Date: 2005-09-24
From:  Cooper Brook Falls Leanto

To: Whitehouse Landing
Miles today: 14.0

I think I mentioned earlier that the "100 mile wilderness" wasn't actually a total wilderness. There are a number of logging roads that can provide access for food drops and even for slack packing - something Vision Quest has been doing because of her bad knees.To further illustrate the point, there is a small private campground with cabins, called the Whitehouse Landing, that you can reach only about a mile off the AT.You take a blue blazed trail through the woods to the shore of a lake, find the dock, blow one short blast on an air horn, and a boat will come and collect you from the cabins on the other side of the lake.I'm typing this from the picnic table in my cabin, after finishing a wonderful dinner - a ONE POUND cheeseburger (the through-hiker special!), with chips, a cucumber and tomato salad, followed by a chocolate brownie and - get this - a pint of Ben and Jerry's ice cream. Is this a great wilderness, or what!?!HareBall and I are staying here, while Mouth and the gang are going back across the lake to camp. (Young folks on a tight budget - but then again, they all have good knees....)We got a weather report during dinner for the next four days - lots of chance of showers and partly cloudy days, but it's still too early to know what exactly we may face in 4 days time when we're ready to summit Katahdin. We'll know when we get there! If the waether is not relatively good, the Baxter State Park authorities don't allow you to go up above tree line (and they're very serious about it!) so it's always possible to get hung up waiting for good weather.Still, it is only 4 more days, and 46 miles to Katahdin. It's getting close. Very close.Close enough, in fact, that I have finally reached a decision about how exactly I will REACH the summit of Katahdin. Intrepid journal readers, who have been with me from the earliest days, may recall a pre-hike journal entry I did entitled: "Did I mention I was ascaird of heights?"In that entry, I noted Jan Liteshoe's description of how scary one particular section of the trail up to the top of Katahdin had been for her. It involves about a mile of very steep rock climbing, over ledges and up rocks so steep they have had to install rebar handles to make it possible to get up them. One bad slip and its off the side of the mountain for you, Charlie Brown. (To quote the official Baxter State Park brochure: "Following the AT up Katahdin ... can be a frightening climb for those with even a mild fear of heights.")After careful consideration, therefore, and taking into account both the sorry state of my right knee - which makes rock climbing both painful, slow, and exceedingly difficult at times, and the fact that I have pretty much reached the limits of my tolerance for allowing the designers of the AT to scare the crap out of me, I have decided to do things MY WAY for a change. I've done every other stinking rock climb on the AT through the three toughest states, including the Whites of New Hampshire, which is one reason my knee hurts as much as it does, but I'm going to find an alternate route to the top of Katahdin. Looking at the map, there appear's to be one or two more reasonable trails. Not the AT, but they will do as far as I am concerned. Just as the AT has occasionally offered a bad weather alterntive route, I shall refer to my choice of a blue blazed trail as a "bad knees and scared of heights alternative" and I absolutely refuse to be appologetic about that decision. Afer all, I came out here to hike, on "the longest continuous FOOTPATH" in the country, and rock climbing up sheer cliffs is NOT hiking. So there. End of discussion. And now, I shall get on to anticipating my summiting of Katahdin experience with pleasure instead of dread - which, in my view, is how it ought to be. As they say, the first rule of a successful through-hike is to "hike your own hike."Stay tuned for mine! Longhaul------------------------------Sent via PocketMailEmail Anywherewww.pocketmail.com