Date: 2008-08-04
From: Carabou Road

To: Mt. Spaulding Lean To
Miles today: 5.5
Weather: light rain

I forgot last night to talk about mushrooms, so before I tell you about today let me go back.While we slackpacked yesterday Sue gathered some mushrooms for us. When we came back into the hostel she brought out this towel, opened it up and showed us three different kinds, a Chicken mushroom, Oyster mushroom and a Shanterelle (no idea how to spell that). She gave them to us to cook. Later in the evening we sauted them in some butter and garlic. They were excellent! Not sure I'm courageous enough to gather my own though.This morning we got up early, packed our packs and got ready to go. We'd been discussing our drop off options with Sue. Word from incoming hikers was that the ford at the Carrabassett River was running high and swift. Sue had a couple options for us to blue blaze past the ford. She recommended dropping us at the ski slopes at Sugarloaf, we would walk up the slopes to the summit and then down the blue blazed trail to the AT, missing just two AT miles.Sounds much easier than it was. We got to what we thought was the summit house after sloshing up the wettest hillside I've walked in a long time. My shoes were soaked through. Turns out we weren't at the top. It took awhile to figure out where to go from there, but we finally found a trail that lead to a road that went up. We figured the summit had to be up, so we followed it. Up, up and up some more. After awhile I heard a motor behind us. Along came a pickup truck. I waved and asked the guy about how much farther we had to the summit. He said quite a ways, so I asked for a lift. Owl and I piled into the bed. A little further up we picked up the rest of the gang. From there we drove up, up and more up. It was a REALLY long way up!At the top it was foggy and cold and starting to hail. Took a few mintues to locate the blue blazed trail to the AT, but we were motivated to get back down into the treeline quickly. Looking back I'm not sure that was the smartest blue blaze we could have done, but God was very good to us by providing a ride when we really needed it.The hike from there seemed to take forever. It should have only been a mile and a half until we reached Mt. Spaulding but I felt like we would never get there. The mountain itself wasn't too bad, not too steep, not too long. Coming down the other side seemed longer, probably because it started to rain.We ducked into the shelter out of the rain about 12:30. Immediately we decided that was enough wet for one day. We pulled out sleeping pads and warmer clothes. We hestitated at really settling in tho since it's so early in the day. But our plan had been to tent tonight and that was looking to be a miserble proposition. So we got comfortable and reserved the option to change our minds if the weather improved.Owl and I played a game for awhile, then I studied the maps while she read. I think it's Sherlock Holmes still this week. Then we napped. When I awoke the sky was blue and the sun was out. I was feeling just a little guilty about not moving on. Should we?Just then two more hikers arrived, Footmachine and Old Dog. They had hiked from the last shelter and were done for the day. They said the next eight miles to the next shelter was rough. We might consider going shelter to shelter in this section.It wasn't long before the sky opened up into a downpour. It looked like it would rain the rest of the night, but it stopped again about an hour later. What a day. Looks like we're in for the night. I think I'm going to cook up some pancakes and spam for dinner and snuggle down in my sleeping bag for the night.Rabbit, Owl and RooJoshua 1:9