Project Eveningland

6/1/2023 Thursday

The kids weren’t nearly so loud in the morning! One of the adults chatted me up briefly and told me they were 8th graders. She asked where I was headed and I said, “Katahdin.”

There’s real heat coming today and tomorrow. If it hadn’t been for the shade of the forest, I would have burst into flames. As it was I had a pleasant morning, albeit a rocky one. The tread through here is what I imagine when people speak the word “Rocksylvania.” And to think that that is the next state! I had best get my ankles in peak shape before then.

I had an interaction this morning that upset me. I’m bopping along the trail late morning and I see a man ahead. I pause my audiobook in case he wants to exchange greetings. When I’m still 30 feet away he says, “is the trail ahead like this?” “What do you mean?” I asked. “Like this,” he says gesturing around, as though I was too dumb to know he meant the trail when he said “this.” I started to ask if he meant tread, elevation gain/loss, sun exposure, navigability, crowdedness, level of infringement by brush, etc. He interrupts me two words in to say, “like this, packed dirt—it’s a simple question.” This last phrase he speaks in the manner of a cop or military officer. “No, it really isn’t a simple question,” I said. I had already stepped aside, off the trail. He walks by in a huff and I say, walking away and not turning to look at him, “well, it gets rockier up ahead if that’s what you mean.”

I should have said, “fuck you.” The nerve of that guy. He shook me down in a way that reminded me of being interrogated by a cop. What an asshole! I walked on and thought about what I could have said. But then the real insight came through: one reason that that interaction wrongfooted me is that there’s no one in my life who gets to talk to me that way. And I intend to keep it that way.

I hiked on and then something surprising happened. I was walking down a slight incline. I put my left foot on a large rock that appeared to be resting directly on the ground. But only a part of it was and when my full weight transferred to that foot the rock tilted backward and I went down. Had I been running, or hiking without poles, it might have been the end of my hike. As it was I fell in a kind of slow motion, large amounts of inertia going through the poles and then into my wrists as I fell almost totally onto the ground. There was enough momentum for my water bottles and filter to fall out of my the side pockets on my pack. It took all my strength to stop the fall. My face was only a few inches from a rock. I’m uninjured, and my pride isn’t at all hurt. Quite the opposite: a perfectly executed fall, with not so much as a skinned knee. Just dirt all over me.

I stopped at an intermediate shelter for lunch (and to cool off for a minute). I looked at my resupply options. I’ve got a resupply package that’s at least three days out, but I have maybe 2-2.5 days of food. The place I wanted to stay—I could get there tomorrow and then buy an extra day or two of food—is all booked up. I’d like to shower and charge my battery bank at a campground ahead, but there’s no store or anything there. I’ll carry on and see what opportunities present themselves.

It was a short day. Given water availability and other considerations, I had a choice of a 10.6, 17, or 20 mile day. There was just no way I wanted to do 17 in this heat with this much soreness and such a rocky tread. Any last reservations about taking a shorter day faded in the last few miles, which were especially tough.

I’m at Raven Rock shelter area. The picture in the app shows fall foliage and even though I knew better, I was a little disappointed not to see the fall colors from the photo when I got there. The spring that supplies the shelter is stunning. It’s also .3 miles down a steep side trail on the other side of the AT from the shelter.

Lots of folks showed up, including the only other thru hiker I saw all day. Bodie? Brodie? Met him back in Glasgow. I believe he is the second openly gay (male) long distance hiker I’ve met. It’s Bodie; his name is Bodie. I don’t like him. Kidding, kidding—he’s a real nice dude. As to how many queer women I’ve met? Lost count 10 miles in. Thank the gods for queer women.