Date: 2021-06-24
From: Monson (mile 114.5)

To: Bald Mtn Pond Lean-to (mile 132.4)
Miles today: 15.7
Weather: clear sky

Had every intention of hiking out this morning after another huge breakfast at Shaw's. I settled my tab but didn't hop on the 8:15 shuttle to the Rt 15 trailhead with Alex, Tyler, Joseph, and Pappy. I planned to "retro-blaze", or walk the old AT route directly out of town along Lake Hebron.But first I wanted to take out the kayak Shaw's keeps beside the house. Green Bag helped me carry it the couple hundred yards to the small launch and dock behind the General Store. Then I took it for a circuit around the lake, maybe a couple miles, stopping along the way at one of the very few undeveloped stretches of waterfront to go for a swim. Keeping the streak alive!Lugging the kayak back myself was a workout. It was 70 pounds, could only be held by one hand, and the handle wasn't balanced so one end dragged on the ground. An elderly man in an electric wheelchair was coming from the old Swedish Lutheran church and saw me struggling. He wanted to help, and even told me to attach one end to his chair, but I didn't think that was a good idea. Instead he accompanied me over to Shaw's and chatted to cheer me on. Very kind of him. Darryl was his name, a Philly native but a Monson resident for 45 years.Back at the hostel a 2018 thruhiker from San Antonio named Fi'ty Cent was hanging around and giving rides to hikers. Green Bag was shaking down his pack and mailing stuff home. Also around are a couple named Wayfinder and Pacesetter, a long-haired middle-aged guy named Rooster, Lucky Charms, a traveling nurse, Adam (aka Trip Leader), and the girl who missed her food drop. Moose Juice and Kevin came in from the trail, both looking happy and proud to have gotten this far. Also a very chatty northbounder finishing the hike he started in 2015, who later walked around shirtless to even out his hiker tan.One of the common reactions I hear from SOBOs is amazement at how effortlessly and quickly the NOBOs move. "They just float over the rocks" one gasped. That's true - coming through the Wilderness it was a big gulf between the smooth, quick, purposeful gait of NOBOs, sometimes a train of them, and the slower uncertain plodding of SOBOs.I grabbed lunch and for awhile I was trapped by indecision. Should I hike out now, with time still to get to the shelter the others were targeting, or hang out another day and leave with this group tomorrow?  Hostels (and towns) are often vortices for hikers. I was trapped by the lure of relaxing and eating well. Being after 2 pm it would have been easy to say it was too late. But I knew better.So I hiked out. Said goodbye to Hippie Chick and Poet. They'll be hiking the El Camino in Spain next spring before the season starts in Maine. That's a trail that's also on my list. Maybe I'll see them out there. I walked along Pleasant Street by the lake fronted with tidy homes. The road dead ends after two miles so traffic was almost non-existent. But halfway there a car came along and offered me a ride. It turned out to be a trail maintainer. Once at the trail it was 15 miles to the shelter at Bald Mountain Pond. It was uneventful, all green tunnel, little elevation change, almost no ledges or rock scrambles, and mostly followed brook and stream valleys. An impressive gorge in Horseshoe Canyon held a very attractive swimming hole, but it was unfortunately about 100 feet below on an extremely steep slope so I kept moving. Several NOBOs passed, including a fiftysomething guy finishing up his 2020 thruhike, having returned at Harper's Ferry. It's still a thruhike, he told me, This trail's too hard to call it anything less.I barely stopped for five hours, arriving to find Alex, Pappy, Tyler, a wiry loner named Joseph, an intense young guy named Voyager, a giggly black woman named Pearlie, a new guy named Pancho, and Smoky Bear. Smoky is the same guy I met on my thruhike last year in northern Virginia. He's a gruff guy but clearly tickled that I remembered him. After dark, tucked into my warm sleeping bag in the shelter with Voyager, I saw the full moon rising through the trees. It must be a fantastic view over the lake, I said. Voyager urged me to get up and go look. I demurred. But he insisted, pulling out his headlamp so I could find my way. I jokingly cursed him for making me get up. But I'm so glad he did.I joined a couple other silent observers on the shoreline. The full moon rose over the pond just after sunset. A loon called out its solitary cry over the twinkling waters. Does it get any better?