From the Brook: Back to Backpacking...
Greetings visitors, it has been a moment since we last spoke! And many exciting things have happened between then and now…check the other blog posts to learn more about our escapades. I, however, will limit myself to discussing this last week, which featured beavers, apples, and the most fearsome creatures of all: mice. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me give you a general run down of the events.
Last week was the Last Backpacking Trip of The Program™, and we all had some mixed feelings about it. Scaling Mount Monadnock had given us some wonderful views, but it had also been really intense for us. After all, most of us were first-time backpackers and Mount Monadnock is (shockingly) quite tall! Luckily for us though, this time around went a lot more smoothly. With some experience under our belts, galvanized by the lovely autumn leaves, we suited up and prepared for our hike. But we had to make an important stop first.
After all, what is more autumn than apples. Apple cider. Apple butter. Dehydrated apples. And most importantly, fresh Honeycrisp apples. In order to acquire our Hoard, we all piled into the official Glen Brook limo/van and drove over to glean some apples from a nearby apple-picking farm. We were able to get five crates worth of perfectly good apples for free, apples that would have gone to rot on the ground for a couple of skin-deep imperfections. We used our obscene quantities of apples to make our own menagerie of apple products, and we’re about to start canning the apple butter. We may or may not have gone overboard on the recipe…all I’ll say is that if we had hypothetically sextupled the recipe, we would hypothetically have an enormous vat of apple butter taking up residence on our stovetop. I can’t say more than that without getting into legal trouble.
I don’t want my lawyer to get mad at me, so I’ll quickly pivot this parasocial conversation to our backpacking trip. We hiked along the Long Trail, braving muddy boots and river crossings on unstable rocks. Our motto for the trip was the oft repeated “be bold, start cold!” and the capricious sun led to many a “layer break,” where we’d try our best to make our clothes match the weather.
Wednesday and most of Thursday passed like this, alternating between watching our step and the woods around us. Alternating between rock hopping and keeping up conversations about museums, Taylor Swift, queer grandparents, and everything in-between. We followed our blue blazes dutifully, until we came upon a clearing and discovered that our path had been taken hostage. Our trail markers traced a line straight through a pond.
Apparently, in between Tori’s summer expedition and our current Thursday afternoon predicament some beavers had taken up residence. This was apparent for a couple of reasons: gnawed trees, sharpened sticks, and OH YEAH, THE GIANT DAM THAT WAS OUR NEW BRIDGE. We let our “leader-in-training” and Maiya lead the way across the treacherous trail, ostensibly for “leadership reasons,” but mostly so that they could be our guinea pigs should an area prove particularly pointy and/or wet. Despite our reserves however, we crossed smoothly. And by smoothly, I mean that Tori’s boots got pointied and/or wetted and/or mudded, everyone took up beaver sticks-turned-hiking poles, and Maiya had to share uncomfortably close quarters with an unfriendly shrub.
But other than that, everything worked out just fine. Thursday night found us tucked away in our tents, our campsite featuring all the newest amenities: a bear box, raised platforms for our larger 3-person tent, and a brand spanking-new composting toilet. It even had a door that locked from the inside! All these luxuries, however, couldn’t compete with the rodent family. Even though we’d carefully packed away all our delectable refried-freeze-dried-beans and mouthwatering deodorant in the bear boxes far from camp, these mice knew the score.
I awoke the next morning to learn that my compatriots in all the other tents had suffered from some unexpected visitors that night, scuttling about beneath the platforms. While none of these mice entered the tents (they had received no invitation and it would be rude to intrude), it did make for an interesting night's rest. I luckily had no such visitors. It’s a tossup between whether my intense stench from want of bathing or the sheer amount of power and dominance I exude scared them off. I’ll plead the fifth on that matter.
On that note, what did we learn today, folks? Animals are conniving creatures (/positive), apples have infinite uses, and it turns out that maybe we Gappers can be convinced to love a backpacking expedition after all.
- Ellie