Date: 2004-07-30
From: Trident Col Tentsite in NH.

To: Gorham, NH
Miles today: 6.9
Weather: broken clouds

6.9 miles todayNorthern Peaks Motor InnGorham, NHI got up early today and had coffee and a breakfast bar. I packed up and was hiking just after 5am.I got to the summit of Cascade Mountain just in time to watch a beautiful sunrise. I have been doing my best to cut back on my mileage and I forgot how much I like hiking the early morning hours and the early evening hours of the day.I ran out of battery power yesterday, so no pictures of that sunrise, but I'll try to describe it.I had a clear view to the south. I could see the sun come up over the mountains in the east and the skies turned a brilliant pink and glowed off the fog in the valleys below too. To the west, I could see the White Mountain Range with the top of Mt. Washington in the clouds, but everything else was cloud free to the west. The shadows on all the other mountains gave a beautiful early morning picture with softer looking colors. A picture would have been better than my words though.I walked down to the next col and ran into a couple of nobo's still in their tent. They were awake and we spoke for a few minutes. Their names were Chris, Anna and their dog, Bo.I hiked on up to the summit of Mt. Hayes and enjoyed more views.I was going to stop and wash the dirt off my legs, so I looked a little more presentable to hitch a ride later this morning. The trail was so overgrown and the vegetation wet with dew, that when I checked my legs on the top of Mt. Hayes, they were already cleaned. If I lived in this area, I would take some pruning shears and clip the overgrown vegetation back to the Maine border. I kept on hiking and just before I got off the mountain, I ran into Marathon, a nobo. He said that he got that name because he walked exactly 26.2 miles on his first day.When I got to the back road, there was about a half mile road walk to the main road that goes into Gorham. As I got up to the main road, a car came up from behind me and offered me a ride to town. It was a girl who had several hockey sticks in her car. When I asked her if her kids played hockey, she said that she was the one that played. I always thought that I would have enjoyed that sport, but it didn't exist in Florida when I was growing up.I had her drop me off in front of Welsh's and I went in and had a real breakfast with a carafe of coffee at my own table. I had scrambled eggs, homefries and toast while I read all my emails.I walked down to the far end of town and checked on a room at Gorham Motor Inn, but she wanted $52.00. I said that I talked to a hiker that said you charged them $38.00. She wouldn't budge.I walked back towards town a little and checked at Northern Peaks Motor Inn and they gave me a room for $38.00.That saves me enough for a nice dinner later today.Hey Moosie, remember the steaks we had last year here in Gorham?? That's what I'm planning on for tonight. A 22 oz. sirloin...ummm, ummm.I called and left a message on John Galt's cell phone and let him know where I'm at. He's supposed to pick me up today or tomorrow and then we are heading up to Maine to do the wilderness.I took a much needed shower and washed my clothes. I got extra dirty this time with all the rock scrambling I've done in the last section of trail. It's a fun area to hike, but it's tougher than most other areas on the A.T.I headed on up to the library to check email and see if I could upload some pictures. Bigfoot was there and he helped me upload one picture of Mailar, but the computers were old and it was very time consuming to do it. I decided to hold off on the rest of the pictures until I get to a better computer.I also met Mailman at the library...another nobo. I came back to my motel room and called my mom and dad...everything is good with them. My mother got a good report on her knees and my dad tried to chicken out of a root canal, but mom made him go.I was starting to drift off on a nap when Bigfoot and Stanimal knocked on the door. I had already seen Bigfoot up at the library, but I really wanted to run into Stanimal again. I met him way back in February on the trail down in NC at NOC. He has had one of the longer hikes this year of all the people I know. I'm really glad that he was smart enough to take his time and enjoy the adventure....Good hike Stanimal!!I finally got in touch with John Galt and he said that he picked up Coughdrop at the bus station in Hartford, CT and expects Hippie to arrive later tonight. They will leave for here tomorrow morning and pick me up and hopefully have time to make it to Monson, Maine tomorrow night. That would get us to Katahdin Stream Campground later on Sunday for a climb up Katahdin on Monday morning.John Galt says he has 10 days to hike from Katahdin to Monson...I hope that's long enough. I like to take my time through the wilderness.I sent dear, sweet, good looking, intelligent Liteshoe an email to see if I could borrow her hammock for when I hike through NH. I want to try one out before I buy one and that would be a good state to try one because of all the more stealth sites that would be available if I didn't have to find a flat spot to set up my tent.She wrote back and told me to call her after 9:30pm so we could talk about it. I think she wants me to beg.This would be a good time for my transcriber to put another link to her website, so.......Transciber's comment:"(Shameless, gratuitous, but, what the heck....."):http://www.trailjournals.com/liteshoe/I was going to call and beg, but I fell asleep, so I still have my pride, but no hammock yet.At 10:45pm, the phone rang. It was John Galt. He will pay for waking me up when we get in the wilderness...I'm an early riser.He let me know that Tripod had just delivered Hippie Longstockings to him...watch out wilderness!!!That's going to be a fun 120 miles. John Galt and I hiked around each other alot last year on our sobo thru hike. I met Hippie in December of 2001 when she was finishing up her first thru hike and we have hiked together alot every year since then.I forget how many miles we hiked together in '02, but we hiked over 500 miles together last year and about 200 miles through the winter this year. I have to wake her up at 4am if I want to get started by 8am. I don't know what takes her so long, but she needs 4 hours to get ready to hike.Coughdrop and I met this year for the first time on the Tn/Va border and again in Front Royal, Va. Her and Hippie became trail friends this year and have been hiking together for over a month.It should be an interesting 10 to 12 days with that bunch.I hate leaving the group of friends that I've made coming south from Monson, Maine, but it always amazes me how many times you run into your old friends on the A.T.Another great day on the A.T.