Date: 2004-08-13
From: Rangeley Inn

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

It rained hard that night. The morning was plenty wet and the clouds were dark. After a nice hot shower, my quest for some breakfast began. The Inn had a fine dining room but it wasn't open yet this morning. Just across the street and down the hill though, was a perfect spot called Parkside & Main. This was a cozy little place with a diner style counter. My order was for a plate of pancakes and eggs but a giant muffin tempted me while waiting. Oh no, this was all just too much food. Sorry mom and dad, there may have been a bite of pancakes left on my plate. Some or our parents lessons we never outgrow. Thanks, folks.Taking my over stuffed belly back up to the Inn it was time to toss the pack on my back and hitch a ride back to the trail. It was only about 8:40am. That was not bad for a town morning. It took a while but finally an older woman picked me up in a car. She was only going part way but that was OK. She dropped me where she turned off the road. Not too much later an older guy in a beat up old pickup truck gave me a ride the rest of the way.There was a little vagueness regarding just where the trail started as it left ME Route 4 due to some false treadways but it only baffled me for a few minutes. It was wet and threatening looking but not raining as the trail began to climb out of the pass. By 10:10am a sign indicated the road was now 1.8 miles behind me. A side trail here led up to Piazza Rock Lean-to but there was no reason for me to head up there. It was too soon after starting. There needed to be more miles behind me to take a break.The clouds had descending on the trail. The fur and spruce needles were playing their role as condensers to suck the moisture out of the air causing them to be laden in water droplets. Just brushing against a tree branch would get you soaked. The view across Ethel Pond (or was it Mud Pond) was so ethereal and mystical it just demanded a photo.A couple of times yesterday and now today there was a different kind of trail structure. Trail structures are things like water bars, stone stairs, wood stairs, step stones and bog bridges. Most everything is usually made of wood or rock. Here in Maine there are lots of slabs of rock not unlike NH and VT. What they have done is to drill pairs of holes in the rock every foot or so and install upside down U shaped iron rod in these holes. This makes a kind of ladder of iron rungs. It's a bit out of place but very secure and effective.At about 11:30am the trail broke out of the trees on the ridge of Saddleback Mountain. The air was so thick, the visibility was no more than 50 feet. At first the air was calm but that changed as the trail climbed. The wind made walking a challenge and then there were the places where the trail filled with water making little ponds. To walk around these ponds would do damage to the fragile alpine tundra. This left the options of trying to long jump the pond, trying to rock hop around it or wade through it. The wading option was the least desirable with such a cold wet wind blowing but sometimes that was the only recourse. The Saddleback Ridge has 3 main peaks and it looked like my favorite type of terrain, alpine tundra and rock. But with today¢s weather is was a bit scary. These were hypothermia conditions. The only stops were brief for summit photos. This was about a 4 mile stretch of exposed trail at the 4,000 foot level. To see this on a clear day would be outstanding. Today it would be invigorating at best. Get Serious:Somewhere along this ridge that bad feeling crept back over me. The headache and exhaustion were returning. Crashing up here would be a bad thing. There was no choice but to go on. What was happening with me. Did all the extra energy expended trying to stay warm leave too little to fight this disease, whatever it is. I thought it was gone. Just keep going, even if it's slow. Get down into the cover of trees. Things will be better then.Poplar Ridge Lean-to would be the end of this short 10.7 mile day. That was not my plan. This was supposed to be an 18.7 mile day. It was emotionally tough to stop here but physically there was no choice. To crash further on and need to make camp with my tent in this rain would be a bad idea. On the other hand, I had told lots of folks when I would be on Katahdin in hopes that some might join me. The daily schedule was to be light, in the mid teens, but now there were miles to make up. Maybe I couldn't finish the trail after all. Or, maybe it was just too much breakfast, but this was much more than indigestion. Maybe I'm just allergic to towns. In retrospect, wearing my rain jacket and a hat would have been a good idea. I don't feel as bad now, having dried off and warmed up at the lean-to. Maybe I should push on. No, bad idea. Whaaa.There were some other folks at the shelter. After getting out of the energy sapping wet clothes and into dry ones and starting the feeding process, my mode changed from self preservation to a bit more social. The nice thing about thru-hikers is that in general they don't push. It is understood that when folks are ready, they'll talk just give them a chance to settle in and take care of what needs to be done first, be it wet clothes, food, water or whatever. There was wet stuff hanging all around the shelter. The rain came down in torrents flooding even the sloping ground around the shelter. The little brook just 30 feet away turned into a rage of brown and white rapids. Safe in the shelter there was a group of 3 older guys. A 4th guy was in his early 20's. He had injured his knee or ankle and was therefore taking it easy. He missed some of the folks he had been hiking with. The names of he and his friends were familiar to me from the shelter journals. We were all thru-hiking and that was cool. Poplar Ridge Lean-to was a log shelter with a corrugated roof. It had one of those pits between the sleeping deck and the bottom log at the front of the shelter. The idea is that the pit keeps porcupines off the deck and away from hiker's stuff. It is still mighty inconvenient constantly climbing over that short wall and trying to balance things on it. What really makes this shelter special is the floor. It uses the ¢baseball bat¢ design. That means that it is made of 2" to 3¢ diameter logs placed side by side running front to back. The logs are not flat on one side. They are round as mother nature had intended. It is like sleeping on a bunch of baseball bats. Just imagine. Ya gotta laugh. Thank goodness for Thermarest pads.The younger guy was trying to convince us all to take it easy and just go to the summit house on Sugarloaf Mountain with him tomorrow. He had a point. It was only 10.9 miles ahead and 0.5 off the trail. To go to the next shelter after that would make for a 26.6 mile day. That wasn't happening with my condition and in this terrain but stopping at under 11 mile was unacceptable too. For stopping so early in the day today, the time sure passed quickly.