Having returned to the AT from Norwalk, I quickly made my way through the rest of CT. Too quickly perhaps, while I picked up a maildrop in Salisbury CT, I had lost my wallet. I was almost a full day outta town when I realized it, my wallet is normally in my pocket along with a phial of hand sanitizer so I was quite frustrated I hadn’t noticed sooner. I pushed forward to the next road that I could walk or hitchhike back to prowl around town looking for my wallet. It took a while, but a few miles into the roadwalk I got picked ip by a pair of friendly stoners, who after hearing my story, signed on to give me a round trip. Back in town it didn’t take long, one of the staffers at Peter Beck’s had found it outside, and lucky I look similarly disheveled in my ID as I do having hiked some 1500 miles, so there was no question it was mine. To celebrate not having to cancel my credit cards I bought my new friends crossaint before they whisked me back to trail, crisis easily averted.

While working out my wallet troubles, I had leap-frogged with a recently started flip-flopper going by the name of First Day or something, because of his fresh enthusiasm when met by tired NOBOs, that name couldn’t last though. After I left him behind he picked up the name Sideshow because he was rocking a very sideshow Bob aesthetic, he was a huge goofball and would’ve been fun to spend a little more time nearby. Some other thru-hikers of note from the third quarter of the AT, Not Yet, who could almost be a body double for Ox, and the Diabolical Duo, a father & son team with a catch, the son is only eight years old. The dad had just retired from the Navy, and pulled his kid from school for the spring, but was determined not to let him fall behind, so I’d come up on them practicing multiplication tables, state capitals, or what have you.

MA was the last of the really quick states on the AT, I turned my guide page and found a note scrawled in next to the marker for upper goose pond cabin reading, “Pancakes!” I pushed a couple days to position myself so it wouldn’t be either too early to stop or too far to make it in before dark. I didn’t have high hopes, this wasn’t the first note my guide had hinting at illusory food allong the trail, I remember hearing stories of missionaries who would keep feeding you as long as you kept hearing them out, but they’d moved away years prior. So I was very much pleasantly surprised to find what was more hostel than shelter, just in the woods, and they had one bunk left, just waiting for me. Stayed up late listening to a fiddler play us into the night, it was a welcome respite from all our long walks. Set out late the next morning, picked up my next ration box from the cookie lady, and continued the previous night’s trend of relaxing. Helped her move some plants’n things, got a hold of Nemo to work out some more dropboxes going into VT and NH, and watched a lot of chickens roaming about.

I was also able to get in touch with Greylock, who lives nearby to the northernmost  mountain in MA, and carries the same name. We set up to meet at the summit lodge, and I well… totally shirked setting my self up for an easy day, sometimes you just gotta mess with future-you. I was practically running though, kept beating my time estimates and the foolishly rewarding myself by stopping for food. Particularly at a couple places Greylock had recommended, got stupid lucky and both places when locals bought my food, so life lesson learned: shirk responsibilities, it’ll be okay. On the way up to the lodge I ran into Greylock waiting at a road crossing, bearing figs, apricots, date bars, and some beer local to the Berkshires. The lodge had been closed when he made it up there, but he’d managed to find me so we caught up with eachother briefly, before I went on my way to make camp. On a whim I tried the lodge door, and someone came and let me in, gave me a bunk, and a shower, the caretaker even let me dine with him and some of his friends who were there for a Ham radio competition. It was far fancier than anything one would’ve expected from a night on the AT, and way above my hiker trash pay grade.

It didn’t take long to start meeting more thru-hikers in PA, first up was Trailwalker, a high schooler who’d worked something out to hike the trail for school credit. (there’s a hustle if I ever saw one) We hung out with a father-daughter section hiker pair for a couple days leading up to the real halfway point and the associated half gallon of Ice cream waiting for each of us at Pine Grove Furnace. Half a gallon is maybe too much ice cream, but that didn’t stop me from having 3 burgers after ice cream and explaining my sword our section hiker friends, who had missed it up till then. I like carrying it loosely disguised as an umbrella, like magic that escapes the notice of anyone not watching for it.

Sputnik caught us the day after, a goofy gap year kid who was quite the cosmonaut in his neoprene cap, he’d done some work for the huts in the whites too. Soon after we ran into Sweet Blood, a british girl under constant torment of mosquitoes, I had met her briefly with Nemo before getting picked up by Rescue near Harper’s Ferry. Cruise Control and Sunshine caught us aoon after Sweet Blood, Cruise had landed some quick work as a bartender at a wedding we had seen being set up when we had passed through Pine Grove Furnace. I recall hearing that he scored that gig purely on merit that he was from Louisiana. Sunshine was ironically named, he was hella dour and looked like Micheal Cera, I killed some big wolf spiders in a shelter with my sword for him. Though his crocs were more fitted to the task I couldn’t pass up adding “killed large spiders with sword” to my lifetime list of accomplishments.

As I was nearing the end of NJ, I was caught by a thru-hiker of some note, Mammoth. He is even moreso a kindred spirit even among thru-hikers, but much farther in his journey than I. Having walked across the US twice, and the PCT continuously, and aiming to hit all 49 of the continental US states without breaking his footpath. He is far faster than me, but I did manage to stay with him for a couple days, learning what I could and swapping stories. I had heard about him in passing very early on in my hike, from Smokes I think. His departing from the shelter at noon, intent on making 30 miles before 8pm, put me in a long list of hikers recently behind him.

Meeting Mammoth solidified my long term trip plan to its current state, walk continuously coast to coast and complete the triple crown without breaking the footpath. Accepting a little bit of non-linearity, particularly when it facilitates something cool, like aqua-blazing and then returning to the beginning of the Shenandoah, or more recently catching a ride out to the Mackinac bridge crossing from the Adirondacks. These are the only exceptions I can think of sofar.

Coming into Waynesboro was sort of an event amongst the Fellowship, we split three ways. Nemo hitched in early because he had a rash that was making movement unpleasant. Rescue and Medicine Man stopped at the shelter just a few miles out to wait out the overnight storm. I decided to make it all the way into town for my first 30+ mile day, it was an interesting time. Leading out from the last shelter and moving quick it seemed I was in the eye of the storm, there was just a circle of clear blue sky above amidst a thunderous chorus, moving quickly I had an uneventful bear encounter just before stopping to put on my rain shell. I got to the road dry, found some ciders left as trail magic, (Thanks go to Yo-Yo and Tweet) and started to head towards town hoping for a hitch. Almost to town and taking some dime-sized hail and thunder, I was picked up by a man named Ben driving a hearse. We exchanged jokes about how horror-esque the situation was and he took me to town where he thought Nemo might’ve set up our tent. I wandered about yelling for them, but no luck. I went to the grocery store for some food and curled up beneath a bridge.

We all found each other the next morning, and we started make our aqua-blazing plans. The nights storm had brought in enough water that our outfitter wasn’t gonna let us launch for another four days. We had a good time in town, with people catching up and passing us by, and ended up with Rescue Nemo Smokes Keytar and Eddy in the boats, we had a few flips, much to atleast one person’s embarrassment. On the whole though it was a super chilled out lazy river trip, and just the right break for Nemo and I before said our goodbyes and caught a convenient ride from my Sister back to Waynesboro and started our push back to Harper’s Ferry. We did some big miles through the Shenandoah Hiker Highway, and made it back there in time for us to meet up with Rescue, take a night in DC and catch our bus to Boston to see Nemo’s sister graduate, and eat lotsa food at grad parties. This was where Nemo and I would actually part, He and Rescue dropped me off as close to the WV/VA border as they could and I got started on the 4-state challenge.

Walking the 4-state challenge, making it from VA through WV and MD into PA over the course of about 44 miles, in 24 hours is an interesting personal challenge and worth it for most thru-hikers. However, I have some recommendations for anyone considering attempting it. Start early, think before sunrise, not 6pm. Take care not to get turned around or lost, particularly at night when you might not notice until you hit a landmark you had passed hours earlier. Finally, 44 miles is a long way to travel in a day, even though you’ve made it over a 1000 miles aready if you are on the thru-hiking plan, take breaks, drink water, and remember to set up shelter before collapsing at the end, it might rain overnight.

Nemo was able to be delivered back to us on trail near the Partnership Shelter in VA, more help from my Sister Nicole. (Really can’t thank you enough Sis.) He had spent a couple weeks back home, losing his trail legs and getting hit by cars. (but really though…) it was great to have him back and we, being Smokes, Rescue, Iron Man, Eddy, Nemo and I got Pizza from town to celebrate. (Partnership Shelter is one of a few shelters on the AT that is just off the road and within delivery range of a pizza place.) We took a short day afterwards and camped out behind the Bàarn, Eddy went on for the night with the Hiking Vikings. I had 2x of the Barn in Atkins’ one pound hiker burgers with chilli added for lunch, (to Rescue’s 1x without) and then we got burritos across the street. Later, while being hiker trash behind the barn watching Harold and Kumar on Smokes’ tablet, we received 3 grocery bags of food from a Little Debbie Trucker. I had atleast 3000 calories for breakfast the next morning, mostly frosted pies and those peanut butter and chocolate wafers.

It was great having Nemo back, although he had some trouble with his knees and keeping up with the pace we’d built up to in his absence. Smoke Rescue and I slowed down to match him, although Ironman leapfrogged with us for a while of this. A hiker going by the name Little Debbie caught up to us, he was outpacing us so we only spent one night with him. He would sign his name as feminine he could, showy script and little xoxos, his hope was that someone would try pink blazing for him, only to find out he was another dirty hippy boy. I doubt it ever happened, given how fast he was going, anyone who wanted to would have some serious catch up to play. We took a night at Dismal Falls and had a weird time, later hearing that some kinda drug bust happened a stones throw away. Rescue was pretty put off by how enthusiastic about swimming in the cold cold water Nemo was. Around this point the frame of Smokes’ pack broke, he was able to get a new one on warranty, only to have that one break within a few days. It ended up aright but it was super inconvenient.

Around this time while we were leapfrogging, Ironman started to practice some trail sorcery. He’d grown up and gone to school nearby and was able to call in his friends and family for some DIY trail magic. The Fellowship benefitted from this a few times, but as they became more surprising we would set up in a shelter, only to have him come in later having arranged a pick up a few more miles down trail. Rescue started to get jealous as Ironman started developing a lead on us and we found evidence of his trail magic left in registers, occasionally jokingly referring to him as Boromir in continuance of our referencing Lord of the Rings.

Our final member of the Fellowship came to us on the heels of Little Debbie, and brought to us by an older hiker on his way to a triple crown. Medicine Man, named such because he entered med school soon after his hike. He was delivered by Sycamore, who dropped in with Medicine Man, gave Nemo some sage advice and left him stunned for the better part of a day before departing without a word to any of us near Four-Pines Hostel. Medicine Man however stayed on with us until the breaking of the Fellowship at Harper’s Ferry.

Wolve (His spelling) as I know him was an anomaly, though I understand he fits a kind of archetype of character who unfortunately attempts the AT with some consistency. He appeared to Rescue and I in the middle of the night at uncle Johnny’s hostel in Erwin TN, and immediately he began to weave himself into a labyrinth of lies, the depths of which he seemed lost. After encountering him and others who had met him, only one thing was clear, nothing he said could be taken as true. It was apparent very early that his plan seemed to be that he would yellow-blaze up the trail, swindling overnight stays out of hostels and churches as he was able. His claims lined up closely with my actual life (He claimed to be from Minnetonka, which is only a few miles away from where I grew up, and that he had a similar plan to me beyond the AT.) and more so that of Smokes. (ex-military, tragic death of his wife and child, sometimes a son, sometimes es a daughter.) This was unacceptable to Smokes, when Wolve hitched into Damascus VA, there was a confrontation and Wolve got off trail.

Most of his tales lent to this persona that he must’ve thought was optimized to be attractive to women, a scarred veteran who overcame his dark past, has a rich family back home, and he can cook too! He introduced himself as “from Minnetonka, where the rich people in Minnesota live!” Claimed to work 18 hour days at a non-existant 5-star italian restaurant in St. Paul (it had a very generic name, I think it was “Italiano’s”), but didn’t know what a calzone was, and called tortillas “wet tacos” amongst some other food related oddities. He also had an absurd military story, something about 160 confirmed kills as an Army Ranger sniper in Nicaragua. I can’t help but  wonder what the real story was that led him to this existence.

From here we began to hike with Smokes, and would hang with him until Harper’s Ferry. Smokes is a larger than life character, he would get a carton of cigarettes in every one of his mail drops, which was every 4-6 days. He would chain smoke while hiking, even uphill, and he was fast, it was very seldom that anyone of us would be ahead of him. Last year he hiked the PCT, and he’ll make for the triple crown next year. Almost everyone I met on trail who were on the PCT in 2014 had at least heard of smokes. Rescue and I leap-frogged with Smokes, for a few days leading into Damascus. With the 3 of us and occasionally Eddy, and/or Ironman, who caught up to us just after Erwin, we formed a group, called ourselves The Fellowship, and began to head onwards towards where Nemo would return to Trail.

Returning to trail after Gatlinburg our party met Ox, another young man of thought. Ox had recently graduated with a master’s degree in theology from Notre Dame, and is perhaps the most philosophically religious person I’ve spoken at length with. We didn’t get near enough time with him then, as we split up at Hot Springs NC, but we enjoyed a couple of evenings discussing life, death, and Quentin Tarentino. Around when we met Ox, Nemo came across a dirty wool pullover hoodie and adopted it as his own, despite or perhaps because of Rescue’s protests and concerns of disease. In Hot Springs we got some business done, picked up our bounce box that Janeane had mailed for us back at Neel’s gap. I bought myself a new lighter and more appropriately sized pack, and started a bitter rivalry between myself and Rescue as to who can eat more burgers. This is still unresolved, but I am very confident in my guteral capacity. (It helps that I am still living hiker hungry on trail, and Rescue is back in school.)

A few days out of Hot Springs Nemo and I misplaced Rescue ahead of us, he left us a very sweet registry entry. His loss, the next day Nemo yogi’d us some glazed dounuts from a day hiker while I practiced cutting drills atop a shelter, we even caught up with him that night. We also got some bad news that night, Nemo’s great uncle had died. Nemo made plans to jump off trail for a while from Erwin TN. Nemo’s uncle played an important role in his family’s getting together, as it was told to me an amazing story of intrigue, eastern European politics, and Soviet Era espionage, but it’s his story to tell, so In brief and as I have left elsewhere, RIP Nemo Fam. Our next night, Rescue, Nemo, and I cut our day short to cowboy camp on an rocky outcropping, with a clear view of the sky, sunset, and sunrise. This night on the AT has stuck with me as we talked into the night about life and death, with fresh context and surrounded by earthly beauty.

In Erwin we celebrated St. Patrick’s day with Eddy Spoudazo, saw Nemo off, met Orange Crush, who would be the first finisher of the year, (it was obvious even then,) and spent a couple nights with Uncle Johnny while I got my systems swapped out to accommodate 1 person. There we met the first person on the AT that we didn’t like, but I’ll save that for next week.

After our inadvertent week off trail Nemo and I found ourselves a ways behind everyone we had thus far met, and spent the next few days only in each other’s company. This ended just before midnight at the Fontana Hilton Shelter, when we were awoken by the light of a headlamp and the shuffling of feet. Our new shelter-mate was beat, I got up and assisted him in hanging his food and he told us of his day. Ironman as he came to be called, had started at the NOC, 30 miles back. Having heard something about a pretty girl being at this shelter, he chose to push on an extra 12 or so miles after dark, in hopes of…? He didn’t have an answer as to what he planned to say to this mystery girl, we were oddly disappointed. He was getting off trail for a college visit or something the next day, so we left him hobbling around the shelter in the morning, expecting to never hear from him again.

During our ascent into the Great Smoky Mountains National Park we cam upon a familiar face, Rescue had caught us! He had found some new friends, including the girl who had drawn Ironman’s pink-blazing, and Eddy Spoudazo, who would be another recurring character. Travelling through the Smokies with snow, ice, swordplay atop Clingman’s Dome, and some shenanigans about Rescue wanting to go by Sasquatch, we made our way to Gatlinburg. Piling into a motel that by all accounts should’ve atleast had racecar beds, had a rough night, and thinned our group to just Rescue Nemo and I.

Getting a hitch back to trail was easy, but once the car was in motion things got weird. The driver, a sedentary looking old man, asked for a picture of one of our IDs; this set off some warning lights, but thus far we’d received so much good will from kinda weird folks that our shields were pretty far down. He got my ID, in which I look maybe a little too much like a serial killer, and sent it to his sister as some form of security. He had enough service to get that message out, and to receive her panicked response, but not enough to placate her before losing service entirely. This is when he turned and took us towards the Cades Cove loop, promising wildlife sightings, and a quick return to course. Our protests were too meek, or too polite, or perhaps he was simply determined to kidnap us to relive a smokies trip of his youth. He drove slowly, and stopped frequently to let other cars pass as we exchanged glances, communicating our mutual bewilderment. He told us of trips he had taken in his youth, took blurred pictures with his phone, and hollered out to picnickers an kayakers, returning his head to the vehicle once in a moment of ironic clarity, “They must think I’m crazy!” We agreed. By the end of our diversion, what should’ve been a 20 minute hitch back to trail turned into 3+ hour Odyssey. Returning to cell service we found that his sister had turned my ID over to the sheriff’s office, we got kidnapped, and had the police called on us. Upon our arrival to trail he gave some a passing hiker a can of soda, and with one last glance between us all as if to say, “we just spent 3 hours with you and you didn’t even offer us drinks that you intended to give away?” we fled down the trail before something else could go odd, and that is how we came to know Grandpa Roadtrip.

Nemo and I started our Appalachian Trail journey the 12th of February, 2015. We had a decent idea what we were getting into, although we made some significant miscalculations…

Chiefly regarding how we setup our mailed ration system. Perhaps the biggest challenge of the AT is also its biggest ease, it’s seldom difficult to get off trail and into a local town. Where we half expected to enter a town every week or so, it has proved easy to go into town every few days. We found ourselves scrapping most of our ration plan on day 3, splitting our plan in half, we went from 14 – 16 day rations to 6 – 8 days apiece. We were exceedingly lucky to have the support of my sister Nicole for our first few rations, (and several other times while we were near her stomping grounds) although we probably doubled the number of times she had to come and meet us to drop off our rations. By another stroke of luck we traded some fancy cheese we had, in exchange for the shipping a bounce box forward with the 2nd half of our 1st ration. (Thanks again Janeane) Rationing was probably our biggest recurring challenge while on the AT.

Our other miscalculation: winter. Now this may sound foolish, but Nemo and I are from Minnesota, we figured Georgia was going to be practically tropical by comparison. We weren’t totally wrong on that, on one of our coldest days the temperatures were floating just below zero Fahrenheit, Nemo got a text from his Father whom up in cabin-land had seen minus 40. After Improvising some crampons and snagging some extra layers we were mostly out of the woods on this count.

Lastly and less of a miscalculation, I started the trip ill, and maybe still am. It’s been overall mild but early on had an acute phase which knocked me off trail for a week to see a doctor, and wait for the roads back to trail to get plowed. (another thanks to Nicole for facilitating this) I’ll spare the details, but it’s been manifesting as periodic stomach bug, a couple days of symptoms with a gap before recurring. The gap between episodes has been getting longer so I’ve just been dealing with it as needed. As far as I have seen or heard, it hasn’t transmitted to anyone I’ve traveled with.

At Unicoi gap Nemo and I were greeted at the end of a struggle down an icy descent from Blue Mountain by the a fire rescue truck. They asked if we had seen a 240 pound bald guy up there. We hadn’t, but shortly thereafter he came marching out of the woods after us, looking completely unfazed, with some decent walking crampons on. Having found who they were looking for the fire rescue service offered us a ride into town, we took it on a whim and met maybe our most significant companion of the AT, certainly the first half. Rescue, as he came to be known, split a motel room with us, and was taken aback at Nemo’s calls for, “hotel sword fighting” only to be more bewildered to find that I was carrying a real sword. We left him in town during the next snowstorm, being bored and unfazed by the Georgia snow, but it wouldn’t be long before we met up with him again.