Date: 2004-09-12
From: ME 15 (Shaw's Lodging)

To: Long Pond Stream Lean-to
Miles today: 15.1
Weather: clear sky

WildernessMileage Countdown: -99.4Today was my first day in the 100 Mile Wilderness. It featured more stream crossings, but people kept showing up in the strangest places.I got off to a nice early start when Keith Shaw Jr dropped me off at the trailhead before 7. There were several others at breakfast at Shaw's, but they were leaving later, or had to start at the alternative Monson trailhead farther back on the Trail. So I was walking alone and expected to be alone the whole day.I expected the highpoints of the day to be stream crossings, particularly Little Wilson, Big Wilson and Long Pond Stream. People crossing them during or just after the recent two days of rain reported water chest high in them, particularly Little Wilson. It is hard for me to believe that someone could make it across a torrent that deep after the trouble I had with West Branch, and it didn't even reach my waist. So you can imagine that those crossings were in my mind all day.Shortly before the Little Wilson crossing I walked past Little Wilson Falls. It was quite an impressive gushing of water, so my apprehension level rose. When I finally got there I could see that the stream was very deep and very fast. I wanted to minimize the force the current exerted on me, so proceeded to stow loose things in my pack, which was inside the pack cover to reduce drag. Since I hadn't seen anyone for the whole six miles I had been walking from the road, and since my hiking shorts definitely catch the current if they get wet, I decided to take them off too, and stripped to my underwear. Just after I had gotten everything put away in my pack and was putting it on and about to attempt the crossing, a couple just a little younger than I walked out of the woods, carrying just water bottles and not wearing a pack of any kind. Needless to say that I was a little startled, and more than a little embarrassed. The husband, approaching first, said to think nothing of it. So the three of us stood there for 10 minutes chatting about the AT, Little Wilson Falls, the crossing I was about to make, etc, with me acting like it was the most normal thing in the world to be chatting in my underwear with a 40 lb pack on my back.The current in Little Wilson was indeed deeper than that of the West Branch, but it was nowhere near chest deep. It was also slightly slower and narrower. Using what I had learned in earlier crossings, I was soon on the other side. After getting a round of applause from the couple on the other bank, I put on my shorts, waved goodbye, and we each continued on our separate ways. (They were able to get there without a pack because unbeknownst to me, there is a campground within a mile of where we met.)A while after crossing Little Wilson, I stopped at the top of a little mountain for lunch. Just as I was beginning to eat I was startled by a nice looking young lady with long strawberry blonde hair heading south on the Trail. She said her name was Sampson, and I remembered meeting her way down south because I had tried to make a quick-witted remark about her name and her hair, and came up empty. I also remembered that she was hiking with with Father Ounce, the younger brother of section-hiker, Yellow Jacket, whom I hiked out of Rangeley with a week or so ago. And sure enough, in about a minute Father Ounce came hiking out of the woods, looking just like Yellow Jacket, but 13 years younger.The second crossing, Big Wilson Creek, has a warning in Wingfoot to take a 3 mi detour if the water is too high. But everyone i had talked with had said it was the easiest of the three, since it is wide, but not too deep. And so it was. This time, insted of taking off my shorts, i merely rolled them up as high as possible. No need for such modesty, since no one showed up to watch my crossing, which went without a hitch.The third crossing, Long Pond Stream, was thought by some to be the toughest. But when I got there I could see it wasn't as deep as Little Wilson, nor as wide as Big Wilson. That, and the fact that as I was planning my crossing two beer-carrying men in their thirties and a young boy showed up, prompted me to repeat rolling up my shorts rather than doffing them. The crossing again went without a hitch, but was a little deeper than I had anticipated and I did wet my shorts a bit. (The men and boy had come on a gravel road near the crossing, which I had thought was unused, but apparently not.)I am here alone tonight. Slowman took the first trailhead into Monson the other day, so now has farther to walk. He is probably at the shelter before this one. Speak Up, Megabite and friend left town later and are probably at that shelter too. I expect they will catch me tomorrow.Milestone: Less than 100 miles to go to get to Katahdin