Sucker Brook Shelter to East Middlebury.
Everything changed today.
Pain. Not normal get-back-on-trail pain.
My legs and back hurt all day, and I had to stop often to rest and hydrate and cool off even though the heat wave is over. The measly 1600 feet of elevation gain felt almost unbearable. I dripped sweat and snot constantly. My vein-damaged left leg found out this is not a training hike but the start of a potentially weeks/months long backpacking trip and decided to rebel. My right leg told me it didn’t want to spend weeks/months nonstop on trail overcompensating for my weaker left leg. Who the hell knows why my back hurt because I am carrying lighter stuff than I did on the AT.
The day started okay. Left Sucker Brook Shelter at 5:45am and tried not to wake the three Long Trail hikers that shared the area. Did 2 to 3 miles an hour going downhill and entering Moosalamoo Recreation Area. Felt kind of weak but chalked that up to second-day-itis. And then I had that one climb of the day up Moosalamoo and my legs – and my back, where I had the stress fracture in 2024 – began aching badly. Beyond aching. Pain! Everything everywhere all at once. The humidity felt awful even though in reality I don’t think it was high, and I had to take a lot of breaks. My head hurt and I felt nauseous. Drank plenty of water and had electrolytes. Ate snacks. Didn’t help.
Descending Moosalamoo took forever and felt almost as bad as the ascent. The skies opened, and it poured cold rain for about ten minutes, and I didn’t bother to put the pack cover on or even try to stay dry. I was too out of it. There were times when I honestly thought I could not make it to the road. I have never, not once, ever felt that way on any hike I have ever done, not even on the winter Zealand-Bond traverses.
I am now at the Middlebury Sweets Motel having just consumed pizza, Powerade, and water. I am showered and my clothes are washed (kind of – hand washing in the sink). I’ve downed CBD. Yet I lay here shaking in the bed. Muscle spasms, all over. Taking me forever to type this. I don’t know what’s up except my body is not cooperating.
Last year I hit the AT running and did 18.5 miles on Day One without having this kind of reaction. I had trained for the AT, and I trained for this hike too.
Maybe it’s the fact that my damaged veins in my left leg led to muscle issues and a swollen ankle after 1400 miles on the AT last year, and I finished the AT anyway. Hiking 800 miles with vein issues acting up meant all my leg muscles did tricks to compensate, and those muscles still haven’t fully recovered. They became so tight that they pulled my patella off track, and I have been rehabbing all those issues for months. I can do dayhikes just fine as long as I stretch and hydrate and do specific exercises every day. I thought I had rehabbed everything enough to begin this NCT venture.
Honestly, I believe my left leg remembers last year and is sending my nervous system a loud and neon “Aw, hell no” message. My nervous system is dutifully relaying that message to my other leg, my back, and possibly my left eye for good measure (the lower lid is red and itchy).
My body was just fine on my training hikes. Knee slightly sore but manageable. Day hikes – even consecutive ones of 10-15 miles a day for weeks – are not nearly as grueling as backpacking the same 10-15 miles a day though. Good sleep, consistent proper nutrition, and carrying just a daypack mean everything in terms of optimal health, at least for me.
This is leading me to think that I may adapt the National Scenic Trail portion of my LifeQuest. My other LQ goals have me doing 20,000+ miles throughout the USA in day hikes and much shorter backpacking trips. Do I NEED to also do all the miles of my remaining NSTs? Maybe for the rest of them, I can do 100 miles in each state. Except for the Ice Age Trail – I have 245 miles to go on that one, and I will finish it. Probably by dayhiking it though.
Tomorrow is a much shorter day with an AirBnB stay. Maybe I will feel differently in 24 hours. Right now my left leg feels like it just lost almost all the progress I made rehabbing it this year. I am going to take more CBD and feel sorry for myself until I fall asleep.
