10 – The Kanc - Travels with Walter

June 8, 2015

10 – The Kanc

I wake up. The woods around us are quiet and still. Blood is streaked on my fingers, down the side of my left cheek, and near the door of the tent next to my right shoulder.

Damn mosquitoes.

We celebrate our last morning in Maine and also the fact that we weren't murdered during the night by cranking into Fryeburg and sitting down to the first proper American diner breakfast of the trip. It's served with too-hot coffee on a series of styrofoam plates and bowls. This is now a proper bike tour.

A few miles down the road we cross into New Hampshire. It's the first time Kristen has pedaled across an entire state before. And I can't help but feel proud of the fact that we just made it all the way across Maine having pulled one wonderful little dog along with us every mile of the way. Knowing that we came so close to packing up and heading home only last week makes reaching the state line feel like one of the greatest things either of us has accomplished in our lives so far. We've proven to ourselves that we can take Walter with us on the road and still have a great time. The possibilities that now lie before us because of that bring us more joy than I can express.

The thing that stood out most to me about Maine were the different lifestyles that all seemed to exist side by side. It's a place of gun racks and hunting and lifted trucks, but they're balanced out by all of the Volvos and Subarus, Obama bumper stickers, and old barns with solar panels attached to their roofs. Both of these classes of things exist in places like Washington or Oregon or California, but always in their own separate orbits. I wish the rest of America was more like Maine in this way. It feels like a step back from the harsh red-versus-blue, city-versus-country attitude that covers so much of this country. It feels healthier and more understanding. I also loved the history of the place. Three-hundred-plus years isn't much compared to Europe or Asia, but coming from the West where there are still towns that haven't yet had their centennial it seems ancient. The old brick buildings, the stone fences, and the colonial influences — that's all stuff I'd never before experienced.

I won't miss the courteous drivers who will respect your safety as a cyclist but at the cost of putting oncoming traffic in constant, grave, immediate danger by charging out into the other lane no matter how busy the road or how blind the corner. I'm also happy to leave behind the outrageous camping prices — although to the campgrounds' credit, the chance at being murdered while you sleep is free.

With rain headed our way we don't hang around at the state line too long. We charge into Conway just as it starts and hole up in the laundromat for the next three hours until the last drops have moved on to Maine. Just about everyone we meet there wants to talk to us about where we've come from and where we're going and what we do when it rains. I can't figure out if that says something about the character of town of Conway or more about the kind people who have the time and need to go to a laundromat on a Monday morning and start conversations with bad-smelling strangers dressed in bright-colored clothes. Throughout all of the talking, the rain, and the commotion of the traffic in the parking lot, Walter curls up in the trailer and spends hours asleep.

We climb away from town to the west on a back road with no center line that weaves its way up through the clouds of steam that rise off the wet pavement. It takes us toward the green mass of the White Mountain National Forest that looms silent and unbroken and imposing beyond. With the Swift River charging down below us to the left, I pedal easy on the shallow grade and find myself over and over again looking down at my front tire and the reflection of Walter's trailer that appears in the broad band of wet across its middle.

It's a rare place of calm and peace, a corridor of life and health and days gone by where the soundtrack comes only from the rush of the river and the smack of rain drops that have ripped themselves free of the trees above and fallen onto the dead leaves that cover the ground in a thick blanket below. I think we'll look back on it after this trip has finished. Despite all of the thousands of miles we will have traveled and all of the beautiful things we will have seen, it will still be one of the most inspiring.

The road dumps us out into the state highway that leads west, up and over Kancamagus Pass. The locals have a habit of calling The Kancamangus (with an extra N) or just The Kanc. At almost 3,000 feet high it's four times taller than anything we've climbed so far. The elevation profile on the Adventure Cycling map makes the thing look like a dagger of earth thrust straight up into the sky. We're intimidated. We plan on grinding out as much as we can today, camping for the night, and then finishing the rest in the morning.

But we also feel happy to be where we are. Walter breathes in the smells of the natural world with his nose pressed flush against the mesh of the trailer's front screen. And with no prompting, Kristen says while she rides, "Jeff, in case you didn't know or you couldn't tell, I'm deliriously happy right now."

Two-second pause.

"Well, I just farted," I say.

We're all in top form.

So are the tourists. There are the families in the rented Dodge sedans who stop at the scenic overlook, pour out of the car, take pictures with their iPads for ninety seconds, then pile back in and charge away in whatever direction they were headed before. There are the families in the rented Dodge minivans who pull off into overlook parking lot, slow down to maybe ten miles per hour, and decide that's good enough before speeding off. And then there's the rented RV from Canada. It speeds up the hill in a furious roar, taps the brakes when it passes the sign for the overlook, and then gasses it again after the people inside take a half-second glance at the view and think, Eh, not worth it, we gotta go take a dump and then get a lobster roll and some chimichangas.

The easy grade of the climb makes me cocky. I think to myself, Oh we've got this, this is easy, we're in such good shape! Then the unending S-curves and false summits that are required of any real mountain pass show up. I spend the next two hours in the small chain rings at three or four miles per hour with sweat pouring off my temples in fast-moving streams and collecting in the slick of bug spray that covers my neck. But neither of us complain. The landscape around is huge and sprawling and somehow the Forest Service has managed not to screw up its beauty. And with so little traffic we're almost alone. There are many points where the only sound I hear besides my own heavy breathing are the gentle calls of the forest's songbirds.

Then we round a corner and see the sign announcing the pass and the downward curve of the road beyond. We did it. And it wasn't all the pain and suffering we thought it would be. It's another proud moment in a day that's starting to fill itself with them.

A frigid wind gusts through the tops of the mountains, but the ambient air temperature in the valley below is mild. The leads blasts of cool and warm to wash over us in competing waves unlike anything I've ever before experienced as we charge down a nine and a half percent grade past warning signs that read Moose crossing next 4 miles. We don't turn the pedals for more than six miles until at last we head off the highway and into a near-empty Forest Service campground.

Walter burrows into the sleeping bag as soon as we unpack it. Kristen and I both climb in as soon as teeth are brushed and food is packed away in scent-proof bags in a comical attempt to ward off bears. With the weight of three serious days of climbing bearing down on us we're out in just minutes.

Today's ride: 44 miles (71 km)
Total: 318 miles (512 km)

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