Date: 2015-07-30
From: Hiker Hut

To: Bemis Mtn Shelter
Miles today: 17.7
Weather: scattered clouds

7/30/2015Treadway: 9/10Weather: hot and muggy in the morning, rain in the afternoon 7/10Stats:17.83 mi9:02:152.0 mph1725 cAverage heart rate 86 beats per minute 4803 feet up3622 feet down 30826 stepsNarrative:The library closed at 4:30 pm. I moved to the caf© and had mango and coconut gelato there while entering all my trail journal entries until that closed at 5 pm. Then I moved to the Pine Tree Frosty and charged my iPhone and external power supply and met a lady from Los Angeles. It started to rain and I walked in the rain to the IGA, where I charged the iPhone some more. At 5:50 pm Pantry arrived and I went into the store and bought an 8 lb bag of ice. On the way back I met Ed T/N Hey Jude from Memphis. He hiked with Pantry in 2013 and is hiking from Salisbury to Katahdin. Hey Jude said that the next 13 miles coming up for me are supposed to be the easiest miles in Maine. Steve made an excellent salad, and Pantry made a delicious dinner and dessert (beef enchiladas and lemon curl), after which I had decaf tea. I paid up for the night before retiring to the tent, and Steve said the money was going to pay for health care for children in India, which made me feel very good.I woke up at 4:20 am and left the hiker hut a little after 5 am. I was on the trail around 5:30 am. It was oppressively hot and muggy as I started uphill, and before it hit 6:00 am I was sweating like a pig. I decided to take off my shirt, being mindful of the risk of tick bites. I felt much better after doing that and made reasonably good progress, but my left knee was bothering me and my energy level felt surprisingly low coming off a nero day. I made it to Sabbath Day Pond by 10:00 am and took an hour break to hydrate, eat and stretch. At 12:45 pm, I reached Highway 17. After hiking in the shade hour after hour, all of a sudden I was exposed to the sun and broke out my sunglasses and sun hat. After I crossed the highway, I sat on a nice bench and enjoyed the view of the lake below. Then I began the steep descent to Bemis Stream, venting to a NoBo passing me by at a particularly tricky and hard stretch about how hard the trail was. Hey Jude¢s information was not correct, the 13 miles I had just done felt hard, and now it was getting harder. After crossing the stream, at 1:37 pm I crossed the old railway bed and started the climb up Bemis Mtn. At 2:55 pm I reached some slabs below First Peak with nice views north and east. A little after that I passed Alex, from Oxford, Georgia, whom I first met the day before at the Hiker Hut. At 3:02 pm I reached Second Peak. By now it was raining and the slabs were wet and slippery. By 3:51 pm I reached Bemis Mtn Lean To. When I got there, I felt completely beat up and exhausted. A minute after I arrived so did Youngblood, an 18-year-old NoBo from Virginia who started from East B Hill Road. Youngblood said the descent of Moody Mtn would be hard tomorrow. Alex then made it to the shelter and spent about half an hour making and breaking firewood and tinder, after which he made a roaring fire. Alex was working in the rain and after he got the fire going it started raining hard. After an hour or two Georgia arrived. He started from Highway 4 five hours after I did and said he could see my tracks in the trail throughout the day. As it was getting dark, Swamp Turtle and a section hiker from Oklahoma City arrived. The section hiker told us about how he served in Vietnam back in 1963. I felt so beat up I took two naproxen tablets and was too drained to update my journal entries. Georgia told me about another colorful fellow he met in Stratton named Bourbon. Apparently Bourbon likes to fill his 2L hydration pack with bourbon and then sips all that booze all day long on the trail. When Georgia met Bourbon in the Stratton Motel, it was 8:00 am, Bourbon already had consumed many beers, and he was only just getting warmed up. I wonder how much of the trail these guys actually cover and how much of their journey involves following the yellow blaze.