Date: 2022-08-06
From: Crocker Cirque Campground

To: ME 27
Miles today: 7.4
Weather: light rain

We¢ve had a fun week and are setting ourselves up for a good one ahead. The weather has been hot (in the 90s) and has threatened rain for the past several days. Tomorrow is the last day of heat before a front moves in bringing lots of rain and cooler temps (highs in the 60s). We spent last night at Crocker Cirque Campground. There were a dozen or more hikers around a campfire that Jasper and Baxter built: The trio of Gumby, Professor, & Neo (NOBOS we met way back at Stratton Pond Shelter); Stretch & Lotus (flip- floppers we met at a burger joint the day before Moosilauke), Leg (section hiker we met at The Cabin); Greta & Mom (SOBOS we met at the fire - check out ¢AT for Parkinson¢s Disease¢). The five of us added to the group made for fun (and loud!) conversation for an hour or two. We¢ve spent two months building these acquaintances. Thru hikers are a tough community to get into for several reasons. The biggest is that the hiker and their community move 15 miles north every day. If you¢re not ready to move along with them you¢re not getting in. Also, thru hikers and long-distance section hikers require some ¢cred¢ from you before they¢ll spend time chatting. Day hikers and weekend backpackers don¢t carry much cred, and so, don¢t get much thought from thru hikers. A family of 5 with kids in their teens is pretty far away from thru-hiker friend material. Knowing all that about the hiker community made last night all the more sweet. These ¢real hikers¢ see us not as ¢a family trying something impossible with kids¢, but instead as ¢real hikers.¢  We woke up this morning after all these people and met South Crocker¢s climb  straightway. A steep 1.3 mile pull for us to the top. North Crocker followed. We were on top of our day at 9:30. Stratton, ME was at the bottom of a 3.5 mile descent. We had a lot of options for the next several days.The Crockers and the Bigelows are the last two peak groups before crossing the Kennebec River and entering northern Maine. The northern half of the state is generally lower and flatter than the southern half. Stratton sits between these two peak groups and is, therefore, a good place for resupply, hostels, and slackpacking operations (like private shuttle drivers). Far Out and AWOL are full of information and phone numbers. I¢ll spare the stories of the deliberations on permutations of possibilities and tell the plan we¢ve settled on.We got to the road at about 11:30 along with Leg. He was headed to The Hosrel of Maine via shuttle. I¢d packed two boxes of food and asked mom & dad to mail them to H.O.ME. We got into the shuttle when they arrived at 12:00 and rode to the hostel. We couldn¢t stay the night - they were booked along with every other joint in town due to the mountain biker convention in town. We did spend 5 hours there eating lunch, resupplying, showering, laundrying, and planning. John shuttled us back to the trailhead at 5:00 where we set up camp (for free!) and ate dinner. Tomorrow John will pick us up at 7:30 and shuttle us north with several other hikers. We¢ll slackpack the 15 miles over the Bigelows back to this trailhead where John will, again, take us back to the hostel. We¢ll have a private room there tomorrow night. Monday rains all day. We¢ll get a shuttle from H.O.ME to the Mountain View Motel and Campground where we¢ll stay in the much-more-affordable but far-less-luxurious shed cabins and take a zero (I¢m actually really looking forward to that. The MVM was a top choice for tonight but hiker bedtime come long before mountain biker party time is over.). Finally, we¢ll get one last shuttle Tuesday morning back to the north end of the Bigelows and continue our March north. We plan to stay at Shaws Hostel in Monson about this same time next week. We¢ll resupply there and make plans for the 100 mile wilderness. Then it¢ll be 115 miles in 6 or 7 days to Katahdin. Maybe we¢ll be there about August 20.Grayson was hiking in front of me today, both of us in the back of the line. ¢I¢ve always thought that if I could have a superpower it would be shapeshifting or something like that. But now I think I¢d like to be able to conjure any food I wanted. What if I could conjure orange chicken right now!?¢Jasper woke up last night at 2:30am and walked alone 200 yards through the dark Maine woods. We were camping at Crocker Cirque which held the remnants of a glacial lake, now a buggy pond. ¢I wanted to see if there was a moose and, if not, just check out the stars.¢