Days 135-138: Hanover and the Smarts Mountain Bog

Day 135. August 25th: Stream site to Hanover – 11 miles

The hike into Hanover is swift and mostly downhill, first on a quiet rural road and then straight through Lewiston, Vermont until we cross the Connecticut River on a concrete bridge, and we arrive in New Hampshire, our thirteenth state on the trail. After this, all we have left is Maine.

The AT follows Wheelock Street, which marks the southern boundary of the Dartmouth College campus. As a college town, Hanover feels both traditional and trendy, but mostly expensive. The air of prestige and wealth is jarring compared to the average rural Appalachian community. Nonetheless, many of the student haunts are hiker-friendly, and naturally, we head for the pizzeria that offers a complimentary first slice to thru-hikers. It’s a nice gesture, and a safe bet for the business—I’ve never seen a thru-hiker eat one slice of pizza.

After lunch, we are met by Etienne’s mom and younger sister, who have driven down from Montreal to spend the weekend with us. We stop at a grocery store to resupply and then spend the night at a nearby campground.

Day 136. August 26th: Zero in Hanover

The next morning, Etienne leads his family on a short hike north to the nearest shelter to show them a taste of the AT. I stay back in town, feeling sluggish and fatigued. I’m on Day 5 of my second period in less than three weeks, and my mom the RN suspects I might be getting anemic, so I heed her advice to pick up a multi-vitamin with iron. I’m discouraged that I’ve been feeling progressively worse over the last few days as we head into the famously difficult White Mountains of New Hampshire.

As I sit in a cafe, sipping an iced coffee and charging my devices, my phone vibrates on the table. It’s an unfamiliar number. When I pick up, a man hesitates, and then says, “Is this… Possibly?”

It’s weird to hear someone use my trail name over the phone. “Yes, that’s me. Can I help you?”

“Well, I just wanted to tell you, I think I found your headphones. Do you want me to mail them to you?”

I gave up hope on my headphones when I didn’t hear anything in the first couple days. Now I almost laugh aloud in surprise and delight. “Wow, you did? And they weren’t ruined by the rain? That’s amazing!” I know Rob and Ash and our other friend Jane are less than a week behind us at this point, and I suggest that the man, who gives me his trail name, Redondo, pass them off to my friends to avoid paying for postage. But Redondo explains that he found the headphones on a day hike, and he is now back at home, an hour away from the AT. He assures me that he doesn’t mind mailing them to my next stop on the trail. I thank him over and over, and I give him the address of the Hiker’s Welcome hostel a few days head.

When I hang up, I notice that I can’t stop smiling. Just like our trail angel Christina on the day I lost the headphones, this complete stranger Redondo has transformed my day with a simple act of thoughtfulness. For the thousandth time since April, I am flooded with gratitude for the kindness and openness in the communities along the Appalachian Trail.

That afternoon, Etienne and his family return from their hike. We bid his mom and sister goodbye, and as they head back to Montreal, we prepare to hike out of town and cover a few miles before dark. Despite my renewed optimism thanks to Redondo, my freshly-provisioned pack still feels impossibly heavy when I lift it to my shoulders. Etienne watches me struggle for a moment.

“You want to zero, don’t you?”

I nod apologetically. “Is that okay with you?”

“Of course,” he responds without hesitation. Neither of us mentions his work deadline, but I can tell we’re both thinking about it.

As you might imagine, accommodation in Hanover is expensive. However, each thru-hiker season, a network of trail angels compiles a list of host families, so we start down the list, calling more strangers and asking to sleep in their homes. The first three or four calls are a bust, but then we reach Karen and Jon, who already have three other hikers for the night, but after a moment of hesitation, accept our request.

Jon picks us up at the pharmacy in his Prius and drives us to his large, beautiful home. The rest of the day is flawless. Karen and Jon feed us, offer us beer, let us borrow swimsuits to go swimming in their pool, and then put on my very favorite movie, The Princess Bride, as our after-dinner entertainment. Jon is a doctor, and he is working on a book about thru-hiker health and nutrition, so the only compensation he and Karen will accept for our accommodation is that we fill out a detailed survey about our experiences as thru-hikers. Between my kidney infection, bad knee, and now my mysterious protracted menstruation, I have a lot to write about. Jon agrees with my mom’s suspicion that my fatigue may be due to anemia, as iron is difficult to obtain in a thru-hiker’s highly processed diet even without constant blood loss. I go to bed grateful to Redondo for his kindness, grateful to Karen and Jon for their generosity, and grateful to Etienne for his unending patience.

For a journey that’s ostensibly about escaping people and reconnecting to nature, the Appalachian Trail will restore your faith in humanity time and time again.

Day 137. August 27th: Hanover to Moose Mountain Shelter – 10 miles

Day 138. August 28th: Moose Mountain to South Jacobs Brook – 17 miles

After a steep climb that features wooden blocks bolted into the rock as footholds, we enjoy excellent views from the top of Smarts Mountain. Then the trail is relatively flat across the summit for a tenth of a mile because we have reached our first mountaintop bog. Wooden planks span the muddy terrain. After Vermont, I doubt New Hampshire mud can faze us, but then when I place my trekking pole in what appears to be a few inches of mud, the pole sinks two feet.

I glance back at Etienne and laugh nervously. I withdraw the pole from the mud, and it makes a sucking noise. Shloop.

More careful now, I cross the first few sections of bog bridge. In some places, the wooden planks sink into the puddles enough that water seeps into my new boots. Despite the sagging, the wooden bridges appear to be holding. We continue across, one set of bridges at a time. In places, one of the two parallel boards is rotted through and broken, sinking into the murky depths of the mud. Eventually, I can see solid ground ahead. We’ve almost made it.

Then, I fall in the bog. One moment, I am balancing on a wooden plank. As it sinks into the water, I shift my weight to the parallel board, which happens to broken, not anchored to anything solid. It sinks straight down, and my foot slides off the slick wood and into the bog. I sink to mid-thigh. Cold water seeps into my boot, socks, and leggings. Once it’s clear that I’m not injured, I start laughing. But then, with one leg still on the bridge, I try to hoist myself out of the mud, and I can’t. My right knee can barely lift my weight up a steep step in the best of circumstances, but with the resistance of two and half feet of bog goo, it’s impossible.

“Umm… I’m stuck.” I swivel to look at Etienne behind me. I’m still half-giggling at the absurdity of the situation, but as I readjust, plant my palms on the bridge, and try again to hoist myself out, the mud sucks back, and I feel my shoe start to slip from my foot. I quickly stop pulling, thankful that I’m wearing my new over-the-ankle Altra hiking boots that I picked up from the post office in Hanover. If I’d still been wearing regular trail runners, I absolutely would have just lost my shoe to the murky depths of the Smarts Mountain bog. “I’m… really, really stuck.”

Thinking fast, Etienne cautiously picks his way around the broken section of bridge, stepping between rocks, stumps, and sturdy tufts of grass. He finds a fallen sapling tree that he drags back and lays across the mud. Then he circles back and gets as close to me as he can without joining me in my predicament. I unbuckle my pack and hand it to him. It will be much easier to get out without twenty extra pounds on my back.

I try again to extract my leg from the muck, with no success. Once again, the suction threatens to remove my boot, high tops or no. The sun is sinking in the sky, and I am suddenly extremely thankful that I am not in this situation by myself, possibly facing a night alone stuck in a bog. I try a new strategy, bending my knee. Water seeps into the void this movement creates behind my leg, loosening the mud enough that I can lift my foot to the surface without losing my boot to the suction. Now, gripping the sapling with one hand and the unbroken plank with the other, I am able to pull myself back onto the bridge, where I kneel for a moment, catching my breath. When I stand up and look down at the slick brown mud coating my leg, I burst out laughing again.

“That was so scary!” I gasp through my laughter. Now I regret that I didn’t have the presence of mind to tell Etienne to take a picture of me when I was stuck, but he takes one now, as I point to the mud and my trekking poles, still nearly handle-deep in the bog. The photo is one of the most ridiculous from the whole thru-hike, and I still can’t look at it without laughing.

Once I am free, I retrace Etienne’s steps around the broken section of bridge. He offers me my pack, and we keep moving. When we reach solid ground, I breathe a sigh of relief.

“Well, add swamps on top of mountains to the lists of things I didn’t know I needed to worry about.”

The trail is less steep down the north side of the mountain, and we reach a campsite at South Jacobs Brook at dusk. By the light of my headlamp, I strip to my underwear and rinse my boot, sock, and leggings in the stream. Each time I wring them out, they expel dark brown water. After a few repetitions, I concede that they may be tainted by bog mud forever, but it was a small price to pay for my escape.