On the morning of day 6, I opened my eyelids to here the Jon's noisy air mattress and him saying, "What's the plan?" It was on this morning that I discovered Sam, Adam and Aubry.
“So, are we all hiking together today?!” Adam asked. "Heck yes!" I blurted, anything to reduce the concentration of Jon during my AT experience was inviting.
At the top of Bearman Mountain, which was not much of a mountain, Adam and I sat while we waited for the others to catch up. He stated that he did not think Jon was hiking the AT for the right reasons. “I agree,” I said, “he is so negative.” I explained that he was always complaining about the bugs, heat or elevation.” Not five minutes later, Jon mounted the crest of the hill, slumped down on a rock and cursed the black flies. Then he took out his camera. “When are you planning on getting to Monson,” Adam asked me. Before I could answer Jon stated, “We are planning on getting to Monson on Monday.” “No, I am planning on getting to Monson on Monday”, I corrected. “Yeah, but I am following you,” he rebuttled. Then he snapped a picture of Adam and I and proceeded to take out his GPS. “What mountain are we on,” he asked. I told him and bid adieu. I knew that it would take a minute or two for him to record the GPS coordinates which was just enough time to get far enough away from him down the mountain.
I was able to hike those 6 miles all to myself that day however, I was not in a state of zen since the whole time I feared that at any moment I’d hear Jon say, “There you are.”
The perspective lean-too was half-way up White Cap Mountain. A 1000 ft gain in elevation over 2 miles. My steam had completely run out during this ascent probably from the over-expression of adrenaline which provided nitrous in my heals which fueled my escape.
When I finally reached the lean-too, I started a fire, changed, combed out my hair and waited. It was about an hour and a half before there was movement on the perimeter. A huffing, lumbering, cursing…you guessed it, Jon. Ugh. I asked him where the others were, and he told me he thought they were staying at the other lean-too. Now my spirits were really low. I sort of gave him the cold shoulder, “That climb sucked,” he said, “You know it’s only going to get harder from here, we have the White Mountains and those are much more difficult than the mountains we've experienced so far.” “Yeah, but there are only two ways of getting out of this hell whole, hiking 70miles back through that crap or hiking 40 more miles to Monson.” Did I mention Jon was negative?
This made me think that maybe he was considering getting off the trail. The second day he complained about a knee injury he got while serving and that it hurt to put pressure on it. I told him he should have called a shuttle to Millinocket at White House Landing, or at least spend the 20$ and buy a knee brace in the camp store, he opted to not do anything about it but complain for the remainder of the hike.
Another curious thing he said was, “I could always change my project so that I don’t necessarily need to hike the AT.” But during the same conversation he said that we should exchange numbers so that after I meet up with my parents in Monson I could call him so that we can hit the trail again together.
“I see you’re having mashed potatoes tonight.” Thank you Jon for stating the obvious, again. I think I made a noise in response. I went to wash and came back to see Jon staring at a smoking fire. Now I have showed Jon how to start a fire, you start with birch then surround it in a tipi of the extremely dry twigs the ones that snap off of dead fallen trees, than you surround it by slightly larger twigs, light the birch, get it going and continue to add larger sticks to the fire, until it gets hot enough to burn logs. The fire requires care, you need to stoke it, move logs around to optimize their burning, sometimes add more kindling, Jon, however, would sit and say, “Jill we need your magic,” and wait for me to do something.
Jon did do nice things, for instance, he always hung the bear bags and occasionally offered me a peanut butter sandwich.
I hopped that Jon would get off the trail in Monson and stay off. I believed his negative attitude was no match for the white blaze. I needed to be surrounded by positive energy because this experience is voluntary and you need to constantly remind yourself of the reasons you are doing it.
It was then that I began to write down my plan of escape from Jon the next morning.
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