Date: 2021-06-17
From: Katahdin Stream Campground (mile 5.2)

To: Pond near start of Hundred Mile Wilderness (mile 15.5)
Miles today: 16.8
Weather: clear sky

Pete and Tommy picked me up at 7:30 from Katahdin Stream Campground and we headed northwest on the Tote Road six miles to the Marston trailhead. On a loop trail we bagged Mounts Coe, South Brother, and North Brother. The last is my 13th Maine 4000-footer. Now I have all the 4K's in Maine except Old Speck, which I can easily get to from the AT in a couple of weeks. The hike was fairly gnarly climbing the last half mile to each peak, with lots of boulders and less grooming than more popular trails. Mount Coe had a particularly difficult approach: a half-mile bedrock slab at an improbably steep angle with slippery black slime in some spots. We also bagged Fort Mountain. There is no trail to it, only a bushwhacking path trodden by a few other peakbaggers. It was a long one-and-a-half mile roundtrip down into the saddle and up, most of it pushing through dense krumholtz and spruce, many downed trees, boulders, and branches scraping and poking my head and torso and scratching my bare legs. Not as bad as an Arizona bushwhack though: no Cat's Claw here. I lost very little blood! The summit sign was an instrument box from a small plane that went down near here many years ago. Each peak gave us a view of Katahdin from a different angle, all of them from the side and rear compared to the iconic front view thruhikers see. If anything it was more impressive as it showed the sheer mass of the mountain, stretching over to Hamlin peak and beyond on one arm of the huge glacial cirque that sits below Baxter peak, and over the Knife Edge to Pamola peak on the other arm. On the way out we stopped by a peaceful lake. There a beaver swam slowly across. Pete is a Verizon lineman from the Adirondacks in upstate New York. He's been bagging all 46 4000-footers there, though he considers himself an amateur next to Tommy. Tommy is a retired Verizon lineman and spends all his time hiking and peakbagging. He's climbed all the 4K's in the Adirondacks and New England (115 total) several times and is working on climbing each in every season. He's also "redlining" the Adirondacks, meaning hiking every mile of every trail, and made up a challenge called "bluelining" where he canoes all the lakes and ponds. Currently he's working on lists like 52 With a View, which are sub-4000 mountains in the Whites that are worth the climb. Also the Hundred Highest in New England, which Coe, Fort, and South Brother all land on even though they are under 4000. And a list of most difficult trails in the Whites called the Terrifying 25. But best of all, he shared his cheese sticks and monster cookies with me. We followed another hiker from Gorham, Maine around the loop who was carrying a stuffed lion to raise awareness for a muscular dystrophy charity he promotes. Like me he wore shorts through the bushwhack but didn't seem to mind. He's meeting his father to hike Katahdin tomorrow, who is a very active hiker despite pushing 80.Pete drove me back to Katahdin Stream where I jumped on the Blueberry Ledges Trail for a quicker exit from Baxter Park. It was nearly 5 and stealth camping is prohibited in the park. A five mile hike through tranquil forest brought me to the Abol Bridge and campground. Sadly the campground store was closed, so no ice cream or cold drinks today. I walked up to where the AT enters the Hundred Mile Wilderness and looked for a place to tent close to the road so I could walk back to the store in the morning. I have five more days until I reach Monson so I want to get a little more food and treat myself to a cold drink for the day. I saw a few possible areas but nothing that looked like home for the night. It was fortunate I held off because two minutes later I spied a pond near the trail, and walked around until I found a serene spot on pine needles by the shore. I stripped off my clothes and waded in, washing all the dirt and sweat off and scaring off some small ducks in the process. Pond water feels so soft and silky. The water was a comfortable temperature, and I dried off quickly before dressing and setting up the tent. Dinner was herbed salmon from a foil packet on a tortilla, followed by salami and cheese, Fritos, and M&Ms. I left the tent flaps open to catch the sunrise in the morning, and listened to the bullfrogs and occasional loon over the moonlit pond. After a few minutes I heard footsteps in the woods nearby. A large animal. Possibly a moose. I couldn't see it, but I heard it munching leaves. I was a little concerned it might run over my tent. Moose have done that to hikers who set up directly on the trail after unsuccessfully looking for a flat area. But it walked past and waded into the pond, still hidden from view by the dim light and a large boulder on shore, and splashed around for quite awhile, probably feeding. Definitely a moose! It wandered to the other shore and off into the darkness.