Date: 2021-06-22
From: Cloud Pond Lean-to (mile 95.3)

To: Monson (mile 114.5)
Miles today: 8.0
Weather: light rain

Rained steadily last night. The bullfrogs serenaded Green Bag and me all night. They apparently have a lot to say to each other, maybe things like "I can't sleep, can you?" It all became white noise after another long day though.We also heard a train in the distance. Despite the name this is not a remote wilderness. There are numerous logging roads, tote roads, and recreational access roads crossing or approaching the trail corridor. Getting out is fairly easy with a good map.So as if to prove the point I looked ahead and found several points where an abandoned woods road crosses the trail and leads to a public road, and thence to Monson. Good to have a back up plan if 19 miles seems too far for today. Cloud Pond was literally in a cloud when I woke, water dripping from the trees and no visibility beyond a few dozen yards. I packed up the wet, dirty tent and all my damp clothes and headed over fogged-in Barren Mountain.The hiking was easier than yesterday, though that's not saying much. Wet rocks and roots make everything harder, and my Lone Peaks shoes slip easily on them. Wooden bog bridges suddenly are treacherous, I duck-footed over anything wet, and avoided rocks and roots whenever possible. That slowed things down. A long descent over rocks and ledges led past Long Pond Lean-to and two waterfalls. The second I stopped at to climb down and take a dip in the wading pool below. Keeping up my streak of swimming at least once a day!I remembered there was a side trail in the area that accessed a road used by Shaw's hostel to slackpack hikers. Another mile in I thought I'd found it. It was a grassy, overgrown doubletrack that led a half mile to a creek where it forded to go one direction. The other fork stayed on this side, but was marked as a snowmobile trail, no other vehicle access. Definitely not the one Shaw's uses. But my map showed it eventually would reach a road that went to town. I continued along a very buggy stretch by the creek, some of it flooded out, some overgrown. I took off my sweat-soaked shirt - it's the most humid day so far - and began swatting my shoulders and head with it rhythmically to keep the bugs are bay. Even my Picaridin was having minimal effect.After a couple miles I reached a maintained road away from open water and less buggy. It quickly turned into a county road, though still dirt. A house was on one side, and a gate on the other where a man stood. I waved and we chatted. He's from southern Maine but winters up here for the snowmobiling in the backcountry. Keep in mind the AT and the "wilderness" is less than two miles away. He was waiting on the state biologist to look at a yearling moose that he believed had died of a tick infection, something that's affected the moose population across the state. The next house up the road looked very rural compared to the neat vacation home before. A man outside waved and I returned the gesture. Then he called out he was going to town and if I wanted a ride. I'd fully intended to walk all the way to Monson. The adventure as I saw it was discovering what lay just beyond the trail corridor. But like I've said before, if a door opens you walk through it. So I got a ride to town from Paul Boynton, who runs a bear hunting camp outside Monson. Says he took pity on me because of the humidity. He's helped many hikers in the past, because the old AT route goes right past his bear camp and hikers sometimes get off there looking for help. I think Maine's bear season is the reason the bears keep a low profile here. Apparently there are quite a few of them, but the number of moose sightings far exceeds bear sightings. Paul's hunting groups have taken 500 bear over the years. I'm not a hunter and I understand people coming from different viewpoints on this, but there is a definite separation between the hunting that guys like Paul do and the poachers who kill bears and other animals for trophies. He's found a bear with just the gall bladder removed (worth 40K in Japan for making aphrodisiacs), and a buck with just the head removed for someone's trophy.Paul delivered me directly to Shaw's, which was humming with activity. NoBox, Smoky Bear, Pappy, Jacob, Lucky Charms, Alex - almost 20 SOBOs in all - plus a couple of flip-floppers headed back to Massachusetts or Harper's Ferry after Katahdin. Also two NOBOs who just finished and were waiting to shuttle out, including a 14-year-old black kid named Huff 'n Puff, who according to the other hiker was crushing miles. Got my first shower in a week, laundry, and a light lunch. Didn't feel as hungry as I likely would have walking all the way in. But by the end of the day I managed to down most of a gas station pizza and a small dinner at the pub with Alex and Tyler - both from Pennsylvania - and Pappy who treated us all.