Date: 2005-09-09
From: Bald Mt. Pond Lean-To

To: Near Daughty Pond
Miles today: 20.6

Red Wing:   Another beautiful day in Maine! The locals keep telling us that it's not supposed to be like this in September. Oh well, we'll take it.    The rain came last night and left before dawn. Our first climb out of the shelter was Moxie Bald. The views were well worth the climb. The haze in the air prevented us from seeing Katahdin, but we did have 360 degrees of views below. Maine is so unpopulated that virtually every view is without roads or buildings. In fact, as I write this, we're near the town of Monson and we can hear traffic for the first time in days. Anyway, due to the spring snowmelt knocking out bridges over rivers, Maine doesn't even attempt to help us across its waterways (with the exception of the canoe ferry at the Kennebec). Often we can rock hop our way from bank to bank, and perhaps get one foot a little wet. Today we had three rivers that were knee deep, without rocks or other crossing options. Some people trade their shoes for sandles before a ford, we just plow on through, figuring it's less slippery that way, and our shoes will dry out eventually. Following our last river ford of the day, we came across a cooler of trail magic and enjoyed cold root beers. It seems that Trail Magic is always well timed. About an hour later, somewhere around the "does ginger ale have caffeine" conversation, we walked up on a bull moose. Until this point, all the moose we'd seen have been cows and calves. It happened as we were breaking all the wildlife sighting rules; we were talking louding and clanking our hiking poles as we trotted along. Pappa Razzi and Hopeful both had better views of it and said that the rack was quite large. Shortly after the sighting, we pulled into camp. We thought we were all done with twenty mile days when we hit the Whites. I guess we had one more in us. I don't know how we ever did the miles we did earlier in the hike. I feel this probably really was our last big day.         Usually, when you talk to thru-hikers, you ask them about Maine and their eyes glaze over and they develop a twitch and they begin by saying, "It's looked so nice out when we started..." They go on to tell tales that involve the showing of scars and hand gestures that describe winds and rains and depths of rivers forded and the huge rack of the bull moose. I've realized that it's just a bunch of one-upisms, and that I'd rather have sunny days while watching moose than tell about how bad we had it. Next year at Trail Days I hope to be able to respond to past years of Maine hiking stories by saying, "Wow, that sounds horrible, it was kind to us." I would then expect gasps and then silence. Maine is supposed to scar us, but(excluding some southern sections) has been surprisingly... pleasant. Today was no different.   That same thing inside us that causes us to want to tell the greatest Maine woods story affects us all. For some, it's about how bad a storm was, for others, it's the number of miles hiked. Our competetiveness is never more ugly than when we try to elevate our own experience by de-valuing another person's experience. Thru-hikers really can be mean to one another when they try to say that their hike is more legimate, based on whatever criteria they use to validate themselves. One question I've been asking in my time out here has been, "What does is mean to be Christian? What is required?" It's easy to fall into the same trap here. I can want for there to be more required for the sake of elevating my own relationship with Christ above another's, but this wouldn't be fair or true. In Romans 14, Paul addresses this by saying that God will judge so we don't have to. "Therefore, let us stop passing judgement on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brother's way". Others have insulted me by saying I must carry all of my gear for every inch of the trail or cross the Kennebec River on my own two feet. If not, I'm not truly a thru-hiker. Likewise, by unintentionally laying stumbling blocks, obstacles or unnecessary criteria in other's paths, I fear that I've presented a more exculsive Gospel than Christ ever intended. It's an interesting parallel, it has helped me to see what Paul is saying.