Date: 2017-08-25
From: Chairback Gap Lean-To

To: Cooper Brook Falls Lean-To
Miles today: 28.8
Weather: broken clouds

I wake at 3:30 and force myself out to see the stars. Don't have many chances left. It's a clear night with no moon. But too many trees. The Milky Way seems faint even though the stars are clear and numerous.A cold breeze blows when I wake at 5:30. The shelter is on the side of Chairback Mountain. I roll over and sleep another hour. I'm not on the trail until 8 or so, with 29 miles planned. Waterboy decides to give it a go as well.Chairback Mountain is rocky and takes a while to get down. I pass yet another road accessing the Wilderness. Hostels offer food drops to hikers who don't want to carry a week or ten days worth of food. They even slackpack hikers between roads - for a price. I pass dayhikers a few times. There are parking lots within a mile of the AT in a few places and some popular dayhiker loops. Not as remote a Wilderness as widely believed.Yet the typical thruhiker gets no outside support or contact. Southbounders just starting out may take ten days to get over the 100 miles, even longer as with River Rock and Jibber Jabber. Hardened northbounders typically do it in 5 or 6 days. My plan is to get through in 72 hours. The call of civilization, cold drinks, ice cream, burgers, and a soft bed is strong.I lunch at a shelter and see that Pretty Boy was here today. I thought he was two days ahead of me. Waterboy thinks there is a bubble of northbounders just ahead of us.We climb White Cap Mountain and its four peaks. These are the last steep extended climbs until Katahdin. They go quickly and are less rocky than the Chairback range. White Cap is the last 3000 footer (or 2000 footer for that matter) before Katahdin. On the far side we get our first glimpse of Katahdin itself. A huge bulking mass standing by itself with its peak in the clouds. My first thought is that it's too close. It looks only 20-30 miles away, but is some 70 trail miles away. The trail zigs and zags in the final approach.At the Pleasant River I try to rock hop across. It's wide and shallow but the rocks are too widely spaced. I find a path, but slip on one rock and soak my feet anyway. Everyone else changes to camp shoes and fords. An older southbound couple with a dog laden with food packs crosses.Waterboy and I chat to while away the hours. He's 18 from Charlotte and is a line cook in a fine restaurant. He's been working since he was 15 and finished high school early with good grades, but is not interested in college. He's moving to Breckinridge to work in a ski resort kitchen over winter and earn money to hike the PCT next year and the CDT the following year. He wants to finish the Triple Crown of US hiking before he's 21. He left behind a girlfriend who he just found out couldn't wait any longer. We pass a few southbounders, including a woman and her grown niece. It's getting late in the year to start a southbound hike. They'll be hiking well into winter. We pass only one northbounder, Kentucky Straight. At a shelter a Wilderness section hiker with a long white beard is napping while we get water. We chat but excuse ourselves to get 12 miles to the next shelter before sunset, less than four hours away. He shakes his head. It's a crazy plan but the terrain becomes easier and we make good time. We're both exhausted when we reach Cooper Brook Falls Lean-To by the roaring brook, fifteen minutes after sunset. At least a dozen northbounders are here around a fire in front of the shelter. I've caught up to Pretty Boy at last. We chat about summiting Katahdin and post-hike plans. A German named Sweetheart doing the AT on visa also plans to do the PCT next year. I don't get to meet everyone as I'm scarfing down some dinner and they begin filtering back to their tents. Again the shelter is underused. Just fine by me.