August 10 - Monson, ME

Maine has gotten easier after those first couple of days. There are fewer mountains, and whenever there is a mountain with a steep climb its summit has more and plumper blueberries than the one before. A few raspberries as well.

The weather has been very nice on the whole. Though a few days out of Andover I got caught in a thunderstorm two miles away from a shelter which included some little slushly hail. Sleet, maybe. When I got to the shelter there were several thru hikers I knew who were waiting the storm out. They had all gotten there before it started and were warm and dry and they thought it was pretty funny that I was the only one who got drenched. I decided to make some hot chocolate to warm up, but I couldn’t get my stove to screw on to the fuel canister. I tried somebody else’s fuel canister with the same results. I couldn’t find anything wrong with the stove on visual inspection, but I guess its threading was somehow stripped beyond usefulness.

Fortunately the storm passed and the sun came back out and I warmed up without hot chocolate. Later that day I was making my way down a steep descent, when I met a guy hiking with a 190-pound goat coming up the trail! The goat was carrying most of his gear, was having no problems walking up the steep rocks (it was even casually eating plants as it walked), and when the guy stopped to let me pass, the goat also stopped and moved to the side. The goat’s trail name was Moose. Later I met some hikers who stayed at a shelter with them. They said he tied the goat to a tree at night, and every time he left to get water or go to the privy the goat would get anxious and start baa-ing.

That night I had a meal of crunchy (but still good) tortellini and dehydrated peas. In the morning I had cold oatmeal (also good). I then had a short hike to a road crossing and hitch-hiked for the first time (in my life) to the town of Stratton. The hitch was easy: the fourth vehicle that passed was a pick-up truck that pulled over and let me jump in the back. In Stratton I replaced my food (which consisted mostly of rice, lentils, and quinoa) with food which worked better without hot water so I could do without my broken stove. I split a motel room there with another hiker, Crumbs
[Crumbs and I met each other often through Maine, and he summited Katahdin a day before Steps and I. We are now best friends on Facebook.]
, who I’ve met several times. In the morning the motel owner shuttled us back to the trail.

Two days out of Stratton I reached a place called Harrison’s Pierce Pond Camp which is a cabin for fishers and vacationers. It has a $12 “lumberjack breakfast” consisting of 12 pancakes and some eggs and sausage. To partake of that you must let Tim Harrison know the day before that you will be there. So a fellow hiker, Steps, and I camped at the near-by shelter and walked down to make our breakfast reservations that night. After pancakes in the morning I went to put my pack back on and found the right-hand strap had come un-stitched from its lower anchor point. I have a needle and spool of thread in my first aid kit so I made a quick repair. I’m not very confident in my stitching, but it has lasted for 40 miles so far. If it breaks again, I guess I’ll just fix it again for the next 40-or-so.

Once I finally got my backpack on, it was a gentle walk down to the Kennebec River. The Maine Appalachian Trail Club (MATC) calls the Kennebec the “most formidable un-bridged crossing along the entire 2,174-mile Appalachian Trail.” Upstream from the crossing is a hydroelectric dam which releases water at irregular intervals so the water level can suddenly rise by up to 8 feet. Several years ago a hiker drowned while attempting a ford. Since then the MATC has provided a ferry service for hikers. The ferry is a guy named Hillbilly Dave with a canoe who takes hikers back and forth across the river 6 hours a day, every day of the week.

Hillbilly Dave told me about how a few days earlier he had to ferry a large goat across the river. It sounded like quite the spectacle.

Since the beginning of my hike I have had two water treatment solutions with me: some Aquamira-brand chlorine drops that Sarah gave me, and an MSR water filter pump. I started off using the water pump, but I soon discovered that although the drops take a little longer, I don’t have to do any of the work like I do with the pump, so I usually used the drops. By the time I got to Maine I was almost out of chlorine, so I switched back to my filter… until late last week when I was pumping water and the plastic piece that moves the plunger up and down snapped in half. I was still two days from Monson, so for those two days I rationed the remaining drops of my chlorine. By the second day it was so dilute that I doubt it helped at all. I have met a handful of thru hikers who have not treated any water since they started in Georgia, and none of them ever contracted a debilitating illness, so it probably wasn’t as perilous of a situation as it felt to me.

I arrived in Monson on Monday (and have not gotten sick). I got here a day earlier than I had expected from Andover, so I am taking two full days off. Double zero! Monson is the last town along the trail and marks the beginning of the 100-mile wilderness. It consists of two motels/hostels, a pub (part of one of the motels), a BBQ restaurant, a general store, and a gas station with a food mart. On Monday nights the only place open to buy food is the gas station. I am staying at Shaws' Lodging where I’m splitting a room with Steps, who is on about the same schedule as me — we’ll probably summit on the same day.

The general store here was sold out of Aquamira, but I got a ride to Greenville, a larger town about 17 miles away, where I found both Aquamira and a lightweight canister stove. So when I set out tomorrow morning I’ll have both sanitary and hot water again!

There is a camp, White House Landing, with food and supplies that can be reached a little off the trail 76 miles into the wilderness (which is why it is not really a 100-mile wilderness). I plan on getting there on the fifth day after leaving Monson, so I don’t have to carry too much food. I’ll then get to Baxter State Park on the third day after leaving White House Landing, and then meet my dad on the morning of the 19th in the park and hike up Mt. Katahdin with him. I’ve now walked over 1,050 miles and have only 114 miles left!

I’ll then take a couple days off [again] and decide if I want to hike the southern half of the trail. If I had to decide now, then I would decide not to hike. But I might feel differently after a few days away from the trail. Here’s my pro/con list I made to help me decide:

Pros:

Cons:

We’ll see
[I decided not to flip.]
.

Diode