Date: 2007-08-24
From: Frey Notch Lean-To 

To: Portland, ME
Miles today: 4.9
Weather: overcast clouds

Having noticed before climbing into Jack¢s two-man tent last night that it was notably warmer in Frey Notch than our previous evenings in the woods, I was surprised to wake up at 3:30 am to find my feet feeling so cold. But after a few moments of wiggling my size 14¢s around the inside of my bag, I realized that my feet were wet - not cold! Although we had put up the rain fly in case of showers, I had left the flap open on my side of the tent and unbeknownst to me, it had begun to rain and it blew in through the screening and had accumulated in a small puddle at the foot of my sleeping bag. Fortunately, my months of experience on the Appalachian Trail have prepared me well for this scenario and I knew exactly how to deal with the situation. I closed the flap, threw my t-shirt into the puddle to sop it up, rolled over, and went back to sleep. By 5:00 am, however, Jack and I were both awake and started to prepare for the short, final day of hiking together that lay ahead. We dressed and loaded our packs inside the tent very much like a couple of astronauts in a space capsule - each taking turns and moving slowly. By 6:00 am there was not much left to do but pull up our ¢capsule,¢ eat a couple of NASA approved (not!) peanut butter and honey burritos with cheese, and then begin our three-hour ¢spacewalk¢ through the woods. As if on schedule, though, the rain stopped as we stuck our heads out of the tent and peered about the mist-filled space of our surroundings. We walked gradually and guardedly because everything in the woods is ¢slippery when wet.¢ Tree roots that lace the trail heavily here in the northern portions of the AT. One might say that as you move from Deth-Con 4 (¢never trust a root¢) to Deth-Con 5 (¢never, never trust a root¢) when moisture is present. No matter how benign they may appear, tree roots always seem to be the source of stumbles, slips, slides, or other misjudgments that lead to a fall - they are truly the ¢roots of all evil,¢ as Jack correctly observed. The geographic highlight of the morning¢s hike was clearly found in Dunn¢s Notch, where a mountain stream first forms a near-perfect natural swimming hole (a deep pool filled by two short waterfalls with an easy sand-beach access) and then, moments later, empties into a swirling, 20-foot wide chasm of solid rock that drops several hundred feet into boiling mists of cascade below. It is breathtaking in its primitive, raw beauty. The fact that there were no warning signs or guardrails or concession stands or public disclaimers like ¢Observe at Your Own Risk¢ or ¢Pool Water Can Cause Heart Attacks¢ or ¢No Lifeguard on Duty¢ made the primitiveness of it all the more real and palpable. I could not help but wonder how differently Niagara Falls would appear if you could just walk up to it and - ¢voila¢ - there it was in front of you without all the ¢stuff¢ that heightens your expectation, only to diminish the impact of the Falls¢ reality. Here in the woods was a creek, a pool, and a waterfall to be seen and experienced just for what they were - an unheralded surprise and an enticing temptation of tranquility leading to an inspiring yet potentially destructive source of raw power. In many ways, I am glad I cannot send you a postcard of it. Just before we reached Dunn¢s Notch, Jack and I caught up with ¢Little Red¢ and ¢Wolf Big,¢ who confirmed for us that the snorting sounds we heard near our tent early last night was indeed a very large bull moose. ¢Wolf¢ almost ran into the moose this morning while leaving camp just before us. He got snorted at before the moose charged off into the woods with quite a ruckus. Shortly after leaving Dunn¢s Notch, we emerged from the woods onto the Andover Road, and there, next to his red truck, stood ¢Bear¢ (Earl Towne) just as he had promised. ¢Bear¢ is one of those true trail characters. ¢Stumpknocker¢ has known him for a while and told us we would enjoy meeting him, which was, if anything, an understatement. Jack had found ¢Bear¢ through the Appalachian Trail Conservancy¢s website and had phoned him up to make arrangements for us to get to Portland with his help. What Jack had not figured on when he contacted ¢Bear,¢ however, were the hot showers, blueberry pancakes, hot coffee, home fries, bacon, biscuits, and homemade jelly that ¢Bear¢ provided at his cabin before we left the area, and headed into Portland. ¢Bear¢s¢ cabin was in Andover, and was built by him and his wife of 14 years, ¢Honey¢ (Marge). It is as much a way-station for hikers as it is a home for the two of them. They shuttle people around, put them up, feed them (well!), and provide encouragement when necessary. They do not charge much for these services, and sometimes nothing at all. They are in touch with other such hostel owners along the Trail by an informal network of phone and e-mail messages, which makes the AT more of a ¢2,000-mile long small town,¢ as ¢Honey¢ describes it, than I had ever previously realized. As we ate and during our drive to Portland we were treated by ¢Bear¢, ¢Honey,¢ to stories filled with insights into life and the nature of the Appalachian Trail all the way to Portland, where they dropped us off at the Eastman Hotel a little after noon (their lovely Golden Retriever Pup, Molly joined us also). Jack nursed his impending cold with a nap while I did laundry, got a haircut, and put together plans for the remainder of the coming week when we got to Portland. We then took in the new ¢Bourne Supremacy¢ film followed by a New England lobster dinner with the works - 112-pound lobster, corn on the cob, steamed mussels, coleslaw, and fries!) The scene for this feast was on a picnic table on a wharf alongside fishing boats that were all surrounded with seagulls - it could not have been a more perfect end to a perfect time for the two of us. And ¢perfect¢ it was in so many ways. The weather was perfect (both the good and the bad). The terrain was perfect (both the tough parts and the more gentle ones). The beauty of the country that we saw and the people we met along the way were perfect in so many ways. In five days that were far from short in the conventional sense, Jack and I walked 41.5 miles in two separate states and climbed 12 individual mountain peaks while ascending over 12,500 vertical feet. We saw (and received) ¢Trail Magic,¢ and we met ¢Trail Angels.¢ We shared stories and food with strangers; we met old friends, and we made new friends. We sweated. We cooked food for one another, and we treated our own water. We walked together and also separately for long periods. We walked in silence, and we talked at length. We saw ponds and streams and clouds and birds and trees and plants and rocks and waterfalls. We were two men together in the woods. Father and son. Yes, it was perfect.