Date: 2013-06-28
From: Spaulding Mountain Lean-to

To: Poplar Ridge Lean-to
Miles today: 8.0

DAY 19MILES ON AT FOR DAY- 8.0MILES TOTAL FOR DAY- 8.0It was funny because in the middle of the night I thought I was dreaming when I heard voices and saw lights.... but then I came to and realized it wasn't a dream. It was real and they were asking us to move over. It was absolutely down pouring. It ended up being Cosmo, Nightwalker, and Firefox who had left Stratton late.When I actually woke up in the morning I could see they were all squished next to me. And I hadn't gotten my wish. It was raining. A lot. We didn't have a very tough day ahead, but with the way the rain was coming down, it would slow us down. We needed to be in Rangley the next morning and had 18.7 miles to go. But because of the weather, we decided to only do 8 miles to the next lean-to and we would push to do the 10.7 early Saturday morning... with hopes for better weather.We all slowly started getting up and Nightwalker and Cosmo sort of had the same plan. Firefox wasn't feeling it and was going to potentially zero for the day in the shelter. Blues man was obviously headed the other direction. We personally had to move forward. And at least it wasn't too far. Just push 8 miles to the next dry spot essentially!We got going around 8:30am and the trails were just a mess. It felt like I was in the 100-mile wilderness again. The trail wasn't a trail. It was a stream. Appalachian Trail = Stream. There's no way around the mess. You just have to slog through it. We kept a good pace though and hit our first peak which was Lone Mountain. Snapped a picture of the sign and that was that. Not much else you can do in the rain. As our hike went on, the rain seemed to let up quite a bit. Although when the trails are that wet there's just no hope for your shoes. You can't really talk much either when it's raining so its just you in your head. And for whatever reason what was in my head were two somgs I kept playing on shuffle and repeat. Dayman" from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and I think it's called "Be somebody else" by Pink. I can't explain to you how either one got in my brain but that's what I heard in my brain all day. We got Gary through his first ford which was across the Orbeton Stream. Nothing too wild though. Just above the knees! Since the elevation wasn't bad and we were just pushing forward with no breaks, we got to the lean-to at 1:30pm. It was nice to be the first ones there. Cosmo quickly followed after and came through while we were having lunch. When he asked where the water source was we answered, "Everywhere." Literally. You could have gotten water from anywhere around the lean to from all the rain. Maybe a couple hours later came along Nightwalker. Apparently Firefox still hadn't moved and really decided to take a zero day. I just find that to a waste personally. Ill spend my time off in town. The weather ended up not being horrible anyways.We made dinner and talked and meanwhile along came another hiker. A NoBo named AJ. He was moving pretty fast and claimed to be averaging 30 miles a day, only later to find out that he had skipped a few states though. I hate when people lie about their hike. Who cares?! Why lie?! We did end up talking a bit though before nodding off. He had apparently had a lot of run ins with bears and said that at one point one even charged him and he ran but the bear took off. I can't imagine how terrifying that would be. I want to see a bear, but not like that! After talking we hit the hay early since Gary and I had a tough 10.7 miles ahead of us to get done early in the morning. I just hoped we would make it to Rangley by 1pm like planned!