Date: 2006-07-23
From: Perham Stream, Me

To: Oquossoc, Me
Miles today: 14.9

14.9 miles todayOquossoc, MeWow, what a night!! Nice rain most of the night, although I slept so well that I don't know when it stopped, but the trees were still dripping on my tent when I woke up at 4am.I just layed in my tent until about 5am when I started brewing my coffee and ate a couple apple pies.I stuck my wet clothes back on. That's always sooooo much fun, putting stinky, wet clothes on in the morning. :-)))I got packed up and was walking at 6:15am.Yolanda had started walking about 5 minutes before I left camp this morning. When I caught up to her, she had just seen a nice bull moose.Yolanda and I descended to Orbeton Stream...a steep descent.When I got there, I saw an old blaze going off to the left and followed that. When I saw that it was a trail that wasn't used much, I looked back and saw a good white blaze, so I started rock hopping the stream.Turned out I was crossing at the wrong area.I saw Yolanda rock hopping right where the trail came down and she was already across.I was stuck without any way to climb the other side, so I just got in the stream and walked back up to where she crossed. My feet were already wet anyway. :-)))I made the steep climb up to the summit of Poplar Ridge, then on to Poplar Ridge Lean-to where I signed the register and talked to a guy that was working on finishing his hike from last year. His name was Waist Deep and he only has 18 miles left to finish the whole trail.It was cooler out this morning, very wet and very, very humid....so much humidity that it's hard for me to catch my breath when I'm climbing.The trail from Orbeton Stream to Poplar Ridge Lean-to was so overgrown that just the water on the brush that I was having to push through kept me soaking wet even though the rain had stopped.I got water while I was at the lean-to, then walked on.I do love the fact that there are no bugs out. :-)))My next climb was up Saddleback Junior, but the name doesn't do the climb justice...it's another steep, rocky climb.I descended Saddleback Junior and caught up to Waist Deep. I walked with him for a while and found out that he started his nobo hike last year the same day Moosie and Goldilocks did....in fact, Waist Deep was at Amicalola Lodge eating breakfast when I bought Moosie and Goldilocks their kickoff breakfast.He said Moosie saw him later that day and named him Hot Lunch, but that name didn't stick.I made another steep climb up to the summit of The Horn. Mrs Gorp was walking with me then and ran into a nobo she knew by the name of Mark.His trail name is Mark, but he signs his name with a backwards R.I left Mrs Gorp to talk with Mark and I walked on. I didn't have a raincoat on and it was down to 55 degrees with a 25 to 30 mph wind blowing the fog through the tops of the mountains. I was too chilled to just stand there in the wind.I ran into another 2 nobos by the names of Mr Rogers and Tree Girl.I descended The Horn and ran into another nobo by the name of Delaruga. She was a young girl from Brazil and she had the nicest teeth I've ever seen.I made the last climb of the day to the summit of Saddleback Mountain, then on the way down that mountain, I ran into Yeti, then Sunshine....both nobos.I had been seeing some fresh moose tracks in the mud. There was a cow and a calf.I heard them in the pond to my right, but when I got to where I could see the pond, I could only see where they had been running through the water. There was a mud line in the pond and bubbles still coming up.I ran into three more nobos by the names of Thumper, Helium and G-bus.I ran into 2 more nobos, Bugs first, then Huff.We walked past Piazza Rock Lean-to without stopping.My heel has been bothering me for the last two days and I just wanted to get to the car we left at the trailhead and sit down.It was another 2 miles to the trailhead.It was nice to get there, but I still had a great day in the mountains with the cooler weather with no bugs. :-)))We stopped by the grocery in Rangely and I picked up a rotisserie chicken for tonight.We drove over to the hostel in Stratton and the first thing I did was eat dinner, then took a shower and fell asleep for a little over an hour.I sent in yesterday's journal entry and checked my guestbook. For some reason I'm not getting the guestbook entries forwarded to me, so I haven't been able to answer them yet.I was walking by Don and he invited me to a pasta dinner.I told him I had already eaten, but when I smelled the sauce, I ate again. :-)))Thanks Don and Susan....dinner was great!!I walked about 15 grueling miles today through some rough mountains and I was thinking about how some of my friends would have done.Mrs Gorp hung in there and made it. She's tough and she lets me know it everytime she catches up to me when I sit down and wait on her.Chief would have taken 2 1/2 days to complete it and when his pink tights got muddy, he would have been banging his Leki's on the rocks and saying that this is ridiculous, I should be home now sleeping in a soft bed. He would have said it in his best southern trailer park accent.If Liteshoe would have been here, she would have written a book about how this was the wettest year that anyone has ever hiked. She would have gotten half way in only 4 days. She would have also brought a laptop with satelite service so she could keep on self clicking on her journal to keep her counter moving along.LWOP would have looked at a profile on the map before heading into the woods and then decide to let the real hikers go ahead and walk through the mountains and he would get a motel in Rangely and wait on them to show up. He would write a good story and post it on Trail Journals about how the others couldn't have made it without him.Moosie would still be at the buffet in town and wouldn't even realize that all the rest of the hikers had already left for the trailhead.