Date: 2006-08-02
From: ME 4 (Rangeley)

To: Poplar Ridge Lean-to
Miles today: 10.7
Weather: broken clouds

Every thru-hiker knows that town is a vortex, and Rangeley was no exception. I lazed around most of the morning, and finally got my stuff together around 11 or so. There were about 5 other hikers at the lodge, and we all loaded into the hostel owner's Suburban for the ride into town, but the vehicle wouldn't start. I didn't mind- this way I could relax and not feel guilty about it. So we sat in the car and chatted for a while, then stood around the open hood, trying to look like we knew a thing or two about engines. It just so happens, though, that one of the other hikers, Buttercup, actually did know a thing or two about engines. He used one of my trekking poles to give the starter a few good taps, and the motor started right up. I always knew those trekking poles would come in handy. And to those naysayers (Johnny) who made fun of me for taking "ski poles" on my trip, I say "see? told ya." The caretaker for one of the high-use shelters on the trail in this area approached a group of us at the grocery and offered a ride back to the trailhead, which I gladly accepted. I was hiking again by about lunchtime, and was happy to find the trail rising above treeline for a good distance. I thought that the White Mts might have contained the only alpine areas on the trail. I've discovered that I really like being above tree-line. Obviously it's more scenic, but I also like the fact that there's always the danger of lightning or other extreme weather. In this area of Maine it seems that tree-line is reached at a lower elevation than it was in the Whites. I guess it makes sense that the further north you travel, the lower vegetation must be to survive: in the arctic there are no trees even though it's almost at sea level. Some of the huts in the Whites had charts explaining how it all worked in the correct complex terminology, to which I paid little heed. But basically, they were saying that the area above tree-line is an alpine zone similar to the Arctic. Its climate is like that of Labrador. Below that is the Boreal zone, and below that is some other zone whose name I can't remember but which contains other northerly species. Anyway, the point was that mountains compress climates, so you can see vast climatic diversity in a relatively small geographical area.I arrived at a shelter a little after six, and was planning to continue on the 8 miles to the next shelter (in the dark if I had to), but it started raining hard, and I met a guy at the shelter who I had met way back in GA, so I decided to crash there for the night. The other hiker was Grizzly Bear. He has an amazing memory- we shared a shelter for one night in GA, and he remembered my real name and the name of the shelter we were at, etc. Grizzly is doing a "flip-flop" hike, which means that he started at one terminus, hiked part-way towards the other, and then went to the other end of the trail and hiked back in the other direction. Most people flip-flop because they start running out of time and aren't sure if they can beat winter weather to Katahdin. In New Hampshire I ran into another flip-flopper whom I had hiked a day or so with in Virginia. Oh! and I met up with Joel (Lumps) and Jessica (Two-step) Koontz, who are friends of some friends of mine back home. I'd never met them before, but our mutual friends told us of each other, and we've exchanged a couple of e-mails in hopes of meeting up somewhere along the trail. Ever since I started seeing southbounders, I've been asking if they know where Lumps and Two-step are. Most SOBO's didn't know them since they had started ahead of them, but I finally found a few who had at least heard of them. Near Mt. Washington I encountered a SOBO who asked me if I had any chewing tobacco. I couldn¢t help him, but proffered a question of my own, asking him if he knew Lumps and Two-step. He responded, "Lumps and Two-step? Yeah, they're about two hundred yards behind me." Sure enough, I kept hiking and ran into the Koontzes. We had an enjoyable chat on the side of the mountain swapping stories, but since we were heading opposite directions and wanted to make some miles, we wished each other well, and continued on our merry ways, agreeing to meet up in PA sometime to continue our visit.