Week Twenty-Two – The Rain in Maine

Hey everyone! We’ve been living large in Maine this week, and we hit our Five Month-iversary on trail. We got rained on (a lot), caught up with some old AT friends, and hit a few more significant milestones… here’s what’s been going on!

Day 148, Monday August 14: Waking up in a real bed was an absolute luxury, and we were able to sleep in until around 7am. We began the day by packing up our belongings and getting organized before heading to the next door Gemini Cafe for breakfast. We each had an egg sandwich and a pastry (I had a caramel apple cheese croissant and Meadow sprung for the maple walnut scone), and some coffee.

We sat at the cafe until about a quarter till 9am, when we went back to the room to grab the gear we had planned on sending home. We arrived at the post office just after it opened at 9am, and there was already a short line forming. We shipped 5 lbs 4 oz. of gear home, including our wool layers and puffy jackets, plus my winter gloves and Meadow’s sleeping bag liner. We went back to the motel room and finished packing our bags, then went downstairs to check out. Ruthie wished us well on the rest of our hike, and told us to send her a postcard from Katahdin when we get there. Kevin, wearing a pastel pink sweatshirt, asked if we were ready to be driven back to the trail. “Look at you with your packs on, of course you’re ready. Unless you already went out and hiked a few miles and are already back to stay another night? Okay, let me bring the car out front.” We waited for a few minutes before Kevin pulled up, and we jumped in and were off. He told us once more about Ruthie and the motel, and how he ran the commissary at a work camp in Bethel many years ago. A heron flew over the road to land in a nearby pond, and Kevin said “Shit pokers. That’s what we call those things!” waving his hand toward the bird. We talked about the Pittsburghese “Yinzer” dialect, and mentioned a few classic Pittsburgh experiences like the Primanti’ sandwiches. We invited Kevin and Ruthie to come see us in Pittsburgh if they ever wanted to travel, and Kevin said that he’d love to come if Ruthie could ever leave the motel in someone else’s hands. Some dark clouds had rolled in, and Meadow mentioned that it looked like it might rain. Kevin leaned forward into the steering wheel, squinting at the sky, and said “Yeah, maybe. I’m trying to put the whammy on it so it goes away.” We talked about business at the motel and how Thru-Hikers during the week help them make ends meet. Kevin said that he loves helping Thru-Hikers, but some need a little more help than others. “I met a young kid last year, maybe twenty years old. He said he tried college for a few weeks and didn’t like it, tried working for a few years and didn’t like it. So now he’s hiking the Appalachian Trail to find himself. I said ‘if you haven’t found yourself by middle school, you’re never going to!’ I told him to give me his father’s phone number so I could talk to him.” And Kevin laughed. Eventually we hit the parking lot where we had left off, and Kevin said goodbye. He left us with instructions to take our time and avoid hurting ourselves, and waved as he drove away. We looked back to the end of the parking lot and saw a table set up, so we went back to check it out. A Trail Angel named Pineapple had set up a table with homemade quiches, Maine blueberry bread, and some cheesy hash browns. We ate a few snacks and asked her about her connection to the trail. Pineapple had a sweet voice and seemed like an effusively kind person. “A friend of mine attempted a Thru-Hike a few years ago, and after she told me about it I did some research. As soon as I learned what a Trail Angel was I knew that was me! Usually I cook right on the trail but I had to drive two hours to be here, and bringing everything already made was just easier.” Her homemade quiches were delicious (I had the tomato and goat cheese), as were the bread and potatoes. We drank chilled orange drink with ice cubes, and stayed at the parking lot for much longer than anticipated. We finally said goodbye to Pineapple, and she told us to be careful. “Someone came driving into the parking lot way too fast earlier, and I just don’t want any of my hikers to get hit!” By the time we finally made it back onto the trail, it was already past 11am. Our plan was to hike the six miles up and over the Bald Pate Mountains. The climb up the first peak was known to Thru-Hikers as “Amicalola’s Revenge” due to the high number of stone steps. I’ll take several thousand feet of stairs to climb over scrambling up sheer rock face any day! As we climbed the sun took turns beaming proudly and ducking behind the clouds, and I broke a sweat on the rather enjoyable climb. We summited the first Bald Pate with little difficulty, and admired the view in all directions.

We descended into a high and broad valley between the two pates, where an alpine bog had settled. We picked our way carefully through to avoid getting our feet soaked and muddied on our first day back on trail.

Summiting the second Bald Pate involved much more rock scrambling. The top of the Bald Pate had shelves of steep rock that were tricky to climb over without losing balance. The wind began to pick up and the gaps between the clouds shrunk so that the sun was no longer shining. The rock at the summit was a huge rounded boulder with moss covering large patches and short shrubby pines growing out of cracks in the rock. After leaving the summit, the descent rapidly became more difficult. The rock faces were damp from the trickling water and were excessively steep as we have come to expect. It took us several hours to hike down to the Frye Notch Shelter, and we arrived around 4pm. The next possible camping spot was five miles away, and we had to assume that we wouldn’t make it before dark so we decided to call it quits at the Frye Notch Shelter. There was a group of five men in their fifties and sixties already at the shelter, which was meant for six people. We asked if they would mind moving closer together to let us sleep in the shelter, and they said no problem. Three of the five guys were named Jim, which made it easy for us, and the others were Lonnie and Mike. Two of the Jims had lived close to Pittsburgh at one time, and as they introduced themselves they became the only two people we have met on the entire AT who actually shook our hands upon greeting us. One of the Pittsburgh Jims (who had a thick Yinzer accent!) was an absolute riot. Talking to the whole group was so incredibly funny that we felt like one of them in no time. We talked to the Pittsburgh Jims for a few hours while we cooked and ate dinner, and we shared our gummy worms with the crew as a thanks for sharing the shelter with us. As we ate, I mentioned that the coconut protein bars I had with me were starting to lose their appeal after eating and carrying them for so long, and both Pittsburgh Jims offered to trade me something from their food bags for a coconut bar. I scored an apple oat bar and a few chips ahoy cookies out of the deal, which is always exciting to have new snacks. Tall Pittsburgh Jim started ripping on the Funny Pittsburgh Jim for eating anything, including earthworms. We thought they were just joking, but apparently Jim does actually eat worms on occasion just to mess with people. “I don’t really care, it’s just funny to drive people nuts. There’s not much texture to them until you hit the gritty vein in their center.” All of a sudden our gummy worms seemed much less appetizing. We talked about the joys of eating real food, including our spree at the work-for-stay at Galehead Hut when we ate everything except the rest of the pat of butter for the bread. Funny Pittsburgh Jim told a story about his brother in law (or was it his mom’s boyfriend?) eating all of the butter pats at an Outback Steakhouse, and his response was “What kind of monster are you?! I don’t care what you do in your own home, but don’t they let you out in public once in a while?” I said “Buddy, don’t you eat worms just to screw with people?” And we laughed. Eventually Funny Jim pulled out a blue flag and asked us to hold it up, saying “I’ve carried this thing for so long, time to actually use it.” It was a large flag that said “Live a Great Story.” We took photos of ourselves and with the Pittsburgh Jims with the flag. I felt that it was appropriate for Jim to have a flag with that mantra on it. He lived his life in the way that he saw as being the best story, and he was also a wonderful story-teller. The crew all went to sleep around 6pm, allowing the campsite to fall silent as the raucous laughter died down. Shortly thereafter, our old AT friend Shaggy came into camp and we visited with him until heading to bed around 8pm. The shelter was completely packed with all seven of us in there, which made for a relatively uncomfortable night of trying not to move at all. However, or was more comfortable than getting rained on!

Day 149, Tuesday August 15: With the shelter completely full, it was difficult to get out of my sleeping bag without falling on anyone or accidentally giving them the People’s Elbow. I was able to excise myself and make a trip to the privy, and by the time I returned the Pittsburgh Jims had already cleared their stuff out of the shelter and were packing up in front. I also began packing my stuff up just as a light drizzle bag to fall. Meadow and I ate our breakfast of peanut butter on a protein-packed bagel, and a cold-soaked blueberry protein oatmeal packet. It turned out to be a little too much food for that early in the morning, but we ate it anyway. We said goodbye to the Jims as they left before us, and Shaggy as well. We departed the shelter around 7:15am, and hit the trail. A very light drizzle was falling, but within the first fifteen minutes of the hike we needed to take our rain jackets off because we were overheating. The rain stopped shortly after we started hiking, although the gray clouds remained for quite some time. We eventually passed the two Pittsburgh Jims, and they said a quick hello. “Just like you two said,” Tall Jim said as we passed: “Don’t rush it!” During the first few miles of the day, we hiked down a relatively gentle grade to Dunn Falls where we enjoyed Second Breakfast. The Falls crossed the trail and immediately fell a long way down a deep crevasse into the valley far below.

We hiked back up a gradual climb to Wyman Mountain, passing Surplus Pond on the way. As we passed by the pond I stopped to scan around the edges of the pond for anything that looked like a moose, but saw nothing. As the morning wore on, the gray clouds broke up and we could see some patches of blue begin to work their way into the sky’s tapestry. For a short while, I noticed moose footprints in the muddy trail. We did our best impressions of a moose call, but we weren’t that convincing so nothing interesting happened.

We hiked on for several more miles until we reached our first potential stopping point for the day, another shelter. We had made excellent time for the first part of the day due to the general lack of rock-climbing that was required, so we had made it to the shelter just after 2pm. We decided to keep going, although part of me was sad to miss the opportunity to camp with The Jims again since that is where they were stopping. We hiked down the northern side of Wyman Mountain, and climbed 1,500 feet up one side of Mount Moody and down the other. Mount Moody was much steeper than Wyman Mountain, and there were a few places where iron rungs were set into the rock to assist with the climbing…and still, no free-climbing of sheer rock walls was required. The descent down the mountain was steeper than the ascent, but we still marveled at the general lack of huge boulders to scramble down. The Trail terrain reminded me strongly of Georgia with sweeping ascents and descents that were still able to be climbed by just walking. We noticed that some of the maple trees were just starting to turn yellow and red, and some were beginning to drop their leaves. Throughout the afternoon the sky cleared completely, and the bright blue August sky watched over us for the rest of the day. When we reached the bottom of Mount Moody, we approached a stream that was about thirty feet wide and over a foot deep with no rocks to hop across. We filtered water into all of our bottles, changed into our camp shoes, and forded the stream. The water was frigid and moving fast in places, and came up over my knees in the middle. By some miracle my rubber clogs offered excellent traction on the rocky and sandy and stream bed, and we made it across without incident. As we hiked the next half-mile to our tent site, the sunlight faded into the golden hour and the surrounding valleys were being lit from the side as the sun sank deeper in the sky. We ended the hiking day partway up Old Blue Mountain where we found a small tent site to pitch our home for the evening. I found a huge, solid dead tree to hang the bear rope from, noting that if THAT branch fell on me like the last one did, it would finally just put me out of my misery. Most of the Thru-Hikers on trail at this point have given up on hanging the bear bag, preferring just to sleep with their food in their tent instead of going through the hassle of hanging it up…not us! It doesn’t take that much time, and if it helps keep us safe or prevents wildlife from becoming dependent on people food, then it’s worth it. We cooked dinner as the sunlight began to fade from gold to pink, and hung our bear bags and crawled into the tent before it became dark.

Day 150, Wednesday August 16: I woke up at 6am in the tent, aware of the increasing light and the absence of rain. We retrieved the bear bags and ate Breakfast in Tent since there were no other good places to sit. We hit the trail just after 7:15am, the sky threatening rain once again. We had a relatively easy climb the rest of the way up Old Blue Mountain, and were rewarded with a view of nothing. The fog was thick around the mountain summit, and we could see only a few rows of pine trees around the summit as they faded quickly into the distance.

We pressed on to descend the northern side of Old Blue Mountain and began climbing the southern side of Bemis Mountain. The terrain was relatively gentle, a bit steep but with no rock climbing required. Late in the morning a very light drizzle started, which continued for most of the day. Although the gray clouds hung dark and low on the sky as the rain fell for hours, the rain wasn’t quite hard enough to wet us through which made me grateful. We summited Bemis Mountain and gazed around the rocky summit with patches of thick moss and line trees scattered across it. There were carpets of short blueberry bushes that were laden with small but delicious blue berries, and we stopped more than once as we walked the exposed ridgetop to sample some of the fruits. On our way down to the valley north of Bemis Mountain, the terrain grew steeper and we slowed our pace considerably to account for the slickness of the wet rocks. During the flat parts of the descent, the pine forest had thick carpets of vibrant green moss on either side of the trail.

Our friend Shaggy came hiking up behind us; he had cowboy camped the previous night at the summit of Old Blue Mountain. Although he got rained on a little he said the experience was worth it to check off his bucket list. We hiked on together through the afternoon, stopping once we reached a stream that couldn’t be crossed with dry feet at the trail crossing. Shaggy went upstream about fifty feet to cross a log jam, while Meadow and I just wet our feet and charged through the stream. Our feet were already mostly wet and muddy anyway! Meadow, Shaggy, and I stopped on the other side to filter water, and we laughed and carried on while the rain fell. Shaggy observed that Meadow and I laughed way more than everyone else on the trail, and that laughter seemed to be missing when we weren’t around. We took it as a wonderful compliment! “One of my mottos is ‘A life well laughed is a life well lived!’ I am proud to say that I came up with that myself. Unlike my favorite motto which I paraphrased from Calvin and Hobbes: ‘Make better memories.'” The three of us hiked through the afternoon, shivering in the rain and laughing at each other as we skidded on rocks and balanced on thin logs to get safely across giant mud pits. As Meadow balanced across a long tree trunk I started singing the circus theme music to simulate the tightrope walk. (This was only funny because eshe didn’t fall in…this time). We passed a large pond that had a sandy bottom, and line trees around the water all adorned with fog. A thin patch in the clouds at the very edge of the pond was highlighted with sunlight, our only proof for the day that the sun was still shining brightly behind the thick clouds. After 6:30pm we reached the shelter we were all shooting for, and luckily there was room for all three of us. An older gentleman who was section hiking and a young Canadian man named John who was Thru-Hiking were already in the shelter. We asked them about their hikes, and John’s answer was startling. “I started May 5 and have been doing over thirty miles a day. The bottom fell out in Vermont through when I really started hating the trail. I had to take a few weeks off in New Hampshire just because I was burnt out, and now I’m just trying to get it over with.” I asked him if he had been enjoying the trail more in the beginning, and he said “No, it sucked the whole time. I hated the beginning, and I hate it now…wait, are YOU guys enjoying it?” Meadow, Shaggy, and I all looked at each other, and gave a resounding affirmative. Grasping at straws for something we could discuss that wasn’t his hatred of the Trail, I asked him what had inspired him to hike the trail in the first place. He shrugged. “I liked hiking and being outside, and It seemed like a good trail to test myself on. But I haven’t enjoyed it at all. Especially Connecticut, Connecticut and New Jersey sucked the worst.” I was shocked to meet someone who hated the entire AT. I told him that I had loved the section in New Jersey (it was beautiful!), and we changed the subject. Meadow and I ate dinner and then went back to the pond to filter water. As we neared the water’s edge, a family of loons floated by the narrow opening in the trees. The two adults began their trilling, laughing call back and forth to each other. There was little to no wind, and the pond itself was relatively still. For a minute, the only sound was the loons’ clear and loud calls cutting through the fog as it rolled over the dark rows of trees far on the other side of the pond. It was surreal that we were there for this private concert, and was a beautiful thing to behold. Once the loons passed from our sight, the sang no more, and we filtered our water and trudged back up the hill to the shelter where it was already getting dark. I was asleep in my sleeping bag before 9pm.

Day 151, Thursday August 17: The overnight rain had once again drenched the landscape, and when I awoke in the shelter the humidity felt oppressive despite the cool temperature. I stayed in my sleeping bag until just before 7am, as nobody else was stirring either. We did our morning routine and ate our breakfast of peanut butter on a protein bagel, and hit the trail around 8:30am. The drizzle continued on and off for most of the morning, but I elected to keep my raincoat off. The rain was extremely cold but not heavy, and with the help of the canopy of trees to keep the worst of the rain at bay I was able to avoid being soaked through. As we passed by the Sabbath Pond again, I noted that the fog was even thicker than it had been the previous night, so much so that it completely obscured even the opposite bank. The foggy whiteness of the clouds dipped down to mingle with the watery reflection of the pond, connecting Earth and sky. We hiked on and off with Shaggy throughout the morning, chatting about what the trail experience has meant to us so far and our thoughts about it drawing to a close in the near-ish future. The terrain was gentle enough in most places where we could hold conversations, but we organically fell silent when additional concentration was needed to navigate a particularly slippery rock slope or a precarious bog board. We passed by one or two ponds, again scanning the edges for moose. Large piles of moose scat sat proudly on either side of the trail throughout the day, though curiously never in the middle of the trail, tantalizing us with the knowledge that moose are in the area but just not to be seen. We came to a large open area where we were sure we would see a moose, but still none appeared. The fog settled beautifully in the valleys and gave me the sense of closeness with the landscape since visibility was limited to only what was near enough to behold.

We hiked throughout the morning, stopping a few times to feast on a few wild Maine blueberry bushes that were laden with tiny fruits. I was surprised by how many bushes there were along the trail, and also how many blueberries were ripe at the same time.

As we neared the parking lot for the road that headed into nearby town Rangeley, Shaggy hiked on ahead to catch a hitch into town. Meadow and I had planned on stopping into a hostel near the trail to resupply and press on, but we were faced with a decision. The weather forecast for the following day was looking rather dire, including several hours of severe thunderstorms. The next day’s hike also included a several-mile stretch through an alpine zone up and over the extremely exposed summit of Saddleback Mountain, which sounded unpleasant and downright dangerous during a thunderstorm. As we approached the road crossing, we discussed and weighed our options. Should we continue our plan to resupply on trail, and then take a “trail zero” and wait in the shelter the next day for conditions to improve? Should we hitchhike into town to resupply and check the weather? In the end, we determined that the stakes were too high to take unnecessary risks, and the possibility of being caught in an alpine zone in a thunderstorm isn’t something we would leave to chance. We decided to head into town to resupply, and at the very least acquire more accurate information on the weather before making our next move. We reached the parking lot, and stood on the road nearby waiting for cars to start passing us on their way into Rangeley. Shaggy was nowhere in sight, so he must have already gotten a hitch–if someone would pick him up, how hard could it be?! For over half an hour we did our best to look friendly and non-threatening as cars and trucks flew by us on the road. The only vehicle that slowed down and entered the parking lot was full of a few folks who were there to day hike the trail themselves and had no interest in shuttling a few Thru-Hikers around. Understandable! We gave up on hitching a ride and had just started shuffling our way up the road when one more white crossover utility vehicle came around the corner. Almost as a joke we stuck out our thumbs, and to our immense surprise and relief it pulled into the parking lot and the hatch started opening. A man approximately in his sixties stepped out, and he lifted the backseats into a sitting position. “Hi there! Are you guys looking to go to Rangeley? You might want to get in on the other side, I have a few shopping bags over here. Someone can hop up front, too, and don’t worry about getting anything muddy.” We jumped in, my cell phone in my hand but useless without service anyway, and we were back on the way to Rangeley. The man’s name was Doug, and he asked us our Trail names. I said “So you’re familiar with AT trail culture! Do you live in the area?” He told us that his summer home is right outside of Rangeley, but there’s no pharmacy in town so he has to drive over forty-five minutes to pick up his medications. He lifted up a Wal-Mart pharmacy prescription bag in his console, indicating he was on his way back from such a journey. He spends his winters at his other home in Connecticut, chuckling and telling us that “Most other people think that’s not quite far enough south to spend the winter.” The grocery store for Rangeley was on the main road just outside of town, and Doug pulled in and dropped us off right near the main entrance. We thanked him repeatedly as we got out and started pulling our backpacks from his trunk. Doug wished us well and waved to us, and prematurely pressed the button to close his hatch to nearly decapitate Meadow in a near-miss incident. Standing on the asphalt near the store entrance, we emptied our trash into a trash can and took stock of what food we had left. We estimated that our next resupply point was three days’ hike away, and we headed into the store to pick up what we needed. As we wandered the aisles, we checked the weather and did not like what we saw. There was at least a forty percent chance of rain all day, increasing to a ninety percent chance of thunderstorms all afternoon. As much as we wanted to get back on trail and keep going, the thought of blowing our big adventure by being electrocuted on Saddleback Mountain the next day wasn’t an appealing alternative. I texted Shaggy to ask if he was interested in splitting a hotel room because of the weather, and he said he also was looking at the weather and decided to stay in town–splitting a room would definitely help with the cost! I made reservations for two nights at the hotel a quarter mile up the road from the grocery store, where we spent the afternoon and evening getting organized on the hotel room. Eventually Shaggy arrived and we walked to a barbeque place called the Shed. The pulled pork and ribs were delicious! We walked back to the motel, complaining about the very slight uphill on the way back. Later that evening we made s’mores over Shaggy’s camp stove, each wielding our own marshmallow roasting tool: Meadow used the back end of her titanium spork, Shaggy used a plastic coffee stirrer (which DID melt and add some petroleum to his marshmallow), and I harvested a tough stem from a tall flower in one of the decorative planters. We each had three or four s’mores, which is apparently the going rate for a Thru-Hiker. After a long day, we stayed up too late talking about the trail before falling asleep after 10pm.

Day 152, Friday August 18: I slept in until almost 7:30am, a true luxury. Around 8:30am Meadow and I walked the quarter mile down the street to the laundromat to freshen up our hiking clothes. We stopped at a coffee shop for a donut and coffee, and as tourists we took the obligatory photos in the giant, fake Adirondack chair for the town of Rangeley. We toured the outfitter before heading back to the laundromat. We chatted with the owner while our hiking clothes dried. Faith is in her sixties, with bright blue eyes and her blonde hair swept back into a messy bun. She asked us if we were Thru-Hiking; she was probably tipped off by the fact the fact that we carried in a small load of laundry balled up in a dirty backpack cover. “Would you guys like a banana? I brought them from home because they’re going to be too ripe for me to eat in a few days and I don’t even like bananas that much.” She told us about her children traveling the world and starting businesses, about her two marriages that failed because she’s not good at cohabitation, about how she was one of the first female emergency paramedics and firefighters for the state of Maine, and how she’s constantly being surprised by how many sixty-something year olds are interested in starting new relationships. Faith was spunky and talkative, and the thirty minutes we spent waiting for our clothes to dry seemed to pass by quickly. We spent the rest of the day hanging out in the hotel room, occasionally looking out the large window and laughing at the rain. Shaggy left just before noon to spend he rest of the day with an acquaintance he had in the area. During a brief break in the rain, Meadow and I took another trip to the grocery store for dinner and breakfast supplies. We had salads with chicken for dinner, with fruit Greek yogurt and apple fritters. As the day wore on the rain came back swinging, and we rejoiced at being inside. Although the thunderstorms never fully manifested outside our window, it’s likely that the weather was more severe at elevation on Saddleback Mountain and we were content with the decision to take a rest day. We stayed up a little too late, just for old time’s sake, and went to sleep after 10pm.

Day 153, Saturday August 19: The 6am alarm went off and I begrudgingly started packing my stuff. We were ready to leave just before 7:30am, and our friend Shaggy arrived back at the motel with Jo, the woman who he had stayed with the previous night. Jo was friends with Shaggy’s girlfriend Macie, and Jo was wonderful. She brought us each a huge, homemade breakfast sandwich and gave us a ride back to the trailhead in her enormous highlighter-yellow Jeep. When she dropped us off, she hugged each of us tightly and wished us well as we set off along the trail.

The first few miles of the trail were relatively flat, and they were far less muddy than I expected after the drenching rain from the previous day. We hiked along the foothills of Saddleback Mountain for a short while before starting the climb, and then Shaggy split off to head up a side trail to hike in some caves. (I had heard that the caves were very similar to the Mahoosuc Notch, so Meadow and I decided to skip the caves!). The climb up Saddleback was easier than expected, made even easier by the chilly temperature and light wind. As we climbed in elevation, the blue sky disappeared completely and the fog rolled in. Before long we were scrambling up the last of the rocky cliffs to the summit, and we had another spectacular view of solid white fog.

We descended partway down the next valley, and paused for a snack break just on the lower border of the clouds. As we ate our apple fritters packed out from town (yum!), the clouds rolled by in billows and we actually saw a few patches of blue sky. After a while the next mountain summit, The Horn, became visible as well.

Once our snacks were gone, we descended down the steep and treacherous valley between the mountains, and climbed up to The Horn. Upon arrival the fog was as thick as ever, and so there was no need to linger in the frigid air to admire the view. We descended down into another valley and up to our last small peak for the day: Saddleback Junior. When we hit the peak, we were delighted to see that its slightly lower elevation allowed it to stay free of the clouds above, and we had a wonderful panoramic view of the mountains in all directions. The sun shone down through large gaps in the clouds, and I realized it had been several days since I actually felt the sun. I could see the patchy shadows on the surrounding landscape, and a few small rain showers occurring a few hills to the north where we were headed–perfect!

After departing the summit of Saddleback Junior, we had a several mile hike downhill to the Poplar Ridge Shelter where we had planned on staying that night. The descent was slippery and treacherous, and it took us slightly longer than anticipated. Safety first! We still rolled into the shelter after a 10.5-mile day just before 4pm. We debated about going another three miles to a tent site further up the trail, but upon hearing that it was supposed to rain throughout the evening and possibly all night, we decided that staying in the shelter was worth sacrificing a few additional miles for the day. No sooner had we changed into our camp shoes and started eating another snack in the shelter, when a very light drizzle started to fall. Just as Shaggy arrived at the shelter behind us, also deciding whether to stay or push on to the tent site, a heavy rain split the sky which made the shelter all the more appealing and his decision was made as well. We cooked and ate dinner, and then used the rest of the s’mores supplies that Shaggy had packed out to make trail s’mores. For some reason, they tasted even better than the motel s’mores! The evening temperature dropped with the rain, and I ended up putting on my fleece jacket, and both my rain jacket and pants to stave off the cold for the first time in a while. We filtered water, chatted about our favorite musicals and how we all really wanted to see a moose, among other things. The light faded faster than we expected, partially due to the rain clouds, and sleeping bag o’clock came even before 8pm just as light rain began. I woke up several times throughout the night to the sound of pouring rain on the metal roof of the shelter. I was always able to fall back asleep quickly after waking up, after taking a few seconds to revel in the fact that we were in a dry shelter and I was cozy warm. The air temperature had dipped into the forties, which meant for the first time in a while I could zip my sleeping bag all the way up without overheating. Despite the pouring rain, this was probably one of the best nights of sleep I’ve had on the AT!

Day 154, Sunday August 20: Happy Five Month-iversary! I had not set an alarm for the morning, and I slept in until about 6:30am. The rain had faded sometime in the early hours of the morning, but the humidity and thick fog remained. We collected our things and started hiking just before 8am. We began the day with a long and steep descent down Poplar Ridge, which took us several hours since the rocks were damp from the rain. I slipped several times, falling only once to scrape my left knee. It hurt more than it looked like it should, but I’ll take a small scrape over a broken leg any day! During the descent I noticed that there were more and more yellow and red leaves on the ground, another reminder that the summer is flying by. It seemed like just yesterday that we were hiking into the Smokies to see spring flowers in bloom!

Once we finally reached the bottom of the valley, we had to ford Oberton Stream. It was about thirty feet across and up over our knees, but other than being extremely cold we crossed it without incident. We stopped for a snack break on the opposite bank, and gazed upon the wreckage of an aluminum rowboat that had wrapped itself around a large boulder about five feet out of the current water level–I hoped that nobody was in the boat when it met its demise there! Once we had changed back into our hiking shoes, we immediately began a steep ascent to a ridgeline of mountains over 4,000 feet in elevation. The trail followed several streams, all running fast and surprisingly clear from the previous night’s downpour. The streams ran down the steep terrain in deep channels, surging and frothing over sharp, angular rocks.

As we neared the top of the ridgeline, the fog began to wear thin and the sky began to take on a once-familiar blue cast. Eventually we reached the first peak for the ridgeline, Lone Peak. We decided to take another snack break, and as soon as we sat down the fog seemed to evaporate and the sun began to really shine. I hadn’t seen that shade of blue sky in weeks! While we sat and ate our snacks, we talked about our plans for the next few weeks. Shaggy had decided to start slowing down so he would finish closer to the time when his girlfriend could pick him up, and so we would be parting ways for now. We may have the opportunity to catch up with him again, but for now we said a “see ya later!” and left Lone Peak behind.

Walking along the ridgeline in the early afternoon was relatively easy; there were ample mud pits and puddles to fall into, but at least we weren’t sliding down sheer rock faces! I marveled at the sunshine and blue sky, reveling in the first sunny day on trail that we’ve had in what felt like forever.

In the afternoon, we passed Mouth Abraham, Spaulding Mountain, and Sugarloaf Mountain. We eventually passed a tiny pile of stones that marked the 2,000 mile point on the trail. We had hiked TWO THOUSAND MILES!!! In many ways the whole AT experience has felt surreal, and it’s difficult to describe how it feels to pass these milestones. So much has happened in these five months and two thousand miles, and yet the time has seemed to fly by.

As the afternoon wore on, a haze crept into the landscape and covered the distant mountains. The descent down Sugarloaf Mountain was extremely steep and very rocky, and very exposed to the sun. There were some short sections of rock scrambles reminiscent of the Mahoosuc Notch, which were both fun and scary. It took us two hours to descend the 1.5-mile section of trail, and by the time we reached the bottom we were both overheated and exhausted.

We took a brief sitting break (and ate some snacks, obviously) before crossing another wide stream. The water was moving pretty quickly, and instead of changing into our camp shoes we just hopped from rock to rock in our hiking shoes, wetting our feet through.

We had one mile left to hike to our campsite, which was mercifully gentle and had very few rocks. We reached the tent site and saw a hammocker already set up and swinging between two trees, and another tent was already set up in the distance. Meadow set up our own tent on a wooden tent platform while I hung the bear rope (second throw, booyah!) and filtered water for the evening and the next day. We cooked dinner and hung the bear bags just after 7:30, crawling into the tent before 8pm. The air temperature was much warmer than the previous night, probably by at least twenty degrees, which made for a more pleasant evening but was slightly too warm for my fifteen degree sleeping bag. I fell asleep to the sounds of the rushing nearby stream and the loose-staked tent flapping in an intermittent breeze.

Well folks, as this week draws to a close we are less than 200 miles from the end of the Appalachian Trail. There’s a part of me that still doesn’t even believe that we have started this journey, let alone that we are almost finished. However, 200 miles is still a long way to go! On the agenda for next week it to keep on pressing though Maine, up and over the Crocker mountains and the Bigelows, and maybe even reaching the 100-Mile Wilderness. Onward!!