Is it Spring yet?

Well, clearly I am no Jeremiah Johnson. Deep snow kicked my butt this week. The best I can say about the first week of my AT sojourn is it’s been a learning experience for me (damn it!). I wish learning humility, patience, and adaptability wasn’t such a pain in the ass lesson. Not that I’m necessarily all that humble, patient, or adaptable, mind you, but I’ve made strides. Apparently I can evolve.

I promised myself I wouldn’t write boring posts with weekly totals of miles and weather and other dry facts but I am making an exception already.

15, 0, 1.5, 10, 3.4, 2, 8 – that’s my daily mileage this week. Seven days after starting the AT in Wind Gap, I have covered a grand total of 37.9 miles (in case you are quick at addition, two miles were repeated). At this rate I will finish the trail in 398 days - April 26 next year. I think I need to pick up the pace. So far I’ve had only three legitimate hiking days. Two of them were slackpack days which means they were essentially dayhikes that started and ended with me snuggled comfortably in my own bed. The Winter That Won’t Go Away is beating me into submission.

But when I have been able to hike it has been pretty damn spectacular. The woods in winter are magnificent if they aren’t trying to kill you. The highlight so far was the ten-mile hike from the Water Gap to the Mohican Center. Alison and Crosby accompanied me up the snowy but manageable trail to Sunfish Pond, then I continued on from there. Perfect blue skies, crisp cool temperatures with a very gentle breeze – it was ideal. Truly a walk in joy. Except the snow got deeper and deeper the further I hiked. Fortunately some poor guy had broken the trail before me so I relied on his foot prints to help me stay on the trail, and his pre-made post-holes got me across the all too occasional three-foot drifts. I don’t have any idea who the hiker ahead of me was but I feel like I owe him a car.

After spending the night at the Mohican Center (yeah, I know, pretty wimpy to stay in a cabin but there was a foot of snow on the picnic table so I had eat inside – hardship abounds on this hike), I got an early start heading north but the snow was still brutal. I was shelter-hopping and planned to go 14 miles to the next shelter. But after it took me nearly an hour to go one mile, it was clear I needed to (sigh) be humble and adapt once again to the world as it is, not as I would like it to be. Crap, I hate that.

So, like the humble, patient person I am trying to become, I texted Alison and asked her to bail me out just above Blairstown, NJ – the only road crossing on that stretch of trail. Alison is a saint. I’m home now typing this in the cozy warmth of my suburban house sipping hot tea and scritching the dog. Oh, darn.

The patient part of my lesson happens now. Given the amount of snow still on the trail in Jersey and the moderate melting that will occur each of the next couple days, I’m taking one more zero day before getting back on the trail with a pack on Wednesday. Clearly this was not the best year for an early start on the AT. It’s not just this area, either. The entire trail from Springer Mountain to Massachusetts has been hammered by the storms. Just yesterday people hiking the southern third of the trail were blasted with yet another killer storm. And very few of them could wimp out (er, I mean be humble and adapt) and text their wife to come and take them home for a couple of days.

The plan now is for me to get five days of NOBO hiking this week then come back to Bethlehem on Sunday and begin the SOBO part of my hike Monday. That will get me back on schedule to reach Springer at the end of June. By then I expect most of the snow will be melted.

I’ll try to make future posts more interesting. This one is largely an exercise in catharsis for me. If you read this far, thanks for your patience. You’re a better person than I am.