Eliza Brook shelter to Liberty springs campsite

Hiking half a mile south on the Appalachian Trail instead of north is how my day starts.

All is forgiven as I take my morning wash under a waterfall. Clean and rejuvenated I continue to head north.

The day feels slow like time has been paused and I’m not moving forwards. But after what seemed like a month I have almost covered 10 miles.

I stop for lunch at Kinsman pond using the wind free Kinsman pond shelter to boil water from the pond on my stove. Tuna and a Knors butter pasta fill my belly.

Continuing on I listen to an audio book called “Into the wild” on loudspeaker. It’s a true life story about a young man going to Alaska and living in the wild abandoning society and changing his name to Alex Supertramp.

I pay $10 to The Appalachian Mountain club who own mountain lodges in the white Mountain national park to pitch my tent. As my tent is not freestanding I have to pitch it away from the timber flat platforms. This means compromising with rocks and roots to find a flat space but it works.

There are a few scouting groups up here and it was while sitting down at dinner I realised that I had left my spoon back at kinsman‘s pond. One of the scout leaders let me use his. Very kind.

I now go to sleep with the thought that beautiful mountains are ahead of me.