Date: 2020-10-10
From: Katahdin Stream Campground (Millinocket)

To: Katahdin Stream Campground
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: moderate rain

The bed at Sweet Lillian's was as comfortable as advertised. It took an effort to get up this morning. I had a slight hangover from two draft beers and some sort of whiskey Tom had gifted me - perhaps in recognition he'd shorted me on change. Anyway, yes, I am a lightweight when it comes to alcohol. A hot shower cleared things up nicely. I was headed out to get breakfast at the Appalachian Trail Cafe when the two third-floor tenants - a father and son - cornered me and were in a chatty mood. The 62-year-old dad regaled me on the day he jogged 90 miles in his Indiana hometown, right after telling me he might be too old to hike the trail. His grown son, whom dad seemed to have little patience for, got on the topic of gangs in his childhood home of Worcester, Mass. My stomach was becoming almost as vocal as these two so I excused myself politely. The Appalachian Trail Cafe as recently as last summer was a great breakfast joint owned by Ole Man, who also runs the well-known AT Lodge hostel in town. Last week he closed the hostel for the season, and rumour has it he wants to sell, being tired of hosting hikers. I remember him telling me last year how NOBOs completing thruhikes act very entitled. Well, the cafe has apparently already gotten new management because it now sports a Mexican menu and is only open three days a week (and Saturday mornings to pick up pre-ordered donuts...??) So much for breakfast. Downtown Millinocket had no other open restaurants. In fact the main street was deserted on a Saturday morning, nothing at all was open, and half the store fronts are in various states of collapse.So I walked a mile and a half out to the highway strip where there's fast food and a supermarket. I ate at a Chester Chicken franchise, where the woman runs it as a breakfast diner before the fast food chicken menu kicks in at lunchtime. Apparently this is a very flexible franchise. I topped off breakfast with a double cheeseburger and sweet tea from McDonalds, walked by the Baxter State Park Headquarters, currently closed to the public but at least I got a map, and on to the Hannaford's supermarket to load up on drinks and snacks for the day. The local paper had a story of a helicopter evacuation of a 13-year-old boy from Katahdin a few days ago who had an unspecified medical emergency. There have also been two deaths on the mountain in the last week - one found frozen who they've not been able to identify, and another who was caught on the mountain with a friend overnight and fell 50 feet. Quite a bad week, and a powerful lesson never to underestimate the mountain.Ironically, as I walked the mile and a half back to town, I had a good view of Katahdin and it was perfectly in the clear. The forecast had been way off. Those certain showers and thunderstorms had pushed off into the evening. Not only was there no storm, or even clouds, it was the warmest day on the summit in weeks. It would have been a fantastic day to summit. Ah, well.Back at the hostel, the owner Susan showed up to tell me I'd taken the wrong room. Susan is pretty abrasive and foul-mouthed with a veneer of charm, a lot like Tom, though there seems to be no love lost between them. When I called her last evening at 7 about a room she was not shy about letting me know she was three sheets to the wind, so sent me to Tom to let me into the place. Tom, the Blue Ox Saloon owner and bartender, showed off the rooms like it was the Taj Mahal and urged me to take any that I wanted. I took the first one he showed me. That was to go to a new tenant of Susan's arriving this afternoon. The tenant pulled up as she was scolding me. Susan has no filter, so had to tell me her low view of the fact that the new tenant was a 19-year-old mom with a 3-year-old boy (an adorable kid, I might add). They were driven in by a middle-aged woman, maybe the grandmom, who provoked some shockingly profane responses from Susan with innocuous banter."Hi Susan! What've you been up to?""Working! That's what I've been $#@* up to!""Ah, well you've gotta work harder then!""You know what? [long pause...] #@&%* you!!"The conversation ended awkwardly there, as the young mom and her son gathered their things and were welcomed with a smile. My own smile, frozen on my face, covered my thoughts that maybe I should get back into the park today and prepare to summit in the morning.Thus began a series of calls with local shuttlers and a Baxter Park staffer. I couldn't just drive back to Katahdin Stream Campground where I'd left last night. I had no camping reservation or parking pass. The shuttlers said it didn't matter if they were just dropping me off, I needed a pass - the shuttlers don't have one. Parking passes and camping spots sold out long ago. You have to arrive at 5 am (or earlier) and wait to see if a pass is freed up by a no-show, then if you're lucky get in after 7. I played the thruhiker card, for what it's worth at Baxter, which seems to wish we didn't exist. No dice. By leaving the park, I was no longer a "long distance hiker". So I couldn't use the Birches shelter. Therefore I needed a camping reservation. When I asked whether someone could drive me into the park this afternoon the question was "Then what's your plan? Where will you camp?" Hikers often find a place with other campers, or reserve a spot left by a no-show, but none of this was good enough. I was persona non grata unless I had a reservation.I thought about this. Where did I go wrong? I left the park because the rangers' forecast said it was dangerous to climb Katahdin. Had I stayed to climb I could have used the Birches, but I would have been creating a risky situation for me and possibly rescuers. If I chose not to climb their regs wouldn't let me camp in the park - all the sites were booked and stealth camping is illegal. So I did the only thing they allow - I left the park. Now the next day I wanted to return and pick up exactly where I left off. I didn't run off to Vegas for a week. I got off their land for one night to follow their rules. In hindsight staying inside the park was the best option - I would have found a spot somewhere, probably with a ranger's help. My mistake was leaving the park, thus empowering the gatekeepers. Imagine if every state park had convoluted regs like this. Thruhiking legally would be impossible. It's not that the Baxter leaders don't like thruhikers - they don't like people of any kind coming through what they see as a wilderness preserve, not as a park for people to enjoy. The Kafkaesque rules are mostly to discourage use, not to channel it in manageable ways. I wanted to channel my inner Susan and tell them what I thought of their policies.In the end I had several options: 1) go back to Georgia, or at least Monson, start again, and do it right this time!2) get a shuttle at 4 am to the gate and wait for a parking pass to free up.3) get a ride to Abol Bridge, just south of the park, walk in like I did yesterday and sign up for The Birches shelter (illegally since in Baxter's eyes I'm no longer a long-distance hiker - sigh)4) get a ride to the park gate, sneak around the entrance on foot, and hitch up to the campground and register at the Birches. Really illegal and risking some fines. Not to mention finding a driver willing to help me. Chutzpah factor: 10 out of 105) hitch into the park with a party that has a reservation, then either camp with them or try for the Birches6) get a shuttle into the park and pretend we're there to pick up a thruhiker. Baxter allows pickups late in the day without a parking pass. Obviously unethical and what shuttler would help me do this?#5 was the most attractive option, so I went to Susan to explain I wouldn't be staying another night. I thought perhaps freeing up the room for her tenant would be welcome in exchange for a ride or at least a refund. But I didn't have a chance to ask because she immediately exclaimed she wouldn't drive me anywhere. She was far too busy (sitting on a chair drinking) and the roads were awful, you needed a special high-clearance vehicle. I didn't bother mentioning the VW Golf that brought me to town last night. When it occurred to her I might be looking for a refund she put the kibosh on that too: You paid in advance, right? You'll have to find Tom. Suddenly it occurred to her that she may be coming across poorly: "Oh, wait! You're not gonna leave a bad review?" Her tone mellowed as she confided to me her issues with Tom, and how the vibe in the house was better when it was full of hikers. She then disappeared in the few minutes it took me to pack up. When I called to say the room was vacant she seemed to be in full damage control, offering I could come back tomorrow night or grab a shower. Well, that's thoughtful, but I didn't expect to take her up on it. I'd had enough drama.I walked out of town a mile and a half along the road to Baxter to where I could hitch with confidence that nearly everyone was headed to the park. Traffic was light but after twenty minutes a couple dozen vehicles had passed, enough to tell me hitching was unlikely to work. I gave in and called a shuttler, ponied up 40 bucks and took option #3. I would go back to Abol Bridge, and hike in. I would get around the gatekeepers by coming through the back door. It was nearly 3 and I was burning daylight.Chris from Pamola Motor Lodge drove me up. In addition to running the motel and tending its bar, he does painting jobs and acts as the town's taxi. He also hosts pool tournaments and well-known professional players. He dropped me as close to the Baxter Park boundary as the road could go. I walked over the same ground as yesterday to the kiosk at the park border. A young ranger was there and helped me sign up for the Birches. I didn't mention this was my second try. Then I hiked four and half miles - making nine miles for the day - over the Blueberry Ledges Trail to Katahdin Stream Campground. This was not the AT. The AT follows a circuitous 9 mile route along Nesowadnehunk Stream to reach the same spot. This was a shortcut, and I would probably not have taken this option if I had to follow the same AT path I took yesterday. The path led directly through the Birches. There I found Water Queen and 5-Oh at last! We were all thrilled to see each other. They'd seen my name on the board yesterday and assumed I'd summited. I had passed them in the Wilderness without realizing it. Turns out the evening I thought I would catch them at Rainbow Stream Lean-To I actually did catch them. They were tenting just out of sight over the hill. I had considered at the time calling out to see if anyone was around, but thought better of it, embarrassed to be yelling in the woods and seeing no likely spots for them to hide. I'd ended up hiking another 3.6 miles past dusk to Rainbow Spring Campsite. Could have saved myself a lot of aggravation the last two days if I'd just called out.I went out searching for the campground ranger to register for the Birches, but he wasn't at his station at 5:20, only a sign saying he'd be back at 5. Nor was he anywhere in the campground. So I hiked back to the Birches where a truck was parked. But it wasn't a ranger's truck - it belonged to a local named Dana who had brought trail magic to our little camp! He had a cooler full of sodas and beer, chips, cookies, and three pizzas! Fortunately there was also a trio hiking the 100 Mile Wilderness staying here to help us make a dent in this feast. A ranger eventually appeared to fill out my paperwork - in triplicate - and assign me NOBO permit #310. My first official recognition of a thruhike. He'd just come from a debriefing on one of the week's search and rescue operations. I asked about the possibility of ice on the climb in the morning, but he didn't seem concerned.The shelters at the Birches are boarded up, because Covid, so everyone tented. Which made the powerful thunderstorms that rolled through between 8 and 10 pretty exciting. I haven't had the tent up in anything that fierce before. I think it was hailing for a time. I haven't seen a thunderstorm at all since the one that spun off tornadoes in Connecticut. Tomorrow's high on the summit is expected to be 32, so I'm expecting a bit of ice, sleet, or rime up there.