Chapter 13
Galehead Hut, the White Mountains, New Hampshire
1798 miles down and 370 miles to go

Gentian Pond Shelter
     "Met Key-Mho-Saw-Bee (I'm about as happy with that spelling as I was with the AMC hut 'croos') on my way up Mount Hayes this morning.   He told me I look nothing like a thru-hiker (I'm not happy with that spelling either) and said that I'm the fattest one he's seen on the trail.  I said, 'Gee, thanks' and then I punched him in the mouth. When I combine his observations with the other things I've learned about myself from other hikers over the past couple of days, I discover that I am a slow, fat, scary-looking guy with a nice butt who has aroused a lot of suspicion that I may not be a purist. Golly, this journey of self discovery is a joyous thing.

The Ordainer (previously called Buzzsaw)
GA > teen crisis hotline

     The first order of business for the Vikings on entering New Hampshire was to go to the Squirrelfight household and take a week off. After almost a week off in Massachusetts and then slacking most of Vermont, truth be told, they didn't need a break, but Squirrel had to be in a friend's wedding, and the Vikings weren't about to let him get a week behind so close to the end. The Kaptain went on ahead only because he was going to take a break in the next few days for a week also, and they would be able to meet up in the White Mountains. The days at Squirrel's house were quiet and relaxing: eating homemade cookies, watching TV and movies, and throwing a baseball in the yard. They all longed for the trail, though, and were back on as soon as the wedding was over.

    They hiked into New Hampshire for four days before taking off one last time to hitch back to Vermont for the Bread and Puppet festival. It wasn't easy, taking another break so quickly when the first wasn't even necessary. So close to Katahdin, the pull of their long awaited goal was immense. Squirrel promised it would be an adventure, though, and they agreed to one last delay. They hitched from a tiny road that wound around the foot of the White Mountains, the first time the trail would cross above tree-line on the trail, and held the sight of the rocky peaks with them, waiting to dive into those high mountains when they returned.

     The festival consisted of various puppet shows and dramatizations from finger puppets to gargantuan icons that towered over weaving dancers and colorful costumes. Near the shows were colorful shops and stands selling ethnic foods and wild and woven crafts. One of the attractions that gave the festival its name was a stand that baked bread and gave it away for free. There were so many people in line, though, that they opted instead to buy Indian finger foods instead. Expanses that had once been grass were covered with cars, tents, fires and coolers. The multitudes that covered these fields far outnumbered the onlookers at the puppet shows. The Vikings found that most of this second crowd's purpose consisted of roaming the parking lots abusing as many substances as they could find and making sure that neither they nor anyone else slept. Gerry Garcia had died a few weeks earlier before doing a show in Boston, and a legion of lost deadheads had found their way to Bread and Puppet in their search for a surrogate source of meaning. The nights were tiring. The inebriated and the reckless threatened constantly to destroy their tents or gear with a bad step or misplaced flaming log. The commotion was a bit much after five months of relative serenity. The days were much more interesting. They wandered the shows, acts, and exhibits, entirely free of the crowd that never left the lots. They saw Fur Trapper for the first time since Harper's Ferry. He caught a ride down to the festival with Buzzsaw, whom they had not seen since Trail Days. Fur Trapper was already in Maine, only a handful of days from finishing the Trail, but Buzzsaw, who had changed his name in Pennsylvania to the Ordainer. A section hiker ahead of him had been unknowingly using the name also, and it drove him to abandon the name since he couldn't catch up to him. Buzzsaw was already finished and back at home in Maine when he had run into Fur Trapper. The Vikings also saw Fly for the first time since before Trail Days. She and Aces had finished about the same time as the Buzzsaw. It was bizarre seeing Fly and the Buzzsaw, knowing they had already finished. In the registers, their comments were about the present even though the date was earlier. It always felt as if the writer of an entry had just walked down the path before the reader got there. To read their entries and imagine them off the trail was very hard. They were already starting to incorporate elements of town life into themselves. They had schedules and clean socks, but their heads still floated in a mild euphoria of the trail, and they slipped easily into the potluck and the tent. The last night of the festival they sat on the sloping hills around the field that served as a stage for the largest shows but has now slipped into darkness. They howled in the night to the silky animal replies of strangers and smiled at the stars.

     The Ordainer drove them back to the trail with Fur Trapper through light rain and they were back in the woods. There was nothing but the trail now leading from their feet, through the Whites, into Maine, through the Hundred Mile Wilderness, and up the rocky face of Katahdin.

     They began to pass an occasional Southbounder in Massachusetts. The few who chose to hike South had to start much later, waiting until Baxter state park, where Katahdin stood monumental, opened for the year. They would usually saunter up with an elitist slant telling of the great northern mountains that would surely be the fall of the Northbounders who hadn't yet reached them. It was a tradition of sorts, and the Vikings would smile and resist the temptation to say, "Sparky, I've been in the mountains six times as long as you now. I think I'll be just fine." The good ones were those who came by and exchanged knowing smiles with them, both envying what lay ahead of the other. The Vikings had come 1,800 miles to take each of the steps ahead, and each one was a reward.

     They had their cold weather gear mailed back to them while they were at Squirrel's house. Wayah had to turn in his boots, which were finally caving in. The soles were separating around the toe, and the leather had deteriorated around the laces, letting water in. Now he had to wear his spares. They weren't as good, but they only had to last for 450 miles.

    Up over treeline they soared on the back of Mt. Moosilauke and into the Whites. These summits surpassed even Wayah's dreams of the trail. The stark slabs of speckled rock ripped through the trees like spurts of primal nature, reigning over the land. The clouds gathered at the mountains' feet and swirled up the sheer faces. The Vikings marched across the Presidential range, their rocky spires hidden in clouds and rain or raking out above clouds and land and green. The winds blew hard against the hikers, unbroken by trees, and they followed the little stone cairns that marked the trail above treeline. On the way up Lafayette, Wayah and Jones stopped for a break. Squirrel was behind as he always was in the morning. Sitting and eating gorp, Wayah noticed a small gray and white bird eyeing him passionately. The bird's expression was not so much different from the puppy eyes his dog back home wore whenever he held food in his hand. Wayah felt a swell of longing for his faraway companion. Placing a few pieces of the gorp in his palm he held it out and up. The bird fluttered instantly to him and perched cautiously on the tips of his bare fingers. The little talons gripped with a gentle tenacity and the balance and grace of a dancer. The bird was impossibly light as it pecked the little bits of grain from the small of his palm. Then there were more birds watching them and Jones joined in, holding out a handful of gorp to be sampled. As Squirrel caught up to join them, they all stood in a halo of fluttering birds.

     The White Mountains are maintained by the Appalachian Mountain Club (or AMC), also known among hikers as the Appalachian Money Club. They had a lot of rules about where hikers could camp, and most of them made a lot of sense. Vegetation above treeline is very sensitive and slow growing, and camping on it would surely destroy it so there was no camping above treeline. Since much of the Whites are above treeline, there are huts where hikers can stay. The AMC got its nickname by charging 50 dollars per night to stay in the huts. This sum was substantially more than any hiker would consider paying simply for trying to follow the rules. The huts were rustic little resorts offering walls, windows, light, toilets, and meals. They were primarily filled with tourists and vacationers used to paying outrageous sums for a bed, and in the summer months when the thru-hikers were passing the Whites, it was the peak tourist season. The huts did offer to let some hikers work off their stay, but sometimes huts were full or there wasn't enough work for more than a couple, and they would ask the hikers to pay or move on. It seemed criminal since it might be six more miles over barren rock through blasting, frigid winds in the growing dark to the next legal camping spot. Some hut "croos" were more humane than others, but others treated the thru-hikers like vagrants, or ordinary tourists who just didn't want to pay. Even if they did get a chance to work off their stay they couldn't eat until after all the paying guests ate. Then they had to help the croo clean up the tables before being given the cold scraps left over from the guests' meals. It was rarely enough to feed a hungry hiker. In the mornings they would have to work for a few hours, losing some of the best hiking time of the day.

     The night after climbing Lafayette the Vikings stayed in Galehead hut. The croo wasn't sure they had enough work for the Vikings and the other two thru hikers that were there but found small tasks for the Vikings to complete so that they could let them stay. They also gave them tasks they could complete in the evening so that they could get an early start, and when the leftovers from dinner came up short, they brought out some extra crackers and Fig Newtons to make sure the hikers weren't left starving. The hikers and the croo stayed up late after their meal talking and sharing stories of the trail. The new hikers were Jake and Willwood, a pair that called themselves the Blues Brothers. Jake was short and stocky and pulled his hair back in a short ponytail. Will was tall and lanky with a perpetual grin. Both were quick to laugh and funny as could be. There was no question that they would get along with the Vikings.

    During their dinner in the kitchen, Beorn had also come bellowing in, looking for food and explaining his status as a yo-yoer and not a thru-hiker. The croo, however, had received radio transmissions about the volume of his infamous snoring from the last hut where Beorn stayed. They asked him to sleep on the porch since none of the paying guests at the last hut had slept at all the night before and there had been many complaints. Beorn was vocally upset and hiked off into the dark. They had seen Beorn every now and then since he caught up to them at Delaware Water Gap. The stories of his yellow blazing and other adventures had only grown since Trail Days, It seemed that everyone had another story about the giant. Most popular were the stories that involved insinuation that he wasn't actually doing much hiking. The most obvious clues were that he wore flimsy sandals that never deteriorated under his massive frame, and no matter how long he "hiked" he never lost any weight. Back in Massachusetts the Vikings had even run into a pair of reporters from Outside Magazine who were looking for Beorn. Whatever the stories, the hut croo, who had been so kind to the Vikings, turned him out.

    Later in their bunks, Squirrel looked in one of the bird books in the hut to find out what kind of bird it was that had fluttered about them earlier in the day so he could record it in his journal. Finding the markings he read the description of the bird aloud.
     "The Canadian Jay is a scavenger that will eat out of your hand and even perch on your lip and eat out of your mouth."
     "Great," Wayah said, "we were just tourists. My magical moment is shot, and I gave that little bastard some of my food! He totally duped me! The next Canadian Jay I see, I'm gonna ring its neck. Bloody savages."

    New Hampshire was Squirrel's stomping ground and he had friends all around the Whites. Every few days someone would meet them at a road crossing where the mountains dropped out of the sky, and take them home with them to eat dinner, listen to music, and sleep in beds. They wandered through the Presidentials from one majestic peak to the next, following the stone cairns on their winding way over, between, and around the mountains, occasionally dipping into woods and valleys. They crossed the famous Mount Washington on a perfect day when visibility was 100 miles or more, but there were so many tourists on top having ridden the cog railway or driven up the steep road in a car, that the Vikings hurried off the summit. The air tasted like the back of a bus from the car exhaust and the billowing black smoke that poured off the cog railway. On the way down the mountain the train slowly chugged by, dishing out inky puffs of stench. The Vikings improvised a dramatic death scene where they collapsed, clutching their throats for the confused and disturbed audience on the cog. Before they left New Hampshire they caught up to Kaptain Krummholz on Wildcat Mountain. He was feeling terribly ill, and they carted him back down the mountain to one of Squirrel's friend's houses for a day off so that they could continue together when he was well. Jake and Willwood also joined them, opting for new fellowship.

    Squirrel discovered that eating cold hamburgers on the trail made for an excellent lunch. Since they were bouncing in and out of civilization so often, the rest of the Vikings decided to give it a try. One night at a McDonalds near the trail, Wayah approached the counter last to order his dinner and also his lunch for the next day. Since they would sit in backpacks over night, any sandwiches with mayo on them had to be eaten for dinner, but the rest could be carried with no trouble. There was something about the florescent lighting and the unsteady manner of the cashier that put Wayah a little on his guard.

     "I'll have two Big Macs, three hamburgers, and three cheeseburgers." Wayah eyed the cashier appraisingly. They had hiked a very long day and he was looking forward to dropping down into the soft, curved booth with his friends to eat. The cashier poked through the large order and went about collecting the goods. Wayah handed him more than enough money to cover the sum glowing red in the black window of the register. The uniformed and visored youngster counted out bills and change for him and handed the money over the counter to the Viking Lord, just as Wayah had hoped. The encounter was going very smoothly and Wayah pocketed the change, preparing to return to better company when, out of nowhere, the boy pulled two more shiny coins from the drawer and said,
     "Is it all right if I don't give you these two pennies?" The two pennies hung there in front of Wayah's confused eyes like little beacons of madness. He had no particular fondness for pennies, and change in general was not something they wanted to carry around with them, but whatever was going on here obviously involved elements that he couldn't quite grasp. Wayah glanced at the change already in his hand and made a vain attempt to count it all, suddenly deciding he must've heard the boy wrong.
     "What?" Wayah was doing his best to treat this boy like a sane person, giving him a chance to clarify his befuddling statement.
     "Is it all right if I don't give you these two pennies?" He said again, a replay of the first in every way. Sweat broke on Wayah's brow. His body was kicking in to fight or flight mode as he looked at the boy taunting him with the enigmatic two pennies. He suppressed the urge to dive over the counter and strangle him and gathered himself together enough to speak.
     "You do whatever you think is right," he said with some guarded fear and turned to walk away, praying the scoundrel wouldn't say anything else. He had to get back in the woods where everything made sense again. The Viking encounters with locals were becoming stranger and more unpredictable as the trail wound towards its end.