Date: 2011-08-12
From: Stealth spot near the summit of Old Speck Mountain

To: Stealth spot off of a horse path in Andover, ME
Miles today: 13.8
Weather: overcast clouds

(In which I hitch into Andover and try my hand at urban stealth camping)I wake up to a cold wet wind and am glad that I went to bed with all of my clothes on. I sleep in as late as I can and then shiver as I pack up with my rain gear and down hat still on. As cold as the area by my tent is, the open clearing by the observation tower is even windier and colder, and I don't envy Doc Boom's tent spot by the tower, no matter how good its view. Trashcan comes shivering over to the tree cover by my spot, having had a mostly sleepless night after the wind shifted and started blowing right through his A-frame-pitched tarp. Doc is the last to wake, chuckling when we ask how he slept and telling us how the wind blew over one of the rock-staked tie outs on his tent at 1am, causing him to have to find his headlamp and fix it in the dark. My hands are freezing as we finish packing up on the summit, and for the first time since the Smokies I wish that I had gloves.Once we fall down below tree line the wind dies and a few minutes later we stop to peel off our extra layers. The trail continues its steep up and downs, but once we reach the bottom of Grafton Notch and continue up the other side the character of the trail changes. It is immediately noticeable when, instead of traveling straight up a slick, smooth rock face, the trail instead provides carefully placed flat stones to walk on. When we reach the top of the mountain I am unsurprised to discover that we have finally escaped the AMC's domain and have entered the section of the trail maintained by the MATS.The relief is short lived when the trail takes us straight up over the bald dome side of the Baldpate east peak, and we laugh at the pure ridiculousness of the sheer face and cannot imagine how hikers could even attempt the traverse in the rain.The trail mellows out a bit to the next shelter, and as we take a break we meet Four Eyes, a southbound hiker who flip-flopped to Katahdin after hiking north to Harpers Ferry. Like most flipfloppers, Trashcan passed Four Eyes early on and has now met her again after hiking straight through from Springer. Four Eyes is a bundle of spunk and energy, and after hearing that it's Doc Boom's birthday tomorrow she congratulates him. "I could show you some side boob," she jokes, in lieu of a gift. "I did pose naked for my Katahdin photo though. That's what happens when you get in a drunken argument with one of the founders of Granite Gear. Oh, and I also just shaved my armpits, so I'm sure they're pretty sexy right now." She raises her arms to show off her sweaty but cleanly shaved armpits, which we duly admire.We hike down to the next road crossing and try to decide whether to try to hitch into Andover for some town food or hike on to a camp site by a pond. We decide to wait ten minutes to see if a hitch works out and then to move on if it doesn't. After nine and a half minutes of light traffic, a pickup truck pulls up past our outstretched thumbs and we toss our packs in the back. It's a long fifteen minute ride into town, and being so remote reminds me of the beginning of the trail in Georgia.In the tiny town of Andover we head straight for the one restaurant / general store and I stuff myself with a grilled cheese, Doritos, Moxie and a chocolate cream pie with ice cream. After dinner we try to decide whether to hitch back to the trail or find a spot at which to stealth, none of us wanting to splurge the money for the hostel. A truck drives up and offers to drive us back to the trail since the driver is going that way anyway, but we soon realize that the driver is headed to the second hitch point into Andover, 10 trail miles ahead of where we got off. The driver is incredulous at our sudden refusal of the ride simply because it would involve skipping a few miles that he assures us are quite boring, but having come this far none of us are even remotely tempted to yellow blaze.We end up walking down the street and over a river to a horse and snow mobile trail that a local mentioned. We head down the trail until it reaches a clearing hidden from the road and set up our tents alongside the woods. "You see," I tell Doc and Trashcan, "this is what I love about the AT. You can start the day stealthed on top of a mountain with freezing cold twenty-mile-an-hour winds and then end the day in a tiny town trespassing on a stranger's field. Does it get any better than this?" Doc concedes that it does not, and we go to bed in our tents with a full moon rising over the trees and the sounds of the road and the river in the distance.