Friday, June 16, 2023 Galehead to the Zealand Trail
The last day of our adventure which may be why I’m in a melancholy mood today. I’m not ready to be done. So my dreams run to everything I’m not done with yet and I toss ruminating, remembering, being hard on myself for choices I cannot change and decisions made for reasons I cannot see or understand. In other words, I don’t sleep well. It’s way too hot up here on the top bunk in the room draped with damp clothes and bunks full of sleeping hikers.
I get up without banging my head (I am learning!) and step outside to a beautiful view down over the Pemi Wilderness and Garfield in the distance.
I stretch and sip a luxurious cup of hot coffee. It’s warm, a gentle breeze. Yes, the black flies are out too to greet the morning but they’re not too bad.
It’s funny I don’t remember now much of yesterday’s long hike. The view from Garfield up at the fire tower base at Owl’s Head in the center of the valley. Yes, the waterfall and swinging from trees. But so much of whatever was yesterday’s hard or too much, weariness and worn has drifted away in the morning fog.
What is it to let things be, to let it all be. If I could I know I would be free. Free to be here, to be whole and happy, so very very happy. The hermit thrush calls. A sip of coffee. It’s so quiet and peaceful out here alone this morning after all the loud reverberating bustle of last night at the hut.
I turn in to get packed and ready for the day.
There’s something wrong, something terribly wrong with the oatmeal this morning. UGH! Its sour, its putrid, it’s, how could you ruin oatmeal? My table mates say it is a bit strange but not too bad. My bowl is just bad.
“Can you tell me what’s in the oatmeal?” I ask the young crew member.
She looks embarrassed, sheepish, “I let it cook too long.” Maybe.
My theory? She put baking powder in the oatmeal that was meant for our delicious oatmeal scones….
It’s a long slow ascent up Twin but we are so glad we chose this direction to hike and that we are going up and not down. We reach the top of Twin and the trail turns flat. We patter away across the muck on broken and rotten boards, the kind of boardwalks we have found all through the Whites. (Vermont has much better planks on the trail!).
And yes, despite the rotten boards, it’s another beautiful trail, and rather a miracle. This little thin line of a trail we follow through the dense underbrush around us, this thin strip of safety and assurance winding us on our way home.
We pass hikers in a hurry who don’t want to pause and talk and those who do. We keep plodding on.
I feel so many things today. I look back on all that happened in me and my up and down of moods all week. This deep feeling of ease that fills me today. Nothing to fix or solve. Nothing to do but place one foot in front of the other. Letting things unfold as they will. Like I do this morning.
The long descent to Zealand is not as bad as it appeared on the map. And yes, when we think we’re done and can’t descend anymore, we keep on going down, down, down. And with our descent, I grow weary of descending into what feels like another dark pit on this trail. But then in the distance, the rumble of Zealand Falls. Soon we cross the stream on smooth golden rocks.
It is so beautiful here. Hope and joy return. And gratitude and love over our respite for afternoon tea and cookies on the porch of the hut.
And yes, I’ve got nothing left of energy. I could spend all afternoon sauntering down the trail to the car. But we have a journey to complete. I will myself to energy I wasn’t sure I could find and step out briskly as we begin our 2.5 “Friendship Miles” out the Zealand Trail to the car. I shift into fourth gear and take off poles clicking, eyes down the trail. Unfortunately hiking with intention like this prevents me from counting lady-slippers. I trust there are still at least 67 along the way like we counted last week.
I keep on going, can’t slow down or I know I will slow to a stall.
On the way out we pass a young couple with their 4-year-old son leading the way.
“Hello Hiker!”
He’s very proud to be carrying his own pack and I share my delight that he is.
“He’s carrying his toys and stuffed animals,” his mom says, “Good training!”
I tell them that my parents took me into Zealand for the night when I was his age. Here I am a life-time or two later, and rediscovering that 4-year old joy of being out on the trail and in the woods carrying your own pack.
At last we make it to my car and head around to Franconia Notch to pick up Barb’s car and then back to my apartment for showers and a feast of hamburgers, fries and salad. Beyond delicious. A pile of laundry to do – tomorrow. For now, celebration and laughter.
After my shower, I reach up and touch my head. It’s all sticky. I take another quick rinse and sure enough my head is still sticky. Alas that bug repellent I lathered on this morning is “splash and sweat resistant” – I’m stuck with a sticky head for 12 more hours!
We hiked something like 118 miles according to our Strava app. Pat counts 46.3 AT Miles in Vermont and 44 in New Hampshire. And yes, New Hampshire continues to hold her five most terrifying experiences on the AT:
Our Beaver Brook descent off Moosilauke last fall.
And this weeks,
- Waterfall descent between Greenleaf and Galehead.
- Two river crossings coming down from Lonesome Lake
- Descent down Jumping Jimmy’s from the Kinsman’s in the rain.
- Descent from the snowy peak of Lafayette to the Greenleaf Hut.
These places where Pat said she didn’t take many pictures because she was too busy trying to save her life!
Navigating Through Change 