Date: 2014-08-17
From: Cranberry Stream Campsite

To: Crocker Cirque Campsite
Miles today: 9.2
Weather: scattered clouds

It rained all night and through the morning. I woke up early and just rolled over. It was raining hard enough it just wasn't worth getting that wet. I figured when it let up for a bit, I would run over to use the outhouse then get my food bag down from the tree (hung to deter animals). The whole time lying there, I was planning on what I was going to eat for breakfast...definitely granola. Finally, I got hungry enough that the rain seemed lighter and I made my circuit.Unfortunately, I found a new hole in my food bag. I had seen a mouse running around the campsite the night before and he must have climbed down my string. It was the only way to reach the bag...I'll have to come up with a better system. He wasted a lot of time trying to get in through the existing hole (from the squirrel a while back), but I use a ziploc bag for trash and always line that up with the hole. He must have eventually gotten tired of chewing through empty wrappers and made a new entry point. He only got one thing...a bag of granola. Go figure. Luckily, I had a second one (my last) and I was able to have the breakfast I had been planning on all morning.It started to rain harder again, so I just stayed under my tarp. It was difficult to tell when it was going to stop for good - the forecast was supposed to be nice - oh well. I finally got started hiking at 12:30pm. I was only 2 miles from the road to Stratton - I had planned to skip that town in favor of Rangeley. In retrospect, I could have resupplied there on the rainy day and skipped Rangeley, but I had mail packages waiting there. When I hiked across the road, there was a forest ranger in the parking lot and he gave me an updated forecast: occasional rain. It proved accurate.There were no views from the Crocker Mountains, a couple of 4000'+ peaks. I hiked shorted than planned due to the rain and late start, so I got to an alternate campsite a little later than usual. Right when I arrived, it started to pour. It was cold, and I was in shorts and a t-shirt. I picked a spot and put up my shelter as fast as I could. I didn't want to put on warm clothes first because they'd get wet, but I was getting chilly fast. It was hard to tie the last few knots as my fingers got stiff, but I crawled under the tarp as quick as I could. I hopped right into my sleeping bag and into dry clothes and got warmed up quite fast. Once all cozy, I stuck my arm out from under the shelter to heat water for dinner and ate while half in my sleeping bag. Since I was at an established campsite, I knew though there would be squirrels and mice, so I had to make a quick trip out when there was a lull in the rain to hang my food bag. This time, I poked a hole in the aluminum wind screen that I used to surround my cook stove and strung it up above my food bag. This would hopefully serve as a barrier to any critter coming down the string similar to the discs you see for squirrel prevention on bird feeders. Though today was relatively underproductive due to the weather, less than 10 miles (my shortest yet) I was happy enough to be warm and dry.