#200 Appalachian Trail 2024 Section Hike Intro: Hanover NH to Katahdin Iron Works Road - Final Section Hike (Book Four)
This will be the hardest and most dangerous section yet, the section I'm the least physically and mentally prepared to face. It's now or never. Ready or not, here I go.....
Message To Reader - I can’t believe we’ve made it to Post #200. Hope you are enjoying this journey so far and are finding things that you relate to. Thank you for joining me onward.
It’s a new year, and a new journey awaits.
Travel Day 1
The tank gradually empties as I pass through one city after another.
Louisville, Kentucky is in the rear-view mirror.
I’m heading to the trail with a different life than I had when I stepped of eighteen months ago.
So-long Cincinatti, Ohio.
My son is holding his own in this dog-eat-dog world.
My wife is now pastoring a church in Kentucky, which moved us much closer to our families.
I resurrected an old business model and it’s taking off nicely.
Take care Cleveland, Ohio.
We’ve settled into our new routines.
We’re able to see our families nearly weekly.
My son has been able to help me with the business when our schedules line up.
Bye-Bye Buffalo, New York
So why am I currently cruising up the highway in a rented Kuna towards New Hampshire?
I have two more states to hike if I want to complete the Appalachian Trail (A.T.)
This will undoubtably be the hardest and most dangerous section yet, the section I'm the least physically and mentally prepared to face. But's now or never. Ready or not, here I go....
My mind has been so focused on our recent move and establishing our new lives that preparing properly for this hike never hit my radar. I’m relying on my friend Second Breakfast’s words from years ago when we stepped on a trail together one day years ago, “Your body will remember.”
It always does. It just takes a while for it sometimes to get the memo.
I had it in my mind all day that I would camp in a campground beside Lake Erie before reaching Buffalo, but I feel good and want to continue on. I call my wife to see if she’d set up a hotel about an hour up the road.
Dang! I miss the turn-off to the hotel. It’s a long way to the next turn-off to turn back, so she sets me up with a hotel at that turn-off instead. Ok, I won’t miss this one.
BAAMM!!!! I see a flash photo of a tree trunk inside my passenger window, white flash, a blue field, then blackness, all occupying the same instant.
The overhead lights in the car come on. I’m coasting down the highway, foot off the accelerator. The car is slowing down.
What happened? Who punched my left cheek?
A bit stunned, I pull to the side of the highway and call my wife. While the phone rings I notice the driver window airbag has been deployed. Maybe that’s what punched the side of the face.
I call the rental company road-side assistance. I report the airbag has deployed, and I don’t know why.
A State Trooper pulls up to my car and walks up to the passenger side door to check on me. It’s then I realize the driver side window is not only missing, but it’s all over me, under me, and scattered throughout the car.
The trooper asks if I’m ok and if the car is drivable. Still not knowing what happened, I answer yes. He escorts me to the second hotel my wife booked for me but stops near the entrance.
I try to get out of the driver’s side door but it’s stuck shut. I climb out the passenger side door and walk around for my first look.
I’d hit a deer. It appears to have rolled along the side of the car, busting the window with its head (the tree image), head-butted me on the left cheek (the white flash and pain), before the airbag (the blue field) deployed, pushing its head back out the window, as it continued rolling against the side of this poor little SUV.
The trooper asks where I’m headed. I tell him of my hiking plan. We stand on the side driveway talking about him and his brother’s running excursions up and down mount Washington in the past, my history of backpacking and trail running, and his dream of hiking long distances someday.
We part ways when he’s satisfied that I’m ok.
Inside the hotel the rental company sets up a tow truck to pick up the car. I clean all my stuff out and go in for a shower. I never stopped anywhere for supper, so I used one of my old hiking hacks and aske the guy at the counter for some microwavable breakfast ham/egg/cheese biscuits. Not very tasty, but it fills the belly.
The tow truck arrives about three in the morning, I go out to hand-off the keys and snap a photo of his license plate.
I got maybe two hours of sleep before he arrived and another two once he left.
Travel Day 2
I go down to check out breakfast and start pumping myself full of coffee.
The rental company sets me up with an Uber scheduled to get me to their nearby rental company just as they open.
It’s gray and sprinkling outside. I get into the mid-sized sedan and leave the small town of Victor, NY. The sky over I-90 slowly lightens up as the hours pass.
Before entering Vermont, the roads become a series of loosely connected terminals. Two-lane back roads lead through small towns, stopping to make a turn every mile or two.
I pull off at a rest stop at Fair Haven, VT to touch base with my insurance company and get everything taken care of before heading into the wilderness tomorrow.
The air is much cooler and cleaner than that in Kentucky. I’m already breathing easier.
I continue making my way across Vermont, below big puffy and bright blue sky, through large mountains, alternating between interstates roads and then two-lane roads through small communities.
In the midst of all this, I call my friend Push, who I spent a lot of time with on the trail in 2023. I’ll be passing his town soon and we wanted to meet up for an hour or so.
He’s about to enter a meeting but has a few minutes to talk. He gives me some advice about the White Mountains, and we make a plan to meet up later on the trail.
White Water Junction - From where I took the train home last year.
I drop the car off at the rental place. Jim drives me to Hanover Adventure Tours & Hostel, where I ended last year, and where I plan to spend the night. Jim’s retired but drives the rental car customers around a few days a week. He tells me of his passion of trail biking and trail running, which has slowed recently due to knee troubles.
We arrive at the hostel. Something feels different here. I ask Jim to hold off a minute before driving away. I open the door and walk in. All the Furniture is in the same place, the murals on the wall are the same, there’s even a pile of Crocks outside the front door - one of many tell-tale signs of a hostel, but there’s a Korean kid sitting on the floor playing with toys between two piles of laundry.
A man, the kid’s father, comes walking across the floor waiving his hands telling me the hostel is no longer here. He and I step outside while he explains that the adventure outfitter and the hostel closed, that he had bought the building for his family to live in.
He hadn’t taken the signage down yet, so lots of people still walk in on them all the time.
Back in the car Jim drives to a parking area across the street from the Ledyard Free Bridge, where the official beginning point of the 2024 hike awaits.
The group of Anti-Isreal protestors stretching across the bridge seems thinner now a half hour ago when we passed by on our way to the non-existent hostel.
Making a few last-minute adjustments, I give some snack food to Jim that I can’t carry on the trail with me. He happily accepts.
I bid my new friend adieu, grab my pack, and start walking towards the bridge.
Ready or not, here I go....
Wow, what a start.
Holy cow! That is an auspicious way to start a difficult LASH. I hope you have better luck on the trail. In 2011, I tested my ability to hike the AT by starting at Hanover and trekking north. I managed to reach Crawford Notch, the last road crossing before the presidentials, covering 100 miles. Parts like Moosilauke were indeed challenging. I was 60 at the time. 10 years later, age 70, I thru hiked from Springer to Katahdin. The section I covered in 2011 was a lot harder the second go round. Somehow I managed not to fall and kill myself. I took my time negotiating the north slope of moosilauke, like 5 hours to descend. Poor knees. Even more difficult parts lie ahead. Mahoosuc was a house of horrors. Nimble footed kids love that section. I showed my age and my compromised balance. Are you out there now? Or is this a memoir?