Friday, August 18, 2017

Basic Needs - Aug 17

Best Wife and Pappy 12 have hit the big time, we're in The Whites. The last six pictures are of a continuously cascading stream adjacent to our 2000 foot vertical climb in 1.5 miles, then another 1000 feet over the next couple miles to summit Mt Moosilauke. If Lafayette and Washington and Madison and all the rest of the Whites are like Moosilauke we are in for the treat of our lives. And some SOBOs say southern Maine is every bit as cool as the Whites. 

Just passed the 400 miles to go mark. Katahdin in Maine is becoming more and more a reality. 

Along the AT there are dozens if not hundreds of people who give of their time and means to help folks like us along our journey. Two examples of these folks are Greg Cook and Carl, The Omelette Man. 

Greg, (second and third photos) along with a couple dozen other residents in the Hanover, NH area (Dartmouth College) invite hikers into their homes for the night. They publish their phone numbers on a list so hikers can simply make a phone call to get a room for the night. Carl picked us up from the Hanover grocery store (the AT literally goes through the center of Hanover) and drove us to his home, then delivered us to church the next morning, then slack packed us on our next 8 mile hike. Wouldn't take a cent either. Perfect host. 

Carl, The Omelette Man has rigged up a "kitchen" on the AT a couple tenths from a road crossing. This kitchen stays intact in the woods all summer long. Every day (he does not take days off) Carl cooks ham, onion, green pepper, and cheese omelettes (scrambled eggs really) for hikers. He asks each hiker how many eggs they would like (the record was set by Summer Camp two days before we were there, 26) and then fills his cast iron skillet with ham and veggies in olive oil. Mine included more ham and veggies than eggs. And he does this seven days a week from 8-5 except Wednesday. He knocks off at 2:30 on Wednesdays to take trash to the dump.

Labors of love are all over the trail every day. Our turn will be coming up summer of 2018 off route 50 or 7 or 9. We've got plenty of time to plan our 'trail magic".  

In the first picture Best Wife lost half her pole in the NH mud. Pappy 12 rescued it. 

The AT goes up the rock face in the fifth picture. If it had been wet that day we would have to have gotten creative. 














































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