Becoming Odyssa - Jennifer Pharr Davis [97]
A nice young man named Jeremy, who looked outdoorsy but probably wasn’t, helped me pick out a pack. I told him specifically what brands and models most thru-hikers used, and even went so far as to suggest certain weight and capacity specifications, but somehow he managed to talk me into one of the heaviest and most expensive packs.
At this stage of the trail, a comfortable pack was worth any cost, even 360, which was the price of the new pack I bought.
After receiving a passing mental health grade and replacing my pack, I was finally ready to get back on the trail. It was time to finish what I started.
16
PERSEVERANCE
BEAR MOUNTAIN STATE PARK, NY, TO MOUNT
GREYLOCK, MA—183.9 MILES
Connecticut has a little of everything: beautiful rolling farmland, a long stroll along the Housatonic River, a steady boulder climb outside Kent, and an untouched ravine just before Massachusetts. Plus, a determined hiker can walk through the entire state in two days. Massachusetts, on the other hand, is like Connecticut’s less attractive half-sister. It has some nice features that run in the family, but it also has bogs and bugs—lots of bugs.
My transition back to the trail wasn’t as smooth as I would have hoped. While I was mentally ready to be back, my body had forgotten how to hike. Up until this point, hiking twenty to thirty miles a day had been routine, but after five days of rest, my muscles felt like they had atrophied, and now I had to work much harder for my miles.
Even more frustrating was the fact that my new 360 pack was not an improvement over my old one. Though the majority of the pack weight no longer rested on my shoulders, now it dug into my haunches. There were two metal pack supports, called “stays,” which ran the length of the pack, and their pointy ends dug into the outside of my butt cheeks. They rubbed hard against the top layer of skin, giving me open blisters that were aggravated with every step. The waist belt also hugged a little tighter than I would have liked, and at one point it pinched a nerve that sent a numb feeling shooting down my thigh to my knee. And while that wasn’t a good feeling, at least it didn’t hurt.
One positive was that the weather was amazing, much better than it had been at Bear Mountain several days before. My first day back was pleasantly warm and complemented by a cool breeze.
After spending my first day back on the trail alone, I was surprised the next morning to come upon a crowd of thru-hikers. A crowd?
I hadn’t seen any thru-hikers besides Mooch, Nightwalker, and Neon in weeks. And now there were five thru-hikers who were just getting back on the trail after a town stop in Kent, Connecticut. The group included four boys and one girl. The girl, named Rainbow, had hiked the southern half of the trail last year and was finishing the section from Harpers Ferry to Katahdin this summer. She wore a long, earthy skirt and a cotton shirt, neither of which were traditional hiker apparel. She also carried a blow-up pink flamingo in her pack, and that wasn’t exactly normal, either.
For my part, I didn’t care what she carried or what she wore; she was a thru-hiker, she was around my age, and she was a girl! Although I enjoyed the presence of all five thru-hikers, I was drawn to Rainbow above the rest.
Male thru-hikers always talked about how there weren’t enough women on the trail. I completely agreed. The guys said that after a few hundred miles of hiking, they actually develop “trail goggles.” Trail goggles are much like beer goggles, meaning that after a while on the trail, almost any woman looks good.
One male thru-hiker elaborated on the concept, telling us, “I was in a town for a resupply and I saw a woman walk into a grocery store. I realized that I hadn’t seen a woman in five days. I wasn’t very close to her, but I could tell that she was a female, and she moved,