Tuesday July 24th I woke up in the Royalty Inn in Gorham, NH after just completing the last stretch of the White Mountains the day before with Pizza, Overdrive, and Quesadilla. My other hiking partners Coors, Strider, and Bird were also in Gorham at a hotel down the street and planning on returning to the trail that morning. The hope was that we could make it about 17 miles to the Maine border and find some place to camp.
I took our clothes to wash at the laundromat down the street and got breakfast at Dunkin Donuts with Quesadilla while we waited. The clothes definitely did not smell clean when they were done, they actually almost smelled worse than before. But they were dry, so I guess it was better than nothing. I walked to the Hardware Store/Outfitter down the street to find some new hiking shoes - I had been wearing my pair since Boiling Springs, PA and could tell they were in need of replacement. My knees had been aching for the past week - different than the normal amount of aching. My only option were Merrell Trail Runners - they only had to last me for a couple more weeks, just under 300 miles.
Quesadilla, Overdrive, and Pizza hitched to Walmart to resupply - I was ready to make my way back to the trail but I decided to wait for my friends. I was enjoying hiking with this group of girls. Coors, Strider, and Bird had gotten a hitch back to the trail around 9:30AM. We didn't leave the hotel room until around 10:15. Pizza had a phone call with her school adviser at 1:00 PM so she wouldn't be leaving town until after that. Overdrive, Quesadilla and I walked to Subway for lunch, ate half of our sandwiches, and packed out the rest for dinner. We stood on the side of US 2 with our thumbs out for awhile - didn't have much luck getting a hitch until we saw a car do a u-turn and pull up beside us. I didn't recognize him at first until he said "you look a lot better from the last time I saw you!". It was Wizard, the caretaker from Liberty Springs Campsite - I had met him my first night in the Whites after my miserable day of stomach cramps. He gave us a ride a couple miles down the road and we were back on the trail by 11:15 - with the late start we were thinking about adjusting our plans to go only as far as the next shelter.
The trail followed the road for about half a mile and crossed the Adroscoggin River. The climb after was about three miles - I was definitely feeling sluggish from the previous day. There were open rock slabs at the top with wild blueberries - we all took a break to pick a few. It was cloudy and we were expecting rain for the next couple of days - thankfully it held off for most of the day. It was before 1:00PM and the Maine border was only 12.5 miles away - we thought we might still be able to make it that day. We passed lots of ponds, piles and piles of moose droppings, and lots of bog bridges and mud puddles.
We moved slow that afternoon and after awhile we noticed that the hours were going by faster than the miles. The three of us took a break at the 1,900 mile mark. By 4:45 we still had 6.9 miles to make it to the border. When we finally made it to the side trail to Gentian Pond Shelter (AT mile 1904.4) after 11.8 miles we were pretty worn out and decided to call it a day. It was before 6:00PM but thought it would be better to get a good night's sleep, wake up early, and try to get more miles done the next day - the "hardest mile on the AT" was only about 10 miles ahead. The shelter and surrounding tenting sites were mostly taken up by a large camp group so we ended up tenting on rather uneven and root covered ground. We ate our leftover Subway sandwiches and retreated to our tents when it started raining around 7:15. I received a text from Coors, Strider, and Bird who made it past the border and were camping about 10 miles ahead, and Pizza wasn't able to get back on trail until around 3PM and was camping around the 1,900 mile. I was optimistic that everyone would be able to reunite in the upcoming days.
The rain didn't last all night and I woke up on Wednesday July 25th to an almost dry tent. I got moving around 5:30AM, hoping to make it almost 20 miles to Grafton Notch. I was making very slow progress and took awhile to get up Mt. Success, the last peak in New Hampshire. I was planning on waiting for Overdrive and Quesadilla at the top so we could cross into Maine together, but it was chilly and windy so I continued down the trail. I made the mistake of not putting my rain over on my pack - it wasn't raining but it was very misty and the drips from the trees and bushes soaked my pack. Everything was supposedly in a waterproof dry sack but I was worried about everything being dry at the end of the day.
At the Maine border I took a snack break to wait for the others - they arrived around 9:00. Quesadilla is from Maine and was especially excited to get back into her home state. We were all moving very slowly today, the terrain was difficult - lots of abrupt climbs and descents with roots and rocks and boggy areas that you could fall in to as deep as your waist if you weren't careful. All of the bog bridges and wooden ladders were slippery and it took awhile to maneuver through the stretches without sliding all over. We decided to reconvene at the Full Goose Shelter 4.9 miles further. I got there at around 12:45 and soon Lost Boy, Rampaige, Donut, Zebra, Thunder, Quesadilla, and Overdrive were all there taking a break before going through the Mahoosuc Notch - the Notch, a one mile stretch with car-sized boulders that force you to climb over, under, through...it's not uncommon to take hikers over an hour and a half to get through. It can be fun but I wasn't looking forward to going through it with the storm clouds that were coming in.
Grafton Notch was still 9.6 miles away and it was about 2:00PM. It didn't look like we would be making it there that day. As I entered the Notch I almost thought the sun was going to come out. But instead, once I was halfway through, it started pouring. The rain slowed me down even more and I had to be extra careful, sitting and scooting a lot - ended up scraping the skin off the back of my legs. There were deep crevasses that still had ice/snow at the bottom, and cool air was coming up between the rocks. It took me about an hour and 45 minutes to negotiate the one mile through the Mahoosuc Notch. Thunder started as I started up the Mahoosuc Arm - which was a climb with more large slippery boulders. I was tired and frustrated and the storm wasn't helping.
I got to Speck Pond Shelter (AT mile 1919.1) at around 6:30PM completely soaked, exhausted, and feeling defeated. It had taken me all day to go 14.7 miles. The shelter was completely packed. I found the caretaker (this was the last shelter with a caretaker/fee in the area) who said there were only tent platforms, no flat ground to pitch a tent. My tent was not free standing which means it is rather difficult to pitch it on a platform, and with the wind it was impossible. I tried for awhile to get it upright, but the wind kept blowing it sideways. I shoved my sopping wet tent back into my pack and went to find the caretaker for other ideas. It was approaching 7:30PM and there weren't many other tenting options without climbing up and over Speck Mountain. I was very thankful when the hikers in the shelter made room for me - I squeezed in the corner, tried to keep my soaking wet gear from getting other people wet, and passed out by 8:00 without eating dinner. I was hoping to see Quesadilla and Over Drive at the shelter that night, but there was no sign of them or any of the others I had seen at Full Goose Shelter before the Notch.
It was pouring at 4:30AM on Thursday July 26th when my alarm went off. I kept hoping for the weather to improve - I finally got up at 6, the rain had slowed but everything was still soaked. Several of the weekend hikers who hadn't moved from their warm, dry sleeping bags watched me put on my wet clothes, socks, and shoes and pack everything into my dripping wet pack and start up the train towards Speck Mountain. There were only 4.6 miles to Grafton Notch - it took me 2.5 hours to get there! Neither the climb nor the descent were very hard so I just didn't understand why I was moving so slow. I hadn't seen Quesadilla or Overdrive since the snack break at Full Goose Shelter the day before, I had no idea how far they had made it. I figured by now Coors, Strider, and Bird were at least a day ahead of me and Pizza was probably half a day behind still. There was no cell service so I could not get in touch with anyone. It was 9:00AM and I had lost all motivated to hike more that day. I had stopped at a stream to collect water, it was moving quickly from all of the recent rain. I put my bottle in the stream and it was swept from my hand and carried down stream. I sat there, motionless and emotionless. I almost started laughing, as if Maine was playing a cruel joke on me. I still had the filter, but it was useless without the bottle. Thankfully I had my old bottle, gross and discolored from the rusty pipes in New York. But it would have to do - it was my only method of getting clean water at this point.
A steady rain was coming down when I got to the parking lot at Grafton Notch. I sat under a small trail sign overhang, waiting for something to happen. I didn't want to go back in to town, I knew that would only put me further behind. And I knew that it was supposed to rain all day (and probably the next) so there was no point in waiting for the sun to come out. I just sat there.
There was a trail log next to me at the trail sign and I saw that Coors had signed in the previous day at 4:00PM and he noted that he would be camping at the shelter only 2.5 miles further up the trail. I was encouraged thinking that I might actually catch up to my friends that day if I hurried. I started hiking again at 10AM, the rain had slowed to a drizzle. As I started the climb up Baldpate Mountain I ran into a woman hiking south who had previously thru hiked the trail. I think she could see the misery in my face and gave me words of encouragement, which helped a lot. A short time later I passed three SOBOs who had camped at the next shelter with Coors, Strider, and Bird the previous night and were asked to give me a message that they would be going into Andover that day. It was pretty easy to recognize me - all they had to tell them was to look for a hiker in a green dress. After hearing that they weren't that far ahead I was encouraged and motivated to get moving.
The top of Baldpate Mountain was beautiful - the rain had paused and the clouds lifted just enough for a few views from the top. The top of the mountain was a bald (as expected) with slanted rock slabs to the summit. After the initial descent down the mountain the trail got much easier. I took a short snack break at Frye Notch Lean-to (shelters in Maine are called lean-tos) and made quick work of the next 5 miles to the road where there were regularly scheduled shuttles into Andover. I had more than enough food and decided to skip the trip into town and push on to Hall Mountain Lean-to (AT mile 1940) and wait for Bird, Coors, and Strider to arrive. The last six miles were mostly flat but slow - there were basically lakes on the trail and rivers of water flowing down. I got to the shelter at 6:30AM after 20.9 miles and much to my surprise found Grim! I had not seen Grim since Atkins, VA - he is from England and was planning on hiking only until his visa expired on July 3rd. But he had changed plans, returned home to pick up his son, and they were now hiking south from Katahdin. The trail is funny - you never know who you'll run into when you least expect it.
The rain stopped and I even saw some blue sky. The trip into Andover took longer than Coors, Strider, and Bird had expected so they didn't make it to the shelter that night - so now I was ahead of them. I had received a text from Pizza - it turned out that her injury from her fall on Mt Moriah was more serious that she thought and was now in the hospital getting treatment for a bruised liver. I had been hoping that she would catch up to us and finish her thru hike in time to make it to school on August 12th, but it looked like her thru hike was over, for now. She's tough, and I know she will find a way to finish her hike.
I met another thru hiker named Bean who was hoping to summit Katahdin on the same day as us so I expected to see him through the next couple weeks. There were two other SOBOs in the lean-to, each warning me of how hard the trail was about to get with rocks and roots and tough climbs. I didn't want to believe it would be any more difficult that what I had been hiking through the past couple of days.
I didn't sleep well that night - maybe I was excited for a sunny day, it had been raining the past five days. I was up at 5AM and out by 5:30. I was expecting another slow day. The trail descended about a mile and a half to Sawyer Notch where I took off my shoes to ford Sawyer Brook - they were starting to dry and I was hoping to keep my feet from spending another full day soggy. Bean caught up with me on the other side of the brook - he was motivated to get up and over Bemis Mountain because we had heard rumors of trail magic on the road crossing on the other side.
But first - Moody Mountain. It climbed about 1,400' in 0.8 mile - it was steep but with fewer rock piles to climb. There was no break before climbing up Old Blue Mountain. I ran into a lot of hikers slack packing between South Arm and East B Hill Roads (about 10 miles) - the two access points into Andover where there is a hostel that will help you slack pack. There were tons of wild blueberries on the summits - I stopped to pick some until I started hearing thunder around 2:00PM. I worked quickly to the Bemis Mountain Lean-to just in time to avoid the downpour and found Bean there. A couple hikers came in shortly after, but weren't able to avoid getting soaked. It stormed hard with lightning and thunder but by 3:00 it had passed. A hiker in the lean-to said that more storms were coming - Bean and I decided to hustle the 4.4 miles down the the road where we found the trail magic that we had been hearing about. A local couple came out there almost everyday to serve hamburgers, hot dogs, snacks, pie, and drinks to thru hikers. While I was sitting there Strider, Coors, and Bird all popped out of the woods.
We all sat enjoying a snack and catching up - it had been over a week since I had seen them. We were all heading to Sabbath Day Pond Lean-to (AT mile 1961.1, a 21.1 mile day for me). The last five miles took awhile - lots of roots and mud and another stream to ford. There was a beautiful view of Rangeley Lakes from ME 17. Bird passed me on the way to the shelter - I asked him if he could try to save me a spot in the shelter if there was any room left since my tent had been a sopping wet mess for several days. He told me he would, his tent was mostly dry and didn't mind sleeping in it that night. But when I got there I found that there had been one spot in the lean-to left and he decided to take it for himself. Maybe getting mad about it was petty and stupid, but I was pissed. I couldn't believe that even though he told me he would to my face, he wasn't going to do me this favor. I had been doing him favors for hundreds of miles - when he passed the Garden Center in New York I packed out of soda for him, when he missed the turn off to Salisbury I brought him fresh fruit, when he didn't want to miss any of the soccer game I bought him a sandwich from the corner store. I had treated him like a little brother. And on top of that, the three of them (Coors, Strider, and Bird) had decided over the past few days that they were ready to be done hiking and would now be finishing the trail as soon as possible, instead of working towards August 9th like we had been since Pennsylvania. I camped away from everyone that night. It rained on an off that night and pretty much everything I owned was now wet. What I didn't find out until days later was that there were actually two spaces in the shelter but some SOBOs were saving them for their friends, one of which arrived a little after 9 and decided to tent instead, and the other never showed up.
Saturday July 28th I woke up a little after 4:30AM to loons on Sabbath Day Pond and a moose stomping next to my tent! I was wet and tired, I tried to keep my sleeping quilt on my sleeping pad to keep it from getting wet, but my sleeping pad kept deflating throughout the night. I smelled, my tent smelled - it was still raining but I decided since I couldn't get any wetter (and certainly wasn't going to dry any time soon) I'd pack up and get moving.
The plan that day was to hike about 10 miles to ME 4 and hitch into Rangeley to resupply and then hike another 10 miles over Saddleback, making it a 20.1 mile day. I left without saying a word to anybody. Most of the miles were flat and paralleled the pond, but with lots of roots, rocks, and bog bridges. My shoes were already soaked so there was no reason to avoid puddles, but I still had to be careful that the deep mud pits didn't suction my shoes off. I made it to the road by 9AM - it took me about 15 minutes to get a hitch into town. A woman who was in the area to guest bar tend for the night picked me up. There was a Creedence Clearwater Revisited concert in town that night as part of an annual event that brings in some well-known names.
I got dropped off in front of the IGA Grocery store around 10AM. I bought way too much food and sat at a picnic table next to the store to get organized, charge my devices, dry off (the sun had finally come out), and get motivated. I was again feeling defeated - I was tired of being wet, and just when I found my friends it looked like they would be leaving me again. I called my dad and had a tearful conversation. My parents were in Maine, only a couple of hours away - it would have been so easy for me to ask them to come get me. But I knew I wasn't going to quit, and I knew they wouldn't have let me. My friend Michael from work called me shortly after - I tried to sound happier - he offered to come meet me but I knew I should pull it together and get back on trail. Strangers stopped by where I was sitting, obviously used to thru hikers in town, and offered me words of encouragement - I was far enough north that people had started congratulating me on my thru hike. I had made it to Maine, but I still had a ways to go, I didn't feel like I was ready for congratulations just yet.
I decided to text the guys, even though I was still a little upset. They were still making their way to town. It was already noon and I decided not to wait for them any longer. I knew Bean was coming into town that day also, but was planning on staying the night. I started asking people around the parking lot if they were heading in the direction of the trail - no luck for about 30 minutes. Then a man who was in town to attend the concert started asking me about my trip and told him I was looking for a ride back to the trail. He said he could take me, but first had to stop at the rental house to drop off his ice/groceries. At the house there was a group of his friends - they get together this time each year to see the concert in town. They were all excited to hear about my hike, how many bears I've seen, how many miles I hike in a day, etc. They offered to let me stay, charge my phone, have a shower, eat lobster, drink beer, sleep in a bed. This was trail magic squared. And I declined. If it was at any other point during my hike I would have stayed, and probably would have been there for the next two days. But my desire to finish the hike was greater than my desire to stay. I wanted to take advantage of the good weather, so he drove me back to the trail and I started north again around 1PM.
The sun was still out but I could see clouds on the horizon. The climb up Saddleback was not difficult until above treeline where the trail climbed up steep rock slabs. There were blueberries everywhere. I could see the summits to Saddleback, the Horn, and Saddleback junior ahead of me. At the summit of Saddleback I met a group of teenage girls from a summer camp - they were out on trail for 45 days hiking from Katahdin to Gorham (the north end of the White Mountains), they never leave the trail, never go in towns, every week a van meets them at a road crossing to give them supplies, they never do laundry or shower, they just swim a lot. Wow - these girls were more hardcore than most thru hikers I've met!
I continued down the trail above treeline to the Horn and then to Saddleback Junior - thunder was starting so I hurried back down into the trees and made it to Poplar Ridge Lean-to (AT mile 1981.2) after 20.1 miles and got a spot in the shelter. In the shelter there were the same number of NOBOs and SOBOs - we spent the evening talking about our trail experiences. Around bedtime (8:30PM) the sky opened up like I had never seen - buckets of rain, lightning, thunder, and even hail for about 10 minutes. I felt bad for the campers in the area sleeping in their tents, there was no way they were staying dry. I also wondered where Bird, Strider, and Coors had made it to that night. I had no cell phone service so I didn't even know if they made it out of Rangeley that day.
Even though I was in the shelter most of my gear was still wet. Some of the SOBOs were talking about a hostel they stayed at two nights before - it was 21 miles away. I decided I could use a night indoors to get clean and dry and made it my goal destination for Sunday July 29th. I was on trail the next morning by 5:30AM and made pretty good time to Spaulding Mountain Lean-to, 8 miles away, by 9:00 AM. I kept checking my phone to see if I had service so I could call the hostel and reserve a room, but no luck. I skipped the side trail to Spaulding Mountain summit. I skipped the side trail to Mt Abraham. I skipped the side trail to Sugarloaf Mountain. The descent from Sugarloaf was slow, it looked like a rock slide. Halfway down I finally got cell phone service and called the Hostel of Maine in Carabassett Valley to reserve a room. It was noon and the shuttle picked up from the ME 27 at 4:30. I had over 9 miles to go, still had to make it up and over South and North Crocker Mountains, and was worried about making it in time - the miles were still slow and the descents were painful on my knees.
It was time to hurry up. There were two streams to ford, both up to my knees. My shoes were wet all day so there was no point in taking them off. I kept a good pace going up South Crocker, the trail flattened out between the peak to North Crocker. I got to the summit of North Crocker before 2PM and knew I was going to make it to the road in time - it was only 5.3 miles ahead and the descent had no steep, rocky sections. On the way down I passed the 2,000 mile mark. It was an incredible feeling, but at the same time I felt so lonely. I had started the trail alone, it looked like I would be finishing it alone as well.
I had rushed all afternoon and made it to the parking lot at ME 27 (AT mile 2002.7) with 30 minutes to spare. I sat eating almost everything left in my food bag until my ride to the hostel arrived. Just as I was getting into the car I heard someone say "Early Bird!" from the trail head. It was Bird. I told him I was taking the shuttle to the hostel in town. He nodded his head, crossed the street, and walked back into the woods. That was the last time I saw him.
Quesadilla, Overdrive, and Pizza hitched to Walmart to resupply - I was ready to make my way back to the trail but I decided to wait for my friends. I was enjoying hiking with this group of girls. Coors, Strider, and Bird had gotten a hitch back to the trail around 9:30AM. We didn't leave the hotel room until around 10:15. Pizza had a phone call with her school adviser at 1:00 PM so she wouldn't be leaving town until after that. Overdrive, Quesadilla and I walked to Subway for lunch, ate half of our sandwiches, and packed out the rest for dinner. We stood on the side of US 2 with our thumbs out for awhile - didn't have much luck getting a hitch until we saw a car do a u-turn and pull up beside us. I didn't recognize him at first until he said "you look a lot better from the last time I saw you!". It was Wizard, the caretaker from Liberty Springs Campsite - I had met him my first night in the Whites after my miserable day of stomach cramps. He gave us a ride a couple miles down the road and we were back on the trail by 11:15 - with the late start we were thinking about adjusting our plans to go only as far as the next shelter.
We moved slow that afternoon and after awhile we noticed that the hours were going by faster than the miles. The three of us took a break at the 1,900 mile mark. By 4:45 we still had 6.9 miles to make it to the border. When we finally made it to the side trail to Gentian Pond Shelter (AT mile 1904.4) after 11.8 miles we were pretty worn out and decided to call it a day. It was before 6:00PM but thought it would be better to get a good night's sleep, wake up early, and try to get more miles done the next day - the "hardest mile on the AT" was only about 10 miles ahead. The shelter and surrounding tenting sites were mostly taken up by a large camp group so we ended up tenting on rather uneven and root covered ground. We ate our leftover Subway sandwiches and retreated to our tents when it started raining around 7:15. I received a text from Coors, Strider, and Bird who made it past the border and were camping about 10 miles ahead, and Pizza wasn't able to get back on trail until around 3PM and was camping around the 1,900 mile. I was optimistic that everyone would be able to reunite in the upcoming days.
At the Maine border I took a snack break to wait for the others - they arrived around 9:00. Quesadilla is from Maine and was especially excited to get back into her home state. We were all moving very slowly today, the terrain was difficult - lots of abrupt climbs and descents with roots and rocks and boggy areas that you could fall in to as deep as your waist if you weren't careful. All of the bog bridges and wooden ladders were slippery and it took awhile to maneuver through the stretches without sliding all over. We decided to reconvene at the Full Goose Shelter 4.9 miles further. I got there at around 12:45 and soon Lost Boy, Rampaige, Donut, Zebra, Thunder, Quesadilla, and Overdrive were all there taking a break before going through the Mahoosuc Notch - the Notch, a one mile stretch with car-sized boulders that force you to climb over, under, through...it's not uncommon to take hikers over an hour and a half to get through. It can be fun but I wasn't looking forward to going through it with the storm clouds that were coming in.
Grafton Notch was still 9.6 miles away and it was about 2:00PM. It didn't look like we would be making it there that day. As I entered the Notch I almost thought the sun was going to come out. But instead, once I was halfway through, it started pouring. The rain slowed me down even more and I had to be extra careful, sitting and scooting a lot - ended up scraping the skin off the back of my legs. There were deep crevasses that still had ice/snow at the bottom, and cool air was coming up between the rocks. It took me about an hour and 45 minutes to negotiate the one mile through the Mahoosuc Notch. Thunder started as I started up the Mahoosuc Arm - which was a climb with more large slippery boulders. I was tired and frustrated and the storm wasn't helping.
I got to Speck Pond Shelter (AT mile 1919.1) at around 6:30PM completely soaked, exhausted, and feeling defeated. It had taken me all day to go 14.7 miles. The shelter was completely packed. I found the caretaker (this was the last shelter with a caretaker/fee in the area) who said there were only tent platforms, no flat ground to pitch a tent. My tent was not free standing which means it is rather difficult to pitch it on a platform, and with the wind it was impossible. I tried for awhile to get it upright, but the wind kept blowing it sideways. I shoved my sopping wet tent back into my pack and went to find the caretaker for other ideas. It was approaching 7:30PM and there weren't many other tenting options without climbing up and over Speck Mountain. I was very thankful when the hikers in the shelter made room for me - I squeezed in the corner, tried to keep my soaking wet gear from getting other people wet, and passed out by 8:00 without eating dinner. I was hoping to see Quesadilla and Over Drive at the shelter that night, but there was no sign of them or any of the others I had seen at Full Goose Shelter before the Notch.It was pouring at 4:30AM on Thursday July 26th when my alarm went off. I kept hoping for the weather to improve - I finally got up at 6, the rain had slowed but everything was still soaked. Several of the weekend hikers who hadn't moved from their warm, dry sleeping bags watched me put on my wet clothes, socks, and shoes and pack everything into my dripping wet pack and start up the train towards Speck Mountain. There were only 4.6 miles to Grafton Notch - it took me 2.5 hours to get there! Neither the climb nor the descent were very hard so I just didn't understand why I was moving so slow. I hadn't seen Quesadilla or Overdrive since the snack break at Full Goose Shelter the day before, I had no idea how far they had made it. I figured by now Coors, Strider, and Bird were at least a day ahead of me and Pizza was probably half a day behind still. There was no cell service so I could not get in touch with anyone. It was 9:00AM and I had lost all motivated to hike more that day. I had stopped at a stream to collect water, it was moving quickly from all of the recent rain. I put my bottle in the stream and it was swept from my hand and carried down stream. I sat there, motionless and emotionless. I almost started laughing, as if Maine was playing a cruel joke on me. I still had the filter, but it was useless without the bottle. Thankfully I had my old bottle, gross and discolored from the rusty pipes in New York. But it would have to do - it was my only method of getting clean water at this point.
A steady rain was coming down when I got to the parking lot at Grafton Notch. I sat under a small trail sign overhang, waiting for something to happen. I didn't want to go back in to town, I knew that would only put me further behind. And I knew that it was supposed to rain all day (and probably the next) so there was no point in waiting for the sun to come out. I just sat there.
There was a trail log next to me at the trail sign and I saw that Coors had signed in the previous day at 4:00PM and he noted that he would be camping at the shelter only 2.5 miles further up the trail. I was encouraged thinking that I might actually catch up to my friends that day if I hurried. I started hiking again at 10AM, the rain had slowed to a drizzle. As I started the climb up Baldpate Mountain I ran into a woman hiking south who had previously thru hiked the trail. I think she could see the misery in my face and gave me words of encouragement, which helped a lot. A short time later I passed three SOBOs who had camped at the next shelter with Coors, Strider, and Bird the previous night and were asked to give me a message that they would be going into Andover that day. It was pretty easy to recognize me - all they had to tell them was to look for a hiker in a green dress. After hearing that they weren't that far ahead I was encouraged and motivated to get moving.
The top of Baldpate Mountain was beautiful - the rain had paused and the clouds lifted just enough for a few views from the top. The top of the mountain was a bald (as expected) with slanted rock slabs to the summit. After the initial descent down the mountain the trail got much easier. I took a short snack break at Frye Notch Lean-to (shelters in Maine are called lean-tos) and made quick work of the next 5 miles to the road where there were regularly scheduled shuttles into Andover. I had more than enough food and decided to skip the trip into town and push on to Hall Mountain Lean-to (AT mile 1940) and wait for Bird, Coors, and Strider to arrive. The last six miles were mostly flat but slow - there were basically lakes on the trail and rivers of water flowing down. I got to the shelter at 6:30AM after 20.9 miles and much to my surprise found Grim! I had not seen Grim since Atkins, VA - he is from England and was planning on hiking only until his visa expired on July 3rd. But he had changed plans, returned home to pick up his son, and they were now hiking south from Katahdin. The trail is funny - you never know who you'll run into when you least expect it.
I met another thru hiker named Bean who was hoping to summit Katahdin on the same day as us so I expected to see him through the next couple weeks. There were two other SOBOs in the lean-to, each warning me of how hard the trail was about to get with rocks and roots and tough climbs. I didn't want to believe it would be any more difficult that what I had been hiking through the past couple of days.
I didn't sleep well that night - maybe I was excited for a sunny day, it had been raining the past five days. I was up at 5AM and out by 5:30. I was expecting another slow day. The trail descended about a mile and a half to Sawyer Notch where I took off my shoes to ford Sawyer Brook - they were starting to dry and I was hoping to keep my feet from spending another full day soggy. Bean caught up with me on the other side of the brook - he was motivated to get up and over Bemis Mountain because we had heard rumors of trail magic on the road crossing on the other side.
Saturday July 28th I woke up a little after 4:30AM to loons on Sabbath Day Pond and a moose stomping next to my tent! I was wet and tired, I tried to keep my sleeping quilt on my sleeping pad to keep it from getting wet, but my sleeping pad kept deflating throughout the night. I smelled, my tent smelled - it was still raining but I decided since I couldn't get any wetter (and certainly wasn't going to dry any time soon) I'd pack up and get moving.
The plan that day was to hike about 10 miles to ME 4 and hitch into Rangeley to resupply and then hike another 10 miles over Saddleback, making it a 20.1 mile day. I left without saying a word to anybody. Most of the miles were flat and paralleled the pond, but with lots of roots, rocks, and bog bridges. My shoes were already soaked so there was no reason to avoid puddles, but I still had to be careful that the deep mud pits didn't suction my shoes off. I made it to the road by 9AM - it took me about 15 minutes to get a hitch into town. A woman who was in the area to guest bar tend for the night picked me up. There was a Creedence Clearwater Revisited concert in town that night as part of an annual event that brings in some well-known names.
I decided to text the guys, even though I was still a little upset. They were still making their way to town. It was already noon and I decided not to wait for them any longer. I knew Bean was coming into town that day also, but was planning on staying the night. I started asking people around the parking lot if they were heading in the direction of the trail - no luck for about 30 minutes. Then a man who was in town to attend the concert started asking me about my trip and told him I was looking for a ride back to the trail. He said he could take me, but first had to stop at the rental house to drop off his ice/groceries. At the house there was a group of his friends - they get together this time each year to see the concert in town. They were all excited to hear about my hike, how many bears I've seen, how many miles I hike in a day, etc. They offered to let me stay, charge my phone, have a shower, eat lobster, drink beer, sleep in a bed. This was trail magic squared. And I declined. If it was at any other point during my hike I would have stayed, and probably would have been there for the next two days. But my desire to finish the hike was greater than my desire to stay. I wanted to take advantage of the good weather, so he drove me back to the trail and I started north again around 1PM.
I continued down the trail above treeline to the Horn and then to Saddleback Junior - thunder was starting so I hurried back down into the trees and made it to Poplar Ridge Lean-to (AT mile 1981.2) after 20.1 miles and got a spot in the shelter. In the shelter there were the same number of NOBOs and SOBOs - we spent the evening talking about our trail experiences. Around bedtime (8:30PM) the sky opened up like I had never seen - buckets of rain, lightning, thunder, and even hail for about 10 minutes. I felt bad for the campers in the area sleeping in their tents, there was no way they were staying dry. I also wondered where Bird, Strider, and Coors had made it to that night. I had no cell phone service so I didn't even know if they made it out of Rangeley that day.
I had rushed all afternoon and made it to the parking lot at ME 27 (AT mile 2002.7) with 30 minutes to spare. I sat eating almost everything left in my food bag until my ride to the hostel arrived. Just as I was getting into the car I heard someone say "Early Bird!" from the trail head. It was Bird. I told him I was taking the shuttle to the hostel in town. He nodded his head, crossed the street, and walked back into the woods. That was the last time I saw him.
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