Date: 2017-06-01
From: Shin Pond

To: Matagamon Wilderness Camp
Miles today: 16.0
Weather: scattered clouds

Bugs. Really bad bugs and a crappy road walk on a paved road.About the only thing to be said in favour of the hiking part of today is it's the fastest time I've done 16 miles since my running days. In truth, the less said the better. Instead the interesting factors of the day were before and after the hiking part. We began in the pleasant enclaves of the Mt Chase Lodge, with another extravagantly awesome breakfast provided by our former thru-hiking hosts, Lindsay and Mike. It was the embodiment of an upmarket lodge, aimed at city people wanting a luxurious retreat in the woods.The day ended at Matagamon Wilderness Camp, the polar opposite but equally nice and welcoming. When I rocked into the restaurant after my meritless 16-mile roadwalk, it was like stepping into a different country.Their clientele were, like us, hikers -- but they only hiked to be able to shoot something rather than for wooly notions of recreational enjoyment or the beauty of the trail. And, in truth, if there was an option to take an ATV or a 4x4, they'd do that instead. I was the only person not dressed in camo, and the only one not talking some variation on rifle calibre or hunting strategy. The TV was blaring away in the background with a variety of shows ranging from actual hunting to a Survivor-type show in which shooting skills were what led to people being eliminated (not in that way).All around me in the restaurant were the stuffed remnants of previous hunts in the form of bears, moose and a variety of other species down to a scrawny mini-weasel hanging from a moose's antler. The only other decorations on the walls were shots of hunters with dead animals and a sign saying that they believed in saying Merry Christmas, one nation under God, saluting our flag and thanking our troops and if I was offended by any of this, I was welcome to leave. I had a hunch that no matter how hard I looked, I was unlikely to find an "I'm with her" sticker on the walls here.Perhaps the defining element was in the bathroom, where the reading material was a copy of Concealed Carry magazine.But the nice bit was that this schism between our two stridently different versions of the outdoor experience didn't mean they were in any way unfriendly or intolerant of our what, to them, was our own bizarre version of it.There was a family of Penobscot Indians there, who'd driven past me as I was road walking and commiserated about the bugs. To be fair, it would have been difficult to have disagreed with their view that roads are meant for driving, not walking, but they were kind enough not to point this out explicitly. Instead they were happy to tell me about the Penobscot nation lands around here and also to answer a few asinine city-slicker type questions about hunting, including discovering that they bait bears by providing doughnuts in a specific location for a month beforehand. Scout rocked up a while later after his own version of the road walking experience and shortly before it began spitting with rain. We discovered that while all the cabins were taken (by my new Penobscot friends, who clearly came here every year for decades -- no chance of them cancelling because of a bit of rain), there was a tent-cabin option which would save us from having to use our tents. We're also now 38 miles or so from Roaring Brook campground, from which we'll ascend Katahdin. This is also near the start of a section of actual trail, which means Frodo won't be able to slackpack us any more. But there's four or five more miles of road before a gate stops car access and we opted to make a head start by hiking it this afternoon, to put us ahead of the curve for the unknowns of our journey through the country between here and Baxter State Park.This was indeed road walking but, being a logging road rather than a state highway, was of a different kind to the one we'd just done.For a start, there was lot of wildlife around, including beaver pond which was so archetypal that it might have been out of a school textbook.And we found a snake, although it had been too slow to get out of the way as Frodo drove through.This five miles was nicer than most of the previous 50 or so, so we're hoping that will be a sign of things to come with this upcoming section of the IAT.IAT fact of the day: While it's tempting to say there were no redeeming features on the road walk today, there was one in the form of an improved roadside spring, which featured the word "Spring" on a sign hanging from a tree above. But as we walked past the sign caught the wind and spun around, showing on the other side was written: "Summer fall winter."