Visit Granddaughter (and family)... then Finish the Hike

I am very excited about heading out to Oregon bright and early next Tuesday morning to visit my new granddaughter Eliza Mae, her brother Austin, and her parents Phil and Andrea.  You know from my last post picture that Eliza and Austin are beautiful people.  Eliza has no idea yet how excited her Grandpa and Grandma are to see and hold her!

The plans for finishing the Appalachian Trail hike are nearly complete.  I had the chance during Matt and Stephanie's wedding weekend to spend some time with son Kevin, who will be joining me for the final ascent up Mt. Katahdin.  I actually took my entire pack up with me to Michigan to go through it with Kevin and show him what I was taking.  He made a list of a few things he needs to pick up before joining me.  We have our flight plans made and our meeting point and date selected.  Having Kevin experience the finish with me is going to be very special.

I have arranged my mail drops, with Anne's help.  They are pretty much boxed up and ready to go, with dates and locations for each already selected.


Boxed supplies - mostly food - for mail drops

When we finish our visit to Oregon, I will be flying from Portland, OR to Boston.  Anne's sister Mary and her husband George are being true trail angels and inviting me to spend a night with them to recover from my red-eye flight and then driving me to New Hampshire so I can pick up the hike where I left off at the end of July.

After carefully considering whether I wanted to spend hundreds of dollars to reduce my tent weight by two pounds, my backpack weight by one pound and my thermarest weight be half a pound, I decided - influenced of course by the Swede in me from Dad's side - that I've carried all the heavier versions 82% of the way so I can certainly go the rest of the way with them and save the money.  I did purchase a Jet Boil Java Flash cooking system.  It is a compact, integrated system that will allow me to prepare hot foods again and, importantly, my morning Java.  The good news when I stepped onto the scale with my fully equipped pack yesterday was that I had basically held my weight where it was, despite adding the cold weather gear back.  I did it by going through my pack when I first got back and discarding anything that I hadn't used.  I had gone overboard on toiletries and first aid items.  My pack weight including five days of food supply, but no water, is 32 lbs.

I have studied both of my guide books, the AWOL AT Guide and the AT Thru-Hiker's Companion intently for the remaining section of my hike.  It is hard to believe that those things that seemed so distant early this year - the New Hampshire White Mountains, the bogs and river fords in Maine, and finally Mt. Katahdin - are now seeming to be within reach. I can't honestly say I am feeling confident.  I look back and realize that in the first portion of my hike - through most of Virginia prior to my injury - I averaged 13.6 net miles per day including all the zero days I took.  In the second part I averaged 15.6, never having taken a full zero day, but a couple of very near zero days.  It seems that many of my fellow thru-hikers were getting stronger during those "middle miles" while I was weakening.  To finish the hike in the time I have planned, I will need to average 13.4 miles per day... over a section that includes many of the toughest miles on the AT.  Will I be able to make it?  I am hoping that this time off for rest and healing will put me in shape to do it.

It has been an interesting balancing act thus far on my time off.  I'm trying to allow some healing to take place, yet I want to exercise so that I don't get out of shape for the rest of the hike.  In the first couple of weeks, I have to say I have leaned toward the rest and heal side.  I have been doing some easy weight lifting and some walking, but the first day I set out to jog my knees clearly said "not yet".  I hope to increase my walking/jogging mileage considerably over the next three weeks before resuming the hike.  I feel a little closer to "normal" each day... and for the most part, that is good.  The dings, bruises and sore knees are getting better.  The swelling in my feet is gradually going down.  I also feel like my feet are "softening" somehow. Towards the end of the last hike my feet were becoming almost blister proof.  I hope I am not undoing that.

Stay tuned.  I'll try to get another couple of posts up before resuming the hike.

A Week and a Half Back in Civilization

Time has flown by since I got off the trail on August 1st.  On my last hiking day before my break, Thursday, July 31st, I hiked over the first of the mountains I will face that has a tree line.  That means that you reach a certain elevation where there are no more trees... the conditions no longer support tree growth.  Mount Moosilauke, at 4,802 feet in elevation, with a "mean-looking" elevation profile, looked like a daunting task to me the night before, as I was talking with Woodman and Pidgeon at the hostel about it.  They had both slack packed the mountain, and were giving me tips.  I was feeling beat up and tired.  The weather forecast was calling for thunderstorms in the afternoon, so I wanted to get up and over it fairly quickly.  For those reasons, I decided to also do what the two of them had done, and slack pack.  I had only slack packed one other part of the trail... a nine mile section way back in Tennessee, when I was testing my sore shin splint to see if I could go.  On this Thursday, I had Legion - the hostel owner and an experienced hiker - shuttle me to the North side of Moosilauke, along with Woodman and Pidgeon, who were going to continue North from there.  Before leaving, I ate a good breakfast of pancakes, eggs and bacon.  All I had to carry in my day pack was a water bottle, my water purification tablets, snacks and a lunch, my fleece and a large trash bag, which was my improvised rain gear.  All I can say is that carrying a pack that was well under five pounds seemed like a real treat compared to carrying my normal pack of about 35 pounds.  While the climb up Moosilauke was steep, it seemed relatively easy without the weight.  There was a beautiful cascade alongside the trail much of the way up.  As I neared the top, the weather turned and I was "socked in".  You can see by the picture below that my view was a little different than the one Anne included in the last post.  It turned out that the North to South slack pack on my final day before the break was great because I got to catch up to several of my fellow thru hikers coming in the opposite direction that I hadn't seen in a while, including Bagger, Mother Earth, Hollywood and Hemlock.  Squirrel, who had come South to North, happened to be at the top when I arrived and was kind enough to take the picture.


Tom socked in at the top of Moosilauke

The cascade along the trail on the way up



I returned to the Welcome Hiker's Hostel that afternoon with time to spare.  I ran into the Austin, Texas couple - Youngbeard and Sunshine - as well as Sasquatch there.  It seemed like a fitting way to finish up this section... catching up with my fellow hikers.  I also chatted with Legion and Steady about ways to reduce my pack weight.  Steady is a triple crown hiker, having completed the AT, the Pacific Crest Trail and the Continental Divide Trail.  After my slack pack today, I am convinced I want to trim a few more pounds from my pack if possible.  Also, I will be more open to other slack packs when the opportunities present themselves.

My superb trail angel from Hanover, NH - Warren Thayer - drove the hour or so to the Hiker's Welcome Hostel and then back to Hanover with me, where I stayed the night in their home again.  I did my laundry that evening and cleaned myself up for the flight back home the next day.  Warren took me to the bus stop the next morning so I could pick up the Hanover to Boston Logan bus.  And I flew from there to Charlotte (via LaGuardia it turns out), where my lovely wife and my brother Dave picked me up.  We stayed that night at Dave's home.  Despite it being late at night, they had an awesome homecooked meal awaiting me when I arrived.  Thank you niece Sabrina and sister-in-law Isa!  The contrast between tent life and the pampered life seemed large that night.

As Anne and I awoke on the morning of August 6th, we saw the news that our son Phil had sent in the wee hours that our new granddaughter was born!  We were blessed to hear that Mom and daughter were both doing very well.  Here is a picture of our grandson Austin admiring his new baby sister.

Austin and baby sister Eliza Mae

 

As I write this now, I have been off the trail for twelve days, and we just returned from Grand Rapids, MI where I had the privilege of officiating my niece Stephanie's marriage to Matt Martin.  We had a great time over the weekend - and the whole event was beautiful!

The beaming new couple!

I'm thinking that life is pretty good!  We are excited about getting out to see and hold our new granddaughter soon.  My plan is to resume the hike on September 10th... the airplane reservation has already been made.

In the meantime, I'll be catching you up on several other things over the next few weeks, including:

• Son Kevin's plans to join me for the final ascent of Mt. Katahdin
• What I plan to do to try to stay in hiking shape
• Thoughts on trail angels and how they impact an Appalachian Trail thru hike



Mount Moosilauke the goal this week mile 1790

Mount Moosilauke

Tom ("Mexbuki", aka "Mex-B") passed through Hanover, New Hampshire ahead of schedule on Saturday July 26 and so he is trekking on toward Mount Moosilauke before he gets shuttled back to town, then bussed to Boston Logan airport to fly back home at the end of the week. Since the last post,  the weather has been hot, humid and rainy. This morning the weather has cleared and he is on target to climb  Mount Moosilauke; a 4,802 ft.high mountain at the southwestern edge of the White Mountain range, near the town of Benton, New Hampshire. The trail passes right over the mountain. The name is from two Indian words moois-meaning bald and uake -meaning place. There is a hostel called Hikers Welcome Hostel at the northern base of the mountain near Glencliff, NH that allows hikers to stay overnight with bunks, laundry facilities and a store. The weather is important on this trek up the mountain and if it is storming  it is better to wait it out.

He has come across some great trail angels this week. As Tom entered Hanover, NH he visited the Dartmouth Outing Club to check the listing of hiker resources offered in town. After a Starbucks coffee, he called one of the folks on the list that will let hikers stay at their homes and shuttle them here and there. Warren Thayer agreed to let him stay at their home that evening, and then to come shuttle Tom back to Hanover after his climb of Mount Moosilauke later in the week.  From Hanover, Tom will take a bus down to Boston Logan, from where he will fly home for a break and to meet some other calendar commitments.

I have mentioned  in previous posts that my sisters tennis coach, Bud Schultz, was also hiking the trail. He completed his hike a few weeks ago (WHOO HOO!!) and the video below shows a post that Bud made to his blog at the top of Mount Moosilauke. My goodness! Bud posted 40 mph winds and no visibility the day he was at the top.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m84HBiEq1Bk&feature=player_detailpage

Bud's entire journey can be followed here
http://www.tenacitybuddy.org/#

Two night's ago Tom stayed at Tigger's Tree House, near Etna, NH pictured below-it was fortunate because thunderstorms were rumbling through all day.  Ralph and Karen - the proprietors - live just off he trail and have two RV's on their property that they allow the hikers to use.  Inside their home, on the lower level, there is a hiker area equipped with a washer and dryer, food preparation area and bathroom. It was a dream for Tom and another hiker - a southbound veterinarian from Pennsylvania - to share. Then the following morning Karen dropped back at the trailhead, after first stopping at a general store to pick up breakfast sandwiches.

Last night he stayed with 4 other hikers on a porch at Bill Ackerley's home near Lyme, NH  (mile 1762).  Bill is a trail legend who always has ice cream available for hikers and allows them to sleep on his porch even when he is not there.  Bill had been out of town a couple of days, but Tom and the rest had the privilege of meeting him when he returned home that evening.  He prepared coffee for the hikers the next morning.

Once Tom returns home to Greenville I am sure that he will be updating my posts and adding some "go pro" footage and more pictures and adventures.
In the meantime, if you have not seen the entire hiking page it can be located here http://mexbuki2014.blogspot.com
If you go all the way back to the first posting you can see just how he got his trail name (Mexbuki) and also information about The Frazee Dream Center and how you could contribute to their programs for the students they serve.
As for me, I am ready to hear all about this adventure and August 1 cannot come soon enough! Some of the time during this break will be spent figuring out the logistics for Tom and son Kevin to join the journey in Maine. Stay tuned! He expects to return to the trail the second week of September.
co blogger: Anne