Date: 2006-08-20
From: Horseshoe Canyon Lean-To

To: Monson
Miles today: 9.0
Weather: broken clouds

Shaw¢s Boarding HouseRoom 9 And then the rains came! ¢ and boy did it rain!! Remake ¢ a Nobo thru hiker ¢ arrived at the shelter before the rains came, along with Crystal and Kevin and their dog Bailey. Kevin and Remake are old college buddies and K+C arranged a surprise meeting with him on the trail - no easy task! They had originally planned on tenting, but when the rains started they quickly changed their minds. At about 5PM it began to pour ¢ I am talking heavens open, gully washing, Noah¢s Ark building, massive flood producing rain. All five of us retreated to the shelter and watched the world turn into water. At about 6PM John from Virginia, section hiking, arrived ¢ soaked to the skin and mad. He had met Mud Diver who, with Cookie, had proceeded on to Monson. Mud Diver told him to expect Boy Scouts at the shelter. John was unsure if he had passed the blue blazed trail to the shelter ¢ see! I am not the only one with that particular worry ¢ so when he heard youthful laughter off the trail he decided to bushwhack to what he thought was the Boy Scout group and the shelter. It turned out however to be a family camping out! So his six-mile hike became a nine-mile trudge thru the pouring rain. All six of us, John, Remake, Crystal, Kevin, Easy and myself ¢ plus Bailey the Dog ¢ slept in the shelter. The rain just continued to pour on down. I don¢t know when it was that I fell asleep, but it was still raining hard at 3AM, when I awoke to pee [used the pee-can] Now I was realy worried. With all of this heavy rain there would be a good chance the next fording of the Piscataquis would be impossible. I was up at 4:30AM, hoping that an early start might get me to the ford before the flood crest, and started off with visions of a white capped flood preventing any crossing, and leaving all of us trapped between the East and West branches of the Piscataquis river, with no other way out ¢ there is no road access on this section. I was so worried that I only ate half of my last breakfast food ¢ keeping the other half for a forced bivouac on the East bank, while I waited for the waters to subside.One thing was for sure ¢ I was not going to risk my life on a risky fording of a major river crossing that was in full flood. The rain had eased up somewhat, in a very foggy morning, as I set out. The trail parallels the river, and its full-throated roar and cascading white floodwaters did nothing to reassure me as I walked onward to my fate at the East Branch crossing. As with almost all of my worries, the reality was totally different from my expectations. The East Branch is a totally different animal from the West. It enters almost at right angles to the East Branch and is a much smaller and more minor contributor to the flood. It was a broad and placid 50 foot branch with nary a white cap or eddy ¢ despite all the rain. Although containing a knee-deep current moving at a reasonable pace, it did not present any of the serious fording difficulties that I had feared. As this was my first river crossing in the rain, while wearing my rain gear, I decided to take off my rain pants and roll up the legs of my hiking pants so that my naked legs in their yellow wallabies would reduce the resistance to the flow of the current. I had also intended to take the rain cover off of my pack, anticipating a waist deep torrent that would fill the rain cover with water and drag me down to my doom. The knee deep flow made that unnecessary, and I was over and done with the East branch in 15 minutes. After that, this much-relieved hiker made tracks in a rainy, soggy, muddy, and misty trail, on which I noted some leaves that had turned color decorating the mud. Across a series of logging roads and I was at the blue-blazed short cut to Monson. No blue blazing for me however, so I headed on up and around Buck Hill and down to the banks of Hebron Lake and on to the road at ME15. After only 15 minutes - and 17 cars on this busy Sunday morning road ¢ a car passed, then stopped, and they motioned me to come on over. The three people in the car had just summated Katahdin, and took pity on this wet and bedraggled hiker on a misty road on a wet Sunday ¢ although they were smart enough to place a towel on my seat in a forlorn attempt to keep their car dry! So I was here by early afternoon. It was a good job that I had reserved a room, as Shaw¢s was full. Remake is here with Crystal and Kevin and Bailey, waiting on a shuttle. Also here is Orca and Yabut, heading North today, but nice to see them again. The place is full of hikers. I have had a shower and got some goodies from the General Store and spoke with KT on the public phone ¢ cell signal is very haphazard and intermittent here. Am going to have dinner here ¢ they promise Pot Roast! It is difficult to get about on this very wet and rainy afternoon, with all of my rain and hiking gear wet, and trying to keep my camp clothes dry. Will get the drop box ¢ I hope ¢ and do laundry, in the AM. I have a nice room with a fan and a TV ¢ CNN. No Diet Coke at the store, so I am drinking Pepsi as a substitute. An adventurous day ¢ it is good to be here and to be here SAFE! Thought for Today ¢Trust in God,And keep your sleeping bag dry!