Days 132-134: The Beginning of the End

Note: this post contains discussion of feminine hygiene issues in the backcountry. You’ve been warned.

Day 132. August 22nd: Churchill Scott to Quimby Mountain – 8 miles

Last night, I went to sleep in good spirits after our fun afternoon on Mount Killington. We’re camped near Churchill Scott Shelter alongside a group of enthusiastic new Dartmouth students on their orientation team-building trip, who are unfazed by the thunder that rumbles as we fall asleep. I wake up around 3am to the sound of raindrops on the tent fly and pain in my stomach.

After the harrowing experience of my kidney infection, I’m immediately alarmed, but this pain is less severe than the episode in New York and more… familiar. But the obvious source of abdominal cramps doesn’t make any sense for the time of month. I try to go back to sleep, but the cramps get worse, until I sigh, pull on my rain jacket, and stumble through the downpour to the privy.

By the light of my headlamp, I look down and swear aloud. My period ended seven days ago, but now it’s back. I don’t understand. From all my research ahead of time, I knew that most female AT hikers menstruate less on the trail due to the intense physical exertion and calorie deficit. My experience has been the opposite, but it’s never been twice a month like this. My first period on the trail lasted 13 days, which was awful, but since then, it’s been my usual 7-9 days, arriving fairly predictably.

I think back to Kent, Connecticut, where I refilled my birth control prescription. It was a generic version of the same drug, so it shouldn’t be affecting me any differently, but I can’t think of any other explanation. I’ve only been taking the pill since February, when I talked to my doctor about my thru-hike plans and my painful, irregular cycle. She agreed that being able to predict when I was about to bleed for a week would be helpful when living outdoors for six months, and she prescribed me the medication, explaining confidently that it would make my periods shorter, lighter, more regular, and less painful.

So far, the only difference has been a mild improvement in the regularity, at least until now.

Ugh, not fair, I think. It’s supposed to be less out here, not double. I sigh and go back to bed, hoping it is just a minor incident of spotting due to the new version of my medication.

I wake again a few hours later. My stomach still hurts, so I take some ibuprofen with breakfast. We pack up in the rain and hike downhill to the road into Rutland. After over a mile, I notice that my headphones aren’t around my neck. I drop my pack and sift through it, but I can’t find them. I think back to taking my rain jacket off and on a couple times throughout the morning and realize I must have inadvertently opened the magnetic closure and allowed them to slide off.

I bought those Bluetooth headphones in Port Clinton, Pennsylvania after envying Etienne’s pair for hundreds of miles. The simple design always stayed neat and secure around his neck, whereas my cheap earbuds were constantly getting tangled in my pack buckles or passing branches. They weren’t wildly expensive, but it was enough money that now I’m kicking myself for my carelessness. At first, I turn around, determined to retrace my steps and find them, but then I remember that I can’t afford to add two pointless miles to the day. I can barely cover enough ground as it is. Plus, with all this rain, the headphones are probably already ruined if they’re sitting in the mud somewhere. So after ten minutes of hiking backwards, I whack a tree with a trekking pole out of frustration and turn back around. In a last-ditch effort, I leave a note with my phone number pinned to a sign at the trailhead, beseeching Sobos to keep an eye out and pass the headphones off to a speedy Nobo if they happen to find them.

I’m in a foul mood for the rest of the morning. Between the cold rain, the painful double period, and now the lost headphones, I feel like nature and my body have turned against me, and apparently I can’t even rely on myself not to make stupid mistakes. I cinch my hood tight around my face and hike. I rush forward, fueled by an anxious sense of desperation, slipping and sliding down the wet trail like I’m fleeing from a bear. I’m lucky I don’t trip and break and ankle. But eventually, my burst of frustrated energy is depleted, and once again, it’s an exhausting slog through the mud to the next road crossing.

Hitchhiking into Killington takes a long time, but eventually a woman pulls over. She introduces herself as Christina, and she is an angel sent from trail heaven who completely turns my day around.

Christina’s daughter’s best friend thru-hiked last year, so she is enthusiastic about our journey. She takes us to a MacDonald’s drive-through on the way to Walmart. This was generous enough, but then she offers to pick us up again when we’re finished shopping to bring us back to the trail. We attempt to politely decline, unwilling to disrupt this kind woman’s entire afternoon, but she insists she wants to help, so I save her number to my phone.

After we resupply at Walmart and Subway, I text Christina, and she picks us up. This is the most efficient resupply we’ve ever completed, and the only disadvantage is that the process was so quick that there was no time to recharge our phone batteries. Christina overhears us mention this, and the next thing we know, she has brought us to her beautiful home in Rutland to use her electrical outlets. We relax in her living room while our phones charge, sitting on the floor because we feel too dirty for her furniture. Before we leave, she gives me a roll of her plush toilet paper. “I remember my daughter’s friend talking about how bad that camping store toilet paper is,” she says. “See, I know what you hikers need.”

“Forget trail angels, you are an actual angel,” I reply. “Thank you so much for everything.”

Christina drops us back off at the trail, waving away our offers to compensate her for gas. Thanks to her generosity, we accomplished all of our town chores in less than three hours, and we have time to hike a few more miles before dark. It’s been a roller coaster of a day, with one of my worst mornings on trail and one of the best afternoons.

Looking back, I think of this day in Vermont as the beginning of the end. My assumption that the unexpected period that arrived overnight at Churchill Scott Shelter was a brief fluke would be proven incorrect, and on the new medication, I would go on to menstruate for approximately 75% of my remaining time on trail. In retrospect, the problems really began when I started the refilled prescription in Kent. I’d assumed the pain, fatigue, and light-headedness that I experienced in Connecticut were a reaction to the antibiotics for the kidney infection, but they were actually side effects of the new pill, and they would go on to plague me off and on for the rest of the trail.

I still regret that so much of my energy in the last two months of an amazing journey had to be spent fighting against such an awkward and unfortunate health complication. I debated whether to write publicly about such a personal issue, but in the end, this struggle was a defining aspect of the final third of my thru-hike. Between this and the deteriorating cartilage in my right knee, the last few states of the trail were hard for me, but the physical and emotional tolls only served to intensify the moments of raw gratitude and joy. Without sharing why the end of the trail was so difficult and humbling, I couldn’t express how thankful and proud I was to reach Katahdin.

But still.

Sorry for all the period talk.

Day 133. August 23rd: Quimby Mountain to Ascutney stealth site – 17 miles