Date: 2011-08-18
From: Moxie Bald Lean-to

To: Pleasant Pond Lean-to
Miles today: 13.1
Weather: broken clouds

Day 150-I had set my tent up near by the lean-to and I remember thinking that might have been a mistake to be so close to the shelter noise but it was the loons (the birds) that kept me awake during the night. They were yelling at each other all night across Bald Mountain Pond. I also had set up on top of some rocks that kept hitting my right hip, which is still sore from my tumble the other day. I was up at 6:40am and on the trail at 7:40am. There were 10 hikers in the lean-to or tenting last night and I was the last one out the door today. This was tough day, lots of ups and downs and a little hotter but unlimited blueberries. By the end of the day, I will have eaten over 2 cups of berries through out the day. Going up Moxie Bald, I met two gentlemen and stopped and spoke. As soon as they uttered words I knew they were from east Tennessee or southwest Virginia. In fact, they were from Erwin and were doing a section from Gorham, NH to Katahdin. For the past couple of days the talk on the trail has been the death of a hiker. He apparently had a heart attack at the age of 51. He had either stayed at Shaw's or was on his way there. Given the exertion level required and the very dangerous terrain, I am surprised that they are not more deaths along this section of the trail. Along mid-afternoon one of my worst fears manifested, my Steri-pen stopped working. This is my ultraviolet lamp device that I use to purify my drinking water. It had stopped last Saturday and I put in my spare pair of batteries and now less than a week later it is dead. I like the device, it is lightweight, small, sterilizes a liter of water in 90 seconds but it is a battery hog and it uses two 3.0 volt photo batteries. Also, there is no warning, it just quits. So now I am in a dilemma for the day, no way to obtain clean water. Again, God is watching over me. After I forded over another stream, I came up onto a gravel road and stopped to put my boots back on. As I was sitting there a man in a pickup drove up. He stopped and asked if everything was going well and I said yes. I then noticed two Igloo cooler in the bed of his truck and asked if he had any water that he could spare. He said, "No" but that he could show me a well that his dad dug in 1953 that was just up the road. He parked his truck and we walked 20 yards up a road, down a little side trail and he showed me the well. I drank 1.5 liters and filled up both of my bottles, knowing that was enough to get me to camp where I could borrow some one's else filter pump or get purifier drops. This angel's name was Carl and he had a very thick Maine accent. This was a tough day, I had two climbs of over 1,500 feet and was exhausted by the time I got to Pleasant Pond lean-to. I camped with Chicago Bull, Becky and David, Myra and Hawk. I borrowed Hawk's water filter and pumped one bottle full and used David's bleach drops to purify my other bottle. The bleach water is not bad if you allow it to sit for a while and dissipate the odor and taste. My plans tomorrow are to hike the short 5.9 miles to Northern Outdoors and stay the night. The 13.1 miles done today were much tougher than the 18.0 miles done yesterday. But my total is now sits at 1,266.3 with 914.7 miles remaining.