[at-l] Jan Day 27...TADA!!!!

[kahley@ptd.net (kahley)]

BON JOUR tout le monde!

Today, monde, we are going to walk to QUEBEC!

Our friend Smoothie writes: "Can you smell Canada yet?"

Is THAT what that was?! And I'm thinking I'd have to burn
this here SHIRT...  Neither Clyde nor I wanted to walk
four more uphill miles to Shooting Star shelter last night.
So we crashed at the closer and very nice Laura Woodward
shelter. A wise choice it was.  Merry Go Round, a former
AT thruhiker, and her friend straggle in an hour or so later,
exhausted. It is the first day of their southbound Long Trail
  end-to-end. They have heavy packs. They are hating life.
We feel, I confess it, smug.

A funny story: The night before, Merry had come to talk
to us after we'd been down in or bags awhile.  I was nearly
asleep, but Clyde, ever-gregarious though drowsy, gave
her the lowdown on the Trail ahead.  When she said, though,
"Wow, you're so laid-back," I nearly choked on my own spittle.
Was it just back at the Inn at the Long Trail that Cous-Cous
was advising Clyde to "like, CHILL, man... Ommmmmm....."
Well, he DID admit he has quit drumming his fingers...

It was so cold this morning we cooked in our sleeping bags.
We get a late start, 8 am. I am hobbling on my twisted joint.
Clyde is screamingly fast today.

I walk with eyes wide open this last day, trying to suck it all
in: The sigh of the wind in the spruce, the naked bedrock,
seams of quartz, the dappled play of the sun on the moss.
The sun is purely pouring down today. The air is like wine,
heady and full of fragrance. I am past the summit of Doll
Mountain, our last real uphill.

Above me a pair of slim hawks "cheer" to each other and
pirouette through the air in unison.  I stop, mouth open,
entranced, to watch their aerial dance.  They are not the
red-tailed hawks of the Carolinas. Their tails are square,
and they are slightly smaller.  They dive deftly though the
ridgetop branches, through high hidden passages of fir,
never flapping. Then they burst out into the ridge sky again,
and arc.  All of a sudden - magic!

I am still, standing under a spruce, looking up, when one
zooms in right at me. To a limb landing slightly above face
height. In my spruce.   We stare down. Its glassy black-
and-gold hawk's eye meets mine square on.  A pause.
An eternity, a heartbeat.  I could reach out and touch it.
I am certain that, in the giddy rush of its air dance, it didn't
see I was there. Have I ever been this close to a wild thing?
Then, a defiant "cheer," a bluster of wings, and it re-joins
its partner in the sky.  Though I recognize my sheer, dumb
luck - nothing more,  nothing less - the moment still feels
like a benediction.  The raptors continue to wheel above me
as I walk the ridge,  calling to each other, doing their
exuberant hawk thing.

I will miss the northern birches the most. We have river
birches in the Carolinas, but it's not the same.  Birches
peel constantly, like a snake shedding its skin. This is
necessary to grow.   Often, as I pass one on the trail, I
will slip my hand beneath the white flake, touching the
smooth, newborn places. Soft, like an infant's bottom.
The new bark is baby-flesh pink, and possesses a subtle
sheen. It is a tender thing of beauty.   It is a promise - and,
at the same time, next year's flake. Everything changes.
Nothing stays the same.

There are mixed feelings in leaving the Trail.  All this I will miss.
Yet I miss my friends and family at home, and my work, the
classes I take and the lessons I teach. I miss my dog, and
just plain miss the Carolinas.  For SURE, I miss a shower
on demand. Hot water from a pipe, what a miracle.  A little
bit happy, a little bit sad.

Clyde writes in his last register entry:
"Had a heart attack in '97, and I guess you could say I am
cured. All the MTs. of Vermont couldn't kill me, the flatlands
of Florida don't have a chance..."  He has walked through the
heels of a new pair of Smartwool socks. Smoothie suggests
Bridgedales.

I have a teensy little bone to pick with GMC.  I mean, Vermont
is stunning with vistas to spare, yes. It's leaders had the foresight
to preserve these wild places. A dedicated crew maintains the
Trail and digs the privy.   It even produced me a bobcat and a
hawk, up close and personal.  BUT - and this is a big "but" -
Clyde Dodge has seen a moose and I haven't. He won't let me
forget it. He even has the pictures to prove it!

Is my lower lip stuck out or what...

So, GMC, can we, like, arrange a viewing today?   My last day.
I'll pay, even. I'm at Shooting Star now.   You only have four more
miles in which to produce this wondrous creature, so ...have at!
Knock yourselves out.

About 2pm, we ascend the very last "up," Carleton Mountain,
and look back at Jay Peak, so impossibly far away now. How
did we ever walk that far - in one day?  "If there's one thing I've
learned on this trip," muses Clyde, "it's the value of 'step-by-step'
It gets the big jobs done."  The rest is truly downhill from here.
Six-foot-two Clyde screams off, I hobble along on my twisted
ankle. No worries. We're going to Canada!

"You're close enough for me to tote you from here," says Clyde.

Two miles. One mile. Half mile.

No moose.

When I emerge into the clearing, there is Clyde sitting on a
  big boulder, waiting: "You drug me into this thing, I figured
you could drag me out."  We consult the book. The trail
continues on, right over the rock. On the other side, Canada -
and the silver, cement obelisk.

"It looked like Canada was giving us the finger," Clyde said later.

We did it! Done!

He takes a picture of me kissing the obelisk. I take one of him
pretending to break his hiking pole over the thing. We take one
of us together, thanks to auto-delay.  And then we walk on.
There is gladness, but no big emotion, except maybe relief
and the passionate desire for a shower.  No cheering throngs.
No soul-stirring vistas. Just a half-miles slog to the creepy
Journey's End Camp. Then another three damn miles to the main road.
My feet were burning UP. Something needed doing.

Traffic on the road was sparse to non-existent. Finally, an old
Cadillac turned into the dairy farm near us. A woman got out
and began watering her horses.  there was our ride to our B&B.
She just didn't know it yet.  We limped up, all pitiful. Clyde
asked for directions to the 1892 House, our night's destination.
Meanwhile, I was transfixed by the horses. It had been a month
since I had touched one. I tried to entice the bay to approach.
The lady bean telling me about him, a mustang.  We talked
horse awhile, and Clyde talked directions, and even though
she said she didn't have the time to run us the four road miles
  to the B&B, before she knew it, she was driving us to the door.

"She didn't have a CHANCE," Clyde said later. "We GANG-yogied her!"

That's all I want to say for today. Tomorrow, on the bus, I'll wrap it
up, since I learned a few things that I wanted to write down.  But I
will say this:  hiking the Long Trail was BY FAR the hardest
sustained physical work I have ever done. Never have I worked so
hard, so full out, for so long.  I sure hope the AT gives me some
breathing room. I don't know if my frame will hold up to six months of this!
At the same time, I know this: I am glad I tried it. And I am glad I
finished it.