Date: 2008-08-04
From: Popular Ridge Lean-to ME

To: North Crocker Mountain ME 
Miles today: 16.3

Day 169 Monday August 4 ¢ North Crocker Mountain ME - Miles Today: 16.3 Total Miles: 1983.2We went further than expected today! But more on that later.It was a really interesting day. Of course, it rained during the night, but Brakeman's drainage ditches around the tent worked like a champ. Typically we never dig drainage ditches, as that is not in line with the Leave-No-Trace hiking philosophy, but lately it seems to be necessary for survival. We dismantled the ditches in the morning.It was raining when the alarm went off at 5:00. We delayed for about 15 minutes but said with the weather system we've got, we might as well get going. By the time we had packed up the stuff inside the tent, the rain had stopped. But, not to worry, our shoes were still wet from yesterday, our socks were still damp and about 15 minutes down the trail we were walking in mud holes and were totally wet again. ¢Yikes¢, our minds thought as we headed down the trail. Today, we need to ford both Orbeton Stream and South Branch Carrabeassett River. Just how deep are they going to be for us?This morning we forded Orbeton Stream. It was the most difficult ford we have ever done on any of our hikes. It was 20 yards across and nearly crotch deep. We used the tandem approach with Brakeman upstream blocking the swiftness of the water for Grasshopper. He called out: outer leg, inner leg, stick, outer leg, inner leg, stick as we forded the stream in synchronized steps. We did really well. There were a couple times when we got out of sync with our steps and one time when our inner legs got crisscrossed, but we got the kinks corrected and continued on. The only thing we did not do that we probably should have done was unbuckle our hip belts so that if we went down, we could slip out of the pack and survive without the drowning weight of the pack. In terms of anxiety, Brakeman said this crossing was a 4, on a scale of 10. His hiking pole, which was positioned upstream, vibrated hard from the waters force the entire time. Overall I think we get an A for our accomplishment of getting across this stream with a good force, with no problem. Later in the day we forded South Branch Carrabassett River. We had various reports from the southbounders. One sobo said it was a rock hopper. Another sobo said it was knee deep. And another sobo said it¢s mid-thigh deep. Well, when we approached the river from our direction, there was no way we were going to cross the river at that junction! There were a few boulders to hop, but just looking at one section gave us a complete panic attack. There was a wood plank placed between 2 uneven boulders that we were to cross. The plank was placed at an angle, leaning upstream, with water lapping over it. There was no way we were going to walk that plank. It did not look safe at all! One of the southbounders had mentioned a rope just upstream so decided to check out that area. It looked like the safest place to cross from a swiftness of the water standpoint, so we decided to cross there. Unfortunately, the rope was just mason line and was not meant to assist hikers in fording the stream. We used the tandem approach again. However, this time the water was swifter and deeper. In terms of anxiety, Brakeman said this crossing was a 6, on a scale of 10. At least one time we got too far apart from each other on our steps. The challenge was that the rocks were wide, slanted, and slippery, so we couldn't always just put our foot directly in front of us. After this happened, we had to concentrate on getting joined at the hip again and not having half a foot or so separating us. The river gauge read 2.3' deep and the swiftness of the water was a little more intense than Overton. Our crossing was a bit shakier, but we made it across with no problem. Remember the story of Smokey, the sobo from Tennessee, who fell off the wood plank into the bog up past his knees? Well, today it happened to Grasshopper! Yep, she fell off one of the bog planks right into the bog, knee deep. Luckily, she did not do a face plant. We had been hearing about hikers falling into the bogs and had a little anxiety about it, but now that we've done it once, it's not such a bad thing. So if it happens again - whatever. We just hope that our shoe does not get sucked off as we climb out of the bog. Then we just hop back up on the plank and keep on marching. After a bog fall, we really aren¢t that much dirtier than we are from hiking in these conditions! Funny. That¢s how bad the trail conditions are!I forgot to mention the other day that we passed a southbound hiker who shared a neat story with us. When Brakeman mentioned that his name was Brakeman, he said "Oh, as in a locomotive." We're like, "Yeah, you're the first one to get it." He said that his grandfather used to work on the railroad and one summer a young man came up to him and said he needed a summer job, was a good outstanding citizen and wouldn't cause any problems; he just needed a job so he could pocket some money and head to Hollywood. That young man is known today as John Wayne. Pretty cool story. Another interesting event today was that we passed the mother-daughter flip-flop team (Rabbit & Owl), their friends (Tigger & Soaring) and the dog Roo. We first passed them in Virginia on April 19th, over 1200 miles ago!   We thanked them for passing our trash-talking message onto Josh & Amanda. During our medical leave, we had read in their journal about their meeting with Josh & Amanda and sharing our message with them and how they enjoyed watching their faces light up with smiles. They're still going strong, though Tigger told us the 100 Mile Wilderness was quite difficult for them and they would not recommend doing 15+ mile days along that stretch. Yikes, we have 15-19 mile days planned. We had figured it was just the sobos, with their untrained hiking legs that found the 100 Mile Wilderness difficult, but to hear it called difficult by a flip-flopper, brought another layer of anxiety to our minds. They mentioned miles upon miles of working for every step as they crossed over tree roots that were knee high and horrible muddy boggy area. Oh joy. As we departed their company, we wondered how in the heck they were going to get the dog across the rivers we just forded! I guess they will figure it out somehow. We are both battling some sort of illness - perhaps mold allergies from all the wet conditions? We have noticed that mold is now growing on our tent. Grasshopper has a sore throat and sinus drainage at night. Brakeman has headaches and body aches.   If we could just get some dry weather perhaps the issues would go away. We saw more blueberry plants today and we stopped to pick some. They were extremely small. When Grasshopper popped the first one in her mouth, she realized that she tasted more dirt from her fingers than true blueberry substance. We picked about 6-8 for one small mouthful and decided it was a lot of work for such little taste. But it was neat. Again today, no one passed us!! It is so hard to believe and I think we hiked further than everybody today. We are just getting to be so good. Our campsite at North Crocker Mountain did not turn out quite as expected. We had asked most of the southbounders today if there was camping on Crocker. The first sobo said no; the next 2 sobos said yes. Unfortunately, we did not ask for good directions or details as to their location. We saw one campsite at South Crocker Mountain, but were told there were better ones at North Crocker, so we continued on. We passed a good campsite at the base of North Crocker Mountain, but we continued on to the summit. Oops, not a good decision. The one tent site at the summit was extremely small and because of all the rain, was under water! Brakeman headed north on the trail to see if he could find any better sites just past the summit. No dice. So we are camped on a bed of rocks literally right beside the summit post sign, held in place by more rocks.   We had to dig rocks out of the ground to make a surface that would not damage the tent and would be somewhat decent for sleeping. One tent vestibule we cannot open; the other vestibule is straddling a bunch of rocks. Despite being on a summit, we' have no view. Why? Because this summit has pine trees and we're fogged in with gray skies. But it's all part of the adventure and it took 2 miles off of our hike for tomorrow. Just 5 miles tomorrow into Stratton. We'll wing it but right now our thoughts are that we'll just do a nero, without a zero. There's no point in delaying our journey. Our knees that ache are not going to heal that much with one rest day and the weather is going to be the same, so hanging at a hotel for another day is not going to help things. We were actually quite antsy with both a nero and a zero in Gorham, so for now the decision is to push on. We have another stop scheduled in Monson, where we can rest up more if desired.   We tried to get cell phone reception again tonight at the top of this mountain, but no luck. We¢d like to check in with the families and see if we have a message from the insurance people, but we¢ll just have to plan on doing those calls from town tomorrow. Sitting in our tent tonight at the top of North Crocker Mountain, all we see is dirt, dirt, dirt and more dirt. The bathtub floor of the tent is really muddy. The entire rainfly is muddy. There is dirt on the mesh part of the tent. We may just have to throw the entire tent in the shower tomorrow to clean it, before drying it.   But we know, of course, that it will just get dirty again when we hit the trail. I think that's it from North Crocker Mountain, which we have all to ourselves. I feel like a world famous explorer camped right beside this signpost marking the summit! We have a slight breeze with a chill in the air. Believe it or not, it is not raining!! Today we had a morning shower, a lunchtime shower, a before dinner shower and an after dinner shower. The only thing we haven't had yet is our nighttime rain. Rest assured, it's only 7:30 and we have plenty of time for that. Speaking of the wet, we counted the number of times our shorts got wet today and we came up with either 7 or 8 between all the various rain showers, the 2 river fords and 1 time the wet vegetation from the overgrown trail completely drenched our shorts. You¢d think that after 7 rinse cycles, our shorts would be clean, but they are not. I guess I can say they are cleaner but nothing is going to be clean, I don't think, until we complete this messy Maine trail.   Life is still good and we're getting mighty used to the weather; it's really not impacting us too much. It's about 60 degrees inside the tent; we¢re thankful for having our #3 fleece tops with us. Today we went under 200 miles - just 193 miles to go! Goodnight.