Date: 2005-09-26
From: Little Bigelow shelter

To: Pierce Pond shelter
Miles today: 18.0
Weather: moderate rain

26 Sept (17.5 mi)We had some crazy notion of watching the sunrise from Little Bigelow (making up the missed miles on the AT), but the rain kept us in our bags past 8am, which was just as nice. Hiking out first, in my bikini again, occasionally putting on the 84-cent poncho from Kmart¢¦ i¢m still impressed how simply a wardrobe can be. The trail is very soft and flat today, only missing a red velvet carpet! The leaves have begun changing, and my ¢TP¢ is now a palette of red, organge, and gold. Stopped for lunch at a lake today, and was joined by a farret-like creature, brown with white whiskers, and very curious. Fruit trail magic, and the much-needed music (Stinger, i cannot thank you enough, and you know this!) to carry me thru this rainy, beautiful day. Some may think it boring to walk thru these woods day after day, but each day is its own, and the forest is ever-changing. Sometimes it opens up, and it¢s huge, making you feel drawfed, like a lilliputian, wandering thru the stalks of someone¢s garden. But sometimes, it¢s nothing but short trees, very thin, very dense, and there¢s no undergrowth. Such a forest creates a bit of a claustraphobic feeling, and you want to run thru the tunnel to the light. The air is dark in the tunner, and sends chills down my back, which, of course, makes me giggle, because the imagination is a great and wild beast, and takes you places, hmmm, inimaginable.I am first (or our group) to arrive at Pierce Pond shelter, which is on the lake, and thus with a view but very windy. There¢s a man at the shelter (known as Crazy Carl), with his stuff strewn all over the place. He paces, awkwardly, and doesn¢t seem to want to make space for me. That¢s fine. He looks like that hitchhiker guy from Something About Mary, the one with the sack with a dead body in it, you know? He keeps looking down on me as i stand at the shelter entrance, ¢Are you hiking alone?¢ he asks, pacing and huffing. There are five guys behind me, i hoped they¢d pass me during the day, but i hadn¢t seen them¢¦ so what do i say? Nothing. He complains of having been dumped into the Kennebeck river by the ferry-man, of hating thru-hikers, of doing crazy stuff. I ask him why he¢s out here, in the prime season of thru-hikers, if he hates them, but the response, once again, is that he just does crazy stuff, he just does weird, crazy stuff all the time. ¢Do you murder little girls in the woods?¢ i ask, easing my mace out of the pouch on my pack strap. ¢The worst things that have ever been done to me have been done by a woman. Women_______ [skipping this section for tender ears]. I hate women. I hate hikers. And i hate women hikers.¢ This is exactly the moment that i took all my things (which were still on my back) and sat in the privy for the next 40 minutes or so until Chuckes and Gotta Go (and older thru-hiking couple) came to the shelter to cook dinner (apparently they were tenting nearby). I sat with them as the buffer, cooking my creamy garlic shells, wondering where the heck the guys are. Finally, they roll in, and the evening turns to a music- and laughter-filled clamour.