287 to 80 West....peace and love

Jonathan drew a peace sign and a heart on the bottom of the cardboard sign he is holding as he hitches the last lap to Delaware Water Gap, PA, the point at which he and Madeline began their journey three and a half months ago. I suspect he looks like a safer pick-up with these embellishments. He has skipped the section of Maine between Stratton and Gorham.

After waiting out the snow at the hostel in Stratton, he headed back to the trail Wednesday morning; the snow of Monday night had not amounted to much and had melted with Tuesday's sun. However, 5 miles into Wednesday's hike, up in the higher elevation of the mountains, there was a good 4" on the ground. His boots leak, he has not yet received his heavier socks, his gloves are lost and his feet and hands were numb with cold. This whole next stretch would be in these higher elevations so did not hold promise of improvement. He changed plans - he knew his feet and hands could not endure. He headed the five miles back down the mountain and back to the hostel. In his absence, two hikers of past, Swift and Dream Catcher, had arrived. He enjoyed their company over dinner at the White Wolf Inn. They have been recovering the same stretch of Maine as he for they too leapfrogged that section in order to make it to Katahdin before the trail closing. They are planning to forge ahead, with the plan to do much of it by slack packing. This is too expensive a way to go for Jonathan - the expense of paying for your gear to be shuttled and all the extra nights in hostels is not in his budget. Perhaps they also have gloves and boots that are less deconstructed.

He decided not to recover this last piece of Maine and instead hitch back to their starting point and then resume his southbound hike. Thursday he began, and through a long series of short rides got from Stratton to Gorham where he visited that familiar Chinese buffet and stayed in the hostel where they began their leap frog nearly a month ago. He was most fortunate to cover good ground yesterday with a ride from a couple from Bethel, Maine who were headed to a Steve Earle concert in Woodstock, New York. He spent the entire day in their company and was dropped at their parting path at 5:00 yesterday evening. He was then picked up by a trucker and accompanied him to drop his load and switch out trailers before they continued on. The trucker stopped for the night at a rest stop but told Jonathan he would leave the cab unlocked so that if he couldn't get another ride and needed to crash, he could use the cab. Jonathan tried till midnight to hook up with another ride. By that point it was drizzling , so he took the trucker's offer and hunkered down in the cab till 5:00 this morning when he continued his efforts to hook that next ride. As we were talking around 8:00 this morning, the ride arrived. He hopes to get to Delaware Water Gap today and hopefully stay the night in a hostel there. Many of the hostels on the lower half of the trail are now closed for the season so they may be few and far between from here on out. Hopefully, it will be warmer in PA than it was in Maine. He has to get to a gear store and get new boots (the phone call to the manufacturer was not fruitful), his heavier socks are in the mail, and replacement gloves have been ordered. Before too many more miles are behind him, hopefully he will be better outfitted for the wintery mountain conditions.
~ Amy