Date: 2017-08-04
From: Hall Mt Lean-to

To: Sabbath Day Pond
Miles today: 21.1
Weather: broken clouds

I took a litte while to get moving this morning. I was quite cozy in my tent in my shelter all night, no issues with bugs or mice. Part of my morning was communicating with Lost and Lookout. As of this morning, Lookout is about 40mi ahead of me, but is planning on zeroing in Monson and is looking to summit Katahdin on the 19th, so I think I can probably catch him before the 100mi wilderness and potentially summit with him (we both stood on the summit of Springer at the same time and both think it would be kinda cool to summit Katahdin on the same day). Lost is going to be getting back on trail in Stratton, about 62mi ahead of me and will probably be doing fewer miles than Lookout, but not zeroing. Either way, I think I can catch them in a couple days if I can crank out some miles. Today I'm planning a 21mi day which will involve a lot of elevation, but I'm confident that I can make it, one way or another.There's nothing quite like getting back into wet clothing and this morning was about average. None of my stuff had dried overnight, but I slowly changed into it as I got ready, giving each part a little time to warm up to body temperature so as to lessen the shock of doing it all at once.I eventually got rolling at 740am, probably much later than I should've for how many miles I'm planning on doing, but whatever, I'll make it. I immediately started heading downhill, dropping 1600ft of elevation. Though I expected some steep, rocky scrambles like I had grown accustomed to seeing in this kind of terrain, it never came, and the trail remained dirt (though still pretty steep) the whole way down. I crossed a stream and managed to slip in and (re)wet my left shoe, which was still wet from yesterday. Next, I climbed back up the other side of the notch, rising 1400ft through the foggy morning, passing an overlook or two but not bothering to stop to see the foggy sights. While steep, the trail crew had been pretty good about driving rebar steps and handrails into the rocky faces and so this section also was pretty manageable, even while wet. Finally I crested the hill and started heading down 1000ft to the road, which passed pretty quickly. Overall, I think that had I wanted to, I could've handled doing this last night, but hindsight isn't very useful in a decision making process and I ended up having a good night up at Hall Mt shelter, so no harm done. I crossed the road and talked with a SOBO, LoneWolf, who was getting off trail to get a toothache checked out, certainly not a good problem to have in the middle of the woods. I continued on after reading the info sign that I've found at all road crossings in ME, which explain the terrain in the following section, the water sources, and any shelter available, very good info for a hiker to have. The sign explained that this next section had about 3700ft of elevation gain in it, which added to the 1400ft I had already done would make this a pretty good workout today.I now climbed up the other side of the gap that the road wound through and up the side of Old Blue Mt, which seemed to go on forever. I had been trying to keep moving pretty briskly today and I was starting to feel it, my legs requiring that I slow down on some of the steeper sections as the elevation started to take it toll.I ended up having a quick lunch on the summit and watched as the clouds billowed by, a view in and of themselves to make up for the landscape they obscured. I didn't linger long and kept moving, heading for Beavis Mt. Along the way I started to get discouraged... I hadn't seen hardly anyone all day, all my clothes were still wet from yesterdays rain and today's plants, and I was trying to crank out these miles to catch up with my friends and was getting annoyed that I couldn't move faster even despite this tough terrain. Usually I enjoy hiking and don't mind if the terrain is a bit slow or if I stop to enjoy part of the trail... I have nowhere better to be generally and this hike is about enjoying my time on the trail, but today I just couldn't get into that mindset. I eventually decided that I had to abandon the goal of catching Lost and Lookout as soon as possible... doing miles too fast to enjoy them wasn't going to get me anywhere but into an unhappy state. In the end, at least a hike of this magnitude, is a solo endeavor and I decided that I didn't want to finish my hike running through the most beautiful state on the trail. I had made a similar decision after I had gotten out of sync with Lookout in PA, that I had to hike my own hike and see how things worked out, and just like then, suddenly things got a lot more fun. I decided that instead of blowing straight through Rangely tomorrow that I'd probably do a 10mi day and stay in town to dry off a little and get some good food. The sun started peaking out through the clouds. I ran into some blueberry bushes atop Beavis Mt and spent a looooong time eating my fill... and then some... actually, eating until I had given myself a stomach ache from them and forced myself to keep walking. I headed down off of Beavis and came to some TRAIL MAGIC right before crossing a dirt road, a couple of wooden benches with a cooler full of goodies! Well, actually, an empty cooler that just this morning (according to the note) had been full of watermelon and drinks and snacks. Talk about an emotional roller coaster, the excitement of seeing magic turning into crushing disappointment at missing things that I hadn't even been craving until I found out they were gone. TRAIL TRAGIC.I crossed another stream and managed to slip again and soak my left shoe, which had almost dried out by that point. Wah Wah. I headed up towards Rt17 just as the rumble of thunder started to echo down the valley... just what I needed... The rain came just as I reached the road. I stopped briefly to pick some raspberries anyways, but was forced to move on as the storm crackled above me and the rain started coming sideways. As I crossed the road to my left a large lake glistened in the afternoon soon and to my right a huge wall of gray was slowly swallowing everything, including the mountains I had just come over. I scampered across the road quickly, not eager to be near the big metal guardrail for longer than I had to be, and headed up into the woods which gave me a bit of shelter from the driving wind and sideways rain. I again took a quick glance at the summary for this section of trail which was posted to a tree at the trailhead... the words "there are no major mountains in this 13mi section" may have been the most beautiful thing I've ever read.The storm blew itself out as quickly as it had come it, only lasting about 20min, but the rain had been plenty to re-wet all of the plants, the trail, and me. The last couple miles to camp went slowly, but I still pulled in a little before 6pm, not bad timing for 21mi. I elected to stay in the shelter since it seems likely we'll be getting more rain. The water source for this shelter is a large pond, only about 100ft from the shelter... only in maine are the ponds nice enough to be used for water. Today was a bit of a rollercoaster, but overall wasn't bad. I'm going to try to make some extra miles where I can, but am not planning on trying to push it like I did today. We'll see what happens, I'm pretty confident that I'll catch Lookout and Lost one way or another, but either way, I plan to do it with a mindset that still allows me to have fun.Like I said earlier, I think I'm only going to do 10mi into Rangely tomorrow and will stay in town for the night. Then it should only be about 1.5days to Stratton, which I probably won't stay in, and then another 2 days to Caratunk, where I'm meeting up with my uncle for the night. Then its just another 2days to Monson, probably 5-6days through the 100mi, and then I'll be at Katahdin.