Miles: 1,914.0 — My water bag burst first thing, soaking me before a rainy climb up Mt. Success. Crossing into Maine alone felt surreal—and stressful—with fog, wind, and no sign of Miles. Relief hit at Carlo Col, where he was waiting with breakfast. We hiked on together to Full Goose Shelter, reunited with Poppins, Peanut, and Butter, but I couldn’t quite shake the anxious energy of the day.
On this day we took a much needed zero. We went and got more snacks at Walmart for the rest of the week. I found my new favorite granola bar: the Nature Valley XL Bar. We also got Miles a new headlamp at the local outfitter after discovering how difficult night hiking with the one he had was. 100 lumens just wasn’t enough to reliably night hike a good distance, especially if it rained or we were on technical terrain. After this, we rested.
Miles kept bringing up our slack pack plans for the next day. We had decided to do about 22 miles over Franconia ridge the next day. Mt. Lafayette was one of my favorite mountains to hike and I was excited to show it to Miles. But I’d hiked it before and it was hard. Sure we’d be taking some different trails than the ones I had taken last time, but it would still be hard. I was nervous and the more he brought it up the less I wanted to do it. I didn’t believe that I was really ready. But, like every other part of the AT, I just tried not to think about it. Stop thinking and just DO. Had become my motto on this journey and it applied this especially.