Date: 2012-07-04
From: Andover, ME

To: Bald Pate Lean-to
Miles today: 8.0

Happy Fourth of July! We weren't thinking yesterday and put together a small pile of stuff to send home today, but the post office is closed. Duh. Scrum made that mistake as well, but at least he prevented us from going all the way to the PO.This morning we got a food resupply. I had two donuts and a Coke for breakfast. I didn't feel too great after that. We paid $6.00 each for a shuttle from Pine Ellis to the road and Booterman came with us. When we got there, Steven asked me where his trekking poles were. OMG! He'd left them at the hostel on the porch. David drove him back to the hostel and then back to the drop off point. I waited at the drop off point and read a little bit of the Hunger Games.We hiked to a very nice waterfall - Dunn Falls maybe? We started fairly late, so I thought that we should eat lunch at 2:00. Steven agreed. It was so humid today and I was so hot that I couldn't prevent my glasses from fogging up even though I treated them with Optifog this morning. THAT is annoying.We caught up to Booterman at exactly 2:00 where she was sitting on a nice log. We joined her and ate lettuce and cheese sandwiches. Yum. We went to the first lean-to and there was a MATC crew working. They had lots of tents set up. In the shelter was Goose. Very nice guy.Around 3:50 I knew we needed to leave if we were going to make it to Bald Pate Shelter - and Steven wanted to hike on even though I didn't really because my knee is bugging me. Anyway, we were about 1/3 of the way up the mountain when we heard thunder. Doh! This is a bald, open ridge mountain so we didn't want to be up there in a storm. We kept on hiking, though and ran into some NOBOs. The last guy was the most talkative. He said that the clouds and storms were not coming toward us and it appeared to be true, so we hiked on. We were about 2/3 of the way up at that point.When we reached the first peak we could see the thunderstorm off in the distance and it was awesome! We took several pictures. I think I even got a picture of a lightning bolt!As we started down it looked like the wind shifted and the storm on our right was coming straight for us! We started to move a lot faster, but my knee was slowing me down. At that point, we saw Booterman just coming over the peak and a flash of lightning struck somewhere behind her. We ran to the trees and waited out the storm there. It was hailing and thundering and lightning like crazy. The little path where we were taking shelter flooded with rainwater and our feet were soaked. It was a crazy ten to twenty minutes!Booterman booked it after the storm passed and said that she wanted "to get off this motherf*&^!n mountain." I guess she wasn't kidding because she isn't at the shelter here. We didn't get here until about 7:30!! My knee and ankle are busted. We met Stitch when we arrived at Bald Pate Lean-to. I can't tell if he is joking or just plain arrogant. I think he is too cocky. He told Steven that "The Count" was a pretentious name. We were already doubting it as his trail name, so now we feel worse about it. Then he was lecturing us on what we SHOULD be carrying opposed to what we ARE carrying. I don't want to be told what we're doing wrong... unless I ask for advice, please don't tell me. Let me learn the hard way. Anyway, in summation - even though we didn't have our own fireworks for Independence Day, God gave us quite a show on Bald Pate!OMG - Stich snores like a pissed off lion!!!