The Journey

I’m exhausted. Fourteen miles into town on gravel roads, then asphalt roads with traffic from Highway 210 rerouted onto the same road I hiked …this isn’t what exhausted me.

The fours days prior with temps in the mid 90’s while winds howled 30 mph as they pushed me sideways along the dusty roads, causing a man we met to remark that we needed to shorten a pole on the wind side because we were leaning so hard against the wind …that isn’t what exhausted me.

The nearly 500 miles we’ve come in the first thirty-two days while sleeping on the ground most nights as ticks kept us trapped in our zipped up tents aren’t what exhausted me either.https://fromdreamtolife.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/img_7826.mov

We’ve actually slept well, and the previous few nights were helped along by people who either offered us a place to camp sheltered from the wind, or gave us cold beverages and snacks, invited us inside out of the wind for an hour or two, or even took us inside their homes for the night, cooking dinner and breakfast for us before we hiked away the next day. These people added energy back into our days.

In fact, I’ve come to believe it’s the people along the way who have kept us on trail. Sometimes I feel like each day a stranger picks up where another stranger left off, gently easing our path and giving us encouragement, as though they’ve formed an unspoken agreement to ensure we continued along our journey.

No, lack of a good nights rest isn’t why I sit silently in my hotel room. I’m thinking nothing and doing nothing. I have no will to take off my hiking shoes. I don’t make a move to take a shower, normally the first thing I prioritize when reaching a town. I’m thoroughly and completely exhausted.

It’s the thought of hiking more of the same which exhausts my entire being. I sit on the hotel bed minutes after checking in, eating chips and staring blankly at the wall. Wingman seems to be doing the same thing from the couch in our little suite. After a while I say, “I was serious,” and then look over at Wingman. “I will be happy to take a few days off to climb a couple mountains and then come back to the trail.”

“Me too,” he answered, “My sister can bring my truck – I’ve already asked her.”

By the end of the evening we went from thinking it over to a new plan. We will road walk the next forty-five miles of the North Country Trail over the next three days, then his Mom and sister will bring his truck to us in Frazee, MN.

We cannot wait. I’m a USA Highpointer, which means I climb, drive or walk to the highest points of every state. I’ve completed thirty-four and next weekend we will be climbing King’s Peak in Utah, followed by Borah Peak in Idaho a few days later. My ice axe is being shipped from California, where I had it held in anticipation of hiking the Sierra Mountains, to Wyoming – ready for me to pick up along the way.

We hope a few good things are different when we return. First, we already know the miles ahead change from nearly all road walking to mostly trail. Only about one-third of the trail over the next two hundred miles is on a road and further north it’s all trail. Trail is why we hike after all. Short roads connecting long trails are not bad. The reverse is just trudging across America.

Second, more trail maintenance will be finished. Some trail ahead is still thigh-high with brush and grass. The ticks are very heavy and include deer ticks which carry Lyme disease. I am now used to pulling several ticks – if not dozens – off my shoes, ankles and legs every day. Deer ticks are harder to see than wood ticks though, as deer ticks are no bigger than a dot. We soaked our shoes and socks in Permethrin for the upcoming miles, but if more trail has been cleared by the time we come back, trail life will be much better and ticks will be fewer.

We expect Minnesota will open more in a couple weeks. Right now, some showers and restrooms ahead may still be closed. Breakfast isn’t served in the hotels – just sugary prepackaged treats – and most restaurants are still take-out only. Even remote areas like those we hike need a little more time to reopen in Minnesota.

Finally, we expect to be rejuvenated mentally. I’m pretty stubborn, which helps me reach my goals. What I need right now is to enjoy the challenge of pursuing this goal more than I have this first month. Since we don’t plan to finish all 4,735 miles in one season, it really doesn’t matter how far along we make it before snow flies – my cue to go home.

If we come back to trail and find it isn’t the journey we want to spend our days navigating, we can take the truck straight to the Boundary Trail and Lake Superior Trail sections of this hike. There are a lot of good hiking days ahead. We just need a strategy for creating them.

Two days later, I’m resupplied and nearly ready for the seventeen mile road walk ahead today. We casually walked nine miles of trail in a big “U” through town yesterday, so we even hiked some miles on our day off. It was a really pretty walk with groomed trails on half of it and downtown on the other half. I only found two ticks, and the rain which soaked us mostly dried by the time we found a partially open restaurant downtown.

I’ve been told repeatedly Maplewood State Park is beautiful. It’s our destination today. Once we finish today’s road walk, we will be in the woods on a trail camping on the last available site. It looks like a pretty sunny low temp day. I think it will be a good start to our new plan.

North Country Trail

The first steps looked picture perfect. Sunny skies, Lake Sakakawea glittering in the distance and warm temperatures. Wingman’s Mom and Dad waited for us to sign the register a ranger had kindly left in a safe place outside for us, then drove off with a wave as we stepped onto the trail – a mowed path between tall grasses and trees.

We stopped to snap photos at the terminus sign and happily walked along feeling easy and free – since Wingman’s folks had our backpacks. They were going to meet us 16 miles later and hand us our packs before driving home. Seconds later our fairy tale start turned into a two mile nightmare.

Wingman noticed lots of ticks on his shoes and ankles. I looked down and panicked. Four were visible and moving fast on my shoes and socks. They didn’t fling off easily. Balancing on one foot I took off my shoes and checked inside. Two more. I couldn’t move fast enough to check the other shoe, before another crawled aboard. I was horrified! Remembering the first past of the trail is two miles off-road and twenty-one miles on-road, I asked Wingman if he wanted to run for the road.

We took off, but the ticks kept coming. Whether walking or running, they jumped aboard and every ten seconds or so we had to stop and pick them off. It was awful. All I could think about was reaching the road. Once, as Wingman was bent over taking one off, he saw three more in the grass headed straight for him. I don’t know if it’s vibration or smell or what, but those blood-sucking insects knew exactly where we were and kept coming. Dozens and dozens were picked off in those two miles.

Finally I ran onto the road feeling like a character in Jumanji who passed the first obstacle without losing a life. I was never so glad to hike on a road instead of a trail.

When Wingman’s folks heard our tick tales and felt the 30 mph winds swirling around us, they took pity and drove us to a nearby town where we all had dinner and stayed in a hotel. It was delightful! They dropped us off on their way home the next day, and onward we went into the wind and hoping to stay tick free.

In the three days I’ve been on trail now, we have already had a few other surprises, both pleasant and not so much. Overall it’s really good though and I’m looking forward to telling more stories. The best part is that people are stopping to chat with us as they pass by and every single person has been kind and encouraging. A man we talked to coming into a town today even hunted us down at the cafe to give us a bag of food and drinks!

…and if you are wondering what happened to our Pacific Crest Trail plans, well this just isn’t the year for that hike. Here is the path from that plan to this one and a bit about the North Country Trail:

As COVID-19 took us inside and shut down travel plans, I waited and plotted. First, I hoped to start the Pacific Creat Trail a bit later, then I researched the Ice Age Trail and Pacific Northwest Trail, each of which are better to start later in the spring or even early summer. COVID kept coming at all of us and eventually those plans also seemed too risky.

Then I took a look at the North Country Trail. It’s long, the longest of the National Scenic Trails at over 4,700 miles. It crosses parts of eight states stretching from North Dakota to Vermont. North Dakota has a sparse population, very few cases of COVID – and never issued travel restrictions. Wingman and I decided this was our chance. Starting a bit late is fine as I never imagined finishing it in one year anyway. We will simply hike until snow flies and see what adventures we find along the North Country Trail!

Hike Like A Kid

It’s hard to believe the day is here and in just a few minutes, we will be flying off to Atlanta and making our way to a hostel near the start of the Appalachian Trail. One of my worries – and believe it or not I have a few! – is I will focus so much on finishing each day’s hike that I will miss being present on the trail.

It’s a well ingrained habit of mine to focus on what I want to accomplish, and one which keeps me stubbornly persistent in reaching goals. It has a flip side though and that is to be ignorant of the present while pressing onward to the finish. I’ve been working on balancing both for years, and a recent hike with my young neighbor reminded me it’s rather easy to live in the present if you simply allow yourself.

Identifying Quartz

I took Collier, five years old, on her first hike to Enchanted Rock a couple weeks ago. My original plan to hike with a full backpack for about five miles was quickly tossed aside when her Mom, UnMi, said she could go on a  hike with me. My new goal was two-fold: spend an hour and a half with my thirty pound backpack on my back while hiking as far along the trail as Collier wanted to go. She was so much fun, and it was an insightful hike.

 

Not all young hikers, or grown hikers for that matter, are fun, but Collier was full of wonder and curiosity, excitedly spotting moss balls which became the ends of fairy wands on a dry grass stalk, or looking for insects and minnows in the little streams we passed. She had never been to Enchanted Rock before and was delighted to climb the boulders near the high point of the trail, so we could see how high we had climbed. Best of all, she was sensible about climbing and didn’t skitter to the edge of the rocks like I thought she might.

We stopped for a snack on a wide open expanse of rock and Collier created nature art with the sticks and leaves she found. The girl is full of creativity and it was interesting to see all the new ideas pop into her head as she created things from all that was around us. That’s when I realized how much fun it was to just be in the park absorbing everything different about where we were, how it looked, and how it felt.

In one of those moments, I locked in the reminder to enjoy my Appalachian Trail hike more vividly and in the present moments. Some of those moments (okay, many) will be uncomfortable or downright miserable. I don’t care. As my AT hiking partner, Karen, said, “I’m looking forward to the good parts, the bad parts, the excitement and the misery.” Watching Collier’s delight with the world around her as she hiked without wondering how far to go or when we would finish, I resolved to hike like a kid more and like a goal oriented zealot less. Let’s see how well I do. Tomorrow is Day 1 of the AT.