Ore Hill Brook 1790.6 to Hikers Welcome Hostel 1795.4 (4.8 miles, 770 total miles)
My alarm went off at 4:30, and I managed to get up at 5, when I heard Shrek get out of her tent. Hikers Welcome was only 4.8 miles away, and I wanted to get there before it started raining.
I left at 6 on the dot, after eating a Clif bar and drinking some Crystal Light. My food bag was the most empty it had ever been getting to a resupply point, and I would have been proud of that, if I hadn’t eaten so much of Shrek’s food the last couple days.
There was one mountain climb ahead of me, Mount Mist, and it wasn’t too strenuous, even to my not fully warmed up body. I had changed my view in Far Out, after I had seen another hiker’s app on their phone.
Theirs was set to .5 mile increments in the grid that makes up Far Out on the elevation view. Mine was set to the default view, which was 2 mile increments. I met in the middle at a 1 mile grid, and the profile looked less steep and more accurate to how the elevation felt to my now-established trail legs.
I was wearing my sleep clothes, which I’d never hiked in before. Just a cheap pair of Walmart shorts and a Smartwool 150 long sleeve shirt. My hiking clothes were still soaked from the night before – not sure why I sweat so very much – but since I was going to be washing my sleep clothes in 5 miles I was okay with hiking in them.
After the mile long climb, things got pretty easy on the way to Hikers Welcome. I switched on some music and belted out various tunes, cruising and enjoying the short miles and deserted trail.
The tread on my right shoe was now fully half off, and I took yet another tumble at one point. I was starting to think I was a good faller, though. It always seemed to happen so fast that I didn’t have time to tense up and hurt myself.
However, I didn’t want to keep falling like that. I’d seen way too many times with fellow hikers that a little fall ended or delayed a hike. With my new shoes, I hoped I’d be much safer. The Hokas didn’t seem to be good for much more than 400 miles.
Fortunately, I passed the 400 mile marker while I was hiking after Mount Mist. My next pair of shoes would last me to Katahdin it seemed.
The rain was holding off, just little droplets here and there. I hadn’t hiked without my umbrella yet, and I wasn’t really keen to, either. I was started to get very hungry as I finished my final descent down to the road, hiking through the muggy atmosphere.
I was feeling great as I got to the parking area of NH Route 25. I saw Baked Potato’s car there, and went over to say hi. He’d been at Hikers Welcome for several days, helping out and letting his sprained wrist heal.
He offered to drive me to the hostel, just a short walk up the road, but I eyed the gray sky, and said I wanted to walk there myself. I had done so in 2015 and wanted to again. I arrived at 7:45AM, and was greeted by a big hug from Legion.
Legion is an awesome guy and has been a caretaker at Hikers Welcome for 10 years altogether. He was there in 2015 and 2016 when I was on or around the trail, and he has always been great at what he does at the hostel.
Legion was also the person who first introduced me to the concept of Triple Crown Hiking the Appalachian Trail, the Pacific Crest Trail, and the Continental Divide Trail. I met him for the first time in 2015, and when he told me what a Triple Crown was, it lit a fire of ambition in me that has never left.
After a few minutes catching up, I went into the separate bunk house to find a bed. I saw Sandals right away on a bed in the corner of the room, and hurried over to say hello.
I didn’t think I was going to be seeing him again after he got ahead of me during the 4th of July celebration. Unfortunately, coming off Moosilauke he had turned his ankle quite badly, and had also spent several days at the hostel healing up.
I hadn’t seen him since the very beginning of New Jersey, so we were catching up for quite a few minutes. Sandals was in good spirits, but said he was feeling a little stir crazy from being in one place for so long.
I chose the bed next to Sandals and got some sheets for Shrek and I. Shrek arrived just a few minutes later, and I got myself showered and cleaned up, and into a sundress that was hanging up with the town clothes.
The shower was absolutely incredible, a big outdoor stall with water that went as hot as I wanted, and good water pressure. A shower after a week in the woods sweating and getting grimy just hits different.
As I was braiding my hair, Legion stole me away for a moment to let me know that he had been hoping to kidnap me for a few days to do some work for stay at the hostel. I wasn’t expecting it, so told him I’d think about it and talk to Shrek.
By then Shrek and I were both starving, and Baked Potato drove us a few minutes to Appleknockers, a general store in Warren up the road.
I got a sausage egg and cheese on a bagel, and some food for lunch and snacks. While we drove, I talked to Shrek about Legion’s plan, which he’d also invited her to as well.
Shrek didn’t want to stay because she had reached the point where she is ready to finish the trail and get back to real life. That is totally understandable, and something I have come across in a lot of the NOBOs I have hiked around lately.
In contrast, I notice the SOBOs are quite the opposite. I met a few today, and have met a few in the last couple weeks. They are only 400-500 miles in, so they are still bright eyed and bushy tailed. They have hiked the hardest parts of the trail, have very well developed trail legs, and are still in the honeymoon phase of their hike.
Of course, that is all generalizations, but the NOBOs I am closest with are largely tired and ready to complete their hiking mission. I don’t blame them, 1800 miles in, and I’m curious to see how I will feel when I am a similar mileage. I would image I’d be in roughly the same boat, though that still feels so far away.
In NOBO time, my mileage would put me somewhere in mid Virginia, I believed, where NOBOs are typically much more relaxed and enjoying their hikes, from what I saw in 2015.
I was very torn trying to decide if I wanted to keep hiking with Shrek or spend a couple days helping Legion out. We go way back, and running a hostel for a season, specifically an AT one, has been another dream of mine for many years.
While I was mulling all that over, a mini disaster struck. Around noon, the app that I had been using to blog with refused to publish my latest post. This happens sometimes, and I have to reboot my phone each time to post.
This time, nothing would work, so I deleted the app to re-download and try again. To my surprise, my login wouldn’t work and I kept getting error messages.
What proceeded was four hours of what was supposed to be a day of rest spent on the phone trying to figure it out. I missed out on time with my friends or getting the rest I need to tackle the Whites. I still have no idea how to get back in, and I can’t say how upset I am about this.
I can log into the browser, but it is very difficult to blog from there. I have put so much time and effort into this endeavor that it was really hard to deal with emotionally yesterday. It just means so much to me, and I’m really in over my head on what to do to fix it.
Furprittius had called me earlier in the day and said he had gotten a suite in Lincoln, NH, about a half hour from Hikers Welcome and wanted to see if I’d like to come out to the hotel and spend a night there with a group of other hikers.
Baked Potato was invited as well, and said he would drive me and a couple others there, too. By 4:00, when my website issue still wasn’t figured out, I decided to throw the towel in for the day and give myself some space to decompress and try again the next day.
I wanted to try to figure out the issue before I hiked again, and my gut was really telling me to stay at Hikers Welcome for a couple days and have that experience while it was offered to me.
I was only going to get this hike once, and while Shrek was without a doubt an amazing hiking partner, I had learned from my experience with the Cult a few weeks ago that I really had to do what felt right to me.
Still, it was a painful goodbye, and I wondered if I was making the right decision as I left with Baked Potato. I feel that way about almost every single decision I make on the trail, due to my anxiety and perfectionistic tendencies.
I had been trying to learn to trust myself and my instincts more, and could only do that by acting on them. As I hugged Shrek goodbye, we promised we’d hang out after the trail, since we only live a couple hours away from each other.
I said bye to Sandals, Rude, Legz, Rafl, Puzzles, and all the other hikers who had gotten in during the day. Baked Potato and I drove off into the afternoon sun with Clydesdale.
Clydesdale was a young woman who I had met in Rutland, VT, and was at Hikers Welcome when we got there that morning. She is doing a flip flop hike as well, and we’d gotten to know each other during the day.
She was getting dropped off not too far from where we were going in Lincoln. We had another mission to pick up Sunshine and Fallout from Hanover first, though. They were going to the hotel, too.
It was an hour long drive to Hanover, and an hour and 17 minute drive back to Lincoln. The drive back Sunshine, Fallout, and I had a tight squeeze to fit in the back of Tater’s car, but we made it work.
I hadn’t met Sunshine before, but she was a really cool girl from Rhode Island finishing the second half of her thru hike that she’d started last year. We made fast friends, and even talked about hiking other trails together in the next couple years, since we had the same goals for the near future.
When we were driving a little before North Woodstock, I heard excited yells from the front of the car, “Moose!” I launched myself up to see in between the front two seats, sure I would miss it.
As luck would have it, a huge female moose was standing on the side of the road. We all saw it and instinctively everyone screamed for joy, it was a completely unplanned and visceral reaction.
Tater was too shocked to even slow down, and the moose turned and headed back into the woods at the sight and sound of our approaching car. It was an amazing moment, especially because I’d had a vivid dream about a moose the prior evening, and it looked exactly like my dream.
I still hoped to catch a moose while actually hiking on the trail, but my moose dream had come true. After we dropped off Clydesdale and got to the Riverwalk Resort, it was around 8PM.
We headed right down to the outdoor pool and hot tub, which was the nicest setup of any hotel I could remember being at. A big half circle shaped hot tub, a rectangular pool a couple feet away, and a huge horseshoe shaped pool with a big fountain in the middle surrounding both.
There was a group of hikers already at the hot tub, and we joined them. I met SD, Last Donut, and Tarzan. There was also a family with a 16 year old son and 12 year old daughter thru hiking. I know of at least three or four families hiking this year, and it’s been a treat to meet two of them so far. I think it’s such a cool thing to do as a family.
We jumped between the hot tub and pool several times, and had a great time all hanging out for a couple hours. Just before the pool closed at 10PM, a bright full moon rose up over the ridge and we all howled at it like wolves.
We made a late night trip to Price Chopper just next door, and Furps got all the ingredients for chicken parmesan. At the hotel, he playfully kicked us out of the kitchen multiple times, but we hung out with him while he cooked steadily for hours, making chicken parm from scratch, with pasta, and garlic bread.
At 2AM we devoured plates of food, and everyone crashed hard once the food hit our systems. Baked Potato, Sunshine, Fallout, and I all got our own room, courtesy of Furps, who is a truly generous and kind hearted individual, and passed out around 3. It had been my latest night since I started hiking.
It had been a super fun evening, and I really needed to relax and unwind after the trouble with my blog earlier in the day. I had shed many tears, feeling so helpless in the situation and having no idea what to do to fix the problem.
Fallout and I had a couple really good conversations about hiking at your own pace and meeting new people throughout the hike. We also talked about taking time to enjoy the fun opportunities that pop up, that make hiking 100 miles a week and being dirty and disgusting in the woods 90% of the time worth it.
I feel good with my decision to hike my own hike and enjoy some time in Lincoln with Furps and everyone, and take a couple days with Legion at Hikers Welcome to see what running a hostel is all about, and help him out, because he’s always been really good to me. Now if I could just figure out the blog issue, I’d be cooking with gas again.