Day 74: Disaster at 302

Start: Ethan Pond Shelter (AT mi 1844.8). Stop: US 302 (AT mi 1847.7). Today’s miles: 2.9 miles Total AT mileage: 823 miles

I slept awful. Once it started raining, it never stopped.. and my air mattress is losing air. The wooden platform we had to rig our tents to seemed to collect water, so I was flooded out by 1am. I had my umbrella up so my face would stay dry, and all the important stuff was either with me on the pad (deflating as the night wore on) or in my pack on the ground, under the vestibule that was in no way staying dry.

The people around us didn’t stop shining their lights and loudly talking until we’ll after 10:30, talk about irritating. Rain. Talking. Strobe lights. Sheesh. When I woke up around 5am and realized just how wet everything was, I knew Andrea and I weren’t making it to the next campsite. Before calling asleep last night I came up with an alternate plan to get my miles in before we head to Acadia National Park for a few days. Because with everything this wet, and no shelter to aim for, there’d be no way to set up tonight and have anything dried out.. mainly because we were still in a full downpour with no end in sight.

I laid there, hip into the wood, dozing off and on. When I heard Andrea stirring, I yelled over to her to not start packing yet.. that we’d get a later start because it’s less than 3 miles to the road. When we make it to the road, we’ll figure out a ride to town and get a hotel for the night, and maybe tomorrow night, too. I’d still have the time to hike over Mount Washington and Madison, and make it to get the rental car on time. She was more than ok with that plan.

We packed in the pouring rain and we’re completely drenched before ever leaving camp. Gotta love rainy days… not. We started out, and Andrea was clearly hurting pretty badly. She has bad blisters on her feet from her boots and that mixed with raw spots from skin rubbing with sweat and rain makes for a pretty miserable walking experience. I had some chaffing going on myself, so I was walking really wide legged..I can only imagine how silly I must have looked to anyone coming up behind me.

Every trail crossing or sketchy water crossing, I’d pause and wait for her to catch up.. making sure she was ok and was coming the right way. At the second to last trail crossroads, she said she didn’t need water and was ok to keep going, so I headed on. I decided I’d try to book it the last mile or so to the road and try to work out a ride for us that would hopefully be there by the time she got there, so we wouldn’t have to sit on the side of the road in the rain waiting.

The downhill to the road was steep, I took a big fall on a piece of wood meant to act as a step. I sat up and decided to fix my insoles of my shoes while I was already sitting on my butt. I thought surely she’d catch me while I was sitting there, but she didn’t.. so I assumed she was really hurting and taking careful consideration with her steps. The trail had turned into its own creek with all the rain, and everything was just that much more sloshy and slippery.

I got to the railroad tracks, which had a big open slice of sky, so I turned on my garmin and started messaging people for a ride, hoping that the garmin would work, as I’ve never used it with hopes of getting responses on it-since responses cost money with the plan I chose. It had been close to 30 minutes and still no Andrea. Weird. I was starting to get worried she had slipped and seriously injured herself and wasn’t able to walk out.

The people section hiking passed me and headed to the parking lot right by the railroad tracks. After they make pleasant small talk about “making it down” and the rain, I ask them how far back was it that they passed my friend, and did she look ok? “We haven’t passed anyone all morning.” Ummmm.. WHAT?! I start to panic. If they didn’t pass her, then she turned down the wrong trail. There’s no way for me to look up where that trail goes or how long it is, because I don’t have service. I ask them if they knew where it went, naturally, they were as clueless as me.

I leave my stuff and start hauling ass back up the mountain. Literally jogging, adrenaline over powering any soreness my body had been feeling. I came across Towelie, he hadn’t seen her, he guessed the trail split closer to a mile back uphill. So, I carried on. I had my garmin with me, I messaged her knowing she didn’t have service, but just in case.. then, I come across a group of three hikers. They hadn’t seen her either, but said if she went the other way at the last trail crossing, she’d come out at the same road as this trail, just up a bit further.. and she’d come in at a visitors center.. probably with service.

I start to breathe a little easier. I message her and say that if she’s made it to the visitors center to just stay put and we’d come get her.. DeepFried and Trippin had messaged the Garmin back and said they’d be there to get us at 11:30. It was now just after 11, so I was thinking I’d make it to the car and then bribe them with money to drive up and down hwy 302 until we found her. I knew she felt bad and more than likely wouldn’t hike back up the mountain if she realized she got on the wrong trail.. she knew the road we were aiming for. So, with a lot of anxiety relieved that she wasn’t walking 15 miles around the wrong mountain and would end up close by, I started back down the mountain to my stuff.

Almost to the railroad tracks, I ran into Andrea! She had in fact gone down the wrong trail, but it was shorter to the road! So when she got to the visitors center, she had a worker show her how to get back to where I’d be coming out. She road walked the highway to the trail head I was coming to! She was going to wait for me there, but the people that section hiked stopped her to tell her I was looking for her, and so did Towelie, and the three hikers that calmed me down were starting to tell her too, as I came up.

I hugged the hell out of her, eyes swelling with tears. I had been so worried, frustrated, and terrified. From start to finish it was maybe 35 minutes of pure stress and anxiety, but the relief from knowing she was ok was immeasurable. We walked down together, got our gear and waited by the road for DeepFried and Trippin. While waiting, we talked to Towelie a minute and then I finally got to meet Sauce and FarOut’s friend Jpeg. What a cool guy.

We crammed into DeepFried’s tiny rental car, he calls it his go cart.. haha.. they drove us to North Conway, the town I drove an hour to the other day to get to REI. We came to the Green Granite Inn, across the street from REI and a grocery store. We all went inside, us to beg for a room, them to hunt for a bathroom. We got to check in and get the only room that was already clean. Heck yes! DeepFried and Trippin gave us a few beers and some tide pods.. haha those two are incredible. They waited until we definitely had a room and then headed on their way. Trippin was going to hike out this afternoon. She’s a tough cookie for that.

Andrea showered while I walked to taco bell. Priorities and all that. By the time I came back she was out, so after I ate I showered too. Such great water pressure! And soooo hot! Just what I needed, minus the little screams I let out when the water hit all the raw spots on my body. Ouch. After I got out, I put on the only “clean” (aka dry) clothes I had, my puffy jacket and rain pants, and collected all of our dirty clothes. I got quarters and walked around the hotel premises for far too long before I finally asked where the laundry was. I got a load started then headed back to the room.

Then it was time to hang up and lay out all the wet stuff. The rain was still coming down, so I laid our tents out of over chairs under the awning outside. The wind really does help tents dry faster than hanging and dripping all over the bathroom floor. Andrea showed me her blisters and battle wounds. Holy hell. No wonder the girl has looked so damn miserable. She has open blisters on her heels, the sides of the balls of her feet, under her toes, and on the tops of her baby toes. I want to cry for her, it just looks so painful.

She relaxed in her bed as much as her body would let her. We found pizza to deliver that wasn’t dominos (honestly I’d rather not eat pizza at all if that’s my only option. I hate their crust-luckily Andrea doesn’t like them either). While waiting for pizza, I went across the street to the grocery store and got some drinks and some cream for her chaffing. I wasn’t back long before dinner arrived. We laid around, ate food, and watched HGTV. Just what a body needs.. a bed, a roof, pizza, and Home Town on TV.

We didn’t do much else the rest of the day until we passed out in our beds. We plan to go to REI tomorrow and try to work out some of our issues.. shoes, sleeping pad, etc. should be.. fun. Hahaha. Goodnight y’all.