NCT 1: Snow and Salamanders

Maine Junction to Schroon Lake

Our adventure on the NCT began with an ominous phone call. It was the night before our start date, with our packs packed up and our feet itching to go. I had just eaten a massive bowl of spaghetti and was sinking into a pleasant carbohydrate daze when Constantine's phone rang. It was trail angel Charlie, and he had bad news. "You guys seen the weather? Just checking if you still want to go out there, considering."

We had checked that morning and accepted our fate: 100% chance of rain. "No, no, that's not what I'm talking about! There's a wind warning!" Oh. While we were out running errands, a low pressure system had gathered to the west of Rutland, VT, and now the forecast called for 50mph gusts with sleet, hail, and snow overnight. Our AirBnB had been booked by other guests, so we couldn't stay in Burlington. Besides, I was eager to leave our quarantine spot behind - I'd spent far too long staring at the walls.

After consulting our maps, we decided to take the ride anyway. The gale force winds wouldn't start until 11am, and there was a shelter on the Long Trail not even half a mile from the NCT's eastern terminus at Maine Junction. We'd stay there overnight, then walk the half mile back to the junction and start our official NCT thru-hike the morning of May 1st, which was supposed to have lovely weather. Charlie gave his approval, so we were all set.

He picked us up bright and early the next day at 5:45am. Charlie is a trail angel in the true sense of the word; a kind and voluble soul who loves to help hikers. We swapped trail stories with him and his equally friendly daughter for the entire two hour trip to Rt. 4 Trailhead, and he insisted on paying for my coffee and breakfast sandwich. We were joined in the backseat by Peanut, a six month old baby goat, who entertained herself by attempting to chew on my braid and by generally being adorable.

It had been misty and wet all morning, but just as we reached the parking lot there was a break in the weather, so we said our goodbyes to Charlie & company and rushed to take advantage of the pause. The storm held off just long enough for us to make it to Tucker Johnson shelter before barreling down in earnest. An uncharacteristic streak of good luck, for me - I've started nearly every trail in pouring rain, even in deserts.

We had only about a mile to reach the junction, but it still felt so good to be hiking. I deployed my new trekking poles with a satisfying snap and set off, a bounce in every step. Hiking! We were hiking again! The pre-trail jitters I'd felt so acutely the night before melted away and I was Magpie again, expert pedestrian. Our packs felt light as we inhaled the sweet scent of the woods, and I didn't even mind the frigid mud. "The AT is cosy," I told Constantine. "It's not magnificent like out-west forests, but it's friendly. It feels like a trail that wants you here."

"Yeah," he replied, "it's not my mentality but I get it, you know? How some people become AT hikers. They just keep on hiking the AT over and over. I wouldn't do that, but I get it."

I did too. In the calm before the storm, the forest was peaceful and silent. I huffed and puffed up the hill in top form, lungs pumping with my new efficient breathing, and felt relaxed even as my chest burned. I was grateful for my new trekking poles. I was grateful for my new pack. I was grateful to the rocks and the pines and the lovely Northeastern silence.

As we approached the shelter the breeze picked up, a preview of the wild screaming blasts to come. Tucker Johnson shelter is nestled into the eastern corner of a valley and well-protected from wind, and it's brand-spanking-new. We could smell the sawdust on it as we settled in, and the privy was equally fresh. Not a bad place to spend the day! After inspecting the privy, I assembled our cosy double bed as Constantine hurried to refill water before the rain.

Snug and warm, we watched with delight as the wind mounted. The storm rolled in symphonic, all brass and cannonfire, with the hail booming out dramatic drumrolls on the timpani tin roof. Thunder crashed its cymbals, and the trees creaked and groaned like wailing violins. We drifted off to sleep in the midst of this mad orchestra, unable to hear one another speak over the din.

The morning brought an unpleasant surprise - the warm weather we'd been promised had failed to appear. Instead, we woke to a hushed landscape of snow. The half-mile back to the official start of the trail went fine, but standing there in freezing mud and mist must have activated some trauma from the GDT, because I didn't even make it back to the shelter before I began to panic. I missed a step and plunged my foot into an icy puddle, and all of a sudden I couldn't breathe. I couldn't get enough air through my nose, oh no, maybe there was something wrong with me. Maybe I was sick, maybe I was having a heart attack! So I opened my mouth to breathe and then I was hyperventilating, sweating and nauseous with adrenaline. I was shaking even though it wasn't very cold, boiling hot and freezing at the same time, limbs in an uncoordinated flail as my body remembered the hypothermic terror of Amiskwi Pass. I saw spots; I was seized with the horrific certainty that I was going to faint and bash my head on a rock. "You're having a panic attack," said a little voice in my head. "Breathe." I tried to calm myself, tried to breathe slowly and evenly through my nose, tried that trick of identifying something with each of my five senses, but the flashback was too strong.

"Baby! I can't breathe. I'm having a panic attack, I don't know what's wrong with me!" Constantine was just ahead of me but I was so afraid he wouldn't hear, that I'd be alone in what I now perceived to be deep and dangerous backcountry (though we were only one mile from the road). He heard me, of course, and offered to stop again at Tucker Johnson shelter so I could get my balance back. "You set the pace babe, I'm right behind you."

So not even a half mile into the trail, we sat down for a ten minute break at the shelter and I put my head between my knees. I drank water, ate a protein bar, and breathed slowly and evenly until my heart rate returned to normal and I could once again feel the cold for what it was; just a chilly day. The snow was already beginning to melt off the trees in fat drops, and the ground was a soupy mud swamp where the snow wasn't held by fallen leaves. "It worried me too, I gotta say," said Constantine. "That misty cold, it reminds me of Amiskwi Pass."

"But we're not on Amiskwi Pass." I was reminding myself as much as I was replying to him. "This is an AT side trail. It's got shelters. It's maintained. We're going to cross another road in three miles." Calm now, we set off for real down the trail and gradually my mood lifted once again into that first-day honeymoon feeling.

It wasn't nice weather, and it wasn't beautiful hiking, but we were happy. Constantine set to whistling behind me as I took careful steps around ice-slick boulders and practiced a breathing technique. I read a book just before I started the NCT called Breathe, by James Nestor, which describes some interesting scientific research on the power of deliberate and meditative breathing. I've always been a little bit resistant to mindfulness and other "woo-woo" kinds of things that are lately popular with tech bros and wellness gurus. The "why don't you just try yoga?" busybodies always put me off from taking breathwork seriously, their sanctimony giving off the whiff of charlatanism. But it had been suggested to me over and over, and when I finally heard an interview with Nestor on NPR, my scientific curiosity was piqued. I'm glad I finally looked into it - when I tried Wim Hof breathing for the first time at home, I got so hot and energetic and uncomfortable that I was convinced there was something real there.

While walking down the trail, I was focused on a gentler method called "coherent breathing." It's very simple - athletic and cognitive performance depend on having the right balance between oxygen and carbon dioxide in the bloodstream, and research suggests that the perfect breath is 5.5 seconds in, 5.5 seconds out, with a respiration rate of 5.5 breaths per minute. Interestingly, this is a similar rate to prayers and chants found in religions around the world, from the Buddhist Om Mani Padme Hum to the Catholic Ave Maria. Coherent breathing has been scientifically validated as a maximally efficient technique for athletes, and it also just feels great. I paced my breath to the Buddist chant as I hiked along, and found myself in a state of restful alertness. I'm not a Buddhist, but I find it easy to remember and walk to, with the five beats fitting perfectly to the rhythm of my stride. Our first steep uphill went by faster than any ascent I've done before, and we chatted and joked as we hiked through the snow.

Water is abundant on Northeast hiking trails, and the mountains aren't very high, but this doesn't mean the Long Trail is easy. The trail is a puzzle of rocks and roots, and nearly every step is sharply up or sharply down. I don't have much experience on this type of terrain, and as the day grew warmer I began to feel fatigued. Our original goal was a shelter 24.5 miles from the Maine Junction terminus, but we still weren't out of our puffies when we stopped for lunch at 1pm, and the constant wet chill was taking a toll. By the time we hit an uncharacteristically smooth downhill at 5pm, I was pretty much done. Constantine realized he'd miscalculated some miles and we wouldn't be able to reach a legal campsite the next day after all, so we decided to call it at an earlier shelter and figure out an alternative. We hiked 18 miles that first day, and fell asleep in our thermals satisfied.

The next day was warmer, but it still wasn't warm. We had two good inclines ahead of us on trail before we'd leave the Long Trail and set off on a long, populated roadwalk section. This was the crux of our problem - we didn't want to camp illegally and we'd be so close to towns that it wouldn't feasible to try. The trail crossed a road at Brandon Gap and Constantine had cell service, so we arranged to stay with a trail angel in another 18 miles. I felt bad about the short day but we agreed that it was better to take it easy while my feet broke in. We'd been saying over and over in our videos that this was a super long trail and the miles would average out over time, but I still felt like I was holding Constantine back. What kind of FKT attempt starts with two sub-20 mile days? The GPS tracker was stressing me out - I imagined people watching our live track and judging our slow pace, even as we pushed as fast as we could over broken, slippery terrain.

The ascent from Brandon Gap looked harsh on the map, but to our great surprise it was moderated by switchbacks, with stone stairs easing the unavoidable steeps. We felt energetic as we gained the ridge, and trucked along in good spirits as the route twisted through the maze of pines. It was still cold, but we had managed to remove our puffies before the climb and felt hopeful that the sun would come out to chase away the clammy weather. Our first descent was steep and slick, and our pace slowed to a crawl as we crept down bare stone chutes and tree root ladders. The lovely little bridges that spanned every stream were treacherous with melting slush, and we had to watch our feet carefully as our trail dropped sharply into a saddle. As we pushed for our second ascent, the clouds overhead darkened and beat back the waning sun, and soon it began to rain again. The honeymoon was over.

I was in a bad mood when we hit our last descent, and the trail didn't help much. We were dropping through a small ski area, but for some reason the Long Trail eschewed the easy cattrack and took us straight down the rocks instead. My calves and hamstrings burned with the effort of catching my weight as we thumped downhill, and it was somehow even slower than going up. We finally hit the highway at 12:45pm, and I was so frustrated and tired of the rain that I didn't even bother to stop for lunch. We'd done only eleven miles in six hours, and I felt embarrassed that we'd been going less than 2mph. I probably should have eaten something to pull my mood out of the gutter, but I was so cranky that I decided to just eat a Snickers and get on with it. The next six miles were pure paved road, and I attacked it with a vengeance. It turned out that I didn't suddenly suck at hiking after all - the pavement let me stretch out my stride, and we blasted through the miles at my full roadwalk pace. We made it to the trail angel's house by 2pm, including the extra mile off-trail to her farm. That felt absurdly early to stop, but there was absolutely nowhere to camp unless we wanted to hike another 30 miles, so we didn't really have a choice. We could have hiked all the way to Middlebury and stayed in a hotel, but they were $200/night and we didn't want to spend the money after only two days on trail.

Lucy was friendly and kind, and we were welcomed in style by her exuberant dog. He jumped three feet straight in the air, ran in a circle, and wiggled so hard that he nearly turned himself inside out, barking with glee the whole time. We had been expecting to arrive in Middlebury the day before, so our food bags were light. Lucy gave us a ride into town for dinner and resupply when we arrived, then left us to our own devices as her mom was coming over for dinner. Our resupply was, in retrospect, way too heavy. I think we're still carrying our fears from the GDT, as we packed out a full seven-day resupply for the hike into Rome, NY, despite knowing we'd pass through towns on the way.

Our next day was supposed to be easy. The weather forecast finally came up fine, with scattered showers and a high of 15°c. It was mainly roadwalk with a little trail mixed in around Middlebury, and we thought we had a little less than 30 miles to our next legal campsite at Crown Point, NY. All of these assumptions would prove to be wrong.

Sure enough, we woke up to spitting rain and overcast, but set off cheerfully nonetheless. My calves had seized up overnight and the road downhill to the highway made them scream. Tears sprung into my eyes with every step as the muscles forcibly unwound, and as I walked the pain travelled up and down, first in my knees and then down to the tight tendons in my ankles, through the little bones in my feet and all the way back up to my hip flexors. I'd bruised the bottom of my left foot on the ski hill descent, and it only quieted after an hour of hard walking when it went numb. I'd accidentally packed only worn-out pairs of Darn Toughs, and just as we neared the town a blister made its presence felt, rubbed into existence by a hole in my sock. Still, we were happy and chatting as we walked through the charming suburbs, amusing ourselves by pointing out appealing houses. We decided that our next house would have a wrap-around porch with a sun room, and we'd keep a herd of Angora goats.

My blistered, bruised foot was in agony by the time we reached the trail, and we stopped on a log so I could tend to it. This is when I realized I'd left my Aleve and blister strips back in Burlington, so I took some of Constantine's Vitamin I and taped the foot as best I could with KT tape. It wasn't great, but it was better. Our supposedly fine weather was deteriorating by the minute and we zipped our rain jackets tighter as we set off down our "short", "easy", "well-marked" section of the TAM, or Trail Around Middlebury.

The NCT folks had been there, that's for sure. We were so overjoyed to see the bright blue signage that we didn't stop to check our maps, so it was only after half an hour of slogging through flooded fields that we realized the NCT blazes were leading us in a circle back to the highway. Confusion ensued - the new trail markers followed a trail that wasn't on any of our maps, and the new route wasn't even shown on the interactive map on the NCTA's website. Eventually we figured out that we'd followed the new trail Eastbound, and the Westbound route was only designated with TAM signs. Instead of a short 0.4mi connector trail past the golf course, we'd walked a mile and a half the wrong way.

I'd been in a good mood despite the pain, but the hour-long detour had me good and mad. Then Constantine gave me even more bad news - Crown Point campsite was closed until May 15th, leaving us with no legal camping options, and it was still about 20 miles away. With our wrong turn detour, were now looking at big mile day, with no guaranteed camping at the end of it. I snapped at Constantine, which he didn't deserve, then stalked ahead on my sore feet, fuming. I ate a fruit bar and then a pack of Oreos with an attitude of pure spite, and asked myself why I was so angry. I'd been ruminating on our setback for two hours at this point, and the TAM itself was totally fine, and even enjoyable. Why did I bring so much heat to that conversation? "Everything's ruined and it's all your fault," said a mean little voice in my head. Ah. So that was it. I was mad that we'd done two short days in a row for seemingly no benefit, and the only reason the short days made me angry was my own fear of embarrassment. I was worried that people would see me as slowing Constantine down, and that I'd be judged and found inadequate. Ego turned my fear into anger, even though misjudging the miles was an accident and the detour wasn't Constantine's fault. "Everything bad is your fault", along with its pals "everybody hates you" and "you're not good enough", are deep maladaptive beliefs of mine, and they'd been present in the conversation without my being aware of them. That was why I was so angry - when I asked about the mileage, I was really asking about my worth as a person, and that was way too much weight to put on that conversation. I pulled back my pace to match Constantine's and apologized, and we had a deep discussion about worthiness and self-sabotage as the temperature dropped and the rain poured down.

I loved him more than ever as we kept slogging through the trail, but my fatigue overwhelmed. The distance on the TAM was difficult to measure on Gaia maps, and it was made longer by pointless twists and turns. My feet and muscles were really bothering me and my energy was low from lack of food, but there was nowhere dry to stop for miles. It was well past my usual lunchtime by the time we reached the gazebo at Middlebury College's organic farm, and the sheltered spot was a complete surprise. I collapsed onto a bench and took my shoes off, shaking a little as I stretched, then brightened as Constantine offered me jalapeno chips to enhance my usual bacon sandwich. Yes! Even better, I had just enough cell service to refresh my maps, and there it was - a developed campsite! It was just across the bridge from our original goal of Crown Point, NY, and when Constantine gave them a call they generously waived their RV-only policy and reserved us a spot.

We thought we were farther down the trail than we really were, and assumed we had only about ten miles left. As it turned out, we had more like twenty, but we didn't know that yet, so we took our time with lunch before setting off in the rain at 1:40. We were happy again, and got even more cheerful as the rain slowed to a drizzle. As we finally left the trail and turned on to winding farm roads, I started to appreciate the charm of New England. I've only ever seen the Stephen King kind of New England before, all rotted houses and creepy gloom, but we were passing through verdant green farmland, and suddenly I understood the appeal of shabby barns and brick chimneys. Wooly brown sheep peeked out from their lush pasture, and Holsteins grazed placidly on the hills. The old foursquare farmer's houses made sense in the landscape; I got it.

The day grew later and later and yet it seemed we were no nearer to the campground I chalked it up to bad GPS signal and kept walking; surely we had no more than six miles left. We were headed down a long straight stretch of dirt road when a white SUV honked and pulled up on Constantine. I doubled back to see what was going on, and found a conversation in full swing. It was Mark, a dedicated fan of Constantine's who lived nearby. He'd been tracking our GPS and picked up water and treats for us! He even called around to various pharmacies to try to find us a vaccine shot in New York, but they were only offering two-dose Pfizer so we had to pass - we wouldn't be in New York when it was time to receive our second dose. Mark was super eager to help in any way he could, but we assured him that we had found a place to camp for the night and waved as we walked away. We thought we had only two hours to go.

Our road wound up an autumn-coloured hill as the sun finally broke through the clouds, and I caught a bit of cell signal. My Gaia map was still showing us absurdly far away from Ten Acres Campground, so I opened Google Maps to check, mostly out of curiosity. To my absolute horror, Google Maps showed me in the exact same place as Gaia, and when I asked it for directions, it told me I was 8.5 miles away. What?! But it was true. Adding up the miles in my head, I realized that this would end up being a 37 mile day. My feet were killing me, my shoulders were beginning to ache from a heavy pack, and my muscles were protesting every stride. No wonder! I'd hiked thirty miles already, nearly as long as the last two days combined. The last three hours of that day were a pure grind, strictly mind over matter. I stopped seeing the idyllic scenery and reached down into that deep place of strength inside myself, focused only on the next step in front of me, and the next, and the next. When we reached the campground and sat down at our picnic table, my feet were so tortured that I had to kneel off of it and crawl into the tent.

Thanks to Mark, we knew exactly how far we had to go the next morning. He had taken the initiative and scouted the roadwalk ahead of us in his car, noting the mileage on his odometer, and so we knew that our next camp spot was 27 miles away. Twenty seven seemed doable, even with my screaming feet, and I felt better after my blisters drained overnight. We hung out at Ten Acres for a while and waited for the rain to stop, then set off across the bridge to New York State.

I was too exhausted to be elated at the milestone, but I did manage to smile for a photo when we reached the sign for the old Eastern Terminus. The NCT started at this bridge until 2019, so we got to have our official start photo with the sign on our fourth day on trail. My body actually wasn't feeling too bad, but the overexertion of the day before had me mentally fatigued. I had pushed myself so hard that I had post-exercise inflammation everywhere, even in my hands and face, and I felt as if I had a fever. After hiking two miles, it felt like I'd already done fifteen.

We took a few minutes to drink coffee and appreciate the historic fort at Crown Point State Park, then kept moving. There was nowhere to stop on this roadwalk, so I resigned myself to another lunchless day. It was overcast and gloomy all day, and as we turned from paved highway to dirt road, I began to think of Stephen King once more. We were walking by ramshackle houses and caved-in barns, with yards full of junked cars and menacing hound dogs. I was listening to a bunch of downloaded podcast episodes about wilderness emergencies, complete with gory deaths and hopeless situations, so I was in a real horror movie mood as we passed sign after sign proclaiming No Trespass. The woods felt dark and dangerous, and I felt too exhausted to care. I dug into my hipbelt for a cheer-me-up Snickers and discovered I'd forgotten to pack one. How could things get worse?

I felt sorry for myself all day as I limped and whimpered down the trail, but I had one comfort; that morning, Constantine had suggested we take a nearo in the tiny town of Schroon Lake. The forecast for May 5 was torrential rain all day, and he was getting pretty sick of hiking in bad weather too. I'd agreed, FKT-pace be damned, and so after this 27 mile roadwalk I had a comfy hotel to look forward to. We'd only need to hike seven miles, and half of that was on nice cushy trail. My feet were aching for the break, and I couldn't wait to get there.

Nothing much happened on that roadwalk that I can recall. It rained, I was tired, we swapped back and forth between packed gravel and asphalt. We began to see little orange salamanders dotting the trail, and Constantine adapted himself to my slow pace by filming them up close so they looked like dinosaurs. When we finally got to the trailhead, we hiked just far enough to be out of sight of the highway before collapsing into the tent.

The next day we woke late, and waited for a break in the rain. We had a window from 7 to 11am to make it to town before the downpour started, so we packed up right at seven and set off. The trail was clearly a point of pride for the Schroon Lake outdoors club. It was luxuriously well-maintained, and wound gently around some small lakes before dropping us off on a soft dirt road. The little orange salamanders were everywhere. In the space of a single mile we spotted more than thirty, and I watched the trail carefully to avoid stepping on our amphibian friends. My body was feeling sore but my mind had recovered somewhat, and we made it to the highway in good time.

We checked into our hotel room just in time to beat the rain, and were greeted by a friendly old man with a New Yawk accent and a framed photo of Joe Biden prominently displayed next to his NRA membership certificate. A free-thinker, for sure. He and Constantine talked shop about the construction business as we checked in, and I quietly slipped away with the key to lie down. And now we're here! I took a shower and talked to my dad on the phone, then sat down to write as Constantine ran out for fried chicken. We're sitting here munching on Oreos and watching the History Channel, and I don't think I've ever been so happy about hiking seven miles.

We set off tomorrow for Rome, NY. I'll leave you with a song:

https://open.spotify.com/track/2nx04YFjRrsLQq35SzktRW?si=YgcPvwzITTuCozvQBTojQA&utm_source=copy-link

Talk soon,

Magpie