Date: 2006-08-12
From: Little Bigelow Lean-To

To: West Carry Pond lean-To
Miles today: 7.3
Weather: light rain

Well the New Jersey Five never did arrive, but a Dad and his teenage daughter, SOBO, did. They had just done 17 miles on their first day, and she was realy feeling the effects. In talking with them, I discovered that he has hiked extensively, while she has done mostly day hikes. I also discovered that he had given her the middle name of ¢Little Bigelow¢ and that her brother has a middle name of ¢Big Bigelow¢ - so named because their father loves this section of the trail so much! He departed to cool off in The Tubs, and seemed none the worst for the cold water when he returned. One wonders whose hike this pair are on?   Slept well and late and was back on the trail by 7AM in a cool and cloudy morning. The profile showed a fairly flat day and so it proved to be. A nice long slow descent to Falstaff East Road and across Bog Brook Road. Then an interesting walk along the edge of a very windswept Falstaff Lake in the cold morning. A small ascent up an unnamed mountain rewarded me with a good cell signal and a long chat with KT, sitting at her Saturday morning kitchen table in Oak Park.   It was then an easy down to Long Falls Dam Road ¢ with its famous ¢2000 Miles¢ marker, written into the yellow stripe. Another long and easy up and down on Roundtop Mountain, and before I knew it I was at West Carry Pond. The wind was whipping up the crests of the waves and the rain was splattering the water as I arrived at the shelter. It took me a long time to find the spring, having discarded the, surprisingly hot, lake water as a drinking source, and getting a drenching from the rising waves in the process. The trail to the spring is unmarked and the spring itself has a small wooden hutch built over it, and you have to look carefully to find the dark pool of shallow, but good, water hidden deep within.    At the shelter were the remains of trail magic, an empty cooler and a hanging bag of goodies. I took some of the tortillas, leaving rice and oatmeal and the cooler of empty beer cans ¢ all gifts from Kringle. I settled myself in, well content with my situation, as the wind and the rain began to pound on the lean-to.   I awoke in the late afternoon to a bright sun and blue sky and the sounds of two approaching trail angels. Ben [Homeward 2003 true hiker] and Lindsey [the daughter of Kringle] had arrived with trail magic aplenty. In a twinkling they had a fire going and were plying me with cold drinks and cooking Turkey Burgers over the hot coals. Mountain Goat ¢ from Australia, and a fellow sufferer from bilateral stress fractures ¢ and Power Stroke ¢ who has thru hiked all the way from Key West in Florida, with stories of serious falls and cellulitis ¢ soon joined the party and we all sat around, eating and drinking and enjoying the fire and each others company.   This was just great, good food, company and trail magic X2. I will always remember this day. I think that trail magic delivered to the shelter and involving fresh cooked food on an open fire has got to be the best!   The one upsetting memory of the day was this morning, when the Bigelow Family were telling me how they had lost ¢ left behind ¢ three of their four water bottles during the ferry crossing in the canoe. As I listened. I was preparing in my mind my own story of how I had lost my own water bottle, and how I now carry my bottle clipped to my pack pocket to prevent a recurrence ¢ a story that I then recounted to them.   I was two miles down the trail before I realized that I should have given them one of my two Nalgene bottles ¢ then each of us would have had one bottle per person. Now I have two and they have only one between the two of them. Once again I was much too involved in my own personal story to realy listen to what they were saying ¢ they had lost their water bottle and were now in need of a replacement.   Mountain Goat tells me he met with them today and that they both seemed to be doing well on a tough 10-mile hike to Horn¢s Pond Lean-To.Thought for Today ¢   Be Alert for Opportunities to Help People