Just a quick post here to let you all know I finished yesterday! No more white blazes for me, no more 4000 to 5000 kcal diet, no more blending in while smelling like… this. So far the day after just feels like another “zero” day, but getting home will help me quickly shift gears back to civilian life.
I do want to tell one quick story while I have your attention. I read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series at an impressionable age, so of course I carried a towel with me 2200 miles just in case, a nice compact and lightweight one. It had gone unused for almost 6 months at the bottom of my dry bag. Then, on my last night camping out on “Katahdin Eve,” I thought I had sufficiently waited out the afternoon drizzle at Birches campsite and finally pitched my tent and got everything ready for the night. But the rain came back, and hard! I entered my well-intentioned but trail-weary tent after dinner to find my bed soaked, finally putting that towel to good use. Thank you, Douglas Adams! (Fun fact: I hitchhiked zero times on the AT, almost unheard of!)
I’m looking forward to posting some other interesting statistics about my hike, like total mileage (not simply the 2198.5 AT miles), daily averages, etc. Chime in if you have stats I should try to report, or any questions about my journey I can try to answer! Now to get myself home…
I’ve only done one hike, the 192mi Wainwright Walk across England, that’s more than 100 miles. Every other “long” hike has been around 80mi. So this last 4.5% of the AT is more ambitious than almost every hike I’ve ever undertaken. Crazy!
If all goes according to plan, one week from now I’ll be down off Katahdin, celebrating, and figuring out how to return to civilization. Not just physically, but mentally and emotionally. Not just logistically, but philosophically. And by the way, how long before I stop automatically introducing myself as Luscious?
I have about seven more days to figure out what to do with the rest of my life. Or at least how to start living the rest of it. The best I’ve come up with so far involves cross-stitching, revisiting my forsaken guitar and piano, and maybe offering to make some improvements to FarOut, the app nearly every AT hiker uses to navigate and share info about water sources, campsites, etc. I have ideas!
This last stretch through the 100 Mile Wilderness is almost definitely the most remote and isolated along the AT, with the Smoky Mountains being a close second. Not a lot of Verizon towers out in these parts! Or paved roads. So next time you hear from me this adventure will be over, one way or another. And since an Appalachian Trail thru-hike requires only that at least 2000 miles be hiked in 12 months, success is already locked in. (I resume at the 2098.1 mark tomorrow morning.) But I’d love to conclude this blog with a Katahdin summit photo. Stay tuned!
If everything goes sideways in the meantime, I offer you this consolation summit cairn made of pancakes I ate for breakfast this morning.
I turned 50 last week. We climbed a mountain to celebrate. Get it? 🙄
I should rename my blog Migratory Double Entendres. Readers should not be subjected to this much titular cleverness without a warning label. Sorry.
I initially booked the only 6 bunks available (of 90) at my favorite White Mountains hut, Lakes of the Clouds, for my birthday. Room for me, my two teens, and whichever of their grandfathers and aunts could collect them from the airport and hike up with them. Over the subsequent months, 2 more bunks opened up, and then 3 more after that. So we were able to accommodate lots of grandfathers, lots of aunts, lots of partners, and even a Moe!
Mount Washington is the 4th tallest on the Appalachian Trail, and the tallest outside the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina. I was hiking in on a different, longer trail than everyone else who parked at the bottom and hiked the Ammonoosuc Ravine. (My longer trail had been over 1800 miles already.) Allow me to tell the story in photo captions:
Harry’s smiling face was first to appear. This is not the first time he and Moe raced up a mountain. But the first time in about 10 years! The Beehive at Acadia in Maine comes to mind…The rest of the crew was not too far behind. Check out my Dad’s old school pack frame! 😳 Hopefully aluminum had been discovered before he acquired it?Moe and I have been here before! Check back-issues of Migratory Pebbles for season 1’s hut-to-hut hike back in 2011. Deja vu all over again! Lakes of the Clouds, near the summit of Mount Washington, will ever be my favorite.The thunderstorms began outside, so we ate soup and drank cocoa — and smuggled Guinness Draught — in the hut…And we played intense games of cards and Jenga and Codenames..Right before sunset, the storm miraculously cleared!We could even make out the summit of Mount Washington above us (or above the pictured Croo) for the first time all day!In the morning our bunk room was chaos. 12 people in bunks stacked 3 tall. Moe upheld his trailname, Top Bunk. We felt bad for the random stranger assigned to the 12th bunk in our room!First thing after breakfast we ventured to the summit. My sister Maggie has been by my side through thick and thin for all of my 50 years. We celebrated with my brother Paul two weeks ago closer to sea level, and he and I have already been up here together anyway, so he got a pass this time. 😉Dad and I had been up here at least twice before together. And at least once had me chasing my bedroll across the summit in a gale wind, followed by a hitchhike down the auto road. But this guy exposing me to the elements and exposing me to the existence of the Appalachian Trail at an impressionable age I can blame for this year’s wanderlust. And he can blame me for an unruly hat to the face.Finally, Felicity & Harry have always been partners in crime to my shenanigans. Head to the airport minutes after your last final exam? Sure. Miss all your friends’ high school graduation? Done. A decade ago I had to bribe them with Snickers bars to climb down this mountain. This time they refused my Snickers entirely! I hope I get another 50 years worth of adventures with these two. ❤️
As a special treat for reading this post to its end, I leave you with a self portrait taken the day after Mount Washington, in between the Carters and Mount Moriah. I call it “You should see the other guy.”
This is 50.
The other guy was a tree. A nasty lichen-covered mace of a tree hiding behind the curtain of a harmless looking tree leaning over the boardwalk. So I unwittingly went full-speed through the curtain tree and into the mace tree, which knocked me flat on my ass, but somehow did not permanently disfigure or blind me. Or even break my glasses?!
Looking backward down the trail at the culprit in the foreground and his accomplice behind him. Maybe you can make out the Benj-shaped depression in the moss where I lay stunned for a while, counting and re-counting my eyeballs and convincing myself that gratitude is the correct hot take.
After a couple zero days convalescing in Gorham, NH, I’m ready to get back out there and push into Maine!
It’s rained 5 of the past 6 days. Yesterday it rained so hard all day I couldn’t use my phone because the touchscreen was too wet, and my gloves were too wet, and my fingers were too wet. Luckily Siri was able to send a message to my shuttle driver through voice commands, and I was able to get into Bennington for a zero day today. I needed it!
Other than the rain, and its tendency to make me slip and fall on rocks and off wooden planks over swampy sections and down hills into streams face-first, my only other real grievance right now is with USPS. They misplaced my resupply box for a couple days in Richmond, so it arrived here in Bennington neither as scheduled yesterday, nor on my zero day today. On the bright side, it popped back into existence this morning. In Jersey City!
Such a logistical obstacle has not interrupted my journey yet to date. In all the years I’ve been out here on the AT so far — what’s it been, about three? — the weekly boxes have arrived on time. Not necessarily by the scheduled delivery date, but always by the time I needed them. This is the first time I can’t simply move on up the trail after a zero day.
As a countermeasure, I’ll have the friendly neighborhood shuttle driver drop me off 20 miles north of here, and I’ll hike back south. That’ll give USPS an entire Sunday to joyride my package around the tri-state area before they have an opportunity to deliver it again on Monday. Failing that, I might just stay in Bennington forever? Or ask the post office to “bounce” my box up to Rutland, VT so they can keep this slapstick going another week? I’m out of good ideas. And almost out of good food.
Sorry to get all Empire Strikes Back on here. This trail has been nothing but Return of the Jedi 99% of the time recently. I got to camp out at a drive-in movie theater. I’ve had so many ice cream sundaes. I’ve had revitalizing visits with friends and family (and friends who are like family, and family who are dear friends) in New York and Connecticut and Massachusetts. (And I haven’t forgotten Virginia, either! Was that last year?) Even today I had a local chocolate peanut butter stout (Madison Brewing) with my tuna melt lunch. Luscious is bruised, quite literally, but not broken! And tomorrow will be a sunny day, and the mountains here are truly green.
Shout out to Mother Nature and all the other lovely and loving moms, past, present, and future, and nurturers of every kind in my life and in yours. ❤️
This one I’ve been preparing for since birth. Every Reese’s Pieces Sundae at Friendly’s with Granny. Every visit to Rota Spring, Holy Cow, or Kimball Farm. Every chased down ice cream truck at East Waushacum or Wyman Pond. Every shameful stop at T.J.’s to grab a comfort pint on the way home. They’ve all led to this moment.
Having officially passed the halfway mark on the Appalachian Trail, I’m now encouraged to celebrate this milestone by eating, all in one sitting, a half-gallon of ice cream. I’m not doing this for me, I’m doing this to preserve the integrity of the trail. I am however choosing to import my ice cream from Vermont rather than defaulting to the national brand from nearby Hershey, PA. (I may be a thru-hiker, but I’m not a monster.)
Maybe the only one from the trail? After all, this thing is basically half over. Or maybe it’s a sign of things to come… But don’t get your hopes up. (Unless you’re hoping for fewer vlog posts.)
I’ll let the video speak for itself. But for SEO purposes, let me just get the words Maryland Challenge on here along with Harpers Ferry, West Virginia and Pen Mar, Pennsylvania. And tariffs, because I hear that word is trending. You’ll all have to catch me up on what I missed after this is all over. After.
For those following along at home, you can update your maps to place Luscious at Rockfish Gap, mile 864.6, next to Waynesboro, VA, gateway to the Shenandoahs. I have about one more week before I’m done with this beautiful state. I can’t imagine they get better than this. (They certainly don’t get longer than this!) I sure will miss it.
Right now I’m sitting at Happ Coffee in an old converted factory building. It totally has the Tatnuck Booksellers vibe. (IYKYK.) When they close in half an hour, I can just walk around to the other side which is a brewpub. Twist my arm, Waynesboro! I was granted a free zero day here courtesy of …wildfire?
Uncle David, Aunt Rebecca, and canine cousin Ezra (💔) drove 3 hours to visit me at Devils Backbone Basecamp yesterday. (They must really love beer?) We had so much fun catching up and approximating a game of cornhole.
I stayed over for free the night before at DBB’s Tent City, featuring a heated bath house with showers and electrical outlets. Also, the beer wasn’t too shabby!
After our leisurely lunch and impaired bean bag tossing, my family dropped me off back on the trail at Reid’s Gap, where I soon received the ATC’s broadcast to all registered thru-hikers up and down the 2200 mile trail. One little 13 mile section of the AT was closed due to a wildfire jumping its containment perimeter. And I happened to be 2 hours from reaching that closed section, where I planned to camp last night and hike through all day today. So I guess I win? A day early into Waynesboro, a buy-one get-one special at Kline’s Dairy Bar, a coffee shop sort of afternoon, and a couple Benj Beers on tap as reward for finally updating this blog. 🍻
For once I’m truly wishing for rain. I hope nature, the people who live near it, and the firefighters protecting it all catch a break, and things get good and wet to reduce the danger for all those at risk during this dry spell in the southeast. It’s warm enough out that it could rain my entire way through the Shennies and I’ll just look up and laugh. I want to leave you on good terms, Virginia.
Those of you who are just here for the beard? Come back in 3 or 4 weeks. There’s been an accident. It involved some shears over at Eula’s Hairstyling in Damascus, Virginia. [Side note for my software engineer friends: how cool is the name EULA, right?!]
That’s right, I’m in Virginia! Only 10 more states to go. Plus… Virginia. It has a longer stretch of trail than 7 of the other states combined. It’s a solid 25% of the entire trail, so we’ll be here for the rest of winter and well into spring. We’ll have a new beard by then. A 100% Virginian beard. My father grew up in this state, and I doubt he’s ever spent enough time here as an adult to grow a 100% Virginian beard. [Cue fact-checkers!]
My resupply box had a little something extra this week: a gift from my ceramic artist sister-in-law! I forgot to take a picture of the reverse side, but the back says “AT 2025.” I love it!! It’s attached to the front of my water bottle holder on my backpack shoulder strap. So you’ll see it in pretty much all future hiking selfies. 😍 Thanks, Becca!
What else did I do with my rainy zero day in Damascus? My hostel host, Lady Di, spends a lot of time knitting, has an old wooden spinner, and was watching a YouTube video about dyeing wool. [No, I swear this has nothing to do with my former beard. Let’s move on!] So I knew we’d have to spend a few hours watching my Migratory Pebbles adventure buddy Maurice’s Dreaming Robots Electric Eel Wheel wool spinner videos, and drum carder videos, and review videos, etc. Lady Di is a die-hard old-school manual spinner, but I could tell she was warming up to the idea, since she couldn’t stop watching more videos of Moe and his fiber-manipulating inventions!
In other news, I “aqua-blazed” past the one and only remaining post-Helene impassable section of trail a few days ago. This was made possible by Jim at Boots Off Hostel who hooked me up with a kayak, and collected me at the other end of Lake Watauga, and delivered me and my pack to the next trailhead. Many days on the trail blend together. This one never will!
Now I’ve got a solid 5 days of hiking before my next resupply box arrives (thanks, Bae!) at an alpaca farm. And it’s going to get real cold: back-to-back nights this weekend in the mid-teens. That’s January weather, but it’ll be March. I’m not excited about it, but I’m sure by the end of Virginia I’ll be nostalgic about sub-20° temperatures. (Until I hit them again in New England in June.) My face is going to be cold without that beard…
If you’re following along on a map, you can put a dot at Devil’s Fork Gap, NOBO mile 311.5. I crossed the 300 mile mark today after 4 weeks! So I guess I’m averaging a little better than 75 miles per week. I expected to be doing more like 100, but maybe that’ll happen once spring comes and I can swap out some of my winter gear?
People-wise I’m on my own again. I had a blast making it through Great Smoky Mountain National Park with Metro and E.T. in 5 days and 5 nights. Metro and I planned to make the traverse together for safety as much as keeping the Green Dragon Hostel party going. It just so happened that E.T. was also staying at the Fontana Dam “Hilton” (fancy shelter with hot showers and phone chargers) our first night, so we became a trio. E.T. left his phone home, so we’ll never intentionally coordinate like Metro and I did. But no doubt we’ll continue stumbling into each other the whole way north. Each time it’s a cause for celebration! (The one day we notably didn’t run into each other was the day we both started on January 17. He started a couple hours after me, and I stayed about half a day ahead of him for the first week!) With all that said, I set out to hike this trail alone, and I continue to want a solitary experience, but it sure is nice to have that me-time interrupted on occasion by running into my new friends. We had an epic pizza party at Standing Bear Farm the day we exited the Smokies, courtesy of Atypical Hiker trucking us in pizzas from Mellow Mushroom in Asheville. And then we went our separate ways.
Health-wise I’m feeling great. The more heavily I’m weighed down (e.g. right after a food resupply, and before drinking my 3 liters of water), and the steeper the elevation changes, the more likely my knees will be the weakest link. But I carry ibuprofen, which seems to primarily have a mental effect. Just knowing I have it does wonders, and I’ve only used 4 pills on 3 different days over the last 2 weeks. So I consider that issue resolved. Besides the knees, my ankles feel pretty beat up by the end of each day, but they always bounce back. Also, the skin on my hips gets destroyed by my heavy pack riding on them, but to me that beats my shoulders getting sore.
Food-wise I’ve been running a surplus. I’ve been giving bits and pieces away to fellow hikers and hostel owners. Everyone seems to really like my homemade trail mix, Luscious Loot™️. And instead of eating 2000 calories of it daily, I’ve only been able to eat half of that. So I’ll be cutting back to 3 bags per resupply instead of 5. Regardless, I’m still gaining weight, as my 5000+ kcal per day of packed food has been supplemented at least once weekly by an in-town binge of everything I see. Let there be no worries of me wasting away and losing my protective insulating layer!
Weather-wise it’s been hit and miss. Georgia and North Carolina, up to around Wayah Gap, were snowy and icy (requiring my microSpikes) and often super uncomfortably cold. The most uncomfortable part was always my hands. Feet, head, and core seem to be under control at all times. But my poor circulation leaves my hands wishing for a better solution when it’s below freezing out. Which over these 4 weeks has been at least part of most days! Not in the Smokies, where we lucked out with unseasonably warm weather. But it also rained or even thunder-stormed most of those days. I had to take a zero on Wednesday this week due to heavy rain, already saturated soil, and high winds. That’s a perfect combination for iffy trees to give up and fall down on you while hiking. The same is forecast for tomorrow, and possibly Sunday, too, it seems now? That’s followed by a bunch of super cold nights next week, which I’m not looking forward to, but at least I’m equipped for them. (I have to admit it was annoying to drag my -5°F sleep system through the Smokies only to sweat in the summer-like temps!) I wonder if I’ll need to put the microSpikes back on next week, too?
Logistics-wise, I’m really kept on my toes trying to plan when it’s safe to be outdoors, when a hostel is warranted, what to do when there is no hostel option, when and where to ship my food resupply boxes, how to keep my devices charged up, and planning most of this while I’m somewhere with any measure of Internet access. I get a single bar of cellular about 33% of the time on the trail, but frequently I don’t have any signal at the shelter or campsite I choose. The logistics can really wipe me out mentally as much as the physical hiking does. (So I’ve been sleeping great!) Jessica has been a saint getting my resupply boxes shipped out quickly so I don’t go hungry. ❤️ Speaking of which, I somehow have to combine the weather forecasts, the trail map, the hostel availability, and my current food supply, and translate that into a location for Jessica to ship out my next box. Plus it’s a post office holiday on Monday. I just want to sleep, though! And no doubt so does Jessica on a Saturday morning! Oh, well. I won’t starve.
I leave you with some more Luscious cameos in Metro’s videos. At this point, 4 weeks in, I can say with confidence that I won’t be making daily videos, or possibly any videos. I clearly can’t even get one of these blog posts out weekly. For now I choose living in the moment. And sleeping! That’s more my speed. 🥱😴
This morning I opened my first resupply box shipped by Jessica. She placed a personal note inside on the back of this quote from Joseph Campbell, “The big question is whether you are going to be able to say a hearty yes to your adventure.”
Yes, yes, one hundred times yes!
I am having so much fun out here. My favorite days are my days alone inside my own head, listening to podcasts, not thinking twice to stop and take photos or adjust my pack, speed up or slow down, tune into my thoughts or into my podcasts.
My other favorite days are my days hiking with new friends. Crooning Michael McDonald impressions while trudging through 6” of snow an extra 5 miles at night with headlamps on in the freezing cold in hopes the next shelter will have better amenities than the last one.
I am not building nearly enough “free” time into my weekly schedule. After shipping home my Zpacks Arc Haul 70L backpack — not up to the challenge of my 42 lb load and now replaced by a Gregory Stout 70 rated to 50 lbs — I easily filled today’s remaining 6 hours of downtime in Franklin, NC paying bills and planning out the logistics of my coming week. And this evening, did I edit videos, or help a hostel owner get their printer working? Try to picture it…
So, yet again, in lieu of any video from me, I direct you to this video released today courtesy of Metro, featuring yours truly in a supporting role. And though my own videos are (hopefully/eventually/belatedly) forthcoming, at least Rambling Roots Hostel now has a US Letter size test print of Joseph Cambell’s quote taped to its wall.
Hell yes.
Having escorted pebbles from the Irish Sea to the North Sea on the Wainwright Walk, now Benj is eyeing the Appalachian Trail…
