Date: 2013-06-22
From: Shaw's - Monson, ME

To: Pleasant Pond Lean-to
Miles today: 6.2

DAY 13MILES ON AT FOR DAY- 6.2MILES TOTAL FOR DAY- 6.2Fourth day of AYCE breakfast. Hate myself for saying this but I was actually getting sick of it haha. I feel that's sinful to say as a hiker now but the rich, heavy food was getting to me. I know ill regret saying that in a day. It was a nice easy going morning. I only had to go 6.2 miles to reach Pleasant Pond Lean-to so I wasn't heading out until 1pm. In order to time meeting my step dad Gary the next morning, I had to stay at that lean-to, or go the extra 6 miles to Caratunk and I didn't want to stay in a hostel another night. I wanted to experience staying in a lean-to on my own too. I hung around with Chef, Smooth, Up, and UPS. I also got to meet Doc and Rooster, two guys I had seen but hadn't met the night before. We talked as I slowly packed my stuff, drank some beer, and had the last half of my pint of ice cream.It was nice to socialize before I took off but I knew I was going to be a few days ahead of these guys so who knows if I would see them again. Maybe at some point. Before I left Up gave me a book called "The Celestine Prophecy" to read along the way. I gave Smooth the beginning of the book "Wild" I was reading (I had ripped out the last 100 pages to save weight). It was a nice trade. I told him I'd leave the ending further down the trail in a lean-to for him.My shuttle was here and it was time to hit the road. No more slack packing. No more Shaws. No more AYCE breakfast.... For now. Unfortunately it was raining so I wasn't looking forward to the hike but at least it was a short day and I was staying in a lean-to. I got dropped off at the trail head I had been picked up at the day before and I was off. It was only drizzling now so I just put my pack cover on. No poncho. Not even a quarter of a mile in I was already going uphill and it was my first day in three days with my full pack on again. It felt so foreign and clunky. The drizzling stopped and then it was just humid. REALLY humid. So much so that there were literally streams coming off my arms and face going up Pleasant Mountain. The shower I had taken the night before was destroyed in minutes. Pleasant mountain turned out to be NOT so pleasant. About an hour into my sweaty hike, I heard voices ahead of me. I thought I was going crazy but on one I the ridges, I caught a glimpse of someone going down off the ridge as I was climbing up. Eventually I caught up to who it was and it turned out to be Cosmo and Sam, the two boys that had shown up at Shaws for breakfast two days prior. It was nice to have company for the hike. We talked about what we do, where we were from, etc. Cosmo turned out to actually be a military guy, as I had suspected, and he was 21 and from NH. Sam was only 17 and had just graduated high school. He was from Worcester, MA.... a fellow mass hole. It was weird that lately I was the oldest around, or one of the oldest. I usually always felt like the young one with the people I hung around with.The descent off Pleasant Mountain wasn't too bad to the lean-to. When we got there a guy named Bill or "Mojo" was there. Turned out that he was the camera guy for Lost. He had just gotten over being sick and was hanging out at this lean-to tonight in hopes that Lost would make it to this one, but he wouldn't. He was a cool ass dude. He taught us about some edibles like Indian cucumber (picture in photos) and wild strawberries. He apparently went to school for outdoor leadership or something like that. He also apparently has been chasing big foot for the past few years and has a show coming out on Discovery Channel in a year. They offered him his own show and he turned it down to come out here and film Lost because he felt it was bigger than anything else he would do which I think is very noble. Not too long after we got to the shelter these guys Stilts, Globe, and Moto showed up. I had seen their writings in the log books in some of the shelters and I recognized them from my first night in Monson at Lakeshore where everyone was out drinking. Stilts and Globe were friends who had just graduated college together. Moto was solo but ended up joining up with them. Moto had tried a SoBo thru-hike last year but got a stress fracture in his foot and had to get off around CT. It was a packed shelter tonight! Guess I wouldn't be staying in a lean-to on my own after all. I was surrounded by 6 dudes! Globe informed me that the first Taco Bell that we would hit was around mile 500 something. This was important news. A lot of the hostels in the trail towns were unfortunately up for sale, with White House Landing being one of them (the hostel where you blow the air horn). We decided we should all buy it and put a Taco Bell there in the middle of the 100-mile wilderness and tote people over to it by boat. Tell me that wouldn't be epic. When you start hiking, all you start to do is think about food... and talk about food. We probably spent an hour talking about food haha. And what we would all order when we finally reach that Taco Bell.The next morning we all had to be up early to hike the 6 miles to Caratunk to make the Kennebec River Ferry in time. The Kennebec River is the only river that the AT crosses that CANNOT be forded. It has a dam above it that if let go while you are trying to cross, will put you 15 feet under water or sweep you away. People have died doing it so you need to make this ferry. It runs from 9am to 11am and that's it. My step dad Gary was meeting me in Caratunk a half a mile before the crossing at 9:30am so I planned to leave by 6am as well as Stilts, Globe, and Moto. That made it an early night so in our sleeping bags we went shoulder to shoulder in that lean-to at 8:30pm!