Date: 2004-08-23
From: Nahmakanta Lake

To: Hurd Brook Lean-to
Miles today: 20.0
Weather: scattered clouds

The scene in the morning was pretty wild. The sights were nothing short of miraculous. Shrouded by the rising mists, the sun looked like the moon across the lake. The clouds created an ever changing kaleidoscope of images. It was hard to put the camera down long enough to take care of the morning business of eating, drying and packing. The only real negatives here were the sand fleas. They just kept me covered clothes from head to toe till it was time to go. Honestly, the air was pretty cool anyway.Being such a clear night the tent fly had been left off the tent as usual. The lake had created a cloud of its own through the night. It had drifted through my tent and everything was damp if not wet. The tent netting was dripping wet. Touching it got me soaked. The fly and tent got hung in the bushes in hopes of drying during breakfast.My friends at the other end of the lake got an earlier start on the day. They were talking as they passed but the trail was too far for them to notice me. That was ok.Between the ever changing show unfolding over the lake and the slowly drying tent on the trees there was little motivation to get on the trail. That was fine too.It was probably still before 9am when all was packed and it was my turn to get back on the trail.The weather was perfect this morning. The trail, for quite a while now, has been much narrower than down south. It obviously gets much less travel and that's just fine. There are so many lakes and ponds along the trail that they become common place. There was no chance of keeping track of them all. There seemed to be another around each bend and over every rise. Some were bigger. Some were smaller. Some had islands. Some did not. They were all inviting.Views of Katahdin became much more prevalent. It could be seen across the lakes and ponds, from summits and cliffs. Every time, it loomed larger than the last. The drive to be there was uncontrollable but still there was no way to avoid pausing to take in that view and take another photo.Katahdin, at 5,267 feet above sea level, was not the tallest peak on the trail. In fact there were several taller peaks both in New Hampshire and down along the Tennessee north Carolina boarder. It did however sport the biggest single vertical climb on the AT hands down at 4,177 feet. The trail climbs to that many feet in 5.2 miles. That's pretty good. Those other big mountains are approached along ridges from neighboring peaks.There were even more lakes and ponds along the trail now. The real surprise was that, if you looked hard enough in the trees along the shore, there would almost certainly be a boat somewhere. They would be row boats or canoes upside down hiding in the woods waiting for a fisherman to return to play. There were of course no paddles or perhaps they were hidden elsewhere.It was clear these boats had taken up residence on the shores of these lakes. What was not at all clear was how they had gotten there. This was miles from nowhere. Some had apparently been undisturbed for years making me wonder what had become of their human companions back in civilization. Had they died or just become too weak to make the journey any more or had the pace of life just gotten in the way. Who knows, just keep hiking.The waters in Pollywog Gorge were very tempting as they cascade through the slice in the rock but not tempting enough to keep me from my task. To get to Katahdin. And so it was that by noon thirty, Rainbow Stream Lean-to came into view at the bottom of a slope just beside the stream. This was another nice old shelter of the log and porcupine pit design with no sky lights. It was also another of the few remaining baseball bat floors. Glad not to be staying here. Still this was a nice spot. It was far too close to the water for today's standards but still nice.Leafing through the shelter journal is always fun. Pony Express had passed trough on August 6th, 16 days ago. Incredible. He was hoping for Katahdin the next day and for the weather to hold for 2 more days. Hope he got his wish. A note in the front of the book mentioned that this was the shelter on the cover of the ATC 2004 Databook. That was the book I mailed home in the first couple of weeks from Hot Springs, NC after learning of and getting a copy of The Thru-Hikers Handbook. After stepping back and taking another look, sure enough, this was the cover shot. Speaking of photo ops, this was definitely one.Nobody & Alright and Rising Sun & M showed up before long. They were heading for the next shelter like me.Some other folks showed up. We talked some but an hour seemed like a long enough break for lunch part one and so it was time to move on. The trail crossed the stream on some precariously placed logs right in front of the shelter. This gave the crosser an audience for any teeterings or mishaps. The pressure was on. That was no problem for this ole pro but the ego made sure these thoughts crossed his mind anyway.Rainbow lake must be huge. The trail, though not always within sight of the lake, passed by it for 5 miles. It took a good couple of hours. There were slight ups and downs but there were long muddy sections too. This was squish, squish, plod, right through it, mud. There was just no other way. Fortunately it was pretty solid and provided fairly good flotation. The lake was shrouded in mist and fog as was the camera lens apparently. It was pretty damp going. There were even some sprinkles threatening rain.Finally the trail climbed a few hundred feet to Rainbow Ledges. The weather was looking better but still uncertain. This was only 2.6 miles from the next shelter. The whole area was dotted with big hunks of exposed ledge. My thoughts all day had been that this might be a nice spot to sleep out under the starts perhaps. After all, last night had been so nice for star gazing. Unfortunately the sky was confused with dark clouds and blue patches. A chill wind had picked up too. This was pretty exposed and the shelter was a better idea. Blast. It was about half past five as the high ledges faded into the past behind me.The trail bounced and twisted down the gentle slopes to Hurd Brook and the Lean-to of the same name. This was a busy shelter and yes, it had a baseball bat floor. A group of folks had just arrived on a college orientation outing. They all had tents. The leaders were staying in the shelter though. It was fun to observe the Whisper Lite Stove lesson and demonstration. It was also fun overhearing the various questions from the freshman and seeing how the leaders, not much older, handled the answers. They were doing a pretty good job.When the leaders were tied up with others there was no avoiding fielding some of the questions but that had to be kept in check. Eventually the leaders and I got a chance to talk. We swapped group leader stories. They were cool. They cordially let the smoker in the group know that wasn't going to happen anywhere near the shelter.The big surprise here was that Maine Dish & Oxymoron were here. How did that happen. We hadn't seen each other since Pinkham Notch. They were moving well but my goodness. They answered my awkward question before it got asked. They had done a little flip flop so that they would be able to do Katahdin with friends and family last weekend. So they were just starting the Hundred Mile Wilderness on a southbound leg. It was all a bit confusing but great to see them again anyway. These two were actually brother and sister in-law. Now that's a strange hiking relation. But they were almost done too.Almost Done:This was a thought that was hard to comprehend or conceal. Thru-hikers all knew and just couldn't help taking about it. Local hikers saw us and asked. You just burst with a beaming response. Yes, I'm going to finish on Wednesday. It was incredulous. How could it be over so soon. There was so much going on in my head, thoughts of celebration and excitement but all around, the world seemed still quite normal, just good old wilderness.For posterity sake I took a picture of the typical contents of my daily snack sack before prepacking it for tomorrow and stuffing it in the bear bag for the night. Notice the hand stitched repairs to the bottom of the snack sack. These things mustn't be forgotten. It had been a good 20 mile day. We talked well into the night and fell asleep.