Barefoot Sisters: Southbound Read online

  "Behold yon foul vapor! Steel your hearts, my lord and my lady, for there be dragons."

  "Then let us forge onward, and vanquish them, and all other perils that stand in the path of our quest!" cried Blade, raising his fist and waving it toward New Hampshire.

  That night, as we set up our purple pavilion by the lean-to at Speck Pond, a fly fisherman came up from the water's edge with three live trout in a bucket.

  "Anyone want these?" he asked the crowd of assembled hikers.

  "Sure," said about fifteen voices at once.

  I eyed the trout. Three of them, fifteen of us. It looked liked the instant potatoes, which had been one of two dinner options in the Andover store, were still going to be my main course. Then inspiration struck.

  "How about a potluck?" I said to the other hikers. "We'll all share the trout, plus each of us can cook one dinner meal, and we'll share them all around"

  To my surprise, everyone seemed delighted by the idea. The fisherman filleted the trout for us, and a man who was section hiking with his ten-year-old son built a wood fire and fried them in his pot lid. While the fish was cooking, all the hikers searched through their food bags for their best meals: angel hair with pesto, homemade dehydrated chili, curried vegetables, and couscous. One of the nobos mixed up instant hunmius and spread it on triangles of pity bread for an appetizer. Inspired by the general enthusiasm, I announced that I was going to make a salad.

  "Salad?" The northbounders stared at me as if I'd just told them that I was going to pull a wedding cake out of thin air.

  "Well," I admitted, "I don't have any dressing, but I can get greens."

  Someone handed one a bottle of olive oil, and someone else gave me a few restaurant packets of salt and pepper. The man with the angel hair pasta offered me a bit of his pesto. While jackrabbit cooked our potatoes, I gathered a Ziploc bag full of wood sorrel, and mixed up what turned out to be a very passable dressing for the delicate, lemony leaves.

  Perhaps it was the novelty of having a more-than-one-course supper, perhaps the festive atmosphere-and I'm sure my hiker appetite enhanced the flavors of every dish-btu that potluck compares in my memory to any Thanksgiving. For dessert, I requisitioned packages of instant oatmeal from all those who could spare them, and mixed them with cocoa, brown sugar, and water to make chocolate-oatmeal pudding, a recipe Tenbrooks had taught me. We sat in a circle around the fire, sharing dessert. Somebody sang a song, someone else told a story, and I felt that, in the brief hours we'd spent together, the band of hikers who happened to be at Speck Pond that night had made ourselves into a family.

  jackrabbit

  o this is Mahoosuc Notch." Isis peered at the trail ahead. "The hardest mile on the Trail, they say." The bottom of the steep-sided valley was a jumble of boulders, some the size of Volkswagens. We could see white blazes spattered haphazardly over the rocks, marking a way through the maze.

  I kept quiet and concentrated on my footing. At that moment, I couldn't imagine anything harder than what we had just come down: Mahoosuc Arm, a 1,600-foot drop in less than a mile and a half. The trail had been a scramble of open rock faces, and in many places we had lowered ourselves down by grabbing spruce roots. The Nestuntabunt Five-wheel Drive, the Bodfish Squat, and the Piscataquis Pirouette made frequent appearances. It would have been almost fun, but for the pain in my hip. The bone jarring descent had reawakened the ache, and even the extra-strength "vitamin I" did little to relieve it.

  In the Notch, we crawled over, under, and around the tilted boulders, swinging from tree roots and tiny handholds. It was less like hiking than like bouldering-except for the forty-pound weight on my back. I was glad to be barefoot. My feet curled around the edges of stones, forming themselves to the sheer surfaces, gripping the rock better than any pair of boots.

  The pain in my hip lessened, and gradually I was able to focus on the beauty of the place. Huge rocks overhung the trail, some covered in ferns and moss, and some so steep no plant could gain a foothold. On either side, the forested walls of the notch closed in, showing only a narrow strip of the overcast sky. In places, a far-off sound of water came from below, and deep crevices between the rocks exhaled a chilly wind.

  "This is kind of spooky," Isis said, in a fern-shaded space between rocks where our breath made smoke in the suddenly cold air.

  "It's the Icy Breath of Doom" I made a scary face. "If you stop for too long, it will reach up from the depths and claim you!"

  "One of those guys at Speck Pond said there's still snow down here, under the darkest rocks. It doesn't melt until August"

  "Excellent! I wonder if we'll see it!"

  We came around a bend in the trail, gingerly lowered ourselves down a rock face, and looked for the next blaze. Instead of the usual rectangle of paint, there was a white arrow. It pointed straight toward a cave in the rock, angled downward into the pile of boulders, which looked barely wide enough for my shoulders.

  "We're supposed to go in there?" My throat tightened involuntarily. I've never been fond of small, dark, enclosed spaces. A wisp of cold air floated out of the entrance.

  Isis was already heading for the cave. She took her pack off and leaned it against the rock. "Here, pass this to me when I get through"

  "Be careful. You don't know how far down it goes."

  In a moment I heard her voice come back. "Okay. Pass it through"

  I heaved her pack as far as I could into the dark opening, and she grabbed it from the other side. "Now yours."

  "I think I can fit through with my pack on" The cave looked wider than it had at first.

  "Suit yourself."

  I ducked under the low entrance, and into the chilly air of the cave. It had a scent of old stone, moss and water. The walls were damp. It was only a short ways, I saw now-another few feet and I would be standing in the light of day again. And then I saw the ice.

  "Oh, Isis, it's here! There really is snow in here! Old snow; it's almost all granulated and turned to ice .. " It glinted blue from the base of the cave wall. Snow in July. It seemed a minor miracle. I leaned down lower, trying to reach it, and my pack caught on something on the cave ceiling. When I tried to straighten up, it threw me off balance and I landed on the cold stones, the full weight of the pack on top of Inc. I wriggled like a hooked fish, and my pack caught in another place. Cold water from the cave wall dripped onto my head, feeling like icy fingers running through my hair. Panic welled up in Inc.

  "Isis, I can't get out. I'm stuck!" I unbuckled my hip belt and struggled against my pack, frantically trying to get ►ny arms out of their straps, but I couldn't get free. "Help me! Help nme!" I was almost screaming.

  Isis leaned down into the cave. "Icy Breath of Doom got you?" She assessed the situation. "it ►night help if you unbuckle your chest strap"

  Of course. How ►nany weeks had I worn this pack now? How many times had I taken it oft? There were two steps to the process: undo the hip belt, and unfasten the little chest strap that held the shoulder straps together. Then it was easy to slip it off. How could I forget something so elementary? I had to laugh as I crawled out of the hole, brushing the niud off my wet clothes and dragging my pack behind me. This is why I spell my rran►e with a lowercase j, I thought.

  The trail led up into the Mahoosuc Range, in southwestern Maine, a line of imposing 3,500-foot peaks and ridges. It was glorious to be there oil these cool, sunny days; not even the prospect of Little Debbie snacks for every lunch could din) our enthusiasm (though I doubt that either of us will ever voluntarily ingest another Captain Nemo Frosted Banana Bar). As we hiked up the broad granite slopes, full-sized spruce and fir gave way to stunted krummholz, tiny clumps of trees battered by the wind. Along the ridge tops, depressions in the pale granite held heath bogs, full of tiny colorful plants: mountain cranberry, cotton grass, heather, cloudberry.

  In one patch of woods, a low saddle between the open summits, we found a plywood sign tacked to a tree. It bore a crude outline of the state of New Hampshire painted in r
ed on a white background, and the words Your in NH Now. We stared at it for a while.

  "Well" Isis said. "Our first state line."

  "Is it just me, or is there something a little ominous about that sign? Not `Welcome to New Hampshire' Not even grammatically correct! I have to say, after 281 miles, this is a bit of an anticlimax.'

  "What did you expect, a bunch of angels to start singing all around you?" My sister shrugged. "Here we go" And we walked into woods just like the ones we had left.

  That night we stayed at Gentian Pond Lean-to, a large shelter with one of the best views yet. Through a gap in the trees, we could see the Presidential Range looming across the valley, its gray-blue shapes filling half the overcast sky.

  "Beautiful mountains," Isis said.

  "But scary-looking. Hulking. Man, I hope we get good weather going across there"

  "Me, too. I've heard the views are absolutely awesome"

  I collected twigs for the Zip stove and went to the pond to fill our cooking pot. By the time I had boiled the water and stirred in the instant potato flakes, clouds covered the entire Presidential Range in a swirling blanket of white.

  jackrabbit

  beat-up green Dodge ground to a halt on the gravel beside us, and the driver rolled down the window and shouted over to us, "thru-hikers?" We smiled and nodded. "Hop in!"

  We loaded two packs into the trunk. Isis and Blade clambered into the backseat with the third. The powerful reek of week-old sweat filled up the hot interior of the car, but the driver seemed not to mind.

  "I hiked northbound in '88," he said. As we sped down the two-lane road to Gorham, New Hampshire, we exchanged navies and hiking stories. He stopped in the driveway of a large B&B at the edge of town. The gray building just ahead of us, an old hay barn, had an A.T. sign by the door, and a crowd of familiar people lounged on the strip of lawn beside the driveway.

  "Welcome to The Barn," the driver said. A look of nostalgia stole over his face, a bemused mixture of joy and regret that we would see on the faces of many ex-hikers when they talked about the Trail. "Make the most of your hike. It doesn't last forever."

  We thanked hint, and the battered station wagon pulled out of the drive and was lost in the stream of traffic.

  Inside the Barn, the accommodations were fairly basic: a common room downstairs with a TV and VCIZ, board games, magazines, and fuzzy plaidupholstered armchairs that had seen better days. Someone pointed out the side door, where we could enter the back of the house for showers, laundry, and a bathroom. Up a rickety wooden staircase in back, we came to the bunkroom. The old hayloft floor was covered with mattresses. Clothing, gear, packs, groceries, and food bags filled the interstices.

  Blade took one look around and headed across the street to the Alpine Tourist Home. "I like my privacy," he said. We did convince him to join us for supper at Mr. Pizza that night.

  As Isis and I unpacked our dirty laundry in the quiet shade of the bunkroom, Waterfall and Matt came up to talk. O.D. and Bugbiter had gone on, they said, and Blue Skies and Tenbrooks were leaving that afternoon.

  "I'll probably leave in a couple hours, too," Matt said, glancing out the window to the bright blue sky.

  "So soon?"

  "I already took a zero!"

  My heart sank as I realized how far we were behind everyone else. Ever since our zero day in Rangeley, we'd been struggling to stay with them, and now at last we would fall behind for good. There was no way we could take showers, do our laundry, resupply, and be back on the Trail before dark. Even if we somehow managed to keep up this time, we'd never be able to in the next town. I thought of all the nights we'd spent together, laughing, singing, telling stories. "I guess this is it, then."

  "Yeah, I guess so." Matt's thin, freckled face didn't betray much emotion. "It's all about flow, jackrabbit. People come, people go. Things change. You ride the river. You can't get too attached to the way things are. Attach yourself to change, because that is the only constant in the universe." A wry smile played about his lips.

  "Do you really believe that?"

  "I try."

  He left, heading downstairs. Waterfall remained behind, seated on the edge of an old pink mattress. "I'm gonna stay with y'all," she said. "I've been thinkin' about it, and I just don't want to be by myself through the Whites, with all I've heard about the weather up there. Y'all are some of the best friends I've found on the Trail ..."

  I got up and hugged her.

  "Thanks, Waterfall," Isis said. "I'll hug you, too-after I've had a shower!"

  At a bookstore just down the street from the hostel, we shelled out the money for a copy of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Hardcover. We had debated endlessly with ourselves and each other: is it worth the weight? In the end, the prospect of truly entertaining trail reading had won out.

  I hefted the tome as we walked back to the Barn. "Is this really just two and a half pounds?"

  "That's what Time magazine said. Besides, I'm going to carry it."

  Matt, Blue Skies, and Tenbrooks caught a shuttle out of town in the early afternoon. The rest of us, a motley crew of southbounders and a few north bounders, convened at Mr. Pizza at (:30. The waitress pulled three tables together and distributed menus.

  "This looks interesting," said one of the northbounders, pointing at the bottom of the menu. "The Stomper," he read aloud. "One hundred and ninety-two square inches of our famous Sicilian-crust pizza. A feast for the whole family! Plain cheese, $14.95, add a topping for $1 ... Has anybody ever eaten a whole Stomper by himself?" he asked the waitress.

  "Gee, I don't know," she said, looking faintly alarmed. "I don't think so. It's, like, a whole lotta pizza:"

  "What would you do if I did?"

  "We'd probably, I don't know, put your picture up in the restaurant or something. But it's, like, really huge ..:'

  "Cool! I'll have a Stomper."

  "Plain cheese

  "I'lain cheese"

  We all made our orders, and the food had begun arriving when Blade appeared in the doorway, his hair freshly combed and his beard trimmed neatly. He sat down at the end of the table, next to the guy with the Stomper.

  "That's an enormous amount of pizza," he said.

  "Yeah, it's called a Stomper. The waitress said nobody'd ever eaten a whole one before .. "The nobo needn't have said anything more. I looked over at Isis and Waterfall and shared a rueful sniffle. We could see it coming-the light of the Quest was gleaming in Blade's eyes.

  He signaled to the waitress. "Bring me a Stomper. With sausage."

  Isis and I finished our large veggie pizza, onion rings, and salad and turned our attention to the drama taking place at the end of the table. With .ill effort, the nobo raised the last piece of his Stoniper and folded it in half. The cheese had cooled and hardened; a coating of yellow grease clung to the thick crust. Bite by bite, it vanished. He held the empty pan over his head, and the waitress came by, shaking her head, looking both impressed and appalled. She snapped a Polaroid while the rest of the hikers at the table cheered and hooted. All but one.

  Blade sat at the end of the table, glowering, two pieces of pizza left on his tray. He waited until the noise had died down, and solemnly intoned, "uneasy is the head that wears the crown:"

  I-IC made a sandwich out of the two slices and munched it down as we all watched. Then he wiped his hands on a napkin and sat back from the table. "And my Stomper," he announced in a severe tone, "had a topping."

  We left Gorham late in the afternoon of the following day, burdened down with nearly a week's worth of food. We had shipped a box ahead to ourselves at Crawford Notch, fifty miles away. That night, we stayed at Rattle River Shelter, a grungy brown Forest Service lean-to a few miles from the road.

  "It's the last free shelter for eighty miles," Waterfall said. "Better enjoy it while we can" The Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC) runs a series of pay campsites and full-service huts-practically motels-in the White Mountains. The trouble for thru-hikers, besides the price, is tha
t you need reservations far in advance. We scarcely knew where we would be a week from now, let alone a few months ahead. Northbounders had told us that the huts let a few hikers work in exchange for lodging, and spaces opened up occasionally in the shelters and tent sites. Given the number of thru-hikers passing through the Whites right now, though, we knew we couldn't count on any lodging between Gorham and Glencliff.

  The next day, we climbed more than three thousand feet, heading into the Carter-Moriah range. As we struggled up the trail, we watched the vegetation change around us; the lowland forest of maples and birch gave way to evergreens, spruce, and fir like the forests of northern Maine. The air cooled noticeably. It was a clear, cloudless day, and from the highest peaks we could look across to the crags and ledges of Mount Washington. The forests on its lower flanks diminished to small patches of green on the upper slopes. Near the summit, it seemed that nothing grew. The observatory building cut into the skyline, and the auto road was a zigzag scar on the mountain's flank. Cars were visible only as occasional glitters traversing the surface. As we watched, a puff of black, greasy smoke from the Cog Railway rose from behind the mountain.

  In midafternoon, we went down to Imp Campsite for water. The first AMC campsite, it was larger than most A.T. campsites we had seen, with many spaces for tents and a two-level shelter. I relaxed on the cool wooden floor of the first level, reading the register, while Isis and Waterfall filtered water from the stream nearby. Matt, O.I)., and Bugbiter were a day ahead now. I smiled to myself as I read their entries:

  Our sources tell us, Matt wrote, that G. W. Bush is plannilig to announce his candidacy from the peak of Mount Washington this Iveekend! Be on the lookout fear Secret Service agents. I could barely decipher Bugbiter's untidy scrawl: I sail, two guys yesterday hiking in suits and carrying briefcases instead of packs. What gives?

  As we headed hack to the trail, a woman in her mid-twenties came up the path. "Hi, I'm the caretaker," she said in a breezy voice. "Are you staying here tonight?"