Beautiful Bad Idea

Close your eyes, and imagine this.

Actually, scratch that.  If your eyes are closed, you can't read what I've written.

On Friday night, I arrived in Pawling, NY, with a terrible idea in the back of my mind.  The idea had been placed there by some other thru-hikers who had come across me relaxing on the sunny shores of Nuclear Lake (more on that, later).  While they stripped down to their shorts for a dip, they told me of their plans: camp at the garden center in Pawling, NY, and then night-hike under the full moon the 18 miles to Kent, CT, where they would get breakfast and then fall asleep in the library air conditioning until they got kicked out.  Both Big Ben and the unfortunately named RawDog had one question for me, "Was I in?" My response was about what you'd normally expect for a person whose feet were so swollen and painful that she was wondering if she needed a new pair of shoes, again: "Hell no."  However, as I hiked away from the lake I started thinking about it more and more, and since bad ideas are something that stew in the back of my mind before blossoming into what eventually turns into THE BEST IDEA EVER, by the time I arrived in Pawling I had changed my mind.  I set up my tent at the garden center (a run of the mill garden store that provided a tap and a place to camp for thru-hikers), between a busy road and the train tracks, and tried to get some rest.

In case you've never camped near the train tracks, let me summarize it for you: imagine laying down in your tent, trying desperately to get some sleep before you're scheduled to wake at 11:45 pm to start night hiking.  You've gotten everything in order, so that when you're woken up you can pull your gear together and hit the trail as quickly as possible.  Your toes are taped, you've selected your snacks and filled up your water bottle, and you've preemptively laid out your hiking clothing: you're set.  And just as you're about to drift off, all of a sudden the ground starts shaking, a loud whistle sounds, lights start approaching your tent rapidly, and a train barrels by, 15 feet away from your head.
 Terrifying.

Now imagine that happening every 30 minutes until 11:45 pm.

Between that and the traffic I didn't get much sleep.

Six of us hit the trail around 12:20 am, walking first across the road and then up a small hill through pastures.  The full moon was high in the sky, casting a silver hue across the landscape.  We climbed over fence stiles, and marched single file across moonlit pasture.  I took it easy at first, letting my feet warm up, listening to them sharply complaining about the lack of rest from the 18 miles I had done just hours before, and easing them into the task set ahead.  As I slowly made my way up a grassy field, I could see a giant black water tower and the bodies of my fellow thru-hikers ahead, all silhouetted black against the the sky.  At one point we passed a group of cows sleeping in the field, the moon reflecting off of their black fur.  A low bellow told us that at least one of them was awake, and knew that we were moving by.

We left the field and began ascending the first mountain of the evening.  The moonlight only occasionally spilled through the trees, leaving small sliver puddles on the forest floor and the leaves, and I turned on my headlamp for the first time since waking. I recognized the people ahead of me, not based on their faces or clothing, but on the shape their bodies made when illuminated from the front by their headlamps.  We stopped only twice before the first shelter, once to forge a path around a massive spiderweb, and once to spend a moment listening to coyotes howl and the hoot of a nearby owl.

We arrived at the first shelter at 2:30 am, six miles in, and I decided to call it a night.  My feet were aching, and the lack of sleep had finally caught up with me.  As a crawled into my tent I could hear the stillness of the evening and the faint snoring of nearby campers. The coyotes moved closer and began yipping and yowling, and I drifted off to sleep to the sounds of their symphony.

Yet another perfect night on the Appalachian Trail.