We have been back on the trail for 3 days since our week off in Ohio. With my sprained ankle feeling much better it seemed high time for us to get back on the trail and start hauling ass to Maine. We passed the 1/4th mark our first day back… it’s almost been three months, and at this rate we will certainly be the last ones to Katahdin, or perhaps the first to finish in 2022.
Lil Bell’s parents were nice enough to host us in Ohio while my sprained ankle got better last week and they even dropped us off back on the trail which was a five hour drive one way. They walked with us for a while up the rolling, grassy hills that were littered with cows mooing at us as we passed. It felt like a good send off for us as we tried to confidently get back to where we were a week ago.
That day, another thru hiker passed us and nonchalantly commented that we didn’t really seem like thru hikers and was surprised when we told her that we, in fact, are. Needless to say, this little interaction did not instill confidence. We were actually discussing how this had irked us as we tried to fill up our water in a shallow creek by which we stopped. We spent half an hour talking about how competent we are as thru-hikers all the while utterly failing to fill our bottles in this shallow creek. We must have spent an hour walking up and down this thing, adjusting rocks here and there in some vain attempt to control the flow. . . It was pathetic.
hen we finished our arduous five mile hike for the day, making camp just over a hill past the creek where we fumbled about trying to fill our bottles for about an hour. The wind was howling and our tent was acting more like a flag for the long while it took to stake it to the ground. That night we unpacked our food bags, something we had not done for the week we were in Ohio. The beef stick was moldy and our pepperoni had gone sour too.
The next morning I realized I forgot to pack out coffee. There was heavy rain all day. We hiked 3 miles, set up our tent in the rain and took a long nap. We met some other thru-hikers that night. They tried to start a fire in the rain. We all bonded over our shared sense of failure. But there was something about the fellowship that had us feeling more like thru-hikers the next day.
It was then that we noticed that spring has fully taken up housing in the mountains. It was a long uphill in the sun that day but the view from our tent that night made it all worth it.
At the time of my writing this, it has been about a week since we got back on the tail. During this week I felt like a novice again. What was easy before I sprained my ankle a week ago challenged me the way it did when we first started back in February. This reminds me not to take my recovery for granted and to be ever mindful of where I am putting my feet in each moment of walking along this beautiful trail spanning from Georgia to Maine.
Til next time,
Peter Pan and Bell
from the other side 