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The Scribe
05-21-2004, 08:40
morning list

Hope this doesn't come across as self-promotion. I am a teacher by trade but also work part time for the Lewiston Sun Journal, the third largest daily paper in Maine. I've been on the list since February I think and getting more and more into it. Been "into" the trail for years.

Earlier this month, Rick and his family invited me on an overnight hike to Cooper Brook Falls shelter. I can't thank him, and Tink, and Chris enough.

I put my thoughts on paper as I have an occasional column in the newspaper. It ran earlier this week but for some unknown reason, it was not posted to the paper's website. It appeared only in paper and ink. I was planning on posting the link here.

I have pasted it below (or a late draft of it that should be pretty much the same as what was printed):

My Turn

By Peter Mullen



I want to ask you a question. How many of you challenge yourself? How many of you do something that tests your mettle? How many take a chance? How many do things to make you grow?

And how many play it safe, take it easy, and not take chances?

Now, if you just did your first sky dive or bungee jump, I applaud you and admit this column might not be for you. If you’d rather stay in your comfort zone, maybe I can pique your interest enough to read on.

I am going through an interesting time right now. By late last fall I had little energy and experienced headaches that made me not want to crawl under a rock but to pick it up and bash myself with it to get away from the misery.

Since this column isn’t on the Advice page, I will spare you the gruesome details but suffice it to say, in the words of Judge Harry Stone’s father (John Astin) on Night Court, “I’m feeling much better now.”

I gerbilled it all winter on a treadmill at the gym and with spring now have a seven-mile road course on the roads in West Gray that I walk. The only trouble I have in completing the entire thing is finding the time to do it. I lost weight, am eating better, and I’m ready to take on the world.

For many years, I have had a fascination with the Appalachian Trail. There is something romantic and magical about the thought of walking this 2160 mile path from Springer Mountain in Georgia to Baxter Peak on Katahdin in Maine. It’s more than a romance however, it is a challenge that a vast majority fail to accomplish.

It’s something I always said I wanted to do or at least explore the possibility of but that’s no different than saying I’d like to hit a Curt Schilling curveball or learn to fly a plane. Just talk. I’ve read numerous books about the trail and this past winter found Whiteblaze.net, a website that is a community of AT enthusiasts.

Rick Towle, who is the “boss” of Whiteblaze, also happens to live just up the road in Litchfield. We started messaging each other and before I knew it, I was invited to a backpacking overnight along the AT recently.

Now I love to camp. I own enough junk to more than fill my truck and have always been happy as long as I can back into the campsite and unload it. But here I was with an option I had never tried before, and one I would have never tried before this year. The plan was to head north above Katahdin Iron Works, hike four miles of the AT, camp at a shelter, and head back the next day. Of course, all this with a pack weighing 20-30 pounds strapped to my back.

I said yes.

On Friday evening, as I was putting my stuff together for the trip, I actually considered backing out but not for any valid reason. It was purely comfort. It would be easier to stay home. Easier to sleep later. Easier to set the TV on the deck and watch the Red Sox. It would be easier to not challenge myself.

My significant other was even less impressed with the idea considering I had never even met Rick before. When she worried out loud that he might be an axe murderer, she took little solace in the thought from me that axes are too heavy to carry. She was even less impressed when, as I was loading up Saturday morning, I admitted I didn’t even know his last name.

There were four of us on the trip and I met Rick and his wife and stepson in Augusta and we headed north. We headed up Route 11 and on the Jo-Mary logging road that took us to where the AT crossed the road; a young moose came out and joined us on the road for a few hundred feet.

The weather was perfect, the company was perfect, and about a thousand times I questioned my sanity when I realized I almost didn’t do this. The hike was easy, even with the pack and before we knew it we were at Cooper Brook Falls shelter. The runoff water was swift and cold and the steady roar of the falls lulled me to sleep Saturday night.

It was an adventure in learning as well. For the first time I got to see a lot of the equipment in action that had only been words in books or magazines before. Not to mention the raspberry crumble was delicious and the conversation around the campfire rewarding.

Despite being a newbie, I was more than self-sufficient. I managed to use my own tent and sleeping bag even though they were not really made for backpacking. Rick was generous enough to let me borrow an older pack he has and to cook my food on his stove.

Sunday morning I was first one up so I took the shelter register down by the brook and read the entries from last August through the fall. I became lost in the thoughts and memories of the hikers that had come before me. Many were in their final few days of their months-long quest to hike from Georgia to Maine.

The entries ran the gamut of self-discovery. People wondered how they made it this far. Others wondered why they made it as far as they have. Still others were becoming aware that a life-long and possibly life-changing goal was near completion and were worried about what came next. There were constant reminders of the community of the trail as messages came and went throughout the book as hikers said hello to one another.

I put the register back in its slot on the wall with renewed reverence for those that had used the shelter in the past. I thought about what reaching the summit sign on Katahdin must be like for these people. But then again I guess maybe I already knew.

No, I didn’t travel 2100 miles and no I didn’t climb the tallest mountain in Maine. What I did do though was challenge myself to do something I had never done before. True, it was only four miles each way, but before I went to bed that Sunday night, I had already looked at the maps and realized I could simply keep going to the next shelter and add a few miles. Even thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail takes one step at a time.

Even if I never do manage to walk the entire trail, I can’t wait to get out there again even for a small piece of it.

Peter Mullen is a staff writer. He can be reached at [email protected] ([email protected])

Blue Jay
05-21-2004, 08:51
Yes, some people make the world a better place. Rick is clearly one of those people. :clap

Jaybird
05-21-2004, 09:21
Peter M:



THANKS for sharing your "Rick experience" with the rest of the WhiteBlaze.net crowd....


he (& WhiteBlaze.net) has been a true blessing to the hiking community! :D

Chappy
05-21-2004, 09:25
Definitely not self-promotion! Great article on a great guy and a great website. Thanks for the article.

TJ aka Teej
05-21-2004, 12:43
I put my thoughts on paper

And you did real good, too. Thanks for sharing it with us, Peter!

Uncle Wayne
05-22-2004, 06:00
Amen. That was good.

MedicineMan
05-22-2004, 07:15
I mean to other newspapers throughout the country.....seems like newspapers are always in need of good writing and good subject matter.
Hats off to Attroll :)

The Scribe
05-23-2004, 20:41
Evening
Nothing like camping in Maine in the spring. 85 and sunny when he set up Friday, 70 and clear Sunday evening back at home. Rained like an SOB in between. Well, just Saturday morning (7-noonish) and Saturday night. Proud of the gang (including three teenagers). Just about everyone else pulled out (including the people "camping" in trailers. We stuck it out with our tents and tarps.

Hey Attroll, the truck bit me this weekend. Battery went. Sigh.

Anyways. That piece could be reprinted under the following "guidelines."

1. It can't appear in the competition. For us that is the Portland (Maine) Press Herald and maybe a few local weeklies that they might frown on.
2. I can't solicite it to appear anywhere else.
3. The SunJoural has to approve the reprinting.

I wrote a column on taking an Adult Ed class on fly fishing a little more than a year ago. A weekly in the area where the class was held ran it at the request of the guide service that hosted the class. The SJ didn't have a problem.

pcm