Date: 2014-08-07
From: beach on crawford pond

To: crescent pond
Miles today: 28.3
Weather: scattered clouds

as usual i was up when the birds got me up and on this day i would eat my cold oatmeal mixture on the beach. the nice thing about these sandy beaches on the lakes is that its more like tiny rocks that dont stick to you not like sand on a regular beach. i ate and watched the sun come over the trees. these are the times i will truly miss when im done with the trail. its so nice to watch the day wake up and the birds start to sing the song of their kind. the weather was perfect and cool early so i made good progress getting the nearly 7 miles done in two hours. the trail was nearly flat, truly flat and nice on the feet. jo-mary rd is the road nearly halfway through the wilderness that some people choose to do a food drop on. thats when someone meets them with another batch of food to get them through. usually these are people that are planning on taking a long time and dont want to carry ten days of food. i had 6 days planned so i opted to carry it through. four more short miles later i arove at antlers campsite, a place i had heard was nice. i went over to give it a look and boy was it ever a great place to camp. it was all tent sites and lots of them right on jo-mary lake. i would highly recommend people camp here if it fit their schedule. not to mention, they have a 2-holer privy named fort relief! i sat down for a break here to stare at the water and smell the air. i was nearly 11 miles into my day by 10:30, my schedule was already busted. i would again just figure out where i was going to stay later that day. i sat and took a real lunch break at the potaywadjo spring lean2. i dropped my pack at the shelter and headed down to the spring to get some water. i met a section hiker at the spring that was looking for the shelter. i told him it could almost bite you its so close. he followed me back and we talked a little bit. he had questions about making his hike easier. to start with he was carrying 6 liters of water! whoa dude, thats 12 pounds of water you got there, i have been carrying no water at all aside of going over the two mountain sections and i only carried a liter there. i told him to dump as much as he was comfortable with for starters. he was also adding bleach to his water that he had already filtered. i asked him why he bothered filtering if he didnt trust it. he said it was for back up. i trust the filter, im not hauling bleach around. for much of the afternoon i followed the nahmakanta stream. its pretty nice to see the water for long stretches. the walking was so easy it was almost boring, yup i said that. i thought it strange that for the first time in so long that i could just walk for miles without worrying about footing and it seemed monotonous. i showed up at nahmakanta lake and spotted a bench for which to take another sit down on, so thats what i did. i ate sour skittles and life savers while watching two people canoe on the lake. just about the time i sat down, thunder started over the hill. it sounded a long way away. i neglected the warning and sat a while longer, the people canoeing neglected it too. then i saw the black cloud come over the hill, heading straight at us. uh, yeah, got it, time to get a move on. the folks in the canoe didnt seem to care, they were way out in the middle and not paddling, i would rather be in my shoes right now. i walked a brisk walk while watching the black cloud get closer. i wasnt a bit worried because it was one lonely black cloud, probably just gonna amount to a scattered shower i thought. when i got around the side of the lake i could hear it start to rain on the canopy of the trees. no worries, i would just huddle up close to this pine tree till it blew over. i squeezed myself up close in hopes it would keep the rain off me. i watched it fall all around me glad to be where i was, then i noticed the rain bouncing off the ground? what was this new development? hail!! the first thing i thought was, good it wont be as wet as rain. things changed quick, so quick, too quick. the hail started really coming down and getting bigger with rain mixed in. my pack started to get wet so i wanted to fish out my pack cover and get that on. within seconds i had the cover out but it was hailing so hard it was hurting my head and arms so i held the cover over my head to keep it off me. the worst was the pellets hitting my hands and forearms that were only protected by the thin cover. the hail ended up being marble sized and completely covering the ground! it looked like it had snowed a painful snow. my thought now was, huh, never saw that coming. the AT can really keep you on your toes, you never know what shes gonna throw at you. when it slowed up i quickly threw on my hat, raincoat, and pack cover on my pack. getting me and my pack protected was a relief. i figured i might as well walk along in it as opposed to standing there so i made my way over the slippery hailstones. i was only a mile from a shelter but it was one long mile. by the time i got there the hail had stopped and it was only sprinkling. two southbounders were holed up in there. they said the noise was tremendous from the steel roof of the shelter, i believed them but would rather have been under there than where i was. i waited there for a minuted before heading on. i was pretty wet and the best way to dry clothes is to wear them while walking. after the shelter was a climb up nesuntabunt mt. it was only a 700' ascent but a real different kind. most of the climb was up terraced rock. the rock was about twelve feet tall with flat ground in front so the trail worked back and forth between the rock faces. at the top was a short side trail to a view of katahdin and the sky had cleared enough that i thought i would take a peek. there it was, the mountain that contained the finish line at its peak. she looked big and ominous. i could see the end! that was a big deal. i wondered how that big old mt drew us all toward her. magic, that was my answer. once down the other side of the mountain i got to crescent pond, a good looking moose pond so i walked up on it slow. no moose but it was just like ones i had seen moose at before. just before the trail pulled away from the pond and headed about its way i noticed a nice tent spot. i stopped and looked at it and thought i could scout moose in the morning. i pulled out my guide, i was about a mile and a half from a 30 mile day. i wanted to be able to say i did one more thirty but in the end this was way too good of an opportunity to pass up. i wanted to see another moose more. while setting up my tent i heard squooshing on the other side of the pond, i set down my tent poles and snuck to the shore. i could hear something moving around over there but nothing was in sight. i sat patient for a half hour when it started to rain, i had to finish getting my mobile home set up so i headed back up to camp. i got things up before the rain came down too hard and kept most things dry. i cooked dinner under the porch flap of the tent and ate inside. the mosquitos here were horrendous and starving. so glad for chemicals to cover myself in and the mesh of my tent. i ate and went to bed with an alarm set for prelight. i would be up early to find the elusive moose. the rain didnt last long and when it stopped, the loon started. later on an owl started too. not sure what kind but he was close by and had a cool purr sound to his hoot. these are also the things i will truly miss about the trail. these are times you have to experience to really know how good it is. i am lucky enough to know how exactly good it is.