Date: 2013-06-25
From: Little Bigelow Lean-to

To: Horns Pond Lean-to's
Miles today: 10.2

DAY 16MILES ON AT FOR DAY- 10.2MILES TOTAL FOR DAY- 10.2"So much of being able to hike the PCT depended upon mind control: the stout decision to move forward, regardless."- Cheryl Strayed from her book "Wild"So unfortunately last night I didn't sleep too well. And of course this whole time I had been raving to Gary about how great the shelters are and how well you sleep in them. It was hot and humid because it rained at night AND it was buggy. A first for me in the shelter. We were getting bit the whole time by "no see ums". Now Maine is known for their bugs and they have a lot of them. You've got your regular old Mosquitos, black flies, and no see ums. Black flies will bite you hard and make you bleed but thankfully most of those died off with the frost this year, although I've still seen a few. No see ums are just obnoxious. You literally can barely see these tiny flies but they bite really hard. It's not like you can even kill the suckers after they hurt you because you cant see them! Needless to say, THOSE were biting all night.It also didn't help that at God only knows what hour a massive black raven decided to perch on a tree right outside the lean-to and make obnoxiously loud cawing noises. The little girl next to me popped up and was like "I'll run out there and scare it away if I have to!", but it ended up flying away eventually. So we were up!Froggie Pete was first to leave the shelter pretty early at 6:30am or so. Next was us. No pancakes this morning. Back to oatmeal and coffee, which thankfully I'm not too sick of yet. We got out around 7:30am. We only had 10.2 miles to go but a very difficult 10.2. We were going over all the Bigelows.We headed up the first, Little Bigelow Mountain, which wasn't too bad. It was a more gradual incline. When we got to the top, which was more of a table top, we passed by Froggie Pete resting. I knew he was older but I was surprised we had caught up to him already. We really wanted to keep moving forward since we had so many mountains to hit but Froggie Pete is quite the talker. When we did finally take off again we hit a gradual downhill off of the Little Bigelow and then loaded up on some more water at Safford Notch Campsite. It was even hotter than the day before. And now that we were climbing mountains we were dealing with more exposure to the sun and just the struggle of elevation. We were about to hit 2,000 feet of elevation in 2 miles. It was going to be a rough 2 miles.And it was. It just felt like it would never end. At the beginning though the breeze would blow through the cold rock caves on the mountain and hit you and it just felt like heaven! The little girl later called it the "AT AC" haha. Eventually we made it up to Avery Peak on top of Bigelow Mountain! It was 4,090 feet tall and was the tallest I had hit on the AT since Katahdin in the beginning. We had lunch at the top and got to really enjoy it because it was a beautiful day. It was a little hazy but the views were still fantastic. After lunch we hit the Bigelow Mountain West Peak which wasn't too tough but was higher in elevation than the last. Coming down from that peak was pretty steep and we met a section hiker named T on the way. She was a nice woman from Kentucky finishing up her last section of the trail. Then it flattened out before the next peak. Gary moves a bit faster than I do so I have him lead so I'm usually looking at my feet. I'll look up occasionally to reassure myself were on the trail, see a blaze, and go back to watching my feet so I don't trip on some Maine roots or rocks. When I looked up in this flat section, I didn't see a blaze. Waited a few minutes and still nothing. I turned around to look NoBo and still no blaze. I brought this to Gary's attention and he started to get real nervous. I knew we had to be on the trail because the trail was quite obvious and there had been no split, but it still makes you nervous. We must've gone a half mile before we saw one which is pretty bad. Shame on the MATC. Also in this section Gary was like, "Oh we should be at the shelter in another quarter of a mile." I was like, "We still have another peak to go over... Just a quick up and down." Well we hit the peak, our 4th and final of the day which was the South Horn of Bigelow Mountain. It was only 400 miles up in elevation but it was certainly NOT a quick up and down as I had so nonchalantly said. It was steep as hell. We continued to make jokes about that "quick up and down" later that night haha. We came steeply off the last peak down to the lean-to which had a caretaker and two nice lean-to's. We finished right around 4:30pm and got lucky to find no one in the lean-to's but ourselves! We went down to the pond to wash up a bit and then went to the water source to filter water. We got to the water source, looked around, and then looked down at basically a puddle like, "This is it?!". There was even a sign labeling the puddle and saying not to walk further because the water can "easily be contaminated". Great. Well, we filtered the water and Gary took a sip and said, "Holy shit that's the best water I've tasted so far!" It was ice cold and very clear. Exactly what we needed after a hot, hot day. I ended up drinking over a gallon of water throughout the day.We went back to the lean-to to cook and along came Rooster. I couldn't believe it! He had been two days behind me at Shaws! I guess he had been hiking with that big group of guys but they were too slow for him so here he was. Since there were two lean-to's he took the other one for himself. The lean-to's were in a beautiful spot on the mountain. It was the first time if been in a lean-to that high. It had a perfect view of Avery Peak. As we started cooking, I looked up at the peak and clouds literally within seconds rolled in and caused it to disappear. Literally minutes later it started to downpour and hail with a strong wind. Thank GOD we made it to the lean-to early because it would have been hell up on the peaks during that. It was so loud on the roof of the shelter that Gary and I had to yell to each other even though we were right next to each other.About an hour later the mother and daughter appeared. I couldn't believe they made it through that weather! Then I thought of Froggie Pete. He had wanted to make it to Stratton which was another 5 miles from where we currently were because he was out of food. The mother said he stayed at a campsite between peaks and she gave him food so that put me at ease.Everyone was safe which was good. It's nice because as hikers you start to all really look out for each other. I got ready for bed and as I washed my face and neck with a wipe, I noticed I had tons of blood patches behind my ear, hair line, etc. Ugh. I hate bugs. At least the bugs weren't bothering us here. And it was cooler on the mountain. We could sleep sound and know that we had a nice easy day into Stratton the next day