Project Eveningland

3/24/2023 Friday

In the morning I walked down a wide stone path cut through the fine spruce and fir forest. I walked up two balds—Little Hump Mountain and Big Hump Mountain. The paths through the wide open grassy landscape are just murder on the ankles. The trail is very exposed, and the sun was hot. The trail becomes a series of deep, braided, muddy ruts which force one to walk awkwardly, one foot in front of the other in the narrow space.

The tread sucked all day. There I said it. It’s frustrating that the gorgeous views require walking a trail that isn’t so much built poorly as not built at all. The paths are social paths, and they go straight up. You can see the older ruts from where the trail became too deep and narrow to walk from erosion. Then another path gets trampled into the mountain, a muddy cut amidst the tall grasses and brambles. Then that one becomes too deep and the whole cycle starts over. I wish I could get some logs and gravel up there and build an actual trail, with rock cribs to manage the mud. Then we could dispense with all the passive aggressive signs which suggest that trail users are the problem when in fact the trail itself is the problem. Build a proper trail!

It’s been a rough day. My stomach was upset for the second half. I ran out of food. The climb up the balds, and the brutal, rocky descent nearly broke my body, and may have actually broken my spirit, if only temporarily. I walked into the hostel (Mountain Harbor Hostel) just completely wasted from the hike and on edge from a dangerous road walk. As soon as I arrived I learned that the food truck that’s normally here won’t open until April 1, and there’s really no easy way to access a restaurant excepting a tenuous group order picked up by the staff (who adhere to what I can only assume is a mandatory smoking policy). Alongside this unwelcome news came about five separate entreaties to hurry up and join said collective dinner order. But my executive function was fucked from the exhaustion and dehydration. I just wanted to know which bunk is mine and figure out where my buds are. I about lost my mind and certainly lost my temper with the barrage of stimulus, information, demands.

It’s hard to self regulate on the trail. Or it is for me anyway. This isn’t a challenge I’m seeking; it’s an incidental problem which sure is in plain view today. Having to jump through hoops to acquire food after a brutal 16.8 mile day… it’s enough to make anyone a monster. The young ones and Europeans hold it together the best. I hold it together the worst.

My parents will pick me up tomorrow and we’ll stay in an AirBnB. I am going to rest tomorrow and Sunday. They were able to acquire a new pair of my preferred hiking boots! The ones I’m wearing worn beyond usefulness.