Wednesday, June 14 – Back AT It: Friendship Miles
We wake to a promising forecast. For sure a chance of showers and thunderstorms but its warmer than last week. It looks again like we’ll we’ll have limited views.
Last night we got reservations for Greenleaf tonight and Galehead tomorrow night. The last four bunks at Galehead. Looks like some big group is there. We’ll head up this morning and try again to make it across the ridge.
“Aren’t we supposed to be doing laundry now?” Pat asks.
Oh yes, it is 6am as we linger over coffee. No rest for the weary, we have mountains to climb and laundry to do.
We leave my car at the end of the Zealand Trail where hopefully we’ll return in three days to find it. Park Barb’s car at the bottom of the Old Bridle Path and head up. We know this trail as we came down this way when we bailed off Greenleaf a week ago.
As we start off into the woods, we recall these parts of the trail where it seems feasible that a donkey or horse could climb this trail. Then we reach the points where it seems truly impossible for a donkey to have clamored up. It’s challenging enough for us and we have only two feet.
We make it to the hut in time to enjoy afternoon hot bowls of lentil soup, cups of hot tea and chocolate cake. So delicious. Everything is delicious about being here again especially since this afternoon we can actually see the top of Lafayette and the Franconia Ridge we walked on through fog, sleet and snow a week ago. The forecast for tomorrow looks cautiously optimistic.
I watch hikers coming down off the ridge – appearing so small as they descend off Lafayette, and then appear like giants as they walk amidst the small trees surrounding down to the hut.
As for Pat, no new mileage on the AT today, its all been “Friendship Miles” to get us here, a term she is learning to despise!
We lounge at the long wood tables, benches worn smooth by so many guests. Look up birds and plants we saw on the way. Explore inaturalist and learn about the symbiosis between lichens and rocks.
Listen in on the comforting familiarity of the same talk about the hut we’d heard last week.
I realize that I am so tired. I should stretch. Stretch.
Dinner of tomato soup, pulled pork, mashed potatoes, beans and peach cake for dessert. How can I not feel extravagantly blessed!
Over dinner I talk with the man beside me who hiked the AT several years ago with his son.
How did it change you?, I ask.
I’m a swimming coach and I now spot and celebrate small victories like I never saw or appreciated before – like a good flip turn, a particularly good stroke. Small victories got me through the long hike.
Navigating Through Change 