Date: 2017-06-18
From: Caratunk

To: Carry Pond lean to
Miles today: 14.0
Weather: scattered clouds

Awesome encounters, it turns out, are not conducive to making the miles. By 1.30pm, we'd managed a grand total of four miles.But that's exactly the way I'd like it to be, since -- as the cliche says -- this trail is a journey and not a destination. The relaxed pace began at breakfast, served at 7.30am so we'd have an appropriately leisurely start before the canoe ferry service, 10 minutes walk away, began operations at 9am.I've been spoiled by breakfasts on the trail so far but this one still stood out, and we honoured it by eating every last mouthful.Over breakfast, one of the people we'd met on the summit of Katahdin on June 4, Biscuit, explained how he'd been struggling with some achilles problems. I tried to explain how a five-month trail allowed time to recuperate and the biggest hazard to successfully thru-hiking was to push on through pain.It's a tough call. Rule one of thru-hiking is to listen to your body but on this trail the idea of a pain-free hike is pure nonsense. Deciding when pain becomes too much is a really difficult task, particularly when hiking with friends who are uninjured.I was glad to hear he'd opted to take some time off, although I'm sure he'd have found it difficult as he watched us wander over to the ferry.The first sight of the Kennebunk River made me grateful we weren't faced with fording this one. The flow was apparently low compared to normal, because of the afternoon timing of the hydro releases upstream, but even with some pretty sharp river crossing skills from the New Zealand backcountry, where drowning is our number one cause of fatalities, it would have been formidable.Being the US, of course we had to sign a legal waiver before being allowed to cross in a Canadian canoe -- complete with white blaze in the floor, to show this was part of the trail -- operated by a river guide who the day before had been taking clients through Class 5 rapids. I was very happy to be doing Class 1 flat water instead, and was doubly grateful that the AT authorities operate this service for free as part of the trail. Wrongway and I headed over on the fourth load and then made our way up the Riverside slope via switchbacks. Switchbacks! On the AT!The trail followed up an attractive river valley that vacillated between quiet rippled flow to roaring waterfalls when it encountered rock strata. Progress slowed further when we took a side trail to see a particularly impressive waterfall from below. And it slowed further again when I caught up to Rapunzel and we agreed to go for a second breakfast at a game lodge just of the trail that was famous for its pancake breakfasts.My hiker hunger has definitely kicked in, although I justified it to her as "helping local economies". After a slightly treacherous crossing of the river via a home made bridge, we arrived at Harrison's Pierce Pond Camp to find it seemingly deserted.Eventually we found the owner, Tim, working on one of the chalets and while he gently explained how he didn't do pancakes on demand for passing hikers, he was very happy for any hiker who happened to drop by. Tim had a fascinating back story, having once been an actuary in Boston before deciding he hated working behind a desk. So 32 years ago, he bought this old-school hunting and fishing lodge in the woods. Once there were dozens like this one -- when the AT was completed in the 1930s, the route basically linked together all the camps that then operated.One by one, modernity put paid to them in the form of rich city people buying them for personal use but Tim had put this one in a kind of covenant that ensures it will always be open to the public, even if in doing so he probably wiped off a huge amount of its market value in the process. That seemed to sum up who he is. Even without pancakes we were glad we dropped by and then we made our way -- via another blue blaze -- the 0.3 miles to Pierce Pond lean to.This had the most idyllic location I'd seen yet, right on the pond so that with a hop, skip and a jump, you'd be in the water. That was the point where we realised that it was 1.30pm and we'd done a grand total of four miles.Our intended destination, Carry Pond lean to, was 10 miles away. Whether we'd get there before dusk depended on whether Smeagol or Gollum dominated the trail conditions. For the first three miles, it was like a pitched battle between them, as the trail swapped from ridiculously easy to pointlessly strenuous."Nice hikerses deserve a tote road." "No, nasty hikerses must go straight uphill.""Nice hikerses can contour around the hill on this easy trail.""Nasty hikerses have to go over these mossy, slippery boulders." And so on.Fortunately, Smeagol trail eventually dominated and we were able to knock off the 10 miles in four hours, arriving at the lean to at the civilised hour of 5.30pm.Several others were in attendance: Fern and Gully, Ole Guy, Boss and Sweets, and some nobo section hikers who were on their 12th of 13 sessions to complete the AT. Others rolled in over the following hour.The nice part was that although parts of where we'd walked were as horribly buggy as anywhere we'd seen yet, the mosquitoes at the lean to are tolerable. Others were getting bitten a little but I was fine without deet. One major reason why we'd booked it to this shelter is because a thunderstorm is forecast to roll in tomorrow lunchtime. I suspect all those caught up on that cold rainy day a few days back are a little scarred -- and scared -- by the experience, so some of us have brought an extra day's food and aim to hunker down in the next shelter, eight miles away, until the storm passes. I've been extolling the virtues of on-trail zero days, as I did on the PCT and CDT. We'll have to see who ends up converted to the idea.AT fact of the day: The first nobo off the canoe ferry today, seemingly a mileage- and self-obsessed skinny white bearded dude, announced that he'd done 60 miles in the previous 30 hours to get there, adding: "Beat that!" As we discussed it later, one of our number went: "Why would I want to beat that?" Exactly.