Date: 2011-08-05
From: (120) Piazza Rock Lean-to

To: (121) Sugarloaf Mt
Miles today: 19.7

I am sick, and slept in a great deal today (7am). Oddly enough I do not have giardia or any other contaminated poop-water-related illness, I just feel sick like I have a fever. Either I picked something up from all the crowds I¢d been hitting in Maine and The Whites, or I have Lyme disease again, though my joints feel fine. Either way, I must go on.I climbed up Saddleback Mt today, and the weather was beautiful. Unfortunately, the pine trees lining the trail were still drenched with rain, so I got soaked anyway by the constant slapping of their branches. At the top, Saddleback Mt held some great views as its long and rolling summit was almost entirely rock, and when I looked behind me a great distance I could see the tiny dots that were Peter, English, and Mehab, working their way across the great rock while getting slapped by the occasional water loaded pine branch. On my way down the opposite side of the enormous Saddleback, I noticed that my socks were feeling stiff like leather against my feet. Upon inspection I saw that my shoes, full of gaping holes, had allowed in a constant flow of mud and clay until my socks were¢¦ no longer socks. I took them off and switched them with my brand new pair of girl socks that I had purchased in Hanover NH (Once again, the store only had my size in women¢s, which seems to be the problem of all the clothes I acquire on the trail¢¦). I stared down at my new feet. The adorable girl socks were super cute, bright and clean, and they stuck out against my muddy legs and ragged shoes like glow sticks in a dark room. I loved them. In the evening I rock hopped across a brook that my book claimed had to be forded (As if I¢d allow my girl socks to get needlessly wet!), and then slowly climbed a steep hill. As I rounded the top I was taken aback to see none other than Bud Heavy hiking down the trail, towards me! I couldn¢t believe it! I had not seen Bud Heavy since the week I spent at his house in New York before I took two weeks off with Lyme disease. A two week head start! I had never thought that our paths would cross again, at least not while on the trail! But why was he hiking the wrong direction? As it turned out, Cactus Jack (Bud Heavy¢s hiking partner since the start of the trail) had ran out of time to finish his hike, so he and Bud Heavy had skipped most of Maine so that they could climb Mt Katahdin, the traditional end of the trail. Having summated Katahdin and said his goodbyes to Cactus Jack, Bud Heavy simply turned around and started hiking south to pick up his lost miles. Having not seen Bud Heavy in over a month, he had become a memory to me. As I looked at him, I saw that his beard had grown to a magnificent size, and his hair, like mine, was much longer. I shook his hand upon our parting, but hopefully not for the last time. As for Cactus Jack, though he will not have thru hiked the trail, he is sure to finish up the week or so that remains for him in the future, as a section hiker.I arrived at my intended shelter at 5:30pm, which was extremely early for me to call it a day, but amazingly the shelter was already full with slowpoke south bounders and a few weekend warriors. I sighed and sat down near the shelter¢s fire ring to rest, and was immediately bombarded with questions by the other hikers. I managed to remain polite, but the conversation started getting personal and even insulting: Oh you¢re a Nobo? I couldn¢t tell because your beard is so short. So you are thru hiking too? Then why is your pack so small? I¢m carrying ten days of food, dumbbells to keep my arms in shape, and an easy bake oven in case I want to make brownies or cook a squirrel (Ok, I might be exaggerating a little). Well what¢s the biggest day you hiked? 50 miles?!? (They all fell dead silent).Then one of the guys who had ended their hike at 1pm started doing pull-ups in the shelter, exclaiming how amazing it was that he still had the energy to work out. I couldn¢t take any more of it, all the noise, noise, noise! (My heart shrunk three sizes). Wasn¢t the trail great? Wasn¢t I having a blast? Aren¢t we all just one big happy cheerful family? Ha Ha Ha! I soon learned that many of them had only hiked a couple of hours that day, having woken late and hiked until around lunch time before calling it quits¢¦ I grimaced in disgust. I had been running into South Bounders since Vermont, and had been noticing that the closer I got to Katahdin the greener they became, but this, this was ridiculous! Clearly the cream of the crop, high speed Sobos had long since passed me, and I was surrounded by leftovers. Another one of the hikers, overcome with the excitement of his pull-up comrade, dropped and started doing push-ups. It was the last straw for me. I filled up on water, and though I knew there wasn¢t any place to camp down the trail, I left. (Disclaimer: I am perfectly aware that they were likely all nice people with good intentions, and that many of us start out the exact same way, but the fact remains that after so long on the trail, so close to the end and sweet salvation, my encounter with them made me want to blow my brains out)I continued hiking, deciding that I was better off anyway, as tomorrow I would hitch into the town of Stratton Maine to mail home some gear, such as my now full trail journal (the second one I filled, currently on my third). The post office closes at 11:30am, so the closer I am to Stratton, the better. Eager to find a flat place that wouldn¢t get flooded if it rained, I climbed Sugarloaf Mountain and chose a spot surrounded by pine trees. I set up my tarp and cooked up some pasta. Near my chosen campsite was a cliff with an amazing view of the valley far below me, and pointed black mountains in the distance. As it grew dark I sat on the rocks and watched the headlights of cars moving across the ghostly landscape; only a handful for as far as I could see. I wondered where they were going, if they were used to such vast distances of dark and emptiness. Wasn¢t I? Wasn¢t I just another speck in that ocean of nothing? I shuddered. Maine was a wilderness of massive proportions that I couldn¢t even begin to conceive. The weather was cold, the mountains huge, the towns small¢¦ and so was I.