Legs and Borders

I've said farewell to Vermont and welcomed my new overlord New Hampshire arguably the toughest state to hike on the entire Appalachian Trail, especially 100 miles of White Mountains or as people liked to call them "Whites". I've woke up way too early and cooked myself a breakfast consisting of six eggs, four toasted tortillas (they are great toasted!) and a chocolate milk. Greg didn't came down until quarter to eight so I had time for a quick, unplanned nap as well. At 8 AM Greg gave me a ride to town, I took a picture with him outside of his house, he took another one of me and said that he will upload it onto his Facebook page which was fine with me. I've shared with him my plan to potentially come back here and finish the Long Trail and he was happy to help me, he would shuttle me to Killington and let me stay over for another night if needed. When I offered him money for his help he politely refused and said that "trail angels don't take it",...

"At least now I knew that my heart was wedded to the mountains - to the wild places. It was there, and there alone, that I was whole, contented, and blissful. No relationship, career, or wealth could ever take its place." Heather "Anish" Anderson Last 20 miles hiking in Vermont, in rain but spending the night at the trail angels. I've set up the alarm clock to be up and running at 5 PM, first and foremost I wanted to be in Hanover as early as possible and to avoid the bulk of rain which was going to intensify in the afternoon. It started to drizzle right after I set off, trail wasn't too steep or muddy so it was fairly smooth sailing overall. I was surprised that Snail did not catch up with me but I guess he had a later start, he wasn't stopping at Norwich for long anyway. I went past few maple trees tap pipes which were extracting the juices later boiled down to make maple syrup, it was quite interesting to see. ...

["Who let the Dogs out" song playing] Zohan: Amazing song guys, it was my bar mitzvah song! Lucky: Was it? Zohan: No, not really.. As it is the last day for Fomo on the trail we made it a bit special. I woke up at 3:30am and hiked 12 remaining miles to Snoqualmie Pass to be at the trail head when his friend George will arrive and pick us up and take us to his house in North Bend ten miles away. We arrived just as he was rolling into the parking lot, waited for Tank Top for a while as he was supposed to join us up but he wasn't replying to our messages so we left thinking something must have delayed him and that he will join us later , George took us to his home, we took a shower and put our laundry to wash, then he drove us to Safeway before heading to work. We ate at Taco Time before resupplying and getting an Uber back to his place. After few hours others started to arrive, Chewy, Tank Top and finally Zohan. We watched some random YouTube videos of people hiking PCT thi...

"Early settlers travelling on wagon trains to the Willamette Valley used the Sisters as landmarks, calling them Faith, Hope and Charity. More recently they've been rather unimaginatively identified by position: North, South and Middle. Such prosaic names belie a dysfunctional family of volcanic temperament. A look at the names of adjacent peaks reveals that there are three sister but only one husband; also a little brother and a wife (presumably his but with this bunch who knows?) and a bachelor. We're talking a hotheaded group that spent thousands of years throwing fire at each other and generally misbehaving until the entire lava-littered landscape is a record of family violence". (A book about PCT I picked up at BLYC and totally forgot to note who the author was). Where do I even start with describing what happened today, it had totally unexpected and out of the comfort zone vibe. First I walked twelve remaining miles to Big Lake Youth Camp where in the especially ...

"I got my trail name when I ordered 250 bags of Yorkshire Tea from England, I just couldn't drink any other tea. I carry them all in my backpack" Cuppa. "I'm dislectic, one day I got drunk and decided to tattoo the number "116" on my arm to help me during the army drills, lots of Americans reads it now as "911" Pussycat. Only short stroll today but I hit a major landmark and decided to have a Nero in a town called Chester. The crew consisting of Mooch, Alex and Ben woke up with me at 5am and we set off twenty minutes later to reach the PCT midway point located five miles away. Weather was sunny but still cold and about two inches of snow were covering the path before us. We reached our destination at 8:30am took few pictures, signed the trail register and savoured this special moment for a moment, then there was time to pick up our backpacks and walking poles again and walk those few remaining miles to town. I walked a bit slower, stayed behin...

"Don't love the world or the things of the world. Agape." John, chapter 4 - Old Goat. Today initially was supposed to be a short stop at South Lake Tahoe and swift return to the trail, but the plans as you might have noticed already are often rewired here and planning anything more than two days in advance is pointless. Initially things worked as planned, we hiked remaining eight miles to SLT which were fully covered in snow confusing the path, swarms of mosquitos and to be honest were a tough stretch for a descent to town. We caught a quick hitchhike to town thanks to Jacky from Georgetown who was going to Lake Tahoe to do her grocery shopping, she dropped us of by Raley's Fresh Market. We got a Taco Bell, and went to my favourite place in town - the laundromat! I started the washing, put the phone on charge and went to do the resupply. After about an hour everything was done so I decided to call the number of trail angel Owen texted me (it's usually way easier t...