Month: August 2022

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Rock Star on the Trail

My daughter Livvy is a rock star hiker.

I already knew this. But it was reiterated for me recently when I hiked through New Hampshire’s White Mountains as part of my Appalachian Trail thru-hike.

Livvy Weld finishes the Pacific Crest Trail

Livvy’s recent completion of the Pacific Crest Trail, a 2,600+-mile challenging hike from the Mexican border in California to the Canadian border in Washington, would be enough to qualify her rock star credentials. But she had already locked it up four years ago when she took her spring semester off from college to solo thru-hike the AT, at age 19.

I humbly follow in her footsteps. Except, where she hiked the AT from Georgia to Maine, I am hiking the grandfather of all trails from north to south, having started with a summit of Maine’s Mount Katahdin on June 30.

As I climbed among New Hampshire’s 4,000-foot mountains on a daily basis, I made a point of stopping in to visit each of the Appalachian Mountain Club huts dotting the trail throughout the grueling White Mountains.

Further bolstering her rock star credentials, Livvy has worked as a member of AMC hut crews (hut “croos” in the vernacular) for several years, in Zealand Falls Hut, and as hut master at Mizpah Hut. She recently started as hut master at the famous Lakes of the Clouds Hut, perched just below the summit of Mount Washington, for the fall 2022 season.

Celebrity Status

As I stopped into each hut during my White Mountain hike, I made a point of approaching the croo members. It went something like this:

“Do you know Livvy Weld?”

“Yes! We know Livvy! Oh my god, we love Livvy, she’s awesome, Why?” This interchange took place every time, without fail.

Then, my favorite part: “I’m Livvy’s dad.”

“You’re kidding! Oh my god, Livvy’s dad is here, what are the odds? Come in, have some free food, can I get you anything?”

Word Travels

Being treated as a celebrity because of my offspring was a highlight of my AT so far and defines New Hampshire in my memory.

I stopped by Carter Notch Hut amid a torrential downpour and met Bailey, Cooper and Caro. Caro even knew my name:

“I’m Livvy’s dad.”

“Oh my god, are you Eric?” Caro asked right away. (Livvy didn’t remember mentioning my first name to her croo mates.)

Livvy and me in the Mojave just before she departed on the PCT.

I next went to Madison Hut and met Riley, Noah and Will. They offered to let me work-for-stay, an option for thru-hikers in which they can help the croo with kitchen and dining duties in exchange for staying in the hut (sleeping on the dining room floor) and eating left over dinner once paying guests have finished.

I stopped by Lakes of Clouds Hut and met Acadia, who was Livvy’s assistant hut master last year, and Aidan and Lydia. Then over to Mizpah and met CC, who went to Smith College with Livvy.

By the time I worked my way to Lonesome Lake Hut and met Jo, she knew I was coming.   

“Hi Jo, I’m Livvy’s dad, I’m thru-hiking the AT while she’s thru-hiking the PCT,” I said.

“I know,” Jo exclaimed, to my surprise. “Word came through that Livvy’s dad was coming through the huts, and I so wanted to be here when you came by.” Jo offered me left over breakfast and a wonderful savory scone before I pushed on to climb the Kinsmans.

Opposite Directions

Since learning (over again) that my daughter is indeed a rock star on the trail (and that word travels impressively fast among croo members), I have proceeded to send many northbound thru-hikers her way. “Say hi to Livvy when you pass through Lakes of the Clouds.”

I wished my and Livvy’s trail timing could have worked out more in sync so that I could have seen her at work in her hut as I hiked through. As it was, we both appreciated the symbiosis of thru-hiking simultaneously, albeit her north near the west coast as I traveled south near the east.

But my experience meeting her croo mates and friends throughout the Whites provided the effect of helping me feel closer to my daughter as we co-thru-hiked our respective journeys. And, of course, it underscored for me, once again, that my daughter is truly a rock star.

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Shifting Credibility as a SOBO AT Thru-hiker

As an Appalachian Trail thru-hiker, once you’ve trekked southbound through Maine’s gnarly trails and into New Hampshire’s White Mountains, attitudes and perspectives change dramatically.

You gain a new kind of street (or, in this case, trail) cred. Fellow thru-hikers look at you differently, talk to you with a heightened respect and seek your knowledge in a way they never would have when you were a newbie back in central Maine.

View of Mount Washington in the clouds, from summit of Mount Pierce.

In those nascent days of first stepping into the 100-mile wilderness, the few northern-bound thru-hikers (NOBOs) floated by like battle-worn soldiers, having survived the Whites and the maddening, rocky, rooty climbs of southern Maine – not to mention 1,700 previous miles of AT. You nearly genuflected to their experience and superior knowledge, like a rookie thirsting for nuggets of wisdom.

I was talking about this with my hiking friend Grills on a recent descent down from the Franconia Ridge. Grills completed thru-hikes of the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) and the Continental Divide Trail (CDT) and has hiked the Colorado Trail, the Arizona Trail and other rites of passage. His successful completion of an AT thru-hike will net him the vaunted Triple Crown, a rare accomplishment of having thru-hiked the AT, PCT and CDT. These people are regarded like hiking gods on the trail.

“It’s like everything changes once you get into the Whites as a SOBO,” Grills said. “Like all of a sudden you got respect.”

I had to agree, and said so. “I’ve noticed,” I said. “Now, NOBOs ask me for advice about the trail coming up and listen to what I have to say. It wasn’t like that in Maine.”

100-Mile Test

There’s no name for this phenomenon that I know of. It’s just a shift, a subtle accumulation of worldliness by virtue of having gone through something difficult and survived to continue on.

This is an earned respect, to be sure. Hiking the AT south through Maine is, by popular consent, a trial by fire, a grueling 280-mile test of will in which your body and mind will be pushed to their limits of ability, resourcefulness, patience and endurance.

On my first day heading into the 100-mile wildnerness, back on July 1, I stopped by a convenience store at Abol Bridge, the northbound entrance to Baxter State Park, to chat with a few fellow hikers. One 19-year-old NOBO was giving us SOBO newbies an account of what lies ahead.

“The 100-mile wilderness is a test to make sure you can even survive out here,” he explained. “Then you make it through there, and you climb up White Cap Mountain, your first ‘real’ mountain. That’s a warm-up for what’s coming up in southern Maine. And that’s a warm-up for the Whites in New Hampshire. It just keeps getting harder and harder, man.”

With each word me and my fellow SOBOs slunk deeper, our chins lowering heavily to the ground, daunted by his admonition. What were we getting ourselves into?

Earned Respect

That young NOBOs words turned out to be punishingly precise, and rang in my head every time I pushed my body to take another steep step upward climbing through the mountains of southern Maine and New Hampshire’s Whites.

Now, on the other side of the White Mountains, about to walk across the Connecticut River from Hanover, New Hampshire, into Norwich, Vermont, I understand with a rearview lens what all the admonitions were about.

Main intersection, downtown Hanover, NH

Hiking the AT SOBO will require grit right up front before your body and mind realize the need for it. The way I see it in retrospect is that I went into a kind of shock in which my brain became hyper-focused on the task – i.e. making it through Maine, surviving the seemingly impossible climbs of the Whites.

Once you do – once you survive that rite of passage and come out on the other side, that is, here in Hanover, NH – you have earned a certain aura of hard-earned respect based on your experience. NOBOs have not yet gone through this grinder, though they have survived the long-term slog to get this far north on the trail.

But at this trail transition, from the straight-up climbs, rocks and roots of Maine and New Hampshire, to the relatively smoother, dirt and pine-needle trails with vastly milder inclines of Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut and New York, we SOBOs and our northern counterparts are clearly on more even ground. The mere whiff of superiority from those NOBOs of Maine doesn’t exist here. We are closer to brethren, mutually respecting what each other has achieved.

And we’re still here, continuing on.

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The Perfect Harlequin Ending

Trigger warning: this story includes scatological references.

Rarely do a book of questionable value and a purpose borne out of desperation so perfectly align.

It was my first day heading into the 100-mile wilderness to begin my AT thru-hike. (It was actually my second thru-hike day, the first having been a hike up Mount Katahdin to begin the venture at the trail’s northern terminus at the summit.)

My friend Paul, who had summited Mt. Katahdin with me, had suggested stopping at Abol Bridge on my way in, where there’s a small diner and convenience store. He remembered from his hikes in Baxter State Park that the store there had a shelf of books. Knowing that phone battery power would be limited through the 8- to 10-day stretch of the 100-mile wilderness, he thought I might want to pick up a paperback book to have on hand for reading during that stretch, without using phone battery.

I appreciated the suggestion. It was essential, actually. I’m a book lover, and when I climb into my hammock at night, relaxing with a book after a long day’s hike, it’s one of my favorite and most comforting moments. So I checked out the store’s book shelf.

The only problem was, the books the store had available were all donated on a leave-one-take-one basis, so quality was lacking. Harlequin romances seemed to be the popular item for leaving on the shelf for some reason. I looked over every single title. Nothing appealed. In fact, a reflexive gag and near-vomit was the most common reaction.

Finally, picturing myself in my hammock at night with hours to spare and nothing to read, I decided to choose the lightest-looking book. Quality was no longer an issue. It was all about added weight in my backpack now.

“The Edge of Darkness,” I believe was the title of the book I chose. I can’t recall the author, or have chosen to forget. An appropriate Harlequin title. It limply told the story of a young man and woman who fall in love around an odd witch tale set in a town obviously themed on Salem, Mass. Whatever.

A Vital Resource

The serendipitous part of the story is what became of this novel that was better suited for something other than reading.

On about my fifth day hiking and camping in the 100-mile wilderness, a very bad thing happened: I ran out of toilet paper.

Now, I, like most others starting their AT thru-hikes, was new at this. I thought I estimated how much toilet paper I would need to last 10 days in the woods. But try it yourself. It’s not an easy thing to anticipate.

Still, you have to supply your own toilet paper. While the occasional camping lean-tos where we hikers tend to camp out usually have a “privy” – basically a composting outhouse – to accommodate hikers’ needs, they do not include toilet paper. To say it’s a calamity to run out of that commodity with at least 3-4 days left of hiking is not an understatement.

I panicked. I wondered how this could have happened. I considered options that I’ll never admit to, and leave up to your imagination to fill in.

Meanwhile, it had rained a lot in the first few days of my 100-mile wilderness trek. When it rains during a thru-hike, much of what you carry in your pack becomes wet and soiled. Which was precisely what was happening with my Harlequin paperback. I carried it tucked into the “brain” of my pack. That’s the attached compartment that sits on top of the main part of the pack. Water seeped in and dampened the pages of the book almost to the point that I could no longer read the pages. In fact, the cover, with a dramatic illustration of the young protagonist and her handsome hero, had long since slid off the book. (It was to my relief, actually; the risk was removed that fellow hikers might steal a glimpse of the trash I was reading on the trail.) The pages were so wet that I had to start removing them one by one.

That was when it hit me like a bolt of electricity. Sometimes necessity and circumstance have a way of miraculously coinciding to the benefit of all.

Once the idea leaped into my consciousness that my toilet paper solution was literally in my hands as I squinted to make sense of the wet printed pages of that Harlequin romance, it all made perfect sense. First I peeled off a soaked page and wadded it tenderly in my hand. Yes, yes, this could work.

Soft. Pliable. Ample. And of less than no literary value whatsoever.

Privy “Reading” Material

The next morning I headed off to the privy with my novel in tow. Without going into detail, I will say that the rain-soaked pages of this Harlequin novel worked ideally. I continued pulling off the water-softened pages and substituting them for toilet paper for the remaining four days of the wilderness hike.

At night, as I crawled into my hammock and got comfortable, I continued to read the unimaginative story. Hey, I was desperate for reading material, and there simply was no alternative.

I maintain, between this novel’s uses as a literary tome and a bathroom accessory, it’s clear which was more fitting. And for Harlequin, and its ad nauseum stream of boddice rippers, I have discovered a new appreciation.