Date: 2004-09-17
From: Jo-Mary Road near Millinocket, ME

To: Day 138: Wadleigh Stream Lean-to, ME
Miles today: 18.2

On AT Day 138 Hot Chocolate and I got up at 4:00 a.m. and ate breakfast in our homey little trailer at the Hidden Springs Campground in Millinocket, ME and then drove to where the AT crosses the Jo-Mary Road, halfway through the ¢100-mile wilderness,¢ so that I could start my 18.2-mile hike by 6:45 a.m. The day began with a light drizzle rain and temperatures in the 40¢s, but by afternoon the precipitation stopped and the temperatures had climbed to the upper 50¢s, all in all a nice day. This portion of ME¢s AT is essentially flat, so this was an easy hiking day. Sure there were the usual mud bogs, rocks and ankle twisting roots, but it was easy for me to maintain a two-mph pace. Since I knew it would be like this, I once again carried my MP3 player around my neck so I could listen to a novel while hiking, something I haven¢t done since before entering the White¢s in NH. As it turns out this was not such a good idea¢¦The problem was that even though the footing on the AT along Cooper Pond, Cooper Brook, Mud Pond, Mud Brook, Lower Jo-Mary Lake, Pemadumcook Lake, Twitchell Brook, and Deer Brook was indeed easy to follow, by the time I reached Tumbledown Dick Stream (aptly named as you will see!) at the 10.5-mile point, I was clearly not paying enough attention to this easy ford and I slipped on a big flat rock and landed in about a foot of cold rushing water. There I was with both of my boots and the entire left side of my body and pack fully submerged and all I could do is laugh and get up as quickly as possible.Luckily I was physically not hurt at all by the fall, but my MP3 player was soaked and I quickly discovered that it no longer worked. Even though I was wet I wasn¢t really cold and my high tech hiking clothes dried off quickly, my Gore-Tex boots and thermal socks squished water for the rest of the day. Having really wet feet while hiking is never a good idea and today this truism was underscored by the fact that I was already suffering from a painful ingrown nail on my left foot¢s ¢baby toe¢ ¢ Alas, another lesson learned!Before this amusingly embarrassing mishap, I met a young (mid-20¢s) NOBO AT through hiker named Neon Leon when I stopped on the banks of the Lower Jo-Mary Lake to sign the register in the Antlers Campsite privy. I kid you not, that is where the MATC put the register! After he and I watched the loons on this lovely lake for a while, I let him go on ahead as I took some pictures.Shortly after climbing out of Tumbledown Dick Stream I met two SOBO AT section hikers in their mid-50¢s to early 60¢s who, in addition to telling me ¢ with obvious glee ¢ that in a few days they would be finishing their 17-year quest to complete the entire AT, they also gave me lots of ¢advice¢ on climbing Mount Katahdin. Actually what they did was put a severe scare into me on the questionable advisability of my tiny 4¢7¢ wife, Hot Chocolate accompanying me on this climb. One of the SOBO AT section hikers was from CT and he said that he had to help a woman off the mountain after she got in (or rather up) over her head. The other hiker advised that I might want to wear kneepads since I was so small (note that at 5¢4¢ I¢m still 9-inches taller than my wife!) I would probably need to use my bare knees as support (instead of my feet as would a taller hiker) while climbing up and over some of the huge granite boulders. I thanked them both for their helpful comments, warned them about the slippery rocks in Tumbledown Dick Stream and went on my way.About halfway along the lovely five-mile trail that parallels Nahmakanta Stream, I stopped for lunch and was soon passed by a NOBO AT through hiker named Papa Bear from AL. In addition to appearing to be nearly as old as I, we discovered that we would both be camping at the same sites all the way to Mount Katahdin and back down. However, true to the custom of AT through hikers this coincidence did not mean we should be expected to hike together as he was clearly a much faster walker than I. Nonetheless it was nice to know that I might have company during what I thought might be a relatively dangerous climb.This nagging apprehension about the difficulty of the Mount Katahdin climb was further exacerbated when I ran into Chaquis, a NOBO AT through hiker that I first met while hiking in the Whites and who today was doing a SOBO slack pack. It seems that Chaquis had taken 10-days off to visit family and after returning had summated Mount Katahdin and now he was completing the few remaining miles of his through hike as a slack packer. In any event, since Chaquis had met my wife while she waited for me in the Pinkham Notch Camp after I summated Mount Washington, he knew how small she was and I asked him for his frank opinion on the advisability of her attempting to make the climb. He told me that he had summated four days earlier and with the high winds and exposed rock climbing he had been scared himself several times and as such he thought Hot Chocolate would not enjoy the climb even if she could make it. Clearly this gave me much to think about as I completed my hike to the Wadleigh Stream Lean-to around 4:00 p.m., ate dinner with Papa Bear and then tent camped for the night.