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I'm a statistic.

Kate and I went to the Whites to do a little backpacking and we ended up entwined in a series of hilarious misadventures, quite contemplations, and waded in a mountain stream with darting brook trout. Our very steps over the last couple days didn't feel epic, weighty. Little did we know that there was a quilt, a myriad of experiences being sewn about us.

We set off with a bit of a late start, stopping at Nashua's The Bred Chef to pick up a San Francisco Sourdough to provide a starchy compliment to dinner. His shop was small, but the yeasty scent of bread baking was quite impressive.

The trip to the mountains was not without event. I purchased NH State tokens in Bedford, and fed them to the tolls in Concord before seeing a mass of brake lights seemingly inspired by the cop on the side of the road with a radar gun. Unfortunately, it wasn't the only thing on the road to give cause to slow down. The mustang in front of me darted right in front of the gang of 10-15 bikers heading to Laconia, a few weeks late for their festival. I thought little of it, except that the mustang must have a guilty conscience for doing whatever unlawful speed we had maintained past the officer. I blinked only to see another motivation. A broken office chair was sprawled across the I-93. With my split seconds I glanced left to the guardrail, right e to the bikers, and tried to steer as much to the left of this chair as possible. In excess of 65 mph, the seat cushion became sand paper and peeled paint from my front bumper. Thud the front wheels were over it, but it struck back with a vengeance denting the passengers side door and loosening some cable. Thud snap scrape, the rear wheel crushed it, driving it up into the air and towards the middle of the road. It took a bite out of the hubcap before leaving, but was now someone else’s problem. The law enforcement officer, with a clear view of the proceedings stayed with his radar gun. Perhaps he was laughing. Perhaps he was praying that this office chair wouldn't cause a massive accident. Could he have been calling for backup? Certainly, office furniture gets quite ornery after people run it over.

Fortunately, this minor accident left the car with only cosmetic wounds. Unfortunately, it would be a bit more sore when we returned from our hike.

I dislike hiking and backpacking in the summer; especially during the two to three weeks of stifling humidity that starts about this time of the year. The experience of being outdoors is always great, but this heat wave seems to amplify the apparent effort involved in hauling gear and moving one's body. Kate, who is typically cold, even felt the weight of the hot wet air straining her legs as she hiked ever upwards to a moist plateau, down to a valley and up a bank to Rocky Branch Shelter #2. We refilled our water supplies, switched Kate to a day pack and made a move for the summit. There was no success to be had there. Like some graffitist who once visited the shelter, we too were defeated by the untamed weather. To hot, to weary, to slow, we turned around to enjoy a dinner in daylight. My boy scout friends would be ashamed. They would also be surprised to read that we managed to boil water on a backpacking stove in less than an hour. It seemed but 5 minutes. Perhaps sunlight is the crucial, missing component of successful backcountry cooking.

The neighboring stream provided refreshingly cool water to cleans mud caked body, and rejuvenate the weary soul. The bodhisattva brook trout tend well to this oasis, ensuring with a sprite like activity, that it maintained its babbling energies in even the stillest pools.

I don't recall sleeping well in the shelter. I'm aging or wearying to the point of needing a ground pad to sleep on ill angled wood. I did see both Mars and Venus in the gray haze of a night sky, and spent the entire night to see a moose trudge down the path. In our travels we had seen many fresh moose signs - mostly droppings but some tell-tale foot prints. The environment seemed a lot more hospitable to moose than the Tripyramids, where we'd seen a moose on the trail last fall.

Day broke to a clearer, cooler morn, but we decided it would be best to head down to the car - for reasons far different than hindsight would suggest.

As we rounded the bend, expecting to see no worse than a parking ticket chiding me for being to lazy to drive to Pinkham and buy a pass - I expected a self-service booth in the lot - we saw yellowed observers on the ground and the rear drivers side door slightly ajar. Had overzealous bears started pulling Yellowstone tricks? We approached and saw shattered glass - the tell tale sign of a break in.

A pair of hikers about to begin their trek, seemed a bit surprised. "That's not your car is it." It was. They mentioned that a similar thing had happened to them in Miami. I'd seen it in Cleveland, but had really figured that outside of a few freak incidents trail crime was something that occurred in the south.

Apparently, Jackson's first trail-break-in of the season happened to coincide with Kate and my backpacking expedition. The thief, an embarrassing amateur, took the owners manual, Kate’s purse, my sony disc-man 12 cds (but not the separate but adjacent insert page for Live Phish 12), risk/castle risk, and our bags packed to spend a weekend in Maine. In the process of shattering the window in the door to the back seat on the passenger’s side, the thief cut himself on the glass. Apparently he's to dumb to find a rock in the granite state, but fancies himself capable of dominating the world in a game of risk. The thief bled all over the car, soiling some papers, staining some of the upholstery and some of the vinyl siding.

The very pleasant police officer, Jackson’s Chief, took the DNA evidence, dusted for prints and took the bottle of lotion that the their had discarded from Kate's purse. Maybe it would have some prints. Apparently, they tend to solve strings of break ins together, or not at all. I'm a bit amazed that they catch these guys at all. They do some stake-outs and the like. I guess that there isn't much else for the police in Jackson NH (barely a crossroads) to do. I don't veen think that there's a donut shop. Bad joke at the expense of these good people. I was very pleased with the attitude and support the officer provided. I will write him a thank you note. Its about all I can do. Maybe this jerk will be caught and prints or blood typing could link him to my car.

I know one thing. Dear Thief. If I see you with my Winter Tour Phish T-shirt and the most comfortable shorts I owned (with madison springs hut patch) I will tolcock you upside the gulliver. - The Owner of Much of the Stuff You Stole
P.S. - My wallet was also in the car. Right between the drivers seat and the door.

We cleaned out the car in Randolph, where their chief if police (who was working at the gas station we stopped at) mentioned that they hadn’t had a break in in years. Most of Randolph's trailheads are very visible from Rt. 2. The Rocky Branch Parking area only has a little window to NH 16 . It's a low traffic lot of almost exclusively overnighters on a less traveled road. Next time I do Isolation, I'll park at a nearby hotel or Pinkham and take the shuttle.

Kate and I are now in Maine, relaxing, and keeping mild contact with the internet. I've got to look for jobs, somehow.
posted by Ben at 7:49 PM