Date: 2015-08-04
From: Abol Bridge

To: ME 15
Miles today: 99.4
Weather: clear sky

I entered the 100 Mike Wilderness and made it through to the other side.First, some highlights:-- I had a great time playing Crazy 8's and Yahtzee with Stripper and Mama Bear and Momma Bear's 13 year old daughter Tangled Cub at the Cooper Brook Falls shelter (the falls were right there in from of the shelter-- amazing!) It was a quick game of Crazy 8's because I lost so fast but I scored 3 Yahtzees in one game and ended with a whopping 406 points. -- The weather for the second 2/3 of the section was so lovely and I swam from sand beaches at Jo-Mary Lake with flip-flop honeymooners Tortoise and Hare and at Crawford Pond (looked more like a lake than a pond to me, but I guess in Maine it's a pond) with southbound thru-hiker A. -- Amazing views from Third Mountain and Barren Ledges. -- Trail Magic!! My 7.5 day "itinerary" turned into a 9.25 day actuality. I got dehydrated and low in calories and took some shorter days to regain some energy. The "hiker hunger" (the kind of insatiable hunger that I'd heard about happening to long-distance hikers but so far had not really experienced) struck me one day 1 of the 100 Mile Wilderness. I hadn't packed enough food to cover the almost 2 extra days I ended up being on-trail plus my increased appetite, but gifts of food from an unnamed trail angel at Nahmakanta Lake, 5 hikers headed North doing the 100 Mile Wilderness + Baxter State Park section, flip flop hiker Wey who put more food than he needed into his mid-wilderness supply drop bucket, and a banana and Gatorade left by Chief (on staff at the AT lodge in Millinocket) all helped me through. It's amazing how good a crumbled up brownie tasted when it was given to me by another hiker rather than just coming from my food bag.-- A phenomenally large breakfast at Pete's Place in Monson, an important pit stop for any hiker entering or exiting the 100 Mile Wilderness, and excellent hospitality at the Lakeshore House right on the edge of Lake Hebron where I took a kayak out on the lake yesterday and watched West Side Story.While I was sitting and admiring the view featured as this post's photo, two people came by (I assumed they were Northbound thru-hikers), hardly looked at the view, argued with each other about how many miles they'd already gone, and one of them said, "it's 10 o'clock already! We need to go!" If I ever gets to that point for me I'd rather just not be on the trail at all. My dad who I'm hiking in memory of was a stop and smell the roses hiker if there ever was one. Once on a bike trip on the Blue Ridge Parkway, someone he was riding with looked around and saw that my dad wasn't there anymore. The other biker thought "well maybe this new guy is just slow", so he turned around and found my dad with his arms around a large rock face saying "I'm hugging billions of years!" Long-distance hiking really clarifies what is important to each person. To me, it's the experience and the journey itself that is important, not reaching the finish line in record time. The challenge is not to get sucked up into what is important to other people at the sacrifice of your own approach to the trail/life, especially when questions such as "when did you start?" (Now I ask "Started from where?") and "how many miles did you do today?" are so common.   The question "Where are you going?" is similarly difficult to answer (Today? Until the next resupply? Total?) . My intention going forward is to keep my attention focused on the next small step and interrupt all thoughts of how I am going to approach the White Mountains in New Hampshire (still 167 miles away) or how long I've already been on trail/the "usual" amount of time it takes people to thru-hike or when or where the end of my journey will be.   I have already done the longest section in Maine and from here South thought the rest of Maine towns are about 35 miles apart so I'm looking forward to some shorter sections. The trail is Maine is much more rugged than in the South and it's tough, slow going. The 100 Mile Wilderness looked how I imagined Fangorn Forrest from Lord of the Rings. A big thank you to 10-Hut and Pumpkin who live near the next major road crossing whom I met when they were doing a section in GA/NC in April and invited me to their home in Maine! I'll end this post with the poem "Walking with my Delaware Grandfather" by Denise Low that could very well have been written to describe my hike, just substitute my third generation German immigrant father for her Native American grandfather.Walking home I feel a presence following         and realize he is always therethat Native man with coal-black-hair who is         my grandfather. In my first memorieshe is present, mostly wordless,         resident in the house where I was born.My mother shows him the cleft in my chin         identical to his. I am swaddledand blinking in the kitchen light. So         we are introduced. We never part.Sometimes I forget he lodges in my house still         the bone-house where my heart beats.I carry his mother¢s framework         a sturdy structure. I learn his birthright.I hear his mother¢s teachings through         what my mother said of her:She kept a pot of stew on the stove         all day for anyone to eat.She never went to church but said         you could be a good person anyway.She fed hoboes during the ¢30s,         her back porch a regular stop-over.Every person has rights no matter         what color. Be respectful.This son of hers, my grandfather,         still walks the streets with me.Some twist of blood and heat still spark         across the time bridge. Here, listen:Air draws through these lungs made from his.         His blood still pulses through this hand.