Date: 2016-07-04
From: Spaulding Mountain Lean-To

To: Stratton, ME via Rt. 27
Miles today: 13.5
Weather: light rain

Everybody but Woody and Noodles was up pretty early this morning. I ate some of the girls' oatmeal that they could not finish, which was a nice supplement to my food this morning. They got out about five minutes before I did, on account of me leaving my stuff everywhere and forgetting to pack it up. Reverting back to old ways. And so I passed them about five minutes into hiking. The AT feels kind of strange in this section because it is surprisingly flat, and does not ascend the big mountains around it - Abraham, Sugarloaf. I passed over Spaulding Mtn., but decided not to head up the steep side trail to the top. A mile or so later, I came to a pretty interesting plaque on a boulder, which explained that near this spot in 1937, the last section of the AT was cut, completing the trail running from Georgia to Maine. The golden spike of the trail, if you will. Just a little bit beyond that, I paused to make another sign, this one reading K: 200, for 200 miles left to Katahdin. I passed along the along a ridge before leaving behind a turn-off for Sugarloaf and heading down into the Caribou valley. For a quarter mile at one point, the trail opened up into a rounded cirque without trees, giving a wonderful view across to the Crockers and out towards the Bigelows to the north. The trail was rocky and dusty in this section, and i had to leap across a couple sketchy slides that looked ripe for an injury.The trail evened out and followed the path of the Carrabassett River for a little while, which I then crossed with the help of a rickety 2x8 plank placed across boulders above the main flow of the stream. The climb up the Crockers was totally reasonable up to Crocker Cirque Campsite, where I stopped for some water, and Speed Limit passed me. Then, it got ridiculous. The whole trail was just like a staircase, climbing and climbing and climbing up vertically the side of this mountain. There were some cool views, though, especially where the AT climbed up an old rock slide; I could see the ridgeline of the bigelows extremely well, where I'll hike tomorrow. The trail got a little easier climbing up and over the two humps of Crocker mountain, but still, I was exhausted. As I was heading down from North Crocker, about 11 am, I got another call from Lightning: he, goldie and seal tree were all still in Stratton, debating what to do: they had slept in and gotten breakfast, but hadn't resupplied yet, and were considering taking the day off. I tried not to sway Lightning, but I'm sure I couldn't contain my excitement or my bias: I really wanted to catch them and see them! I told him I was about 90 minutes out from stratton (which was probably underestimating it, but I wanted to make it happen), and he said they would at least wait for me so I could see them. I basically ran down Crocker Mountain, just so excited to get to Stratton. Nearing the bottom, i had to stop and take a picture at a wooden sign on the ground which marks 2000 miles from Springer. Holy crap, man. I can taste Katahdin. At about 1, the trail let me out at a small parking lot, and I crossed the road and began to hitch. I didn't have to wait very long before getting picked up and dropped in the middle of the small town of stratton. And who should I find right outside the grocery store? Lightning, Seal Tree and Goldie!!I was so amped to see them. After tailing them since New Jersey, and getting a tantalizing glimpse in Gorham, I was finally back with familiar faces and good friends. It seems we all had decent reasons to stay in Stratton today: Seal Tree, Goldie and I were each expecting a package at the post office, and with its being a holiday today, it looked like they wouldn't be in until at least tomorrow morning. Goldie's I believe had some food and supplies, while Seal Tree's I think was just a care package from his parents. Mine was a new pair of boots. My boots, which were new in New Jersey, have been taking a beating. They have a couple of holes in the uppers, one of the soles is beginning to debond and the laces are fraying off. At least the insoles I bought in Killington are working well; my feet did not get sore even on all the new hampshire rocks. And so my arrival seems like it convinced the three of them to stay in town. They had slept at the White Wolf Inn last night, and had apparently gotten a pretty good deal. We went there for lunch, and as I dug in to a giant burger and some beer, we asked whether they had any rooms available tonight. The only one available was a suite that would be large even for four of us, so we went across the street to the stratton motel, where we got set up with two double beds for the evening. So with that, we were not about to waste our half day off. I showered up, then we walked across the street to the general store, where I did some resupply and we got some more beer to celebrate the 4th! Outside the store we met Blazer and Speed Limit, who were about to hitch back out and camp a few miles further along, as well as a Sobo whose buddy just quit the trail on him. YeeshWe ended up sitting around in the motel room for a lot of the rest of the day, watching Saving Private Ryan and Forrest Gump on AMC, two pretty quintessentially American movies. Seal Tree and Goldie have a pretty silly dynamic, making lots of jokes and doing weird things. Lightning repeatedly told me "thank god you're here now," because at least he has someone to talk to about their antics. It's a fun lil group. Around 8 we went searching for more food. We probably should've gone earlier: all that was really open was the gas station and I ended up buying some questionable soba noodles and a pastry or two to eat. Another burger would've hit the spot. But we stumbled home back to the motel room and ate the food and headed to bed.