Hi everyone. Today is Tuesday, July 31.  I have struggled with this violent illness for the past few days.  I was up all night  Saturday sick - took a turn for the worst.  Denise made the 2 hour drive and came up to Andover Sunday morning and picked me up and brought me home so I could recover.  It is now Tuesday and I am feeling better and will go back to the trail tomorrow morning, Wednesday, August 1.  I am a little discouraged because I was making good time and thought I'd be done by the 10th; and people I've been hiking with are finishing up this week and next.  I am just grateful that my trip is not at an end and that I am able to go back to the trail and continue on. I have only about 250 miles left, and will complete the trail by the date I had originally planned on finishing - August 15.  I will put in Andover, re-supply in Stratton, maybe stop in Caratunk, and re-supply in Monson before I enter the 100 mile wilderness, and then Mt. Katahdin.

Hi everyone, today is Friday, July 27. Last week I got caught in the Gorham NH, vortex.  I ended up spending 5 zero days there.  I got off the trail a week ago Tuesday and zeroed on Wednesday.  On Thursday I went pack to Pinkham Notch and hiked forward to Gorham NH.  I thought this would take 2 days but I was able to complete this difficult section in one day.  Since the next section between Gorham NH and Grafton Notch in Maine is 31 miles and one of the most difficult and slow sections on the trail I couldn't hike forward or slack pack in one day (Friday) so I took another zero day.  I stayed in Gorham because Denise came up for Saturday and Sunday and we had a nice weekend together. I left Gorham NH on Monday morning and held up after only 17 miles because of looming thunderstorms.  I was in the shelter on top of Mt Success that night and a wild thunderstorm came through, and it rained all night.  The next day, Tuesday, I climb down into to Mahousic Notch.  This is considered the most difficult mile on the trail.  It was, It took me 2 hours to climb over,. around, under, and between these boulders.  What made it even more difficult was that everything was wet and I fell 14 times.  It was a slow laborious day and I only completed 10 miles. Wednesday and Thursday were better hiking days but I had not been feeling all that well.  There is a virus that has been hitting both southbound and northbound hikers between Gorham NH and Andover ME.  On Thursday about noon I jumped off the trail in Andover, ME because I had not been feeling great, the weather was lousy, I needed a shower, and needed to do laundry.  This morning, Friday, at about 3:30 I woke up ill and have been making multiple runs to the bathroom. I got the virus and feel miserable and keep vomiting, etc.  I am a little discouraged, because I keep seeing people who I passed in New York going by  me.  I feel like I'm falling behind.  It is now 6:30 and I am feeling a little better and have been able to eat Ritz crackers and drink Gatorade, and so far  so good I can keep it all down. Hopefully, in the morning I feel better and have enough energy to hike out.  It is suppose to rain Saturday and Sunday, but I need to get going and hike on.  Hopefully I can get out tomorrow and hike into Rangely for Sunday and meet up with Dale and Celine (who are spending the week there).

Hello everyone. Today is Tuesday, July 18.  I am taking a zero day in Gorham, NH.  I climbed over Mt. Moosilauke, through Kinsaman Notch, and over the 2 Kinsman peaks (very difficult climb over the Kinsman's).  This was one of the best days on the trail because when I summited Moosilauke, it was the most awesome view and reminded me of just how spectacular the White Mountains truly are.  That climb reinvigorated me for the trek across the White's and gave me a huge psychological boost.  The weather has been consistently hot in the high 80"s and low 90's and muggy (sometimes it is breezy to cool things down a bit) thus making the hiking a little more difficult.  I had planned on only hiking 10-12 miles a day through New Hampshire, but have done some big mile days including a couple of 20 plus mile days.  From Crawford Notch to Pinkham Notch was a blast and a glorious trek across Mt's, Lafayette and Garfield.  It was sunny that day and I could see forever.  In the White Mountains the Appalachian Mountain Club owns and operates a system of Huts that is like a hotel system for hikers spread out through the mountain range.  Thruhikers may stay and sleep and eat for free in exchange for a little work (give a talk, wash dishes, etc).  I have stayed at two of the Huts ( Zealand Falls Hut and Mitzpah Hut).  It was fantastic, they fed use huge amounts of food including a turkey dinner one night, pasta dinner the next night, and eggs-sausage -pancakes-coffee-juice for breakfast. On Monday, July 16 I crossed over Mt Washington, Mt Jefferson, Mt Adams, and Mt Madison.  It was cloudy all morning, but the clouds kept breaking so I had some fantastic views climbing up Mt Washington. After lunch I headed across the rest of the range and had the most difficult stretch of hiking on the whole trail so far.  After climbing over Mt Jefferson I was on the western side of Mt Adams and a rain storm with 30 plus mile per hour winds came in and  beat me up all afternoon.  The mountain is nothing but a huge rock pile, and each step is from rock to rock, and hop to hop from boulder to boulder.  This becomes extremely taxing when the rocks are wet and slippery and the wind is pushing you in a different direction than you want to go.  Basically I got the SNOT KICKED OUT OF ME. I was never so happy to be done with a day of hiking and I was so sore from my toes to my hips that I couldn't fall asleep until after 1:00 AM that night because of the constant throbbing pain in my lower body.  However, I wouldn't change the challenge of that hike because it was a real test. I actually want to go back and hike that section in the opposite direction on a non windy, sunny, and  cool fall day.  Yesterday morning the group of us that had been hiking together since Crawford Notch (Scout, Doc Dave (from South Berwick), Switchback and SID (stands for Stuck In Drive)) all decided that we needed to get off the trail and recover from crossing over Mt's Adams and Madison.  So after a 2 hour hike out to Pinkham Notch we had breakfast and waited for our shuttle to come pick us up and bring us to the Hostel in Gorham NH.  Wise choice for all of us, because yesterday was filled with heavy rainstorm and severe thunderstorms.  Lightning, exposed mountain ridges, and hikers with metal hiking poles just don't mix well.  The rest of the group have taken off this morning to continue on and hike the next 21 miles across the Wildcat Mountains.  I have chosen to zero today.  Gorham NH is 21 miles from Pinkam Notch by road.  North of Pinkham notch, the AT goes right through Gorham, so hikers can jump off the trail in a couple of spots and come into Gorham on either side of Wildcat Mt.  The group of hikers that I have been hiking with for most of the trail are a day ahead of me and zeroed in Gorham today because of the weather, so we all got together last night for supper.  It was a blast and there were a dozen of us "hiker trash" thruhikers having dinner at Mr. Pizza (nice restaurant in Gorham) toasting our accomplishments and swapping stories (this is probably the last time I'll see mouse and dutchman unless I can catch up with them).  After I finish my hike Friday, July 20, I will only have 298 miles to the summit of Mt. Katahdin.  I will be in Maine next week.  At this rate I will complete the trail sometime between August 10 and August 15, God willing and the Creek Don't Rise, barring injury, illness, weather, or any other unforeseen event.  I am at a computer that has limited band width and can't upload pictures.  I will try to get to a library by this weekend and upload recent  pictures.

Today is Wednesday, July 11.  Well since I took a zero day in Manchester Vermont I have felt much better.  The aches and pains are gone, I think mostly as a result of a new pair of shoes that Denise brought to me in Norwich, VT.  The replacement shoes I had did not give me the proper fit and support and was the cause of my aches and pains. When I left Manchester it took me another 4 days to get to Norwich.  I was a day short of hiking into Hanover, NH.  Denise came up to Norwich for the weekend and I was picked up 23 miles short of Hanover on Friday.  From Friday afternoon through Sunday morning I visited with the lovely Denise, her sister Celine and husband Dale, and the baking queen Sarah who is at King Arthur Flour for her CIA internship.  We had a fantastic time visiting, sightseeing, and dinning.  On Sunday, Denise drove me back to the point on the trail that I exited on Friday.  From there I slacked packed the 23 miles back into Hanover, NH.  I have completed Vermont and am now at mile 1785 in Glencliff, NH; only 399 miles to go. Today, I took a Nero and am eating, eating, and eating and getting some rest before I start the big climbs in the White Mountains.  Tomorrow, I will climb Mt. Moosilauke and go through Kinsman Notch, and come out at Franconia Notch.  I will resupply and head for Mt Lafayette (second highest to Washington).  I will be taking my time through New Hampshire.  It will be in the 90"s the next couple of days so the climbing will be slow.  I'm talking with a couple who just came in from slack packing and I'm getting the low down on how to slack pack through the White's as much as I can.  Hope I can make it work.

Well, today is Monday, July 2.  I woke up this morning with some aches and pains and thought it best to take a zero day.  I had today scheduled as a zero day, but was going to move on to Norwich.  I think the best plan is to rest because the next 5 days will be a lot of elevation changes.  So, I will rest and eat lots of food.  The Dutchman and Mouse have moved on, and Doug may catch up.  It is going to be in the high eighties and muggy for the rest of the week so it will be a challenging week.  I have uploaded some more pictures.  Enjoy.

Hi everyone, today is Sunday, July1. It has been a full three weeks and this is the first chance I have had to blog.   I have hiked through New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and now I am in Manchester Vermont. I ended up having 3 zero days with the Greenberg's in New Jersey; the third day was to avoid a big rain storm. I'm glad I did because everyone on the trail was talking about how miserable they were hiking in the storm.  I really like New Jersey, the views were terrific ( I could see New York City from 50 miles away). There are a lot of bears in New Jersey, and I had one sniffing around my tent one morning at 5:00 just as I was ready to get up and get going.  So I just laid in my tent quietly for 30 minutes until he was done sniffing around and walked off into the woods. The weather through all these states has been very hot an muggy.  Many days have been in the 80's and some days in the 90's.  Even with the heat and the increased difficulty of the terrain, I have been averaging 22 miles per day through this section.  New York was very difficult for me.  I was not expecting the many steep rock scrambles and the heat and humidity.  Plus, I have found that I was still not eating enough food to keep me energized.  When I got to Greenwood Lake NY, I had run out of gas after 6 miles and was wondering how I was going to keep going.  I hiked another 4 miles to a road and walked 2 more miles into town and sat for 2 hours and ate as much food as I could, and brought a HUGE sub back on the trail with me for supper - it did the trick.  The day after father's day I was tired and discouraged and ended up taking a zero day after 4 miles of hiking and washed my cloths (all soaked with days of sweat), and more food and rested.  This ended up being a big boost.  Prior to this day I hadn't seen any of the hikers that I had been hiking with all along.  And, the people that were hiking in this little bubble of hikers were a bit rough. I eventually connected with hikers I had been hiking with in North Carolina and Virginia.  We had been separated because we all took extended zero days because of various reasons, but mostly because people jumped off the trail to nurse injuries.  Meeting up with these other hikers like "mouse", "Spock", and "the Dutchman" gave me a book psychological boost.  We have been hiking together through Connecticut, Massachusetts, and now Vermont.  When I got to Kent, Connecticut, I got off the trail to resupply after 10 miles of hiking and planned on getting back on the trail for another 10 miles.  It was 98 degrees and 100% humidity that day, and the hottest day I experienced on the Trail.  "Spock" and "Glasses" came off the trail for a break to avoid the heat.  We all had lunch, went shopping at the IGA, and washed all of our sweat soaked cloths at the laundry before we got back on the trail. "spock" and I decided that we could just stay in town and get a hotel room ("glasses" needed to get back on the trail).  So the two of us got a room at a cool bed and breakfast that caters to hikers.  We ended up staying two nights so we could slack pack the next 16 miles section.  Boy, am I glad that we did, because we finished our 16 miles and called the Inn for a ride back to the Inn, and while we were waiting to be picked up a enormous thunderstorm came rolling in.  We took shelter under a wooden covered bridge in West Cornwall Connecticut.  We sat and watched the lightning strike the mountain that we would have been on if we were still on the trail and not slack packing.  Trees were blown down all over the place.  The next couple of days on the trail we were running into hikers who were caught in the storm and they had some wild stories of dodging trees that were falling around them and lightning strikes all around them. When we got to Great Barrington, Massachusetts my brother Dave, his wife Cathy,. and daughter Carly came out to see us and hiked in onto the trail to meet us.  They took us into Great Barrington and we had a great time at lunch, eating ice cream, and telling stories of the trail.  We neroed in Great Barrington and slack packed 8 miles the next day. We had a break in the weather and a couple of cool days in Massachusetts.  When we hit Dalton, Mass, we stayed at a hiker hostel that has become my favorite place on the trail.  "Spock", "The Dutchman" and I were transported to North Adams, by Tom (the owner of the hostel) and we slack packed the 23 miles over Mount Greylock (the highest mountain in Mass) back to Dalton.  This was fun because we ran into other hikers that were a day ahead of us, and hikers we hadn't seen since Virginia.  When we were getting back on the trail in North Adams, Mass to continue our trek north into Vermont, we met our first southbound thruhiker.  We talked with him for awhile and gave him trail info going south and obtained trail info going north. We met two more southbound thruhikers the two following days. Today, I arrived in Manchester, Vermont with "mouse" and "the Dutchman" ("spock" is a day behind because the heat is slowing him down, but he'll catch up and we will be together by next weekend). We are staying at this fantastic hostel in Manchester and we have resupplied and will be making a 5 day trek to Norwich starting tomorrow, July 2.  We will spend Wednesday night at Killington and will be in Norwich, Vt by Friday afternoon if all goes according to plan.  I will take a couple of Zero days in Norwich and prepare for the most difficult section of the trail - New Hampshire and the White Mountains.  I hope to have internet time in Norwich next Sunday and time to update you on my trek and post updated pictures.