Date: 2017-06-02
From: Four Miles beyond Matagamon camp

To: Deasey Mountain Lookout
Miles today: 17.6
Weather: scattered clouds

Today I stepped on a snake and later I stepped a hairs¢ breadth from the body of another snake. A third Rolling Thunder spotted before I could do it harm. What¢s with snakes out here? Where¢s the rattle?We slept in a bear hunters¢ tent bunkhouse at Matagamon Wilderness Campground last night. We had hiked over 4 miles beyond it yesterday afternoon, then Frodo had driven us back. She and I had one bunkhouse tent and RT slept in  another one, 75 feet away. At our 7:00 am breakfast the talk at the tables around us was of the advantages of various caliber rifles and of the bear that one of them missed yesterday, though he had a clean shot. The magazine in the restroom was an issue of ¢Concealed Carry.¢ These are nice people; witness the 5-year-old¢s birthday party we sat next to last night at dinner. We share talk of the outdoors, and they are eager to hear about our hike. I¢ve never knowingly had a gun on our house.  We have to be able to talk with each other, be respectful, and to keep the door open to compromise. And that may be as close as I get to politics all summer. (Frodo: though there was the female hiker who contacted us and mentioned that she would be bringing a handgun with her. We told her she would need to stay with some other San Diego host. She then declared that she would not have her gun with her; her husband would bring it to her after her first week of hiking. We found out later that she indeed did have a gun with her when she stayed with us. That was pretty rude and made us pretty angry.) At the Grand Pitch lean-to we enjoyed reading the shelter¢s journal entries, which ranged from the ridiculous to the sublime. Now Rolling Thunder and I were forced to wear our bug headnets today, just to keep our sanity. But two who were at Grand Pitch in May of 2016 claimed they counted ¢38,461 mosquitos and 481,238 blackflies.¢ I think they were being conservative. Here¢s RT suffering from the bugs and the rain. And on August 27th last year, only ten entries before ours, fine handwriting celebrated ¢The U.S.¢s newest national monument¢¦.. Now all will have an opportunity to experience the beauty and bounty of the Maine woods!¢ Why am I quoting this? The signature below it was Sally Jewell, U.S. Secretary of the Interior.The journal showed only two other entries this year before ours, both on short jaunts. We did experience the beauty of the Maine woods, perhaps a bit too much. We were locked in a green tunnel all day, the woods enveloping us, walls closing in above. No hoped-for views of Katahdin. At days¢ end the terminus of the IAT will be 10 miles away and Katahdin will be 22 miles distant. Wassataquoik. When Frodo said, ¢Make wise decisions¢ when she left me this morning, it was the Wassataquoik River she had in mind. It¢s the one dicey crossing on this 140 miles of IAT. It¢s either ford it if we can, 5 miles into tomorrow, or make an 8-mile detour to a dilapidated but probably passable old bridge. We will see.Near days¢ end, hoping to make it to an old lookout on Deasey Mountain, the trail turns to Appalachian-Trail-like ups and downs, a rocky, mossy, limb-strewn path, faint because it is the little-trodden IAT, heading too often straight up or straight down. Then heavy rain. That¢s no way to treat us at the end of the day. But as we come out of the trees to the summit of Deasey there¢s the ten-by-ten lookout building. And there, finally, is our reward, a stunning 360° view, clouds lifting, Katahdin streaked with snow to the west, Mt. Chase and the rest we¢ve hiked by the last few days to the east. We can cook and sleep in the snug wood- and glass-paneled building. It started raining again, but I¢m eating mashed potatoes with home-dehydrated chicken and Harmony House freeze-dried veggies. Hot chocolate can¢t be far behind. The wind is whipping noisily outside and I am writing to you.