Date: 2013-07-20
From: Stealth Camp north of Chandler Mill Stream

To: Stealth Camp south of Clearwater Brook Trail
Miles today: 18.0

Day 14th, July 20th. Stealth camp by Chandler mill stream to stealth camp by Clearwater brook trail intersection with AT. 18 miles. Moose! Today I Maine delivered and I saw my first moose, but since it happened in the afternoon you have to hear about the rest of my otherwise boring day first. the morning got off to a slow start with our tarps still wet and lots of stuff damp. sitting around at some point was on the agenda. We didn't hit the trail until 7 15 or so, and miraculously woody slept in til 6 30. yesterdays big mileage must have tuckered him out, poor guy. The mornings trail was pretty dismal, a green trail with some meh ups and downs but otherwise pretty flat. We failed to get water 2 miles in and hiked dry for another 4.5 to the shelter. 6.5 is a long morning to hike dry when you don't overnight at a water source. When we did stop at a pond for brunch woody was mad to discover later we could have gone a little bit further to a sandy beach. Oops.the trail stayed mostly the same until we took a big drop down into a valley to ford a river. On the way down I had gotten a bit ahead of woody as he likes to take the downhills slower. I heard some crashing a little ways down the trail and looked up to see a, big bull moose heading downhill. He had those big moosy antlers and everything! I was surprisingly dumbfounded and am slightly ashamed to admit that I, just stood there shouting "moose! Moose!" Until it wandered away. Woody just missed out on seeing it. As it ran away downhill I took off after it, following its big deep moose footprints down the trail until it turned off into the woods. I never did see it again after the initial sighting, though I did hear it crashing through the woods as it turned off trail and I declined to continue the pursuit.With the most exiting bit of the day over we started climbing the ridgeline for the day. we hit a nice open spot just as the sun came out so we laid out our gear to dry and I practiced tying explosive knots that are easy to untie. After a good 25 minutes we heard a single clap of thunder in the distance and saw some mean looking clouds rolling in. We were able to get everything packed up and stored away just as the rain hit. I think Maine is trying to make up for how nice the weather was our first 10 days.We climbed the ridgeline through the driving rain which brought a chill over everything. after about an hour the rain quit but everything (our clothes, the trees,.the trail) was still wet, which combined with woodys knee acting up caused us to call it a day at 6pm so stuff could dry out a bit. We found a nice spot just uphill of the trail with a good sun angle so it will stay bright until it dips over the horizon as well as a nice breeze to keep things cool.The big disappointment was the summit of bemis mountain which was supposed to be our best view of the day but was instead a sad little outcropping on an unmarked side trail with no view through the thick trees. weak. Atleast I saw a moose today.Tomorrow is a fairly difficult 15 into Andover. The day starts with a sharp up and down old blue mountain then there's a notch in the middle that drops us 1000 feet in .4 miles. That's brutal. Katahdin was 800 feet per mile, not 2500. The evening ends with another sharp downhill to the road to Andover, then we get to try our luck hitching on a Sunday evening. We'll see if team dookie monsters' good fortune holds up. The general store/pizza place closes at 8 so if we can make it in by 7 I'll be a happy chappy.One thing me and woody were both thinking of during the day was how low the odds of making it are. At the hostel jerrell was rattling off the Appalachian trail commissions numbers from last year. 20 percent of nobos and 25 percent of sobos make it. The odds aren't very good. It was interesting to see the looks on everyones faces in the room as the realization sunk in that only 2 of them out of the 8 in the room would make it. Some humbling stuff. I'm already on the books as a failure since I declared as a nobo thru and won't be finishing this season. Oh well. I'm sure woody will be in the 25 percent, but for just about everyone else I've met I'm not sure. Its a tough trail, and the crazy mountain ranges during the next 2 weeks don't soften it up. I'm hoping to do 15 miles a day through the whites then bump it back up to low 20s for Vermont, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, but we'll see.