Date: 2011-08-22
From: Northern Outdoors, Caratunk ME

To: Moxie Bald Mountain Lean-to
Miles today: 19.0

(In which I ford my first river)I wake up and eat a PopTart, never really haven gotten the hang of digesting large town breakfasts while I hike, and then attempt to hitch back to the trail. After fifteen minutes a car driving the other way turns around and stops to pick me up. The women has just returned from dropping off her husband and daughter on the AT to hike the section to Katahdin. I ask their trail names, and she can't remember her daughter's. "Something Kineval maybe? Really it's Jenny."She drops me off at the post office just as it opens, and I head inside to check for any late packages forwarded from Rangeley. To my surprise I find one, and am about to carry it outside when the postal lady points out that there's postage due. While forwarding letters is free, forwarding packages is apparently not, so I shell out the $5.20 and make to leave again, only to be stopped again. "I have to put stamps on and then cancel them," the lady says. At first I think that she's joking but she seems very concerned that I might leave again before she's performed her duty.She carefully peels off stamp after stamp, sticks them on my package and then uses a pen to draw a line through them. The ritual seems rather absurd and a waste of stamps, especially coming from an organization that is in the process of having to close thousands of branches to save money, but I know better than to offer reason in the face of regulations. No sooner have I gone outside to open my package then the lady comes running after me with more stamps, having realized that she didn't apply enough of them.The package turns out to be from Gun Runner, whom I hadn't heard from since the Smokies, and contains the types of goodies that a former hiker would think of, including toilet paper ("better than leaves!" his sticky note boasts). It's nice to know that all of the hikers I've met on the trail are out there somewhere, on the trail or off, and that someday our paths may cross.The trail is soaked from the previous night's storm, and keeping my feet dry involves some careful footwork around the streams that run down the center of the trail. It doesn't take me long to catch up to Bill and Jenny, the husband and daughter of my ride. The girl's name turns out to be Evil Knievel, which I hadn't even thought to suggest to the mother, assuming that the name was some more complicated variant.I cross the first three streams by logwalking -- always a delicate business on wet logs -- and rock hopping, having kept my feet dry on every water crossing since Springer. Around lunch time I catch up to Guinea Pig, Sherpa, Sprout and Scrappy (the "Lil'" having been officially dropped, the name shortened like most trail names to its simplest and easiest to say form). They're eating lunch by a pond, and I share some of Gun Runner's food, including the freeze dried ice cream, which I love but, having shared several packets from others, feel obligated to pass around to get a little closer to neutral freeze dried ice cream karma.The edge of the pond itself turns out to be the first real ford of the hike. While no more than twenty feet, and containing rocks on most of it, the eight foot section without rocks means that getting your feet wet is the only practical option. As much as I hate wet socks and shoes, I choose to keep mine on, preferring wet footwear to the increased risk of wet gear from slipping on mossy rocks with bare feet. The crossing only takes a few seconds but I wince knowing that my feet will be wet for the rest of the day. The only advantage to having wet feet is that it makes avoiding the other puddles and streams a moot point, at least for the first few minutes while my shoes are still fully saturated.Other than the water and mud, the terrain is pleasantly easy, without the steep rock faces I still fear around every turn in Maine. From the top of Moxie Bald I can see for miles in every direction, and as I stop for a long scenic break I am reminded by how much I enjoy hiking when I don't have to fear death at every step and can get an occasional view.The last shelter, empty without a nearby tent when I arrive, fills up nicely when the others show up along with Ben, Dash and Shuffle, three April starters who just caught up. Tomorrow we all plan to go to Monson, the last town on the trail and the last resupply stop before the 100-mile wilderness.