#189 Melville Nauheim Shelter to Story Spring Shelter - Day 114: MM1615.4 - MM1632.8
This is my fortieth day in the wilderness. I was accompanied by the spirit of the trail today.
5-10-23
Sounds of Push packing up wakes me. I’m reluctant to get out of my warm wrap, like always. Laying here deep into my sleeping bag with no reason to rush is a great feeling.
I hope I’m not as sluggish as I was yesterday. Push says he’s feeling the fatigue as well. Both of our bodies are acclimating to the bigger climbs.
Many thru-hikers experience a physical condition called Christmas toes. At some point in their twenty-two-hundred-mile hike, their toes go numb. It isn’t until around Christmas that the feeling returns to them. Push is beginning to experience this numbness in his toes.
I take my time with breakfast below another blue sky. I add a few small sticks to the small fuel cube beneath my cookpot to make the water a bit warmer than usual.
The hike from the shelter to Goddard Shelter is magnificent, less technical, and smoother, gradually climbing up to the summit of Glastonbury Mountain’s thirty-seven-hundred-foot-high peak. The pine trees have the air smelling like Christmastime.
I take a break beneath the fire tower. The stairs are blocked off so there’s no going up this one. Snow still lies on the ground from winter. It’s the first, but not the last, of the snow I find atop these Vermont mountains. The snow is patchy, only in shady areas, but some of it is still knee deep.
Coming down the North face of the mountain is equally magnificent, but extremely rugged. I feel free, powerful, and equally rugged.
Near the bottom of the mountain at Kid Gore Shelter, Push is stretched out on the ground, relaxing on his sleeping pad, just like yesterday.
Taking a long break at the shelter myself, I eat all the snacks that I’ve portioned out for the whole day in one sitting. My hunger is nonstop, ravenous. I have to be careful though, as I’m nearly out of food.
I feel much better today than I did the last two days. I’m sure I have a protein deficiency and am probably a bit dehydrated.
I find the spirit of the trail on my last five miles of the day. My mind clears completely, and I begin seeing into the into future.
I had blanked out for the past five years, living nondirectionally, no real goals, no plans, just kind of floating, going through the motions, no spark for life, a shell of my former self. Those who’ve followed my story from the beginning know why.
A path through the future unveils itself. I see a restructuring of my future life that better benefits my family. The past and the future bridge themselves together. I explore my distant past for the things that used to motivate me, paths are forged to revive them in the future.