Date: 2004-10-03
From: Hall Mountain Lean-to

To: Rangeley, Maine
Miles today: 4.1
Weather: clear sky

It was a beautiful day again today, perfect, sunny. I¢m enjoying hiking since coming out of the Mahoosucs. Even tough climbs are fun challenges instead of torture. I think it was the rainbow on Baldpate that did it. I¢m much more at peace. There were two fords according to the Wingfoot before the road today, but neither of them were much to write home about. I¢m rather terrified of fords. Getting my feet wet really doesn¢t appeal. But so far we¢ve been really lucky with them, able to avoid almost all of them. The only one we¢ve actually had to ford was back at the Connecticut-Massachusetts border. There was a rather brutal climb first thing this morning, 1400 feet in 9/10ths of a mile, but it was still fun, hauling myself up the rocks. And a great view from the top. The worst ford was the one right before the road. There was a great campsite right before it, though, which was listed in Wingfoot, and had been our goal the night before. I was a little regretful that we hadn¢t made it there. But our rabid-mouse-infested shelter was nice too. At the road we had a decision: hike or hitch. It would mean cutting off a couple miles of trail to hitch to Rangeley, but our food situation was still not good, the split peas were definitely not working out, and our mail drop was supposed to be waiting for us in Rangeley.According to Wingfoot there was a pizza place that let thru-hikers crash in their garage. We decided to stick our thumbs out for a half-hour and let fate decide. The first guy that passed stopped, a bear-hunting guide who was full of talk of Maine politics, whether to ban bear-baiting, to expand Baxter, to tax the out-of-state tourists who have vacation homes in Maine and who are changing the character of the state. He took us via the back forest-service roads, showed us all the local color, stopping at a local lake, finding a coyote carcass for us to poke at, basically driving the entire route of the trail that we were missing. It was a great experience. One that County and I agreed we wouldn¢t have wanted to miss. I don¢t particularly like blue or yellow-blazing, and I was a purist all the way through Connecticut, but it seems less relevant now. I only ever said I was going to be a purist as long as I could last, and now following the whims of the trail, hiking or not hiking, seems a more primary concern. Does that take away my credentials as a thru-hiker? I¢m not sure.So we got to Rangeley, after about two hours of driving. We got a pizza at the pizza place, which was fairly sub-standard, and the owner brusquely informed us, when asked about sleeping space that, ¢we don¢t do that anymore.¢ I don¢t know what past thru-hikers had done coming through there, but it can¢t have been good. We poked around at other places in town, looking for info or a place to stealth. There¢s a hostel in town, but it¢s $20 per person, and $40 is definitely outside our budget at this point. We finally heard from a local that one of the churches in town left its doors open. I¢m not sure if it was on purpose, so local drunks and homeless can stay there, but we availed ourselves of the opportunity. It was dark by that point, and sneaking around a church felt fairly illegitimate, but we can¢t have been the worst who stayed there. We found an unfinished room off the balcony and set up our stuff. They had Morning Prayer in the morning, about which I was excited. It will not only get us up early in the morning, but allow us to attend a small service. The church is the denomination I used to attend back in Chicago. A real blessing for us. I¢ve avoided listing its name, for fear that it will get the same abuse given to other places that have been proffered to thru-hikers over the years.