Date: 2015-08-23
From: Little Boardman Mountain 

To: Nahmakanta lake 
Miles today: 25.2
Weather: light rain

We woke early and laid in our tent listening for moose again. Nothing. We really wanted to see a moose. Since there were no moose, we decided to start the day. We couldn't lay around all day waiting for moose even though we felt like it!   We had a 700 foot descent to a dirt road crossing. There at the bottom, 30 paces was our food drop. The food was in a 5 gallon bucket hidden in the woods. There were other Hiker's buckets there also. It looked like a bucket grave yard. We took our resupply from the bucket and left our rubbish. It was glorious to get rid of that.   We continued on and oh, how great the trail was. We were flying over the smooth trail. When we took our morning break, we already had 7 miles for the day.      The trail turned a bit rocky and rooty but nothing we haven't seen before. The trail followed the Nahmakanta River most of the day. This is not the norm for the AT.   We did enjoy the sound. We had to ford a river today also. There was a rope across the river today which was very helpful. Off came the socks and boots. We hoisted our backpacks up on our backs as far as possible. We strapped our hiking poles around our wrists, held onto the rope and went across. We both made it across without getting wet. We dried our feet, put on our socks (which smell absolutely terrible from hiking in the rain the other day.) and boots and starting hiking again. We took our lunch by Jo-Mary Lake. (We had 12.5 miles in by noon - 12 by 12) There was a nice breeze from the lake. It was just so beautiful and peaceful. Lavender even took a little nap. We cleaned up and started our afternoon of hiking.   We walked around Jo-Mary Lake before we had a 400 foot climb. This was the first "climb" of the day. The trail was nice for this climb.      We really just hiked the trail, meandering around the trail. There were few climbs but lots of turns in the trail, lots of rocks, even more roots then rocks and lots of bogs. Most of the bogs had bog bridges. We certainly didn't want to fall off the bog bridge or you foot would get sucked in and your boot would never be seen again! Basically, we were on autopilot and just hiked, counting down the miles to the end.   We were to ford another stream this afternoon. But, we came to the stream, there was a fallen log on top of another fallen log. We thought if we were careful and very steady, we could walk on the logs to the other side. There were two hikers on the other side crossing to our side. They were taking their socks and boots off. We didn't want to take the time to do this. Count started on the first log. It was a bit slippery. He made it to the second log and before long he was on the other side. Lavender followed. Her foot slid a bit but her hiking pole saved her from slipping off the log. Soon enough, she joined Count on the other side. The other hikers were impressed. These hikers said we had 2 more streams to ford. Seriously, this is getting old. On we hiked. Again, on autopilot.   We came to another stream that looked as if we had to ford. There were lots of rocks strategically. If we were careful, we could step on the rocks. We both made it across without getting wet. We decided we earned our afternoon break. So, we took our socks and boots off anyway. At least our feet were dry.   We were watched a squirrel while we had our snack break. We think it was hoping to score some easy food. After a nice 20 minute break it was time to hike on.    We had 20.1 miles in at break but we wanted to get a few more miles in for the day.   We continued hiking but we could tell we were getting tired as the day wore on. The trail was really rocky with lots of roots and muddy areas. This made for slow going but we continued on. We started looking for a good place to camp around 17:45 and finally found a good spot next to Nahmakanta lake near a beach area. Camp was set up and then it was dinner time. We won't be eating Knorr rice sides for dinner much longer. After dinner we cleaned up in the lake and relaxed a bit. Then it was time to get ready for bed. It spit rain a bit while we were relaxing. We hope that is all he rain we get for the night. As we were getting ready to lay down, Lavender saw a tiny frog inside our tent. Count being the brave man he is, caught the frog and left it go outside. How did a frog get inside our tent? We hope there was only one frog inside!