Date: 2008-07-10
From: Maine Route 17 

To: South Arm Road, Andover, Maine 
Miles today: 13.0
Weather: clear sky

I don¢t know how many times I¢ve said, ¢The trail is not so much about terrain as it is about people,¢ but it is oh so true. Take Bob O¢Brien, for instance. Bob owns the Gull Pond Lodge, which is only open during hiking season to serve the needs of AT hikers. He picks them up 10 miles out of town and ferries them to the lodge and then in and out of town for free. He charges $15 for the return trip to the trailhead and the same per night for a bed and shower. He also drives hikers to various drop-off points as he has done for me the past few days while I was slack packing. Bob is 77 years old, a widower (although he never once mentions his wife during our conversations in the car or while talking over dinner last night). He is devoted to his chocolate lab, Guinevere (and she is equally devoted to him, too). Bob was a corpsman during the Korean War era, but he never left Walter Reed Hospital in Washington during his entire time on active duty. He has a Master¢s degree in Education Administration and, from what I could tell, has spent his entire life running private schools and camps for children with various types of special needs. Bob talks readily and tells good stories. He has a great sense of humor and is quick with a pun. He is very patient and the epitome of the ¢live and let live¢ philosophy personified. Bob loves Maine and will give you an unexpected ¢side tour¢ of points of interest while in route to one place or another. For instance, one time while in route to town, I found myself sitting in front of the house where Kurt Russell grew up. Another time we were at a scenic overlook of Rangeley Lake while returning to the trail ¢ ¢Just something I didn¢t think you should miss.¢ Gull Pond Lodge is really Bob¢s house with two upstairs bedrooms converted into bunk rooms and a single room where, for $30 per night, I stayed. The lodge has cobwebs under the beds and on the lamps, and mints on the pillow ¢ somehow the two don¢t seem at all incongruous. My point here is that Bob is a character ¢ a unique person who has learned the value of service to others ¢ and who does it in an unpretentious, authentic way. Like so many others whom I¢ve met over the course of the past four years of Section Hiking, he is as much a part of the AT experience as Clingman¢s Dome, Springer, Mt. Washington and Katahdin (and just as dependable) . He is not getting rich on his Appalachian Trail clientele, but he provides a valuable service, and, in return, he is actively engaged with young people (well, mostly young people, and then there¢s me) who certainly get a kick out of him. He is as much a part of the Appalachian Trail experience as the mountains and the animals and the weather we experience while walking. This morning, Bob dropped me off at the Route 17 intersection of the AT and then drove my pack and food boxes over to ¢Bear¢ and ¢Honey¢s¢ Cabin in East Andover. The hike over the Bemis Mountain was a good one, and I really felt that I had my legs and wind back to my normal hiking condition, which, frankly, I did not expect to occur this soon. I felt great. Imagine your hand in a woolen mitten which you are holding up in front of you with the palm facing you. What you¢re looking at is a cross-section of Bemis Mountain, the objective of today¢s hike. The only difference would be that the highest point is where the index finger would be instead of the middle finger. You start the hike up Bemis steeply to the peak #1 (the pinky) and then dip slightly between each of the next three sub-peaks before arriving at the twin summits on the index finger. You then drop down a bit and circle the shoulder of Elephant Mountain before getting to the thumb that goes by the name of ¢Old Blue.¢ You go straight up 500¢ to the top of Old Blue, enjoy the pleasant 360o views, and then head straight down 1000¢ to Black Brook and South Arm Road. While crossing Bemis Mountain, I passed ¢Gator¢ (Sharon), ¢Bear Bag Hanging¢ (Paul), and ¢Nails¢ (Barbara) who are friends from Florida who met through their hiking connections. They are staying at the Cabin, as Paul is an old friend of ¢Bear¢ and ¢Honey¢s¢ from his thru hike in 2004. He met ¢Nails,¢ that same year, and they hiked together for quite a while before she had to drop off for personal reasons. ¢Gator¢ met the two of them through the Florida Trail Association and she is Section Hiking the AT now. When they left the Cabin this morning ¢Bear¢ told then to keep their eyes peeled for me while traversing Bemis and to be sure to tell me that my car was waiting where he said it would be at the South Arm egress point. As we stood on the Trail chatting they indicated that they would be back at the Cabin again tonight, so we¢d have a chance to get to know one another. A bit later, I passed a young woman whose trail name was ¢Topo,¢ sitting on a ledge looking out over the valley. She is a teacher who made it as far as Grafton Notch last year (just 10 miles south of Andover, Maine) before she got tangled up in one of the roots that crosses the trail, fell and broke her ankle. She is now finishing up last year¢s unfinished business. She, too, had been staying at the Cabin while I was gone this past week. She was asked to pass along a message informing me that dinner was going to be ¢barbecued chicken served at 6:00pm¢ and ¢don¢t be late.¢¢ I picked up my pace and managed to get the Cabin at the appointed time. As I said yesterday, the trail is all about people, and even in the midst of the woods, walking by yourself, you run into them ¢ people like ¢Off-Season¢, ¢Turbo,¢ ¢Rocket Dog,¢ ¢Time Traveler,¢ ¢Cookie¢, ¢Chef¢, and Fletcher, whom I¢ve met during the course of the past few days. Or you run into traces of people in old journals like the one at the Bemis Lean-To that included the names of ¢06 hikers like ¢Free Bird¢, ¢Tater,¢ ¢M&M, Dances with Sloths, or those from last year¢s hike such as Castanets, Gandolph, Two Dogs,¢ ¢Wolf¢ and ¢Little Red,¢¢ ¢Leader of the Pack,¢ and ¢Boo Boo.¢ (¢Leader of the Pack¢ was the fellow who shared a tent platform with Jack and carried on a conversation with us although he never came out of his tent which, to this day, strikes me as one of the most bizarre interactions I¢ve experienced to date!) ¢Two Dogs¢ was part of the combination of friends with ¢Grasshopper,¢ who signed each of the journals with the same salutation, ¢God Bless America!¢ Sometimes it is just the memories of people that drift into your mind, triggered by some undetectable combination of shapes and shadows and smells and light. Nevertheless, people are a part of the trail, which is oh so true. Besides the encounters with new people and memories of those from the past, the most spectacular sight of the many vistas to be had from Bemis Peaks #1 and #2 (a.k.a., the mittened ¢pinky and ring finger¢) and the lovely 360o vantage from atop the 3,600¢ summit of Old Blue (a.k.a., the ¢thumb¢) was found this afternoon in a small cut in the trees on the down side of Old Blue that led to a ledge overlooking Black Brook Creek ¢ 900¢ below! That¢s 900¢ straight below! The view was breathtaking and just a phenomenal surprise. So, while I say that the AT is more about people than it is about terrain, that¢s not to diminish the relevance or the awesome reverence of the stop-you-in-your-tracks beauty of the nature of the trail but only to elevate the place of the human nature in it. It is the human connections that are a part of the experience that most who have not done this trip probably would not expect. After arriving at the Cabin, I enjoyed all (well, almost all) the treats any hiker would want ¢ a hot shower, clean clothes, and huge dinner of BBQ chicken and scalloped potatoes, steamed veggies, and a choice of strawberry shortcake made with strawberries picked yesterday by ¢Topo¢ and ¢Honey¢ or Moose Tracks ice cream on homemade brownies, both of which were served with whipped cream. I could not decide on which dessert to have, so I had one of each. As if this gastronomic feast was not enough, there was talk and laughter and camaraderie with ¢Bear¢ and ¢Honey¢, ¢Hunter¢ (who is still laid up with his bum knee since I was first here one week ago), ¢Gator,¢ ¢Bear Bag Hanging,¢ and ¢Nails.¢ It doesn¢t get much better than this!