There are about 100 people who get a ping sent from my Garmin satellite device every night showing where I’m camped. Most of the time it says “on the north country trail” and the recipient can scroll in and see where I am. But every once in a while a message goes out that says “holy shit day.” I usually try to reserve those for days when difficult things pile up one on top of the other. And inevitably when I send it out, people want to know what happened.

I’m only into my second week on the North Country Trail, and already I sent out a holy shit day. I hesitated to do so because it was not like being chased by a grizzly bear on the Pacific Northwest Trail or having my hair stand on end in lightning and then going sliding down an ice encrusted side of a mountain which happened numerous times on the Continental Divide Trail. In contrast, this holy shit day was less life threatening, but it was fraught with numerous difficulties piled one on top of the other for most of the day.

It started about three in the morning. I was camped in a remote campsite on some preserved land. There were a few picnic tables, fire rings, an outhouse and a pump. No one else was there and I set up in the one spot that had a concrete pad near it. There were a few trees which I hoped would provide some wind protection, which is a never-ending concern out here. Even with my pack on, I’ve been getting pushed around by the wind when walking. There have been a couple of nights when, before I got in the tent, the wind caught my tent and pulled the stakes out of the ground even though my entire thirty-ish pound backpack complete with food and water was in it.

I thought I would utilize the concrete pad as an easy place to set up my stove. When not in bear country, I often cook by reaching out the door of my tent. In this thick, grassy prairie, it’s sometimes hard to get the stove to sit solidly on the ground. To make it easier, I decided to set up close to the concrete slab so I could reach it from inside my tent and set my stove on the slab. This meant one of the stakes had to go out an extra long way to fit into a crack in the concrete slab. If it rained, I wouldn’t be able to close the rain fly, but there was no rain expected, and the sky was clear of clouds for the first time since I’ve been on the trail.

At three in the morning the wind picked up and rain came blowing sideways, from the direction with the open rain fly. I had to pull myself out of sleep and toss everything away from the door where the water was blowing in. Then I reached out to move the stake close enough to where I could attach the rain fly to it. The stake came out of the ground easily enough, but there was no other place on that concrete slab where I could get it back in. After getting a bit wet in the rain, I finally jury rigged something and was able to get back to sleep, although it was a fitful sleep with the wind whipping around my tent. I was relieved when it was finally light enough to start walking.

I was sorry to learn my suspicions were correct. For much of the previous day, I had been walking through grass that sometimes was armpit high. I suspected I would be in for more of the same for much of this day. Sure enough, the trail had not yet been mowed because of nesting spring birds. Pushing through that grass for miles and miles is exhausting. Doing it after a night of rain when all that water is running down my pants into my shoes is even more unpleasant.

Walking on very uneven ground where I can’t often see my feet, makes it hard for me to be careful with the placement of each step and was especially tough on the burnt foot. In addition, I had to be careful not to step in a hole that could swallow my leg up to my knee.

I was exhausted by the time I got to a place where the trail crossed a road. I sat in a small patch of gravel on the side of the road to take a break and spent quite a bit of time pulling over 30 ticks off me. Because the grass has been so tall, I was even pulling them off my head.

The next business I took care of was pulling off my wet sock and assessing my skin grafted foot. Walking on that uneven ground, not being able to choose where I placed my foot, and being constantly wet, was breaking down the skin. As I inhaled some food, ravenously hungry because of being unable to snack while walking in that grass, I looked at the trail and saw I was in for more of the same for quite a few miles yet. I took some time to give my foot a chance to dry out, hoping the ever present wind and the sun, which was now peeking out, would dry the grass ahead of me.

Before I set out again, I pulled out my lavender tick spray and sprayed the back of my pack. I was horrified to see numerous ticks crawling out from all the little crevices in my pack. Overall it ended up being more than a fifty tick day. I know it would have been at least double that a few months ago, but discovering that just stepping off a gravel path to poop becomes a seven tick event and that no matter how careful I am I’m still finding them in my tent, is discouraging.

I dove in to the next section of grass knowing that in a number of miles, I would hit another canal walk. I figured that would be easier.

Even though when I hit the second canal, it wasn’t anywhere as well mowed as the McCluskey canal. It still was easier than pushing through the high grass. But the birds were determined to make my trip a little more challenging. Three times along this route I had my wits scared out of me when grouse took to the sky with a loud burst from just a few feet away. Once a pheasant did the same thing and that even scared me more. And twice when I hit bridges over the canal, the numerous swallows nesting there decided to poop on me. The final bird of the day to do me in was a red tailed hawk who swooped down at me numerous times when I was finally setting up my tent at the end of the day. It reminded me of the hawk who actually hit me on the head when I was hiking the Ice Age Trail. I suspected there was a nest nearby.

There was said to be a designated campsite, and I had been pushing to get to it before realizing the designated area was no different than the side of the canal I had been walking along for miles. I knew that because I could see for at least a mile in front of me and there was nothing different than what I was on. If I had known that I might’ve stopped a little sooner than doing the 17 miles which really had my foot screaming.

But the thing that really clinched the holy shit day for me happened about 5 miles before I camped. I walked down the grassy canal road a number of miles before crossing a larger paved road where someone had left a gallon of water for me. After filling up with water, I laid down on the canal gravel road which widened out where it hit the paved road and gave me a chance to sit in some tick-free gravel. After about 20 minutes, I got up and was making my way down the path when I heard shouting behind me. At first I ignored it. Then it got louder and I heard someone shouting, “hey you, miss, stop.” When I turned around, I was shocked to see two law officers approaching me with their hands on their holsters. Their cars were parked behind them, lights flashing. I was not sure what to expect and began to try to explain about the trail. Before I got very far, one of them asked me, “were you laying down on the road?”

I explained I had been resting on the canal path. It was clear they didn’t know about the trail, and while they said they were doing a wellness check, they still seemed suspicious, telling me there were a bunch of “crazies” out there. I again explained about the North Country Trail and they seemed satisfied to let me go, but not before one stepped into the grass on the side of the trail and said to me, “the next time you stop, sit over here in the grass.” I couldn’t help but inform her that I purposely sat on the gravel to avoid the ticks. I wondered how many she would find crawling up her leg when she got back to her car.

While it was disturbing to see these two law officers with their hands near their guns, in general I never felt endangered. I wondered if I would’ve been treated differently if I was a young, ratty-looking male or a person of color. The next time the canal path crossed a road I made sure not to stop too close to it. I didn’t think they would appreciate getting another call.

By the time I finally stopped for the night, just over 17 miles from where I had started, I was too exhausted to do much more than set my tent up and dive in. I had been carrying 7 pounds of water, pushing through high grass for much of that day and I didn’t have it in me to do a full tick check before getting in my tent, so of course I brought some ticks in with me.

To top off my holy shit day, I realized that at one point, I had rolled up the sleeves of my shirt when walking on the canal, and because I hadn’t exposed any skin to the sun before this, and hadn’t put on any sunscreen, I managed to burn my forearms. And then, while reaching out of the tent to fire up the stove, I managed to burn a hole in the cuff of my shirt.

So while it wasn’t a life-threatening day, a lot of difficult and exhausting things conspired together along with the pain in my foot to leave me wondering what I was doing out here. But I knew that after a night sleep, I would have a different perspective. And I have a saying that says I can never quit on a bad day. If I do decide I’ve had enough of a trail, it has to be when everything is going right. This certainly wasn’t that perfect day and I am by no means ready to quit.

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