent. I packed away everything while still under the rainfly. Took that down. Went to the shelter to eat breakfast. Had to wait 40 got-damn minutes to use full-ish privy. Rough morning.

The rain was pretty patchy, mostly very light. I hiked through a sodden field filled with maroon-colored prickly vines standing hunched over in the wind. But it’s not a field; it’s a bald. I’m at the peak of a mountain, not in a field. There’s just something about the straightness of the path and perhaps a barbed wire barrier that activate the schema for “field” in my brain. The edges of the path are cushioned by straw-colored, wind-blasted patches of grass.

I fought off a migraine today. I headed it off in time with medication. Thank god. Getting a migraine on trail used to be a real pickle.

And now back to the parking lot where I’m waiting as I write this. Oh, god, the trail stories I’m listening to in the tiny gravel lot where I am waiting (the hostel forgot which gap I was at, will be here in 30) are awful and I can’t explain why. It doesn’t matter. I am going to use money to escape from this person, and I wish them much health and happiness.

Back to the hike. The skeletal trees shifted in and out of sight behind swiftly moving mists which seem to temporarily drain the world of color. Pale green crust covers the trees in a soothing homage to summer foliage. The weather is dementor type stuff, but the forest isn’t at all threatening.

Ah, here is the shuttle!

Amy drove me back to the hostel. When she parked, smoke began to pour out of Betsy, the trusty, beat up old hostel shuttle. One of the hikers in the common room shouted, on seeing the smoke through the window, “what happened to Betsy?!” It sounds made up, but it’s absolutely true. Amy could well be played by Amy Sedaris. Her phone has a loud retro ringer, and she huffs in frustration and mutters something like, “oh, for heaven sakes” each time before she answers. She is organized but put upon at the moment. And, since it’s not my problem and I’ll be nothing but patient and polite, I feel moral license to find the whole thing endearing.

Here’s something much less endearing to contemplate: cool (but cold enough) water in the showers! Eep! It’s not a big deal because I’m not that dirty. I’ve been hiking in the cold and mostly staying dry. I managed to soap up and just hop in and hurriedly rinse.

For dinner I had a perfectly prepared (by me) cheap oven pizza. Caught up with Bill, Vegas, Oz, Spring Break, Chef, and others. Very friendly group of folks. Very warm atmosphere in the cozy, wood-stove-warmed common area, which has a tiny little resupply store, comfy couches, and a few freezers full of breakfast sandwiches, frozen pizza, cheeseburgers and actually some other less “junk” type stuff. Tracy, I have to tell you it would surely qualify as a mini food desert, however much precipitation it gets. It’s far from the worst food situation I’ve been in on trail, I’ll say that.

There is a terrible cold coming. The forecast is downright intimidating. I’m seriously considering taking two days off. Yeah, hikers call it a “zero” or I guess a “double zero” but I’m finding that language more and more nutty. It makes it sound so much more indulgent than “a day off,” which, one might well be reminded, is also called a weekend, which affords a person, in theory, two days off. So I am taking a weekend. I’ll sleep in a tiny windowless “cabin” (really an insulated shed). It comes with heat! That is, unless I change my mind tomorrow morning and decide I want to brave frigid temps.

My friend Linda asks, via email, why did I decide to hike in February and March instead of waiting for warmer weather? The sentimental answer is that winter hiking on the AT has a romantic aspect. It’s so crisp and brown and blue and no bugs and less crowding. Fewer ticks. But probably the biggest reasons are health related. Last time I injured myself because I was in a hurry. So this time I’ve bought myself the maximum amount of time between starting the hike and the deadline to get to Mt. Katahdin before bad weather comes (mid September, plus enough time for me to physically recover before returning to work). I wanted to make it easy to choose to take it slow, especially in the beginning. This hike is in large part a mental health treatment, but I mustn’t let that damage my physical health (read: connective tissue).

Do you know, I’ve never derived as much joy from a writing project as this. Every week here feels like a month. So much happens. Trail life is so much damn fun to write about. I feel as a painter would with a palette the size of the moon. I could write and write and write. But don’t let the prose fool you—I’m pretty worn down.