Date: 2007-10-09
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Miles today: 0.0

It's been a looong time since I've updated & I apologize to all of you who've sent me an email of concern --- what's going on?! I'm back at school and have been since late August & it's back to the same ol' routine of classes and work and it's been really hard for me to find the time and inspiration to write a final journal entry for the year.So I left off in Bar Harbor, ME. Barbarossa and I started our hike at Katahdin and hiked through the 100 mile wilderness to Monson. That's where I officially got off the trail for this year and it was hard but needed to happen. I struggled with pushing off school to finish (& pretty much everyone thought I should except for my parents and a nagging voice in my head!). But this is my final semester of undergrad so I really just have to finish up! We partied for a few nights in Monson with lots of great folks, most of them nobo's just about to finish! Anyone who's in that town I definately definately recommend staying at the Lakeshore Pub & Motel. The owners there, Double Zero & Crash, are the nicest people on the face of the earth and it's a great atmosphere. I kayaked on Lake Hebron all 3 days, hung out at the local bbq, watched some bluegrass one night in the country store. I'm obsessed with Monson, it was one of the best towns on the trail in my book!So hiking in Maine?? It was tough! The abrupt jump from Virginia to Maine was intense and after being off the trail for a week and knowing that I was about to be done with the trail, well, it was mentally fatiguing as well. Buuuut, Maine was absolutely beautiful. I ran into a lot of nobo's and a couple sobo's just starting out. We hiked up Katahdin on a crappy wet and cold day, starting at 3 in the afternoon (stupid). So we basically ran up, ate a couple of cheese sandwiches at the top, and ran down (I only had to headlamp it for the last couple miles). It rained the first few days of the wilderness, the part through the boggy lowlands, so life was muddy and buggy. Oh yea, and the mice were hoooorible. It's not easy to fall asleep in the shelters when they're running over you all night. And for some reason they liked to chew only my right flipflop (?). I fell in rivers a few times while attempting to cross and stepped on a groundnest and got stung by bees. Did I forget to mention that it was beautiful?? Okay, it wasn't all bad. After the weather cleared up it was gorgeous. I went swimming almost everyday (one day I went swimming 3 times... we only did 8 miles!). And we stopped at the hostel to get some hot food, the one where you hike a mile off the trail, sound a fog horn, and the owner boats over to the dock and brings you to their little shore. My large pizza and homemade brownie were delicious! The other prob with this 9 day stretch through Maine was that neither of us packed enough food (stupid, I know, but it took us longer than anticipated due to swimming, laziness, and all that good stuff). We did get some much needed yogiing in at the parking lot of the Gulf-Hagas trail. We got cherries, bananas, granola, PB, snacks, grapes, just stuff galore! I don't think the nice folks that provided us with food have ever seen such dirty grateful creatures in their whole life! We literally plopped down in the middle of the gravel lot and stuffed ourselves silly, licking every last bit of food off of our dirty fingers!That's about all for now. Barbarossa's still hiking south. He'll be done in a couple weeks (makes me sad b/c I coooould've been there! I'm planning on finishing up the other half of the trail asap (hopefully next year???!). Over labor day weekend I introduced my college roommate to the wonderful world of AT backpacking when we hiked the section from Front Royal, VA to Harper's Ferry, WV (it was driving me crazy that I didn't finish that chunk!) Grateful Greenpeace Guy helped me out with a shuttle and a stay at his place in Front Royal which was amazingly nice. I miss all the good people on the trail! I'll continue this journal next time around....-Spill the Beans