The Unpolished Princess

Start: Stealth Site (AT mi 2100.4). Stop: Sidney Tappan Campsite (AT mi 2116.4). Today’s miles: 16 miles. Total AT mileage: 1091.4 miles

Well, today was definitely better than yesterday.. I didn’t make it to my back up, back up destination, but even still.. I’m still on track to summit on August 29th as long as I push hard tomorrow and get either to my goal or very close to it. If I pull up short, then the following day will have to be a longer to keep on track. So all in all things are looking ok! I want to summit on the 29th for many reasons, but the most important is that bad weather rolls in that afternoon.. so I really want to be able to knock the summit out early morning on the 29th in good weather.. if I take too long, the bad weather will hit me, but also if I wait until the following day-it will still be raining. Ha. Motivation.

So, I was supposed to get up at 5am. I didn’t. I finally got moving at 6 and hit the trail at 6:50. I have got to do better tomorrow morning! It was just so hard, because the sun wasn’t up yet at 5, or at 5:15 either.. lol why should I be awake before the sun?! Either way, I slowly finished hiking down Fourth Chairback Mountain.. and to my complete disgust, 0.2 miles down from where I camped was a PRISTINE (hear me here.. FLAT) tentsite. Seriously? I should have just taken a few more minutes to get down to that spot! But my knee is bruised and swollen and oozy, so I guess I needed the rest.

After the rest of the descent, which in all honesty wasn’t as bad as the parts I had already done, the trail headed up a little no named blip of a mountain. I crossed it before even realizing that I had! Then I headed downhill for a quick bit and back up an ascent that felt long and drawn out, but easier terrain than yesterday, for sure.
I hit the summit of Third Chairback Mountain, with no summit sign or anything. I saw some pretty views and lots of lakes that I was sad I wasn’t swimming in. The heat was back, but the humidity was significantly less. Breezes would come through and some would feel like heat being let out of an oven, and others would be cool as could be.. all within the same few feet.

I went down 3rd Chairback, up Columbus Mountain and down it all without issue. I’m not sure why it’s called Columbus and not 2nd Chairback.. but whatever. It was uneventful. Steep ups with nicely put rock steps, and otherwise pretty pine forests. I didn’t even fall today! (I feel safe saying this since I’m laying in my tent already lol).

The climb up Chairback Mountain wasn’t bad at all, it was actually quite short feeling overall. I was at the top before I knew it. Now, the downhill is a different story. There was a rock slide area that I had to use both hands to maneuver down, but even that wasn’t too difficult to manage. Plus it was beyond short! After that bouldering business, the trail continued downhill pretty steeply but very little hard drops. Mostly it was more rock steps perfectly placed.

After the descent I walked along side a river for awhile. My plan was to get to where I had to cross, put on my camp shoes and cross the stream, and then eat lunch on the other side. I was walking along, fantasizing about Mountain Dew and if I should ask the guy doing my food drop if he’d bring me one and I could Venmo him for it. The things you get hyper focused on out here is a little nuts sometimes. Just as I come up to the water crossing, a sign is on display with an arrow pointing down a side trail, “THRU HIKER TRAIL MAGIC! Burgers, Dogs, Sodas, Snacks.”

OH MY GOD! I was so excited that I dropped my pack right there beside the trail junction, quickly put on my camp shoes, got my phone and high tailed it down that side trail to a parking lot. On the way there, my mind was racing.. if I stay here too long, I’ll never make it to my destination.. when they said Dogs, do they mean hotdogs or actual doggie dogs? Because either one would be awesome.. how far is this side trail? Hmmm..

I made it to the trail magic to be greeted by a big ole fluffernutter named Zee. After giving him all the loves, I found out that this kind gentleman will make me a hotdog, too! It WAS both dogs! And he showed me to the cooler to grab an ice cold.. you guessed it, MOUNTAIN DEW! I was so giddy I could barely stand myself. I sat and chatted with the magic folks, the man making my hotdog on the grill Thru hiked in 2019, and his parents live nearby, so when he comes to visit them, they all 3 plus Zee come do trail magic.

I hung around until a little after 1pm, and then got moving again. I crossed the stream and let my feet dry a minute before stuffing them back into socks and shoes. It was somewhere around this moment that I decided I didn’t want to hike over 4 more mountains today.. OR over 3 to a stealth site, either. Lol All this planning and my mood and feet just keep changing their minds. I can tell I made this itinerary while I was “off trail” and not hiking.. hahaha.

From here, I hiked a slow uphill climb for 5.5 miles to a lean-to and stream. I still had another 2 miles to go from here, but there would be no more water, so I had to carry extra. Water carries always suck, this just made me happy and confirmed my plan to only hike 2 more miles with the water and not 4.8 with it all to that stealth site. The climb to the top of Gulf Hagas Mountain was a mile and steep. It got my heart pumping and my sweat rolling, thanks to the added weight of 3 liters of water.

There was no view at the top, and no sign. Bleh. All that work and not even a sign? What’s up with these last few mountains? And why on earth does the wind have to feel like Satan’s hot breath blowing on me? Even still, the rest of the trail was flat for a bit and wandered through a grassy like area with gorgeous trees. It was in this area that I messaged hthe hostel and changed my food drop time from 10am to 2pm. LMAO. Let’s hope I can make 14 miles by then!

The trail dipped back down a steep little descent and I walked right into the aimed for campsite. There was a couple of SOBO hikers there sitting and resting before carrying on to the shelter I got water at. I dropped my pack and chatted with them awhile, before setting off to find the perfect spot for my tent.

It’s a large camping area, however all of the sites are either slanted or covered with roots. I picked the best one I could find and set to work unpacking and changing clothes. Right after I got changed, Kindle and Upwards appeared! They set up a good bit away from me. We talked about the food drop tomorrow. They are also getting up early, but they’re thinking it’ll take them longer than me to get there. We’ll see.

Before long, a group of hikers appeared. All young women, 5 in total I think. Sunflower is the only name I remember now, so I feel bad about that. They all set up their tents in the areas around me, and they too are getting up early to make their food drop, theirs is technically at the same time as mine, but they’re trying to move it forward an hour. I believe they are definitely faster hikers than I am. Lol

We all ate our dinners and now it’s almost 8:30 and I’m in bed. I’m hoping I hear everyone packing up around me in the morning and it motivates me to get up, too. I set my watch for 5, they apparently will be starting at 5 so up at 4 something.. I don’t foresee me getting up before 5.. but we’ll see. There’s a little bit of panic over making sure I get there on time. I don’t like for people to be left waiting on me.

I’ll have to cover 14 miles to get to the food drop location, and the first 4 miles is up and over 2 mountains and to the top of a 3rd. The rest is steep downhill for 7miles followed by another small mountain before getting to the road crossing. Yikes! The good news is, after that 4th mountain, the terrain is mostly FLAT until I get to the base of Mount Katahdin. Literally 70 miles with hardly a blip on the elevation map. I’m praying it’s as smooth as everyone says it is.. or I might be pushing a day back against my will!

Ok, that’s it for today. I better get some shut eye if I’m ever actually going to get up in the morning! Lol sweet dreams!

Start: Thompson Brook (AT mi 2087.9). Stop: Stealth Site (AT mi 2100.4). Today’s miles: 12.5 miles. Total AT mileage: 1075.4 miles.

I can honestly say today did not go as planned. I knew it would be one of my most challenging days in the wilderness, I just didn’t expect it to be one of my most challenging days on trail. And honestly, I’m still a little confused as to why it was.

I slept so good that I didn’t get up until 6:35. I packed up and ate breakfast, putting me on trail just before 7:30. Within half a mile of camp, I knew there was a water crossing that would require getting my feet wet (it’s actually the same river I slept next to, the trail just goes beside it for half a mile before crossing to the other side).. so I stayed in my camp shoes until after the crossing. In Bar Harbor I had to trash my sandals and get a pair of knock off Crocs from Walmart. My sandals bit the dust.. the soles were smooth and the insides were falling apart.

I crossed with no issues. The highest the water got was to my knees, and I was grateful to still be dry. However, that didn’t last very long. The trail wound its way up and around and through the trees, relatively mild terrain. By 9 I was slap drenched through thanks to the humidity. But at least it wasn’t raining! Not that could tell by the way I looked! Lol

Just after 10am, I ran into TieDye! He was hiking SOBO and for a minute he had me believing he accidentally turned the wrong direction and knowing he was days ahead of me-I was worried! But then after a chuckle, he told me he had been slack packing with some other people because of the bad weather over the weekend. I wish I had done that. After catching up for a few minutes, and me thinking I’d be able to catch him tomorrow, we went our separate ways. It was only a few hours later when I realized he’d be getting started tomorrow where I’m supposed to be ending.. lol.. no way in the world I’d be catching him tomorrow!

I ate my lunch early, just after 11am at Long Pond Lean-To. I was annoyed that the heat and mugginess felt like it was suffocating me (in my own sweat at that), and I had only made it this far in the day. But, I was hungry and wanted to lay out my tent and my current clothes to dry. The tent dried within 15 minutes of being strung between 2 trees like a hammock.. my shirt and shorts on the other hand-were just as wet as they were when I took them off. Lovely.

I hung out until 12, hoping for some drying success and finally giving in. My legs were starting to get the heat rash bumps, so from then on, I hiked in my undies. My shirt is long, but really-I don’t care about modesty anymore.. if something makes me uncomfortable while hiking, I remove said thing. Period. Naturally, 10 minutes back on trail and heading up Barren Mountain- I run into 3 SOBO guys that all look to be in their early 20s. Awesome. Good thing I don’t care, am I right? Hahaha

I got to the Barren Ledges, a good 2 miles from the summit, and saw the sunny, rocky overlook and hightailed it over there. There were 3 older gentlemen there, too, all doing a section hike. I introduced myself, and as we were chatting, I took my shirt off, laid it out to dry, fished out my shorts from my pack, laid them out to dry, then plopped myself down next to my laundry and laid me out to dry. They said they had been up there doing the same thing-drying out, they just happened to leave their clothes on while doing it. I was pretending I was in a bikini on St. Lucia sipping a mai tai. Which, I think that’s where I’d like to spend my birthday this year-FYI. Lol

I was laying up there for awhile and watching these falcons fly back and forth.. I wouldn’t have known they were falcons if there wasn’t a sign a little ways back saying they were nesting. I counted 6 of them, and when one kept eyeing me, I decided to get up and get moving before they realized I was probably a very easy target! Haha

It was well after 1pm when I got moving again. And I still had 7.6 miles to go to meet my “bare minimum” goal. It would have me at 15 miles today and I’d be camping by a pond and get to wash off in the water. At this rate, I knew I wouldn’t be making it there much before 6pm but what else is there to do but keep walking, anyway? I was moving slow but felt strong and capable and I was in a good mood still.

Once I got to the top of Barren Mountain, that changed for me. The downhill was getting a little technical and was staying very slippery. I fell twice but hurt nothing but my pride. I was moving at a snails pace. This terrain was reminding me of the Whites, and I was not liking it at all. There was a boggy area attempting to soak my day and half new shoes. I started getting irritable. Then it was up Fourth Chairback Mountain. It was treacherous at times but manageable. I thought the summit would never appear..

When I looked at my phone at 5pm, I was just making it to the top of this mountain. I STILL had 2.8 miles to go to get to my bare minimum goal, which included going up and over Third Chairback Mountain! Sheesh! I knew I’d be getting to camp well after 6:30, probably closer to 7 if the terrain going down was anything like the previous mountain. And guess what? It was worse. Holy hell was it worse.

I was hardly getting anywhere when I slipped and busted my right knee. I’m not even sure how it happened, but I ended with my right leg tucked up under me, my body weight on the knee, my left leg out straight and still sliding, and both arms with trekking poles still in the ground stuck back behind me. And there was a rock drop off in front of me. I had to let go of the poles and get my arms back in front of me, one at a time.. awkward. Then get the pressure off my knee, which is now bleeding, while not letting my left leg/foot slide anymore. It was scary and very painful. When I finally was able to stand, I threw up. Just like that. Stand, tunnel vision, barf. Not how I saw this day going.

There was nothing I could do except try to keep moving. Tears in my eyes with each limpy step, I trudged forward on that awful descent. All of this took place within less than a quarter a mile from the summit! When I made it to the brief part of actual trail, I looked around and found a semi decent place to set my tent up. It’s basically all squishy moss and barren trees, and the ground is so soft it hardly holds my stakes in place-but ya know what? I was done. I wasn’t making it another 2.4 miles hurting like this with the sun going down. I only have half a liter of water, so I ate a pb&j for dinner with some chips (my normal lunch) and I’m happy that my stomach isn’t still upset. That barfy business had to have been the pain from putting pressure on that knee, because I feel fine now in that regard.

So. Dinner is done, camp is set up, and all that’s left to do is clean up my knee and find something to cover it (so the blood doesn’t stick to my leggings or my sleep stuff), and stress a little about tomorrow. Tomorrow was going to already be another tough day, and now it’ll be even more so with an extra mountain to go up and over since I didn’t get it done today. Greeaaaaat.

My food drop is coming the following morning, so I have to make it tomorrow to my planned place or I won’t have time to get to the food drop. If I’m not there, my food goes back with them. I think I’ll try to get up super early, so that way if my knee is giving me trouble I have more time to get to my destination.

Here’s to sleeping well and surviving tomorrow! It should be much easier terrain once I get through tomorrow.. maybe that, and food, will motivate me to push through! Sweet dreams, y’all.

Start: Monson, Maine (AT mi 2078.6). Stop: Thompson Brook (AT mi 2087.9). Today’s miles: 9.3 miles. Total AT mileage: 1062.9 miles

Mom woke me up just before 7am and I quickly got ready and packed up my stuff. We had everything in the rental car and checked out of the room by 7:20. We sat down to breakfast at a cute little place named “Jordan’s” and had our food served to us before 7:45.. as happy as I was that everything was going so smoothly this morning, I was super sad that my mom would be leaving me soon. Too soon, in my opinion.

I had French toast, eggs and bacon with coffee..Mom had blueberry pancakes and eggs with her coffee. We’ve been having some pretty stellar breakfasts in Bar Harbor, I’m sad that those are ending, too. Lol After we ate, we hopped in the rental and headed towards Monson. We took a pit stop for the ATM and gas, and another for me to run to the bathroom.. otherwise, we sailed to Monson and arrived with plenty of time to take care of the errands I needed to handle before setting off into the 100 mile wilderness. For those that don’t know, the 100 mile wilderness is the longest stretch of the Appalachian Trail without a town, cell service, or civilization so to say.. and when you come out of that stretch, you go into Baxter State Park to summit Mount Katahdin, Maine’s highest peak and the northern terminus of the AT.

First, we stopped at Shaw’s Hiker Hostel for me to arrange a food drop in the wilderness. They’re going to deliver me a bucket filled with everything I’ve purchased for a resupply on day 4.. I will call them from a specific mountain top on day 3 (when I’m supposed to have service) and verify my drop off time. As of now, I’ll have to be at a specific logging road at 10am on Thursday to get my food. No pressure or anything.. haha

After setting up all of that, mom and I went to the post office to ship some stuff home (mostly all the pretty clothes she brought me to wear around town in Bar Harbor. It was so nice feeling like a normal person in public..) and then we went to a little place to order a pizza. It was only 11:30, but I knew better than to start hiking without loading up on a proper lunch.

Pizza in tow, we made our way to the trailhead parking lot. This is when reality set in. I was about to start hiking, she was about to drive to the airport. Dammit, this sucks. We ate what we could of the pizza and then I shared the rest with some hikers that had just gotten dropped off. Originally I thought I’d pack it out to eat tonight for dinner, but then I realized I already packed a dinner, and there’s no point in toting extra food with all these climbs coming my way.

When I got all ready to go, mom and I hugged bye. This was the worst part of my entire day. I hate seeing her sad, and she was sad we were going our separate ways. We ended up hugging again right at the trailhead and made promises to check in and for her to let me know she made her flights and got home safely (as I’m writing this, I’m still waiting to hear about her connecting flight, on my Garmin InReach, because I haven’t had service since leaving the WiFi of Shaw’s haha).

I started off into the woods. It was sprinkling, the trail was slick, but it was beautiful and I had missed it. Surprisingly, I didn’t fall any, but I definitely did some sliding.. I just happened to catch myself before hitting the ground each time! Ha! The trail had some brief climbs and steep descents, but none of it was particularly challenging. Which was perfect for me today, because my body struggled to get back into the swing of things. My knees bothered me more than I expected, to the point of taking an extra dose of ibuprofen this afternoon.

I passed some pretty ponds and a gorgeous waterfall. I sat and talked with two NOBOs while we filtered water. They gave me some insight for their plan to summit Katahdin and the day or two before that.. making sure to get permits for certain parts at certain times is tricky.. I like having a backup plan for my backup plan. It might be why I’m good at ICU nursing lol.. gotta love that type A personality, right?

I made it to my planned river crossing and campsite just after 6pm. The rain had moved in and stayed steady just after 5.. I was annoyed with myself for sitting around chatting earlier, because I probably could have had my tent up before the rain, or at least closer to less rain if I wasn’t chatting and lollygagging.. but where I set up is mostly tree covered anyway, so the inside of the tent stayed dry even during the set up. I’m seriously still in love with David’s tent. So much so, I finally cracked and bought one of my own-it just has a forever long wait time.

I unpacked and got everything secure from the rain, then went to the water to wash off. I’m right next to the river and can hear the water rushing by from my tent. It’s the best sound machine there is! Once I was all clean, I changed clothes, hung my bear line, and then set to work making dinner. I wanted to make sure the line was already tossed in the right spot before it got dark on me. Now the sun sets around 7:45 ish, so daylight runs out on me before I expect it to sometimes.. being rainy doesn’t help the situation, either.

My food is put away, my mom just messaged that she made her connecting flight, and I’m all tucked in for bed. It’s 8:15 and I’m pretty tired already. I’m going to try to get some sleep without my earplugs so that when mom messages that she’s landed I’ll hear my Garmin go off.. The thing is pretty dang handy! I’m trying to save battery anyway, since I have 6-7 more days out here and my battery pack will only last 4-5 of those days.

I’m going to stay in airplane mode through tomorrow regardless, and then play it by ear on day 3. I won’t even attempt to upload these blog posts until I’m sure I’ll have enough battery to summit Katahdin and get my ride to the hostel afterwards lol.. Imagine summiting a mountain like Katahdin, and having a dead phone and no pictures! It’s too mortifying for me to even consider letting that happen! Haha goodnight y’all! Time for that shut eye while listening to the water rush by.