The trail goes right through a zoo at Bear Mountain. I'm not kidding. You walk through the gate and past the animal pens with a pack on, next to families with strollers. Saw a black bear in an enclosure, the first bear on this whole trip that couldn't walk away from me. Then over the Hudson River on the big bridge. New York has delis close to the trail and I have been to every one. — S.

Connecticut goes by fast. It's only about fifty miles of trail. Walked along the Housatonic River for a while, which was flat and shady and the nicest walking since Shenandoah. It's still hot and still dry, and half the springs in the guidebook are dry here too. Tomorrow I go into Massachusetts. Biscuit is back on the trail, a few days behind me now. She left a note for me in a shelter register that just said "SLOWPOKE: STILL FASTER THAN YOU. B." Two Socks I haven't seen since New Jersey but I keep seeing his name in the registers, so he's still out here. (He asked me to tell Paul at the store he's sorry about missing the whole summer rush. Paul says he figured.)

Dear Anita,

Massachusetts. I keep writing the names of the states at the top of these letters and not believing them. The trail goes right down the main streets of some of the towns here, past the houses and the churches, and people sitting on their porches wave and ask how far you've come. When you say "Georgia" they don't believe you either.

Tomorrow I go over Mount Greylock, the highest point in Massachusetts. You can see it from here, with a tall stone tower on the top that they say has a light in it at night. After that it's Vermont.

I've been thinking a lot about what I'm going to do when I get home. I don't know yet. I know I don't want to go back to doing exactly what I did before. Not because it was bad but because I didn't think about it. Out here I've had five months to think about everything. Don't tell Mom, she'll worry I'm going to become a hippie.

Love, S.

Vermont is mud. Even in a drought, somehow, there's mud. The trail here is the same as the Long Trail for about a hundred miles, the trail that goes the whole length of Vermont, and then near Killington it splits off and the Long Trail goes north to Canada and we go east toward New Hampshire. The Green Mountains are steeper than I thought. Something wonderful happened Tuesday. I came down to a road crossing in the rain, wet and grumpy, and there was an older couple sitting in lawn chairs by their pickup with a sign that said HIKERS WELCOME. They were Roy and Barbara Yarborough, and they took me and two other hikers home, washed all our clothes, fed us pot roast, and let us sleep in their barn loft, which was the driest I've been in a week. In the morning she made pancakes and he drove us back to the exact spot. They've been doing it for years. They wouldn't take any money. They said just to pass it on someday.

Walked across the bridge over the Connecticut River into New Hampshire and then right through Dartmouth College. Lots of students looking at me like I'm a wild man, which is fair. Only two states left. The White Mountains are next and everybody says they're the hardest part of the whole trail. Wish me luck. — S.

They were right. The Whites are the hardest thing I have ever done. Mount Moosilauke was the first time the trail went above treeline, and then Franconia Ridge, and then the Presidentials, miles and miles of walking on bare rock up in the clouds with little stone piles to show you the way. Some days I only made eight or nine miles and was beat. The Appalachian Mountain Club has huts up there where people pay to stay, and if you're a thru-hiker and you get there late, sometimes they let you work for your stay. I swept the floors and washed a mountain of dishes, and in return I got leftovers and slept on the dining room floor under the tables. Best meal in weeks. Went over Mount Washington on Monday, which they say has some of the worst weather in the world, but I got lucky and it was clear and you could see forever. At the top there's a road and a train, and a parking lot full of people in shorts who drove up, and I felt like a caveman. (He's about 1,880 miles in. Three hundred to go, more or less. — A.)

Dear everybody,

MAINE. The last state. There's a sign on the line between New Hampshire and Maine and I sat down next to it and couldn't get up for a while, not because I was tired but because I was having a moment, as Anita would say.

Right after the line comes Mahoosuc Notch, which they call the hardest mile on the trail. It's a deep slot between two mountains filled up with boulders the size of cars and houses, all jumbled together, and you climb over them and under them and squeeze between them, and sometimes you have to take your pack off and shove it through a gap ahead of you. It took me over two hours to go one mile. Down in the caves between the rocks there was still ice, in the summer. I'm not making that up.

Maine is beautiful and rough. Lakes everywhere and the trees are all pines and birches. I hear loons at night. That's a sound I never heard before and I'll never forget it.

Love, Shane

Last town. Tomorrow I start the 100-Mile Wilderness, which is a hundred miles of woods with no towns and almost no roads, and then Katahdin is at the end of it. I'm carrying seven days of food so my pack is the heaviest it's been since Georgia. A couple of days ago I crossed the Kennebec River, which is too big and too dangerous to wade because they let water out of a dam upstream, so there's a man with a canoe who paddles you across, one at a time, and you have to help paddle. Saw my first moose standing in a pond eating, with water running off its face. It's huge. It looked at me like I was nothing. Biscuit caught up! We're going to walk the Wilderness together and climb Katahdin together. Next time I call, I'll be done. (I can't believe I'm typing that. — A.)

HE DID IT!!! He called last night from Millinocket at 9:30 and the first thing he said was "I'm standing on the end of it." He climbed Katahdin yesterday, Saturday, September 18, 1999, six months and five days after he started at Springer. Dad got on the other phone and didn't say anything for a minute and then said "well" one more time, and I think that was the best "well" of all. Mom cried, of course. He's riding a bus home this week. He wants to write the last part himself, so it's on the front page. I'm so proud of my little brother I could pop. — Anita