Before proceeding I must preface this post with …
Everything is OK. I’m doing fine. This isn’t a show stopper.
The morning after Smarts Mountain and the firetower, while trucking along a quartzite ridge, I rolled my ankle and went down. It hurt like hell. But, it wasn’t so bad that I couldn’t make it another 25 miles and two more days to the next town. And here I still am, in Hanover, NH and at the Dartmouth dining hall. I’ll take one more zero and reevaluate. It feels alright, really. But I’m glad I am where I am. What is an adventure without the unexpected?
This town is incredibly hospitable to hikers. David, a trail angel and Dartmouth professor, gave us a ride to Lebanon for errands, students at Dartmouth perform trail magic and supply hikers with their extra dining passes (all you can eat, too!), several angels offer rooms to hikers for free, and the trail itself passes through Main Street. It couldn’t be a better situation to take a couple of days to heal.
A HUGE thank you to David for the rides and town history, Jennie Anderson of St. Barnabas Episcopal Church for the bunks, and all the students at Dartmouth who have made us feel so welcomed. And thanks for Jennie’s dog for knowing how to hang out with coffee-drinking hikers.
