Date: 2012-09-06
From: Spaulding Mountain Lean-to

To: Reddington Stream Camping area
Miles today: 10.7

We were up around our usual time of 6:00 this morning but took a little longer getting up and out of camp. For some reason we seem more efficient in getting out of camp when we tent Vs when we stay in a shelter. I guess it is that we are so much more "compartmentalized" when in a tent where we tend to spread out in a shelter.We said our goodbyes to Pain and Warrior and continued south bound. We passed some hikers along the way who had crossed the Orbeton River that morning and from the sound of it, the water level should not be over our knees - good news after hearing yesterday that the level was over the top of other hikers legs.A couple of passing NOBO hikers told us of some bear tracks on the trail ahead - so we stopped to take some pictures of them. Seeing the tracks made me feel all the better about our practice of doing proper bear bag lines to hang our food at night while others take the chance of hanging food in the shelters. We followed Sluice brook for a while - and after seeing the way the water channels down a rock sluiceway I can see where it gets its name from. The brook ends in a beautiful waterfall just before reaching the Orbeton River and we found some really great swim spots which we would have endulged ourselves in had it been warmer.We changed into our crocs to get across the Orbeton River and found the crossing a non-issue. Greenie had never forded a stream before, so this was a first for him.The hike up Poplar Ridge seemed to go on and on with multiple false summits - which started to frustrate me to no end. By the time we hit the peak I was one big sweat ball and smelled like you read about.We stopped for lunch of the rock summit and spread our gear out to dry out from the sweat and wet conditions the day before.After lunch as we started down to the Poplar Ridge shelter I slipped and fell - bouncing not once but twice after landing on my pack Vs my rear end before coming to rest in the dirt. Greenie gave me a hand up and we got moving again.We stopped at the shelter for water and continued on. This is one shelter I am glad we did not stay at as the sleeping platform was made of branches that had been stripped of their bark and layed side by side creating a washboard effect. NOT my idea of something comfortable to sleep on - but then again, any port in a storm will do.We made the climb up over Saddleback Junior and then up to the Reddington Stream Camp site where we would spend our last night on the trail. The camp site is new and hardly used - it seems from a spacing perspective that the thru-hikers skip this spot and they usually tend to put into shelters Vs camp sites.We had a tent platform to ourselves and in fact, only two other hikers stayed at the camp site that night tenting below where we set camp so it felt like we had the entire place to ourselves.Greenie and I spent some time discussing how all of our decisions had paid off on this trip and how we had avoided not only some crazy rain from the remnants of the hurricane as well as worked around what was clearly a dangerous river crossing. This trip had certainly become a real adventure!We bedded down before dark with nothing left to do for the day - glad things had worked as well as it had, but beginning to feel sad that our week on the trail was almost over. We still had some great hiking ahead of us tomorrow with Saddleback and the Horn still to get over and a long stretch of alpine zone to take in....now all we needed was for the weather to cooperate one more day.