The morning sky was clear as we started up Moxie Bald, promising summit views worth the climb. Little did we know the mountain had a surprise for us on the other side.
A northbound hiker warned us about a storm. We tilted our heads and stared up at that cloudless blue and shrugged it off. We pressed on, fueled by stubbornness, overconfidence, and a dash of motivated stupidity.
When we reached the summit, the euphoria we felt after a fantastic morning hike swiftly dissipated as the truth unfolded. Foreboding, dark gray clouds seemed to devour the perfect morning sky as they gathered above us.
Right on cue, a soft drumming of raindrops started up. We should’ve known better, but there we were, too caught up in the view to care. I even ditched my pack to snap a ton of pics, completely ignoring the potential of the impending storm’s ferocity.
The drizzle intensified then thunder rumbled ominously above. Suddenly, a lightning crack split the sky and unleashed a torrential downpour. We exchanged silent smiles, a tacit acknowledgment of the unfortunate truth—we had unwittingly become the tallest lightning rods for miles around.
We threw our packs on quick and made a break for the trees. The storm raged around us, a cacophony of nature’s wrath, but still, Red and Moccasin’s laughter rang out ahead of me, bold and bright, defying the danger that loomed above us.
Within minutes, the deluge transformed the trail into a cascading stream. As the distance between us grew, their voices faded, leaving me alone with the incredible sound of the storm and my own splashing footsteps. In that solitary moment, a sense of freedom washed over me, and the once-threatening storm became my ally, gifting me an unforgettable memory.
Uninhibited, I sang out loud, belting out the lyrics of Pearl Jam’s “Drifting.” A song that had become my anthem. I’ve always love singing like nobody was listening, but only when nobody was listening.
Drifting, drifting, drifting away.
I got myself a mansion, then I gave it away.
It's not the world that's heavy, it’s just the things that you save.
And I'm drifting, drifting away.
I was the last to roll into Bald Mountain Brook shelter. Even though we were all buzzing from the day, we toned it down—the old man snoozing away had us on mute. His shirt was a classic, though: ‘Beer is the reason I get up in the afternoon.’
I had heard there was an old man on the trail, who at eighty, held the record as the oldest thru-hiker. Then an 82-year-old stole his title, so he returned at 86, trying to win it back. Was he the guy sleeping there? No idea, but he looked the part. I later heard he'd run out of steam in New Jersey. A northbound hiker had said he found him in the woods, confused and unsure where he was. It got me thinking, that’s not a bad way to bow out, you know? Taking on one last big adventure that’s probably too dangerous for your age, going out with a bang instead of a whimper.
A campfire was out of the question that night, so we just sat under the shelter roof, eating our dinner, listening to the patter of rain.
The rain let up by morning. A hiker called Deck-eye—a trail name origin I never learned—was all ready to go when we got up.
“Hey guys?” his tone as dry as kindling, gazing into the trees, “I think we better get moving, seems this squirrel’s laying claim on the shelter.”
Before long, we hit the trail again. Red and I were just getting into our stride when a pair of day-hikers past us, their scent of soap and freshly laundered clothes cutting through the air. Shortly after, another duo emerged, still a good twenty feet off, yet the air seemed to freshen with the aroma of shampoo and dryer sheets.
The grimace on the woman’s face as she passed was all the confirmation we needed; we did not smell nearly as fresh.
Being in the woods for so long, I figured my senses had sharpened. I felt like the boy Ray Charles in his biopic when he caught the cricket with only his heightened sense of hearing.
“Man, I can smell their soap from like thirty feet away,” I told Red, exaggerating a bit, expecting him to be impressed by my new superpower.
“Me too! They smell so good,” he laughed. “I think that woman could smell us too, did you see her face?”
Red’s comment forced me back to my previous assumption, which I’ve held for years, I wasn’t special. It had simply been too long since I was around soap. Far too long.
--==--
Crossing the Kennebec River by foot is a no-go, made clear by a recent tragedy in its fast-flowing waters. To get us safely over, the Maine Appalachian Trail Club brought in Hillbilly Dave, ferryman extraordinaire, paddling a trusty red Old Town Canoe.
Decked out in his idiosyncratic attire—with his brimmed animal-skin hat, thick glasses caked with dirt, suspenders over a plaid flannel shirt, camouflage cargo pants, life vest, bucked front teeth, and a straggly beard—Hillbilly Dave was a living embodiment of his nickname. Watching him, I couldn't help but wonder if this ferrying gig was just a pit stop on his way to a starring role in Disney’s Country Bear Jamboree.
Waiting our turn to cross, I struck up a conversation with an experienced trail runner, a septuagenarian gearing up for yet another 100-mile endurance race. He revealed plans to buy a remote cabin in Maine, seventeen acres of solitude for a mere $40k. No electricity, and probable disrepair, but the idea of owning that much unspoiled land sparked something in me, the notion of adding a key to my empty key ring.
As the sunlight faded, our day ended at West Carry Pond, leaving the magnificent Bigelow Mountain Range for tomorrow. I grabbed an empty water bottle, ditched my pack in the shelter, and ran down to the pond for a refill. Suddenly unburdened from my pack weight, I felt an unusual buoyancy and surge of strength, as if gravity had been dialed down. It had me fantasizing that I could long jump from the shore and plunged somewhere in the middle of the 727-acre pond. Rather than test the theory, I skidded to a halt and plunged my bottle underwater.
Listening to the air escape from my bottle, my gaze lifted to a sky blooming in shades of pink and orange, a reminder to pause from time to time and savor the magnificence of the Maine woods. Although I had been hiking the trail for two weeks, I still had two thousand miles to go. I vowed never to let the scenery become mundane. It’s not difficult to achieve; all you really had to do was pay attention.
After sealing the cap on my bottle, I settled onto a log that had washed ashore.
Red arrived with his water bottle in hand. After topping it off, he settled at the other end of the log.
We sat in silence for a time, waiting for the color to reach its peak. Breaking the quiet, Red asked, “What would you do if you had a million dollars?”
“If I had a million dollars,” I chuckled and gave the same answer I always gave. “I would quit my job and hike the Appalachian Trail.”
“You didn’t need a million dollars to do that,” he said.
“Nope. Glad I realized that before it was too late.”
“Wow. This is incredible,” he said, looking up. “Yeah, me too, man. I don’t want to be anywhere else. If I had a million dollars, I’d still be right here. Although, I’d own the lightest gear money can buy.”
He got up from the log to head back to the shelter.
“Where are you going? It’s not done yet,” I said. “Trust me, it will be worth it.”
Truth be told, I just wanted to keep chatting. Our hiking group had grown over the last two weeks, which was fine, but the dynamics of our discussions had shifted. In a small group, the conversations delved deeper, becoming more personal. In a larger group, everyone seemed focused on impressing one another, always going for a laugh. Nothing wrong with that, but there was something about our smaller crew that I missed.
Taking his seat again, we watched as the sky turned into an even more vibrant spectacle of fiery hues. On the walk back to the shelter, he thanked me for forcing him to stay longer.
In the time we were away, a few more hikers had congregated near the shelter, among them a young woman chaperoning a troop of girl scouts with a campsite close by. We joined the group around a new lit fire, engaging in conversation as the chaperone asked about life on a long trail.
“So how many mountains—” she began to ask, when a northbound hiker, or nobo in trail speak, arrived and flung his pack into the shelter.
“So, are you all nobos or sobos?” he asked.
“Sobos.”
“Seriously, are all the shelters in Maine this shitty?” he asked.
I instantly disliked him.
The chaperone finished her question, “How many mountains do you have to climb to hike the entire Appalachian Trail?”
I began to offer a guess, but the nobo cut me off.
“Thousands. And they’re all pointless. You go up one, then go right back down, and then you just go right back up again,” he scoffed, ripped a fart, then sat on the side of the shelter floor.
“What, did you think it would be one continuous mountain ridge stretching for two thousand miles?” Deck-eye said.
“Yeah, the up and down part is kind of what makes them mountains,” I said, turning back to the chaperone. “It’s true though, flat sections are pretty rare, but it’s not pointless, though. I enjoy it.”
“Yeah, well,” he flicked his lighter and lit a joint, “The trail hasn’t broken you yet.”
He had a knack for taking everything we loved about the trail and shitting all over it. Pretty soon, our little circle rechristened him The Negative Nobo.
“Why didn’t you go home a long time ago?” Deck-eye asked, a fair question.
“Because when I told my friends and family back home that I was going to hike the Appalachian Trail in 100 days, they laughed, said I’d never make it,” he held a puff of smoke in his lungs, then released it, shaking his head. “I’m not going to give them the satisfaction of being right.”
To punctuate his heavy revelation, he leaned to one side to let out another of his booming farts.
“Was that a real fart?” Deck-eye turned to him. ‘That was like a cartoon sound. I mean, just for the sheer quality of sound—It was amazing.
Two hundred miles in, we still found a silver lining in everything. Even the Negative Nobo couldn’t dampen that. But give the devil his due, trudging through two thousand miles in three months…that’s something. It got me wondering if our tune would change with as many miles under our belts.
“Have you guys noticed a smell on the trail that’s like a combination of skunkweed and fertilizer?” The Negative Nobo asked. “I’ve been smelling it since Springer.”
“You have done nothing, but fart and smoke weed since you got here. In two thousand miles did you ever think maybe you were smelling yourself?” I said.
“Hmm, I guess you might have a point there,” he mumbled, losing his bravado.