Day 155: Of Mice and Tribulations

August 9: I didn't sleep particularly well during the night because of rampaging mice. All shelters have mice, but the mice in this shelter were particularly bold and rampant! I usually hang my food on devices hanging in most shelters--a small length of rope with an upside-down can that supposed to thwart the mice, and I did that tonight as per usual. To date, no mouse has ever gotten into my food through the use of these simple devices--and that's still true. The mice failed to get into my food bag.

Wonderful views from the Barren Slide.

However, I had accidentally forgot to include a small bag of Wheat Thins and a Ziplock full of trash in my food bag. They were left at ground level, not far from my head. And the mice had a field day! I heard them scurrying around near my head and suddenly remembered the trash bag that I had overlooked. I whipped on my headlamp and the mouse merely turned his head to look at me. The fact that I could clearly see him was of no bother, and he proceeded digging into my trash. I grabbed one of my shoes and..., well, I guess you could say that I shoed him off. =)

I didn't even do a good job of that. The mouse scampered off to the edge of the shelter, beyond my reach. Then turned around and watched me. Waiting. "You're lucky I don't have a mouse trap," I told him.

Which is when I also realized that I had mistakenly left my Wheat Thins out of my hanging food bag as well. A good size hole was in both bags, and I got new Ziplocks to replace the contents. Stupid mice. Then I hung up the food and trash with the rest of my food and tried to go back to sleep, but I could hear the mice searching the shelter for anything else that they could get into. I kept a shoe nearby so I could attempt to hit them with it, like a batter aiming for the perfect pitch to whack the annoying creatures out of the shelter, but they were too fast. It was like playing whack-a-mole, and I was loosing badly.

LEAVE ME ALONE!

So to say I didn't sleep well was an understatement. Eventually, after searching all of the gear that was laying around and finding nothing else that was edible, they called it a night and went home.

The trail was bad.... so very bad....

The day was, generally speaking, absolutely beautiful. Great visibility, pleasant temperatures, and no bugs to speak of. The trail was bloody awful, however.

The steepness, scrambling up and down steep rocks, horrid mud pots. It wore me down and slowed me down, and the whole time I was thinking, how do I not remember any of this?!

And it's true. I have fond memories of my previous time through the 100-Mile Wilderness. It was flat! It was easy! Which is the absolute, complete 100% opposite of what I experienced today. How did I forget how horrible this trail was? All I can imagine is that the experience was so painful, so horrible, it had been blocked from my memory. A natural defense mechanism my brain employed.

But, despite the difficulty of the trail, I still had to admit... the views were absolutely spectacular. The vistas, the ponds, the creeks.... gorgeous!

In the afternoon, I walked a bit off trail to check out West Chairback Pond and while standing at the shoreline, admiring the view, I heard a faint and distant call: "Tortuga!"

I looked around and saw nobody.

"Tortuga! On the island in the lake!"

That's when I saw them, Loon and Young Blood taking a break on the shore of a small island in the lake. There were a few canoes by the shore and they had "borrowed" one taking it for a joyride. It seemed like all of the larger lakes in Maine had canoes apparently abandoned at their shores, although most of them usually didn't appear to be usable. They obviously found on that was.

We waved and shouted back and forth at each other across the water and they said they'd come over and get me, but I waved them off. I didn't really feel like going for a canoe ride at the moment. I was running behind my self-imposed schedule already because of the trail's difficulty and wanted to keep moving hit my goal for the day before it got too dark.

Loon climbs the remnants of the lookout tower on Barren Mountain.

Late in the day, I ran into a face that I hadn't seen since back in Virginia. I saw him coming up toward me, in the wrong direction.

"Disciple!" I called out. "You're going the wrong way! Katahdin is that way!"

He knew that, of course, and said that he had summited five days earlier and was now hiking southbound because he'd never backpacked in the winter before and wanted to keep hiking south until he got a "winter experience."

Keeping in mind, it was August 9th now. Still solidly in my summer by my math.

"You'll reach Springer Mountain again by the time winter strikes!" I said.

"Yes, I might...."

Crazy SOB! =)

It had been a few months since I last saw Disciple and since he hadn't been seeing my entries in the register, he had assumed that I had quit the trail. Nope, just behind him. I knew he hadn't quit the trail since I'd been following his register entries for months, but he was always so far ahead that I assumed I'd never see him again. I certainly didn't expect him to turn around at the end and start hiking southbound again.

It was fun catching up with him. In hindsight, I wish I had gotten his contact information. I'm very curious how far south he made it before quitting--or if he actually hiked all the way back to Springer Mountain.

The shelters were badly spaced along this section of trail--at least for me, they were--but since weather forecasts overnight looked good, I decided to camp between shelters on the shore of the West Branch of the Pleasant River, along with Young Blood, Loon and Salty Dog.

Some day hikers, camped nearby, who had parked at the trailhead a minute or two walk away (wilderness my a##!) gave us some cheese, crackers, gorp and beers as trail magic. I took the beer, then after the trail angel had left, gave it to one of the other hikers. I just didn't like it, but I saw no reason to turn him down either. =)

The lookout tower really was just remnants--it has no top anymore! I'm not entirely sure if it considered safe for us to climb, but we did it anyhow. The structure seemed solid. =)

I hate this #*@&$ %@$*# trail. Just saying.... =)

Shrugged and Axon (the French-Canadians that I started the 100-Mile Wilderness with) coming down the steep and uneven slope.

I'm kind of surprised a sign like this is even needed. Why would anyone want to step off of the bog bridging? It's the only thing that's keeping us out of knee-deep water and mud! Why not just put up a sign asking people not to shoot themselves in the foot while they're at it?

Nothing looks particularly endangered to me, but I'll stay on the bog bridges anyhow! =) I wish there was a lot more of this, in fact!

As the day progressed, the sun came out more and more and it really turned into an absolutely gorgeous day!

I caught this crew building some new stone steps along the rugged terrain. I wanted to hug every last one of them. =)

Loon and Young Blood hijacked a canoe like this one to paddle across the pond.

Salty Dog briefly stops to admire the view.

Day 154: Into the 100-Mile Wilderness

August 8: It was a big day. I was heading into the infamous 100-Mile Wilderness and wouldn't get off the trail again until I had finished it! Monson was my last trail town.

A lot hikers seemed nervous about the 100-Mile Wilderness. It just sounds somewhat scary, doesn't it? One hundred solid miles of wilderness! Guidebooks recommend that people carry at least 10 of food to get through, but few thru-hikers actually carry that much. We're in excellent shape at this point and can get through in half that time without too much trouble.

A scary-looking sign, don't you think? =)

But, if you want my opinion, it's reputation as a "wilderness" has a lot to be desired. There are actually quite a number of roads that cross this so-called wilderness, albeit unimproved dirt roads. We'll cross a railroad track, and from the higher elevations, can stay in contact with the outside world with smartphones. Although--generally speaking--it feels like a wilderness experience for most of the trek, it's rather deceptive because the corridor of the wilderness is actually fairly narrow. When you're in the middle of the 100-Mile Wilderness, it doesn't mean that civilization is a minimum of 50 miles away. No, it means each end of the wilderness is 50 miles away, the north-south route the AT largely follows.... and civilization might be a mere 10 miles away to the east or west.

It's not nearly as remote or treacherous as its name would imply, but I don't think most thru-hikers realize this when they get here.

But this was also the last leg of our journey before we reach the sacred Promise Land known as Katahdin. So even though the wilderness designation didn't concern me, I was still anxious and excited. My journey was coming to an end!

For breakfast, I had another hearty breakfast at Shaws. I filled myself with blueberry pancakes until I felt like my belly would pop. The more I ate now, I figured, the less I'd have to carry later.


It was Saturday morning and the post office wouldn't open until later in the day, but Bearfish--who was taking the day off--offered to mail it ahead for me after I left for the trail. I packed up my laptop in a priority mail box I had picked up at the post office the previous day and gave him that and $20 to mail for me. And I gave him my email address. "Send me the tracking number once it's in the mail," I asked him... just in case the laptop wasn't at the correct post office when I arrived, it would be nice to know where it did go.

Hikers were headed all over the place today. Some had slackpacked about 20 miles into the 100-Mile Wilderness already and were therefore getting a ride back to the trail 20 miles up. Others had walked down the two miles from Pleasant Road and were getting a ride back there. I needed to get back to the trailhead on Highway 15, along with Axon and Shrugged (a couple of French Canadians--they're everywhere, I tell you!), and Poet drove us all back to the trailhead.

He seemed a little misty-eyed at our departure, telling us how much we were going to love this next section of trail and wanting a group hug before we started on our way. I really like Poet. He's got a heart of gold and really loves the hiker community.

Goodell Brook Falls

Almost immediately, I took a slight detour to Goodell Brook Falls because hey, why not? It was close to the trail and it's a waterfall!

The trail passed a scary-looking sign warning about the remoteness of the 100-Mile Wilderness, an exaggeration at best.

Then passed a series of pretty lakes. There were two streams that I had to ford, both of which had ropes set up across them, and both ropes I avoided when I decided that there was a better place to cross nearby.

The hiking was rugged. Besides the two river fords, we had the usual steep ups and downs, thick pools of mud and slippery roots, but it was nothing we hadn't done before. I was pretty well sick of, though. I just wanted a nice, easy walk in the woods at this point. I was so over the mud, roots and rugged terrain!

I'd only made it about 15 miles when I called it a day at the Long Pond Stream Lean-to. When I started the day, I had hoped to reach the next shelter another 4 miles ahead, but between my late 8:30 AM start and the rugged terrain, I wouldn't make it there before dark. Nope, I had to call it quits after 15 miles.

I'd share the shelter with Loon and Young Blood, both northbound thru-hikers that I only met for the first time recently. We talked about our after-AT plans, and Loon just about jumped up with excitement when she heard that I was planning to do the GR20 because she had done part of it earlier and loved it and wanted to go out and do the whole thing someday. She also told me about getting lost and eventually bailing out before reaching the end of her hike. "Have an up-to-date guidebook," she advised me. Will do!

Young Blood was talking about just turning around at Katahdin and hiking southbound. Crazy SOB. =) He didn't want the trail to end.

From the shelter, we could hear off-road motorcycles roaring around in the distance.

"Don't you just love the peace and tranquility of a wilderness?" I told them. They laughed. Young Blood expressed surprise about crossing the railroad tracks.

"Yes," I agreed. "Out west, we do wildernesses differently. We don't allow railroads in them. Or roads. Or motorized vehicles. It's pretty nice! You should check it out sometime!" =)

And at the end of the day, we had reached a big milestone: Katahdin and was a mere 99.4 miles away... we had less than 100 miles to the end of trail!

Little Wilson Falls (you should see the BIG one!)

Another creek, another ford!

The rope across the creek was pretty much useless (in my opinion, at least).

Deep in the wilderness.... it's not as wilderness-like as you might expect!

Another creek, another ford!

And other useless rope across the creek....

Loon (L) and Young Blood (R) set up camp in the Long Pond Stream Lean-to.

Day 153: The Monson Zero

August 7: For a third night, I'd be staying in Monson. But this time, I had a true zero day. No hiking at all! I still needed to get more blog posts done that would last through the end of the hike!

I ate another hearty breakfast at Shaws. Bearfish arrived in the afternoon and it was nice catching up with him again. He wanted to go to Pete's Place for lunch since he had met the proprietor briefly earlier on the trail and wanted to say hi, so I joined him. I can't say for certain what I ate--inexplicably, I didn't write in my journal that day. Although I have this vague memory of eating glorified grill cheese twice, so maybe that's what I did. I'm sure a trip there wouldn't have been complete without a slice of pie either, and I likely got something I didn't get before. =)

But except for a little wandering around the small town, I did nothing and went nowhere. It was a zero day, after all!

Watch out for the wildlife running through town!

Looks like you've been busted, Amy! =) You know you're in a small town when you see signs like this....

The moose in Maine are everywhere!

Day 152: Looping around Monson

August 6: I ate a hearty breakfast at Shaws. It's impossible not to have a hearty breakfast if you eat breakfast at Shaws since it included blueberry pancakes, scrambled eggs, home fries, bacon and OJ. Oh, and unlimited blueberry pancakes. Love the blueberry pancakes. =)


I ate with a couple of reporters from England who were writing a travel piece about the Appalachian Trail since the movie A Walk In the Woods would be coming out soon. Bill Bryson, if you didn't know, is a pretty big deal in England. So these two were spending two weeks "driving the trail" from Springer Mountain to Katahdin, hitting some of the highlights finding interesting places that British folks on a two-week "holiday" might do along the Appalachian Trail.

The giant pile of blueberry pancakes.... Take all you want! =) That's one of the English reporters in the background, although I'm not sure why she has that disgusted-looking expression on her face. The pancakes were delicious! (Maybe it was the sheer volume that disturbed her?)

It was kind of strange talking to them. They'd been standing on Springer Mountain just a week or two earlier. It seemed like a lifetime ago to me, though. Or, more precisely, 151 days ago as the case may be. =)

I didn't intend to do any real hiking today--I had a lot of emails and blog posts I needed to write before leaving Monson. However.... I was at a pretty good location to do a "nero" (near-zero) day. I had walked two miles off the trail into Monson along a mostly dirt road that didn't get much use, but if I had walked another 3.3 miles, I'd have reached Highway 15 and could have hitched a short ride back into town. Walking into town on the road.... I wouldn't do that. It's not especially far (3.6 miles), but it's a busy road with fast-moving traffic on a paved road. It wouldn't be safe or pleasant to walk on.

But since I like to stretch my legs anyhow, I figured I may as well stretch them another 3.3 miles of the Appalachian Trail, so that's exactly what I did. I walked the two miles back to the trail, then 3.3 miles of the trail, finally arriving at the trailhead on Highway 15. The walk wasn't particularly noteworthy one way or another. I took a slight off-trail detour to Doughty Ponds just for fun but that trail wasn't particularly well-maintained.

Back at Highway 15, I stood on the side of the road for several minutes trying to hitch a ride as car after car whipped passed without stopping. When a couple of guys came out of the woods from the north and started getting into their car, I walked over and asked if they were heading towards Monson because if they were, I'd sure like a ride.

And presto! I got a ride! =)

They were out scouting the area, wanting to come back later to hike the 100-Mile Wilderness (which starts immediately past this trailhead) and I told them about my hike. We didn't talk long, however, since it doesn't take very long to drive 3.6 miles down a highway.

They dropped me off in town and that was my day of hiking.

The rest of the day I mostly spent hunched over my laptop working on blog posts. For lunch, I walked back to Pete's Place, this time with a couple of southbound hikers staying at the hostel named Inchworm and Box Turtle. Inchworm and I were going to get an entire pie to split between the two of us, but she wanted blueberry and the only blueberry pie left at the store already had a slice taken out of it. We were bummed about that, but drowned our sorrows in two slices of blueberry pie each, along with the "glorified grill cheese" sandwich. Box Turtle got one slice of the pie and the glorified grill cheese. Perhaps she was on a diet? =)

I went back to work on my blog and later in the evening, Vulture was wandering around looking for her group. She was planning to go out with some friends for dinner, but they had somehow left her behind and she didn't know where they went.

"Ah, don't feel too bad," I told her. "I'll take you out for dinner!" =)

So we headed to a pub where we found the rest of her friends and joined them. I ordered "The Bomb," a large hamburger that was, true to its name, the bomb. *nodding*

And eventually, we all headed back to Shaws again. I got a lot work done on my laptop, ate a lot of food for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and still managed to complete another 3.3 miles of the Appalachian Trail. All-in-all, a pretty good day! =)

Doughty Pond has this canoe along its shore, but it didn't look very usable at the moment.... I'm not sure if it just filled up from rain or if there's a hole in the boat, and I didn't bother trying to figure it out. =)

Lots of mud still around!

Day 151: Fording Rivers

August 5: I woke up early again to a nice and pleasant day. Shortly before leaving the shelter, I wandered over to Octo's hammock and saw him stirring around a bit.

"Hey, Octo!" I whispered urgently. "Can I borrow your stove? I caught a squirrel that I want to cook!"

Of course, I was completely joking. He's the same person who shared his stove with Natgeo the morning before that was used to cook a mouse, and he immediately knew I was joking.

"Yes," he told me, "but only if you share it with everyone!"

"No problem!" I assured him. "It's a big squirrel! Not one of those puny shelter mice!"

Another beautiful morning! Sunrise over Bald Mountain Pond.

Then I hit the trail and started going northbound, never to see any of these people in the shelter again because they were all southbounding.

The trail was incredibly muddy but largely flat and relatively easy so I made good time. The part that slowed me down the most were three knee-deep river crossings that needed to be forded. One of them even had a rope stretched out across the river for hikers to hold onto while crossing. My guidebook had listed a few other river fords during the past few days, but the creeks were low enough that I'd been able to rock hop across them. Not today, though. There was no way across these rivers without getting one's feet wet.

I will say that the rope across the river I found to be highly ineffective and possibly worse than useless. I'd never had a rope so conveniently stretched out and was happy to give it a try. When I arrived, a large group of about a dozen girls were using it heading southbound so I waited for them to finish then I slowly made my way across to the other side but the rope had two problems:

First, I'm not convinced it was at the best (i.e. shallowest) place to cross. It was strung up closest to where the trail came out on the river, but sometimes it's actually better to cross slightly upstream or downstream from the actual trail. And sometimes, not even to cross in an entirely straight line. I think the rope was set up nearest to where the trails disappeared into the water, and nearest to whatever trees were most readily available. I'm not at all convinced it was set up along the shallowest and safest place to cross the creek.

And my second issue with the rope was that it wasn't very sturdy. Given the width of the river, it would have to have been tied very tight to make it feel solid. Instead, it dangled over the river very loosely and could "wobble" by several feet. If I slipped or fell in the river, hanging onto the rope might help prevent me from getting washed downstream, but it wasn't going to keep me up on my feet. I'd get dunked and probably have to let go of the rope anyhow just to get back up. And anyhow, the river wasn't so deep or fast that I was at all concerned about getting carried downstream.

No, the rope, I ultimately decided, was completely worthless. I'd be better off just using my trekking pole as a third leg.

Early in the afternoon, I arrived at Pleasant Road, which ran nearly two miles off trail to the small town of Monson. I walked off trail and into Monson, soon checking into Shaws Lodging. It's a hostel I stayed at during my 2003 thru-hike, although the original owner (Mr. Shaw himself) had died about a year after I went through, but his family continued to run it until this year when it was purchased by former thru-hikers Poet and Hippie Chick, a youngish couple who were excited to be working so close to the trail they loved.

They told me that all of the beds were full, but if I didn't mind sleeping on the couch in the annex, that they'd love to have me. The couple turned out to be absolutely wonderful and immediately made me feel at home. Everyone who stays gets a free drink, although since I didn't like beer, they gave me a Coke instead. =)

About a half hour after I arrived, it started to rain so I took a shower and bummed around the hostel a bit killing time. I had my laptop sent directly to the hostel so it was already available when I arrived and I got on the Internet to catch up on email.

An hour or two later, Poet said that there was a bed available for me after all. One of the hikers had made a reservation earlier and when he arrived gave him a bed not releasing he'd already saved a bed for him.

"Who was it?" I asked.

"Sparrow."

Ah, yes... Sparrow. Which reminded me.... I still wanted to look up if Norway had a king and, if so, see a picture of him. It was a ridiculous long-shot, of course, but I'd feel pretty stupid if it turned out he was the King of Norway after joking about him being the King of Norway.

Anyhow, once that bed confusion was straightened out, it meant there was an extra bed and I no longer had to sleep on the couch. Awesome! =) (Whoever arrived after me would have to, however!)

The first of my two river fords--across Bald Mountain Stream.

Later in the afternoon after the rain had stopped (I was feel pretty good that despite all of the daily afternoon rains, I was managing to avoid being outside in in most of the time), I wandered out to see the rest of town and get some dinner. It's not a big town and choices are limited, but I went for Pete's Place where I ordered a pulled-pork sandwich an a slice of rhubarb-strawberry pie that was absolutely delicious. =)

Later in the evening, I ran into Sparrow chatting with a few other hikers and I walked up to him in a pretend kind of huff. "You sir," I said, pointing at his chest, "are no King of Norway."

I'd checked. Norway did, in fact, have a king, but the photo I found of him online was an older man who looked like he was in his 70s. Sparrow looked like he might have been in his 30s or 40s, and looked nothing like the King of Norway.

Just as I figured....

The trail was extremely muddy today! Large sections of the trail looked just like this!

But don't fret--we'll wash off all that mud crossing the Piscataquis River. The rope across the river, in my opinion, turned out to be more trouble than it was worth. It didn't really help me any!

Piscataquis River

At the Horseshoe Canyon Lean-to, I found more evidence of Natgeo's unusual breakfast in the shelter register.

Lake Hebron

Looks like the tailings of an old mine! Or....

...a quarry! This pond looked like an old, abandoned quarry that filled up with water. The vertical, sheer sides around the edges of the lake look more like a quarry than anything that might be natural.

Checking into Shaws

Lake Hebron, from downtown Monson.