Date: 2006-08-25
From: Poplar Ridge Lean-To

To: Crocker Cirque Campsite
Miles today: 14.2
Weather: scattered clouds

I mentioned the three French guys in last night¢s journal thinking that the three girls may be impressed with them and have romantic stories to tell after sleeping near them at the shelter last night while Baro and I stayed a little behind. Come to find out there was none and I believe Baro spoke to them more while eating breakfast at the shelter this morning than any of the girls did last night. The shelter was situated in a flat clearing but tenting was limited to a little area across the stream or if you will it was more like a wet lands. We started on the trail just a few minutes after 9:00am shortly crossing Poplar Ridge and down the other side. The next couple of miles were really nice and the weather was perfect to be out hiking. It is late August and cool here in Maine, but surely back home it is scorching hot and would be way to hot to be enjoying the trail like this. Our first break was at Spaulding Mountain Lean-to where we read about a side trail over to Mount Abraham Summit. The guidebook mentioned great views all the way from Mount Washington to Mount Katahdin but we decided to skip this viewpoint and have lunch at the Lean-to. This was not a bad little shelter but had little mice that inhabited it. As we ate they scurried around under the sleeping platform and would come out periodically to retrieve crumbs that had been dropped. We were amused and played with them for a bit then returned to the trail. Our next landmark listed in the guidebook was as a bronze plaque for the C.C.C. I have mentioned the Civilian Conservation Corp before because of all the valuable work that they performed to make the Appalachian Trail a reality. This location was especially important because the following was written on the plaque. ¢Maine C.C.C. in honor of the men of the Civilian Conservation Corps who from 1935 ¢ 1939 contributed greatly to the completion of the Appalachian Trail in Maine and who on August 14, 1937 near this spot completed the final link of the entire 2,054 mile trail.¢ The plaque went on to say that it was dedicated on August 14, 1987 by the volunteers of the Appalachian Trail Club some 50 years later. Now, if that isn¢t worth stopping to read you are not a true hiker. After Sugarloaf Mountain the trail took a turn for the worse. The section just before Carabassett River was really nasty and rough but the views were nice. Very little work had been done to this section and it was a steep descend all the way down to the river. There was a note in my book that said you had to ford the river to cross to the other side but lucky us someone had placed a 2¢ x 8¢ piece of lumber to cross on. It was supported on both sides buy the large rocks that lined the river bottom but spanned nearly 8 feet across the water. I took a deep breath and scurried across it only to find that the further out I went the further down the board deflected. By this time I was nearly halfway across so I continued on and safely made it to the other side. Shasta followed and she too questioned the route but once on the other side took a deep breath and followed it with a huge sigh of relief. If we had fallen in not only would we have been banged up from the fall but would be very cold because by now the valley was shaded and the temperature was starting to fall rapidly. Just ahead we stopped at Crocker Cirque Campsite and waited for the rest of the gang before deciding to stay for the night. We entered the campsite just about the time a group of college kids showed up so we took the far site and they took the one near the trail. After setting up camp we ate dinner and finished it off with a bottle of red wine that I carried all the way from Rangeley, ME. A few said I was crazy to carry a full size glass bottle of wine in my pack. Let me tell you it was well worth it because when I popped the cork we drank it down to the last drop. We finished off the wine, went over some plans for our trip into Stratton tomorrow, and then made our way to our tents for the night. Even though it is August the nights here are chilly and much colder than at home. Tonight at Crocker Cirque Campsite: Jelly Bean, Jangles, Shasta, H-Bomb, Baro, A group of college kids, Sandman, Irish, and I