Date: 2009-07-16
From: Crocker Cirque Campsite

To: The Pine Ellis Lodge, Andover, Maine
Miles today: 61.4
Weather: broken clouds

Hello dear friends!We've made it to Andover, some 250 miles past Katahdin and (only) 30 miles from the New Hampshire state line. Tomorrow marks our one month anniversary on the trail. Not sure how we're going to celebrate it. It's too warm to pack out ice cream and the mountains around here are way too big to carry out a bottle of wine... but I'm sure we'll think of something. We've been in Maine for so long that I'm beginning to associate the AT with just Maine, moose, loons, mud, and rain, forgetting that there are actually over a dozen more states to cover.We've had some exciting times since Stratton. We're still hiking with Ron and Kim, although the Slackers are a day behind because they took another day off in Rangeley... true to their name.Here are the higlights:1. We've covered the Crocker Range, the Saddleback Range, the Bemis Range, and are now heading for the Mahoosics, with the much anticipted/feared Mahoosic Notch. From here on out we're hiking only 8, MAX 10 miles a day simply because it's going to take us all day to cover those miles over rock faces and other Maine nonsense. The Whites are next, said to be the hardest and most beautiful portion of the entire AT. We pray for good weather because we're not keen on being stuck above treeline for 8 miles at a time in thunderstorms. It's really not good to be the tallest things around in that situation. We know of four hikers that got hospitalized just a few weeks ago becuase they were caught on a ridge in a storm and were splashed with lightning. They're okay but still, I obviously don't want to go there. 2. The Saddleback Range has been our favorite group of mountains, with views and hiking topping even that of the Bigelows. AMAZING. We were above treeline for almost 2 miles I think and we loved every minute of it. The only other time we've been this high for this long was Katahdin, and you already know that was a disaster. We hit weather gold the day we went over them, with 60 degrees, breeze, partly cloudy.3. We did go to Rangeley, by far the biggest town we've been to yet. To give you an idea, the towns we've been to have had one to two hiker hostels, a General Store, and a diner if we're lucky. Rangeley was SO big it had a movie theater that played one whole movie three times per day! We ended up going to Rangeley because after the perfect day on the Saddlebacks guess what happened. It rained. Hard. All night long. The campsite had wooden tent platforms which keep you a few inches off wet ground but we didn't use them as we've done in the past because... a passing AT ranger said it would be "softer to sleep on that bed of pine needles over there." Well guess what, it's been raining here for so long that the ground has long passed it's saturation point and any more rain that falls pools. About 4:30 am I wake up and put my hand down on the floor of the tent. The tent floor slowly shifts away, just like on a water bed. I go back to sleep, thinking I'm just dreaming and/or this situation will go away an hour later. HAH! At 5:00 am I look outside and see my crocs FLOATING past the tent. Not good. There's also water everywhere inside the tent. Everything is wet. We get up at 5:02 am, throw our wet gear into our bags, pull our tent out of the lake that was our sleeping area and get the hell out of Dodge. We hightailed it the 2 miles to the highway which leads into Rangeley and hitched an extremely frightening, extremely cold, windy, and rainy ride in the back of an old pick up truck into town. It took me an hour to untangle my hair after that one. Oh, by the way, did I mention that the entire trail was mud on the way to the road? Did I mention that I slid about 10 feet down a bank because I stepped one inch off the trail onto a mudslide. It was a nice smooth ride all the way down, not even one rock! I can't believe we even got a hitch considering I was covered in black, sticky mud from head to toe down my entire left side. But after a shower, laundry, and a free breakfast buffet at the hostel, life was good again. Plus, the day before on the Saddlebacks was so fantastic that going on a rafting excursion all night in our tent didn't damper our mood too much.4.The Bemis Range came complete with a landslide. It's rained so much that part of Moody Mountain fell off. Yes, that's right, it fell off. The trail maintainers marked a temporary reroute which wasn't much of a reroute at all considering most of it was THROUGH the landslide rubble. At the steepest point Josh stepped on this huge rock to climb aroud a fallen tree hanging off the cliff. I stepped on the same rock with half my weight and it gave way, falling at least a hundred feet down. Needless to say I tested my weight on every rock before I stepped on it for the next 10 miles! Just like Katahdin, I basically scooted down the vast majority of the mountain on my butt to avoid falling way, way far down.5. Highlight of highlights. We are staying in Andover at the Pine Ellis Lodge, run by David, a really nice guy from Guatemala, and his ex-mother in law. When not looking after weary hikers David makes jewelry. He told me today, "let me show you something, you look like you have a sense of humor." Hmmm, I take that as a compliment. He led me into the back of the small garage/laundry room next to the lodge and behold, what are those!?! I didn't want to say it in case it was something else and I offended him but I said it anyway. "Is that.... poop?" Indeed. David makes jewelry from moose poop. There are moose poop earings, moose poop "bling" on a faux gold chain, moose poop with an fake encrusted diamond, etc. Man, these Maine people sure love their Moose poop... as if there isn't enough of it on the trail (we walk through at least a dozen patches a day, often in the mud as well). David makes other jewelry that doesn't involve poop as well. Very, very beautiful beaded necklaces with handcarved stones. However, the poop collection is the cornerstone of the garage/laundry room business. He showed me the request notes he gets from all over the US. Who would have thought that so many people want glazed poop? Plus, it's a great conversation starter, David says. There are also tons of jokes to be made. He tells his grandchildren that "one day allll this crap will be yours." He exclaims regarding the the diamond encrusted poo: "that's the expensive shit, right there!"6. Last highlight of the week: I bought some moose poop earings.Until Gorham, our first New Hampshire state!PS- Every single dream I've had for weeks has involved the AT in some shape or form. Josh says that's why I'm so tired in the mornings. I just keep hiking at night.PPS- Thank you SO MUCH for all the support and love. Every phone call, facebook note, and OH MY GOD Helen we've already finished the cookies we got this morning... has been so, so helpful to us. It's literally because of the people we've met and the people back home that we (or at least I) haven't thrown in the towl when I hobbled out of the 100 Miles Mud Puddle with a million bug bites and shredded feet. Yes, we are, lord help us, having fun now. But boy, it sure took a lot of mental and physical willpower to get to this point. So THANK YOU to everyone who encouraged us to stick it out until the mud got better... scratch that, until we just got used to it.-Anya