Date: 2018-07-11
To: Abol Bridge
Miles today: 23.1
Weather: broken clouds

What a great day. I woke up with no stress at all. I had all day to hike a meager 20 miles over mild terrain to the last shelter of the 100 Mile Wilderness. Zero issues. If I did what I would normally do, that 20 miles would be done by 1 or 2 so I had to chill. I "slept in" until 5:30 then started making movements. It's tough because I'm around a bunch of SOBOs. They're all brand new and still have that look of "oh shit what did I get myself in to" that we all had back in Georgia. So I was the first one up and ended up being the catalyst for most of them to start moving.I got up and ate, took my time packing then ended up making coffee outside the shelter. A double dose of Starbucks instant coffee that I figured I would have done a few hours into hiking anyway so it worked. After that, I still got out by 6:30 and hiked up to a view point overlooking Katahdin. I took the side trail to a view that had a 16 mile line of sight view to the peak. It was great. I even had service here so I stayed for almost an hour catching up on journal postings and calling home to finalize logistics. Eventually, I made it off the top and began the rest of the hike.The hike to Rainbow Stream Lean-to was slower than I expected based off the elevation profile simply because of the roots. Eventually I made it there though and had done 8.1 miles by 10 or so. I had met a bunch of SOBOs in this stretch and struggled with chatting with them. It's so tough. Do I tell them all about the good and get them psyched? Do I tell them there are so many days that I wanted to quit and stop hiking? How do I form the kind of wisdom to tell them that this has been the most difficult but most beneficial and life changing four months of my life into a few charismatic words? It's hard.A lot of the day had me hiking along Rainbow Lake. The lake hikes are nice but very rooty and not as quick as I had hoped. By dumb chance I stopped at a random spot along the lake for water. I dropped my pack on trail and pushed through the trees to the lake to fill up. As I did, I looked south along the lake shore and saw another hiker named Ozzie who I had been around for the past few days. He was on a rock on the bank. I said hey! And he said, "I fell." He wasn't necessarily okay and I rushed over to see what was going on. He had taken a spill over some rocks and was bleeding pretty bad from his forearm, elbow, knee and shin. When I happened upon him he was attempting to clean some of the blood with a rag and lake water. With the supplies him and I had, we managed to stop the bleeding and clean his cuts. We used baby wipes, gauze pads and gauze rolls to clean then dress the wounds. He also had some Neosporin that we used too. It wasn't pretty and unfortunately I didn't have the things I would have hoped to use but we bandaged him up enough and I pushed him to take some ibuprofen. He's a Vietnam Vet and a wicked awesome guy finishing his sections of the AT that he started in 2015. I know the feeling of falling and being alone and I can only imagine what the feeling might be for someone older than me so I think he was glad to have someone else around.By 12:30 he was cleaned and bandaged and I departed the lakeside after he told me he would be good. I climbed Rainbow ledges and had some sweet views of Katahdin past a group of roughly 18 high school Quebec girls who were finishing the 100 mile wilderness. I pushed just beyond the summit to eat lunch in the quiet of the woods away from the big group (no offense). Ozzie ended up passing me on lunch as I drank some more coffee and called home again with service. He was back to normal and feeling good!The last descent to the shelter was unremarkable and when I got there, there were a group of 4 hikers who had flipped. They had made it to Harper's Ferry then come up to Katahdin to go south to avoid closure in the park and bad weather. They were not my style and gave me really creepy vibes. I made my stop here quick then decided to push on to Abol Bridge where I would either stealth camp or find a spot. It took only a few miles for me to hit the end of the 100 Mile Wilderness. I was pretty pumped to have done it in 4 days with about 4-4.5 days of food. I hit Golden Road, which is the first major road outside the wilderness, and walked along it across the Abol Bridge. At first I was thinking it was just like every dirt road until I crossed the bridge and got the panoramic view of Katahdin with the Penobscot river in the foreground. It was amazing!At the Abol Bridge camp store I ran into Ozzie again and we decided to meet for dinner. I ended up paying for a campsite because it was $20 with a breakfast buffet included! Woo! Around 5 we met in the restaurant attached to the store and shared a 6 pack of Long Trail while devouring some awesome food. They had a Thanksgiving dinner panini! (I know my mom would love it!) I'll tell you, when you're hungry while hiking-- Thanksgiving is thought of a lot! Today I was even singing Christmas songs in my head. Eventually we made it out of the restaurant and he showered while I set up camp and bought a 6 pack of baxter IPA to share with him. I didn't want to shower. I wanted to embrace the stink for one more day. We had made it out of the 100 mile wilderness in 4 days and we were excited! What a cool accomplishment. We made friends with a few NOBO flip Floppers who ended in Bland, VA named Wallis and Mouth. The four of us ended up hanging around the campsite drinking beers and reminiscing on the trail. We told Wallis and Mouth what to expect in the wilderness and they were excited! What a great night.P.S: well I paid $2 for an hour of WiFi at the campground to post this! What luxury haha. I feel like I'm on a plane!Thank you so much to everyone who has commented on my guest book recently. It always amazes me how many people are reading my crazy thoughts written online! I THOROUGHLY ENJOY seeing everybody's comments there and love reading your messages! Those of you who anonymously read, I'd love to hear who you are and where you're from! Thanks all for your words of encouragement. Next time I post I will have completed the entire trail! Woo!