Date: 2008-09-25
From: Stealth -.1 bef West Branch of the Pleasant River

To: Stealth site .1 before Carl A. Newhall Lean-to, ME
Miles today: 5.5
Weather: overcast clouds

Good nite's sleep last nite...so good I slept thru the alarm again. Shit, why does that keep happening? I'm resorting to sleeping with my watch literally inside my knit cap next to my ear. So weird.... It was in the 40's this morning, and we got up around 6:45 a.m. I was a dork and forgot to tell Incessant to just wear crocs since we had to ford the West Branch of the Pleasant River first. Duh....I remembered only after she'd spent so much time duct taping her feet up. We were off by 9 a.m. and the river was very low, at my calf in the deepest point, but ice ice cold water that makes your feet ache. The river is wide, so it takes a bit to get across. It was 9:30 by the time we both got across, Incessant retaped her feet for preventative reasons, and we got our hiking shoes back on. In a few minutes we came to a sign saying Katahdin was 83.9 miles away! Wow...can't freakin believe it really.It's so weird to see 2 digit #'s for that distance. It still hasn't sunk in honestly. We had 1.2 miles to go to the side trail 5 mile loop to Gulf Hagas, which is called Maine's grand canyon, because it is a deep canyon of water with tons of water falls. Kathy told me yesterday if we went the .2 to Screw Auger Falls we'd see what w'd basically see around the whole loop, so we took her advice. We took the side trail, which involved going over a high 2 log bridge going over rushing water. We left our packs on a rocky area and went over the bridge and down .1 to the falls. It was pretty amazing....multiple little falls about 20 feet high. We sat there and took a break and watched the beautiful water flowing through smooth channels in the rocks. We were probably there for 30 minutes and decided to head back. It was another beautiful Maine day today..quite warm, in the 70's, which was nice. I almost could have been in shorts today. The 5 or so miles up to the lean-to is a steady gradual climb. It's actually quite nice and the Gulf Hagas Stream runs right along the trail almost the whole time, so that's nice too. Around 12:19, I decided I'd hike for 30 more minutes @ my normal pace and then find our lunch spot and journal while waiting for Incessant, who we figured moves about 1\2 my pace. She was excited to hike alone again, and I was excited about having a long break. I hiked and at 12:50 found a great spot right on the brook on some large rocks. I love that Incessant is so independent because it allows me to still have some "me time" out here. I just sat on this rock, I closed my eyes and listened so hard to the rushing water and breeze. It's almost heart breaking because I've realized in talking with Incessant, you can't take the moment with you. I mean, how do you sit on a cliff side looking at the mountains and red fall trees and then be able to hike away and experience it like that again? You can't unless you're there, and even pictures or video can't capture it because they don't speak to all of the body's senses. I try so hard to record a permanent and real memory into my mind, and yet, as I type this while in my hammock, I can't recall the details...already. Incessant showed up earlier than I thought, and we had a great lunch. She decided to play in the water and create an outlet for this little pool of water that had formed from the water level being lower. It was getting fed fresh water but didn't have a good out flow, so she moved some rocks and was quite proud of her redesign. We must have take an hour for lunch, and because we knew today was a somewhat easier day, we weren't stressing it, we just enjoyed it. We pulled ourselves away finally and headed up and up. There's no landmarks to tell you where you are really, so the day psychologically seemed long because of that. Later in the afternoon, we decided I'd hike on, find our place to camp and get my stuff set up in hopes of having time to build a fire. It was about 3:15 p.m. now and I took off. When the trail moved away from the brook for about .5 mile, it went through the most moosey area yet, scat, tracks, a pond, all of the right stuff...but no moose. I even saw baby moose tracks, they were so tiny! Around 4:00, I saw the sign that the lean-to was nearby, and started looking for a place to camp. There was a great place sort of private that I found, and I set up. I ran back down the trail a bit and wrote "Almost There" in the dirt for Incessant. She showed up around 4:40 p.m. and we got her set up, but no fires were allowed..bummer. As it got darker, we sat on a log with our headlamps off and watched hikers go right past us without seeing us. Then we heard a hiker way off howl and his buddy @ the lean-to howl back. Apparently that's their signal. Again, we were surprised at the number of nite hikers though. So many thru-hikers are desperate to finish, so they are hiking like maniacs to get to the end. I don't think I'd have it in me to hike nite after nite. Incessant, while sitting in the dark watching and listening, said it felt like being @ a an absurdist play, like "Waiting for Godot," because unconnected bits of conversation would float by as people walked past, and then there was all the howling and even a dog barking at one point. It was the entertainment of the nite. It's a pretty nice nite, but is cooling off. At some point tomorrow, a cold front and rain are supposed to come in, so we're doing a nero of 1.8 miles and camping @ the Sydney Tappan Campsite. I hope we get some good weather though. Time for sleep. ~Certain