Date: 2004-08-05
From: White House Landing, Maine

To: Cooper Brook Falls Lean-to, Maine
Miles today: 13.8
Weather: scattered clouds

13.8 miles todayTenting at Cooper Brook Falls Lean-to, MaineIt's a beautiful, cool, clear morning. There is a nice breeze moving the air around. The thermometer reads 48 degrees. It's 6am and I'm sitting on a rock down by the lake and listening to the loons...Life just doesn't get any better than this.The other three hikers are still up in the bunk house sleeping here at White House Landing.Gerald got up and came outside and we talked a while. He's been hiking the A.T. in sections and has about 800 miles done.At 8am, the four of us showed up at the lodge for breakfast. I got lucky because I was the only coffee drinker, so I had my fill of caffeine for the day. Breakfast consisted of scrambled eggs, bacon, homefried potatoes, english muffins, blueberry pancakes and oj.Gerald and Mark got a boat ride back to the other side of the lake after breakfast and I went out on the front porch swing and layed down and dozed off in the sunshine...it's tough out here in the wilderness.I resupplied for 5 days from the hiker food they have for sale here. It's a little more expensive, but well worth not having to carry 10 days worth of food from the beginning. I sent a mail drop of food here last year and by the time you pay the postage, I think it's best to just buy your food here and let them make a few extra dollars. I'm even going to have Mountain House dinners for 4 of the next 5 nights. I still can't bring myself around to eating Ramen or Lipton's Noodles anymore.John Galt and I lounged around until about 11am. He was studying for a test he has coming up and I was just studying the beauty of this place.Bill brought back some teaberries today and showed us what they were and I got to taste some. They tasted like chewing gum that I've had before.I ordered 3 pizzas from Linda. One for John Galt and I for lunch and 2 to pack out for dinner for Hippie, Coughdrop, John Galt and I. We ate our pizza there and had Linda wrap up the other two so we could put them in our backpacks.Hippie and Coughdrop had hiked on yesterday and we are meeting them at Cooper Brook Falls Lean-to tonight.Bill took us by boat back over to the other side of the lake and dropped us off at 1pm. We only had about 13 miles to hike so it was nice playing around all morning before we started hiking.About a half an hour into the hike, we scared a deer and he took off running. I couldn't tell if it was a doe or a buck.We got to Potaywadjo Spring Lean-to at 2:20pm and took a short break.A little while later, I ran into a nobo by the name of Mainsail and gave him a message that Sauerkraut wanted me to tell him. He is hoping to summit Katahdin in a few days.At 3:10pm, I heard a huge tree fall and crash to the ground. It's amazing how many times I have heard trees fall out here.We spent about 15 minutes at Antler's Campsite before hiking on. I've always wanted to tent there, but it never seems to work out in my day. I think that's because it's only 6 miles from White House Landing.We got to Jo-Mary Road and we ran into some trail magic!! There was 2 Pepsi's and a Little Debbie Snack. That's the first time I've ever seen trail magic in the 100 mile wilderness.We hiked on to here and Hippie was already in her tent. She said she wasn't feeling too good. She did manage to eat some pizza though.Coughdrop thought I was just playing with her when I told her I brought her some pizza. She had the happiest look on her face when she saw that I really did have it. That look made it worth carrying that pizza for almost 14 miles.I set up my tent and then I showed John Galt a knot for hanging his hammock that I used at work, but it pulled the hammock too tight and I broke a line in it...oops, good night John. We retied the knot in his hammock that came loose and he went back to his old knots...I was just trying to help.After he finally got it hung, I crawled into my tent to get away from the mosquitos that were chewing my legs up.Another great day on the A.T.