Date: 2016-07-18
From: White Mountain Hostel, Gorham NH

To: White Mountain Hostel, Gorham NH
Miles today: 0.0

After a really hard day yesterday, my feet are swollen and sore, my knees ache and I feel really tired. I didn't sleep well, not sure why, but I'm up at 6:30 and ready for breakfast at 7. It's fun at the hostel with so many other hikers. Weighed in when I checked in last night - lost 18 lbs in 20 days. I've lost a lot of my stomach fat and feel thinner overall. I'd like to drop maybe another 5 lbs to get to 147 or so and try to hold it there. Big breakfast of burrito, hash browns, sausage, muffin, OJ and coffee. After breakfast a flurry of activity with hikers flying around going north, south, and a few like me taking a day off. Need some resupply in town - a new Nalgene bottle and maybe some shoe goo to try to patch up my shoes. Will try to get some journal updates in. As of this writing, I am 2 weeks behind. Ok, my thoughts on Maine and my first 20 days. Maine for me was really difficult. It was the hardest sustained effort for 20 days that I can remember looking back on my 63 years. Maine is a true wilderness experience, it's rough and wild, but immensely beautiful. The lakes and ponds may have been my favorite aspect of Maine with the chorus of loons and frogs playing into the early morning, it was magical. The mountains from a distance look round and easy, but that is the total opposite of what they are, they are rugged and brutally difficult. Not as an individual climb/decent, but as a combined effort. They wear you down. The views from the mountain tops give you a view into the endless forest and wilderness that is Maine. The ridges and mountain tops are a beautiful combination of rocky ledges, alpine forest and boggs. The ridges often would have a beautiful combination of krummholz and brilliant green and yellow mosses. Walking along a ridge in the morning with the mountain in a cloud with the sun struggling to break through was another favorite of mine. The blooming bunchberry that carpeted the side of the trail with a white carpet was beautiful too and always made me smile. The forest was littered with brown toads and an occasional brown snake, ribbon snake, garter snake and northern black snake, and occasionally on a ridge I would see a grouse with an explosion of activity from the chicks as I wandered by. The occasional snowshoe hare. One thru hiker told me that he heard birds but never saw any. Birds were everywhere along the trail, although I did hear more than I saw. The wood peckers were especially interesting with a slow and deliberate tat-tat-tat in the valleys. The chatter of birds in the early morning and at the end of the day was like an orchestra warming up, uncoordinated but a joy to listen to. I loved the smell of the evergreen trees and the spicy aroma of the ferns, along with the sound of the wind blowing through there branches. In spite of the fact that there was moose droppings everywhere I was disappointed that I didn't see a moose in Maine. I expect that if I slowed down and lingered around the ponds and lakes in the early evening my chances would have been better. At the start of the hike, I knew that I needed more conditioning. I'm not sure that any thing I could have done would have prepared me for my first state. Leaving it though and crossing over into New Hampshire I feel stronger, lighter and more prepared for the rest of my hike.