Date: 2019-08-03
To: The Birches
Miles today: 13.4
Weather: scattered clouds

We got out early to reach Abol Bridge to register for the Birches and get the breakfast buffet. I learned the hard way that Hurd Brook Lean-To's "baseball bat" floor is noted by AWOL as more of a warning than an interesting feature. It's a row of two-inch round, knotty pine logs. Makes sleeping on a standard wood plank shelter floor feel downright luxurious.The hike to Abol had a few climbs, rocks, and roots, so the Wilderness didn't let go easily. The bugs swarmed UNICEF and I as we approached the Golden Road. Then a series of trucks hauling boats and rafts sped past us kicking up clouds of dust. After admiring the view of Katahdin at Abol Bridge, we dumped the packs at the campground store, a plain-looking building, and jogged the mile or so to the Baxter Park boundary to register for the Birches shelter. There's only space for 12 thruhikers (defined as hiking at least 100 miles into Baxter, so I qualified). I've been assuring UNICEF, Silent Bob, Two Blade, and Fresh Prints for days that it won't be a problem to get in. But when we arrived at the board at 7:30 am there were already nine names on the list. Fortunately Silent Bob, Two Blade, and Fresh Prints were three of them. The last one, Fargo, was still there. He's a thruhiker, but new to us. The first five names got there at 6am, after staying at the Abol campground. We recognize none of the names. Hobbit will later be the last name. That means everyone at our shelter who wanted a spot got one. The Camp Kieve group had reservations and the others at Hurd Brook were headed to Millinocket. Anyone who started before Hurd Brook and goes this far is out of luck.So we sprinted back to the campstore with Fargo, humming the triumphant Chariots of Fire theme. The breakfast buffet awaited. For $10 it was similar to a hot buffet at a mid-range motel with bagels, sausage, circular egg patties, yogurt, coffee, danishes, OJ, etc. But after 100 miles and five days it felt like a five-star restaurant. We all - Fresh Prints, UNICEF, Two Blade, Hobbit, and Silent Bob - ate ourselves into a food coma and collapsed outside on the concrete porch when the restaurant closed at 9. Our plan was to take out lunch when the restaurant reopened at 11. Meanwhile some of us obtained an expensive but sugary resupply from the store. Around 10:30 a Baxter ranger walked up. He was concerned that we signed up for the Birches but came back here. We were supposed to sign up then keep moving north. According to Captain Baxter, Bob's nickname for our earnest interlocutor, we are permitted to meander as long as we like on the ten miles between the board and the Birches, but we can't go back here, the only spot with food near or in Baxter. We try to explain that everyone got a spot and no-one has been left out, which he acknowledges. But it's not fair in principle, he explains, because hypothetically someone who didn't care about the breakfast buffet and walked straight through should take precedence. It makes no sense. But he insists we pack up and move on. I slip away to a picnic table some ways off, irked by his intransigence and determined to pack out more food. I chat with a couple of women finishing their section hikes of the AT. They were at Hurd with us but decided to camp here at Abol tonight and take another day to get to the Birches. They relate seeing a moose in a lake in Maine very close to a shelter. So close in fact that the youth group that was cooking there all scrambled up onto the roof when the moose wouldn't go away. The video is fascinating as the moose calmly chews grass with the kids watching from the roof.Once the restaurant opens I carry out lunch and dinner, intending to share some with the others who moved on. The hike is really a stroll along the Penobscot and Neswadnehunk rivers. I catch up to the group at a waterfall where they're lounging on a giant boulder. I take a dip in the cool water and slide over the slippery ledges with the falls into a lagoon. A group of whitewater rafters march up to the falls and take turns falling backwards into the churning waters and going over the falls. They have water shoes, life vests, and helmets on. I have hiking shorts.We decamp and stroll a few more miles to Little Niagara Falls where we rest on a boulder towering twenty feet above a lagoon. On the other side the river is a rapid heading for a rough, steep waterfall. I soak myself while gripping the rocks lest I'm swept away over what is definitely not an attractive rock slide. There's a wonderful view of one of Katahdin's peaks looking upriver over the rapids. A mother and grandmother sit by the edge of a side pool with a naked baby boy, letting him enjoy the water.We hike the last three miles, passing Daicey and Grassy Ponds, feeling a bit worn down despite an easy day. We see several southbounders and flip-floppers pass, having just come down Katahdin. Finally we reach the ranger station at Katahdin Stream Campground. A drum and guitar circle is playing nearby. We wait 45 minutes but no ranger appears to take our payments for the Birches. So I lead the way over to the shelter.It's just as I remember. Two Adirondack shelters, but only four of us opt to use them. Everyone else tents. Two Blade starts a fire with birch bark, then breaks out S'mores supplies she bought at the campstore. I share a shelter with Dreamer, a 70-ish Santa Claus look-a-like from New Hampshire who hiked from Hanover over the last two months. He's eager to do a thruhike now. A sixtyish guy named Adventure Boy is completing a section from Harriman State Park in New York which finishes the AT for him. A guy from Augusta, Georgia named T is finishing a section of Maine. He was ready to quit at Abol but he called home and his wife told him he better climb "that mountain" first! Fargo is a thruhiker still in his twenties from South Dakota (whoever named him didn't know their geography). Finally there's a retired couple from San Francisco who sectioned the PCT over a decade ago and are finishing a seven-year section hike of the AT tomorrow. The woman's name is Energizer Turtle or ET, the same unusual name as the Canadian I met in the Smokies. It's an enjoyable evening around the campfire as everyone looks forward to the final day.