Date: 2017-09-07
From: ME 15, Monson

To: Long Pond Stream
Miles today: 14.6
Weather: scattered clouds

Today I had several opportunities to be seriously injured or killed, but I managed to fend them off.  Just barely.  It rained steadily all day yesterday, overnight, and this morning, greatly increasing the water flow in the streams we had to cross.  In normal conditions we would have had two streams to ford.  Today we had five.  The first was not more than halfway to my knee, and the current was not very strong.  I tried to arrange my backpack to minimize the risk of getting things wet and carefully picked my way across. The second was another story entirely.  It was deeper, up to my crotch, and running very fast.  Lizzie and I scoped it out, and I went first.  There was a place where a rope had formerly been fixed; there was another place directly across from the trail on the other side.  I picked the second spot and set off.  Once I got to the deeper water it was very hard to keep my footing.  After several near falls I finally lost my balance and fell in.  I tried to get up but couldn't and was swept downstream.  Not being able to control where I was going was frightening.  But I remembered what I'd been told about getting caught in a riptide: swim diagonally across the current.  I aimed my feet so the current would take me diagonally toward the other shore farther downstream.  I eventually was able to grab a rock and pull myself back upright. From there I was able to walk to the other side.All my clothing and just about everything in my pack was soaked. My phone, in its Lifeproof case, was fine.  The sun came out momentarily, and I stripped down to my underwear.  Lizzie had a dry pair of sweatpants, and I had a dry fleece that I put on.  We continued on.  The next to last ford was at a waterfall that was raging.  It was a really dangerous long chute with lots of rocks.  A southbound hiker had told us that he went upstream three ledges to find an easier place to cross.  We decided to do that, too, as the water was quite deep at the falls.  We started upstream, and I slipped and fell in twice just trying to get to the easier place to ford. At one point I need to pull myself up onto a rock, but I couldn't because I was so wet that I made the rock slippery.  Somehow we finally made it to the third ledge.  Her the river was much wider and calmer.  Once we started across I was fine.  The last ford had a rope to hold onto, and this was definitely helpful.  The water was very cold at all of these streams, but I was so focused on getting across safely that I only noticed once I was out.  After the last ford we hiked .3 off the trail to get to our meeting place with the van.  It took me some time to take everything out of my pack to repack into my bigger backpack (the one I'd used while backpacking in the Smokies). While I was doing this and packing my lunch for tomorrow, a man drove up to kick us off his land.  He does not allow camping.  Somehow Warren talked him into letting us stay, but the encounter was distinctly unpleasant.   Tomorrow we have a day that Warren characterizes as difficult.  I hope it's not as dangerous as today.  Crossing these streams when the water is so high is solely a function of our hiking on a schedule: Absent the schedule I'd just wait a day for the water to go down before fording.  My friend Morph has suggested that I take the remaining days of the hike in the 100 Mile Wilderness to meditate on all the things I've been through on the hike.  It's a good idea, and I'm going to give it a try.  I know that as soon as I reach Katahdin life will become a whirlwind of activity that will preclude such thinking.  I'm going to turn off my phone for the rest of the hike.  (This is somewhat theoretical, since I don't have service anyway.)