Kevin's AT Thru Hike

Day 130, Sunday, 7/24 – I woke up and headed to the porch for some coffee and breakfast. Yard Sale cooked up eggs, biscuits and gravy. I’m typically not the biggest fan of biscuits and gravy, but Yard Sale is a great cook.

There’s a heat wave hitting New Hampshire, so no one was particularly excited about hiking in the 95 degree heat. We all enjoyed a relaxing morning around the house. Birthday knows some songs on the guitar, so Aqua and I sang along as he played.

Sometime around noon, we packed up and Yard Sale drove us back to Hanover. We stopped at a grocery store along the way, and also stopped at a taqueria. We got dropped back off at the Dartmouth campus where we were picked up yesterday. We said our goodbyes, then packed up our food.

We continued to procrastinate hiking, and stopped to get boba tea in town. It was 4:00pm, and I was strongly considering a hotel room for the night. I wanted to avoid the rain that was forecasted overnight, and I was feeling lazy. We all decided to hike out, which was a decision that I was ultimately happy about.

I didn’t have an opinion about Dartmouth before yesterday, but I certainly left with a favorable one. It has been a very welcoming place. There were even pamphlets from a Dartmouth Outing Club offering meal swipes for thru hikers. I think it’s especially neat that the Dartmouth community is welcoming to hikers because hikers aren’t essential to their economy. They could easily be exclusive, but choose not to be.

I hiked an easy 8 miles with Birthday and Aqua. We ended the day at Mink Brook (Mile 1760). I was setting up my hammock and tarp when I recognized a chanterelle mushroom on the forest floor. At least, I was 95% sure it was a chanterelle. Luckily I had cell service, so I googled mushroom identification, and became 99% sure it was a chanterelle. Aqua gave me some olive oil, I sautéed the mushroom, and added it to my ramen. By the way, Shin ramen is the best ramen.