Date: 2016-07-12
From: White House Landing via Mahar Tote Trail

To: Rainbow Spring Campsite
Miles today: 19.5

I ended up moving off of the spring mattress in the bunkhouse to the extremely comfy couch. I was very happy about the decision and slept very nicely. I also was up pretty early thanks to our early sleep time, and couldn't fall back, so I just decided to get up. I packed up some of my stuff and milled about while folks got ready for breakfast. Breakfast was pretty darn tasty, with eggs and bacon and pancakes. We all wanted more though, and it took a while to come out because Bill hadn't anticipated we'd be as hungry as we were. After breakfast we all settled up and got ready to go. It looked like we were going to be in two waves again, and although I was supposed to go in the second one, I ended up being bumped to the first because one of the sobos was taking too long. so I hopped in with Goldie and Seal Tree and managed not to get the spray seat this time. We leapfrogged all morning with some older guys who had stayed the night at White House Landing, one of whom gave us kind of a weird speech before handing us gift cards to Adidas, who are sponsoring his hike. The trail moved along the side of Nahmakanta Stream, walking a somewhat circuitous route over blowdowns and streams. We passed through a state camping area near the shore of Nahmakanta Lake, where we took a long sit to enjoy the pretty morning. These breaks in the mornings are not really my style, but I like to hang out and skip rocks with the folks. The trail continued around the edge of the Lake, but ended up climbing up and over some little rises only to go back down to the edge. i guess the trail below has been prone to flooding. The only real climb of the day came at Nesuntabunt mountain, which involved a lot of moving in and out of rock staircases and formations. It was actually pretty hard. We took the small side trail to the vista near the top and sat down for lunch at an outcropping with great views down to the lake and up to Katahdin. We are on a different side of the mountain now, and can see the north-south expansion of it. It's really a big big plateau, the most impressive view of which is from the south. Steve enjoyed his leftover pizza from WHL, we witnessed feuding chipmunks, and a large group of highschoolers came up and forced us out of our spot. So we kept moving. The trail climbed down along the route of pollywog stream (there's a pattern here isn't there.) and I heard the waterfall at Pollywog gorge. The trail then began hiking back up along the route of Rainbow Stream, which fell down through a narrow sluiceway for miles, and was incredibly gorgeous. I eventually came to Rainbow Stream Lean-to, which is perched right above the raging stream, and was amazed to find Wonka and Bananas! So the story was that on the day we headed over Whitecap to Logan Brook, they had stayed at the previous shelter, and ended up doing a 30 mile day yesterday and camped near Potaywadjo shelter. They had gotten an earlier start than us and now we were back together. Lightning seems to be at his wit's end, and as much as I'm done with the hundred mile wilderness, he is far more. He told us he was considering just hiking to Abol bridge tonight just to be done with it, which would be a 30 mile day. I tried to convince him he was crazy, but he was determined. But before he could get going to leave, the skies suddenly opened up. And so the seven of us hunkered down inside the little shelter to wait for the rain to pass. Which it mostly did. But wow, we haven't had a fully dry day yet here in the hundred. This is easily the wettest section I've had since Pennsylvania. Lightning then sped off down the trail ahead of us. The rest of us took our time more. The four miles to Rainbow Spring were surprisingly difficult despite being basically flat - they were covered in mud and rocks and slow going. I ended up slipping a couple times and landing my knee in mud. They were emotionally exhausting even more, I just wanted to be done for the day. We also passed a young group of kids and their leaders from Chewonki, a camp in Maine very similar to my own Keewaydin. Lightning's pervasive done-ness is pretty present in all of us, but just kind of exploding out of him and bubbling beneath the surface for all of us. Damn these bugs. We found Lightning just before Rainbow Spring, having decided that it would be crazy to hiking ten more miles. I was very happy to see him at least. Rainbow Spring is a pretty decent campsite, with a good number of flat spaces for tents, even a privy, and a lovely piped spring that comes out right next to the water. i set up my tent at one of the upper pads, near steve's hammock. Lightning is closer to the water. It's one of my only nights with large numbers of other folks at a campsite rather than a shelter. We all ate dinner down by the water and enjoyed the sunset. The bugs were better than up by the tents, but still are not great. It sucks: They are making this section significantly less enjoyable. It was nice feeling like a had a real trail family, though. So much of this trip, especially this bit before Stratton, was very lonely for me, and I had felt i missed out on a large part of trail culture. So I'm glad to be surrounded by friends in these last miles.Tomorrow, into Baxter!