Appalachian Trail: nature could care less

Name: Goodpods
Rating: 4.8 (3721 reviews)

11/30/23 • 14 min

Blissful leaves Baxter State Park to enter the 100-mile Wilderness, learning that "everything changes" including the weather.

Blissful is waiting a pathology report from breast surgery, unsure if she will get the all-clear or have to manage a cancer diagnosis.
Her surgeon encourages just to start hiking while she waits and here she is.
Lured into the lovely idyllic summer weather at the start of hiking the Appalachian Trail (AT) Blissful gives away her plastic waterproof backpack liner to pack her gear in compression sacks that fail completely.
The walk out of Baxter State Park is flat and easy, the trail lined with wildflowers and filled with bird song.
At Abol Bridge, she meets other hikers and they look back at Katahdin as the air turns black, lightnings strikes the summit and it begins pouring rain.
Maine rain is different in humid, saturated air and she's almost immediately soaked through.
At the warning sign, three miles ahead of the first shelter at Hurd Brook, it begins to hail.
She sets her tent with new friends who offer dry clothes and to share their tent if she gets too cold, but somehow she sleeps well through the night in a lumpy and clammy down quilt.

MUSIC:Poema del Pastor Coya by Angel Lasala as played by Alison Young, flute and Vicki Seldon, piano

Blissful leaves Baxter State Park to enter the 100-mile Wilderness, learning that "everything changes" including the weather.

Blissful is waiting a pathology report from breast surgery, unsure if she will get the all-clear or have to manage a cancer diagnosis.
Her surgeon encourages just to start hiking while she waits and here she is.
Lured into the lovely idyllic summer weather at the start of hiking the Appalachian Trail (AT) Blissful gives away her plastic waterproof backpack liner to pack her gear in compression sacks that fail completely.
The walk out of Baxter State Park is flat and easy, the trail lined with wildflowers and filled with bird song.
At Abol Bridge, she meets other hikers and they look back at Katahdin as the air turns black, lightnings strikes the summit and it begins pouring rain.
Maine rain is different in humid, saturated air and she's almost immediately soaked through.
At the warning sign, three miles ahead of the first shelter at Hurd Brook, it begins to hail.
She sets her tent with new friends who offer dry clothes and to share their tent if she gets too cold, but somehow she sleeps well through the night in a lumpy and clammy down quilt.

MUSIC:Poema del Pastor Coya by Angel Lasala as played by Alison Young, flute and Vicki Seldon, piano

Blissful decides to put her feet on the Appalachian Trail, beginning from the north on Mount Katahdin in Maine.

Those in the know will laugh when the Appalachian Trail (AT) is described as a "footpath" as it's more a rock climbing challenge.
And it's tough to get to the start, 100 miles from any airport, then a 4,000-foot climb in five miles up to the summit and Mile 0.
The weather calls for unseasonably hot weather, over 90 degrees, so it's a very early start.
Planning two nights of camping at Katahdin Stream Campground, Blissful walks steeply up to spectacular views before hitting boulders requiring crawling, pressing, pulling and squeezing with only a few iron ladders to help.
The tableland is easy walking, but exposed and hot with no wind and swarms of flies.
At the top, Blissful meets a cohort of thru-hikers and carefully returns right before a loud thunder clap.

MUSIC:Poema del Pastor Coya by Angel Lasala as played by Alison Young, flute and Vicki Seldon, piano

Blissful is ill-prepared for the constant damp, but discovering an inner fierceness to solve her problems and keep moving ahead.

The summer of 2023 on the Appalachian Trail (AT) is the wettest in memory.
But this one day in Northern Maine is thankfully dry with big wind off Rainbow Lake where Blissful is able to dry out her gear.
It's all easy trail lined with wildflowers from one shelter at Hurd Brook to the next at Rainbow Stream with a delightful site right above falls through a gorge.
New friends of fellow hikers give Blissful courage and she makes it to the next site now with dried out gear – only to survive yet another night of soaking rain.

MUSIC:Poema del Pastor Coya by Angel Lasala as played by Alison Young, flute and Vicki Seldon, piano