Date: 2013-08-28
From: Wilson Valley Lean-to

To: Cloud Pond Lean - To 
Miles today: 8.7
Weather: light rain

Start Wilson Valley Lean-to, mile 2081.8Stop Cloud Pond Lean-to, mile 2090.5Sleep Lean-toCell noneHiked 8.7 miles Northbound 95.4 miles remainingHiked 138.1 miles 2013 ATOld Goat's notes:Last night we stayed in the lean-to because the ground was very hilly and rocky. Three thru-hikers stayed in their tents, it is easier to find a spot without rocks for one person than it is for two. We will be also staying in a lean-to tonight because it is raining hard with lightning and thunder. We arrived at the shelter about an hour before the rain started. I put off going to the pond for water, and then realized the thunder was getting closer. We filtered all the water we needed when a few raindrops started to fall. We made it back to the shelter just before it started to come down hard. Now that we have the water we will be able to make and eat dinner without getting wet. The hiking today was very difficult as we ascended Barren Mountain. It had better footings than some of the mountains we've climbed but still hard. This mountain had a rock outlook where we stopped for lunch. It was nice to look over the land and ponds we passed to get there. After lunch we went over the top of Barren Mountain and headed for this lean-to. The lean-to is on a pond high up in the mountain. The unfortunate thing about this lean-to is that it's .4 miles from the AT. This is as far as we could go in this terrain so we had to come here. As I mentioned earlier we could hear thunder in the distance and knew the rain was coming. I don't know if it will rain all night or into tomorrow but at least we are dry for the night. Barren Mountain has numerous peaks we have to go over, hopefully they wont't be too hard. We believe we only have one big mountain before Katahdin, that is White cap Mountain. It's later now and we have a lull in the rain. We were able to make and eat dinner in the shelter without listening to the heavy rain. We killed time this afternoon by Check 6 reading a book and I listened to the radio and took a short nap. The radio I have gets The National Weather Service. The report called for the heavy rain this afternoon and possible showers tonight. I wouldn't mind if the report stopped there but it didn't. It also calls for possible rain tomorrow morning and clearing up in the afternoon. Then it sounds like more rain the rest of the week. We have decided that if the rain comes as predicted we will hike less and hold up in shelters if we can. If we do this we will have to spend the night at The Whitehouse Landing hostel 50 miles from here. In order to do this we would have to hike almost a mile each way off trail. They serve meals and sell supplies to continue on after leaving there. We could the get more supplies at Abol Bridge; there is a campground and store there.We are going to stay flexible with our future plans and take things as they come. Thru-hikers hike through anything, we are fair weather, flat terrain section hikers now. We will do our best to keep going, but we don't have a deadline to finish.One final thought, we went up Katahdin on September 2, 2009. The year 2009 is one of the years we are including to consider ourselves 2000 milers. If the weather is so bad when we reach Katahdin we don't have to go up it. We want to summit it this year but we don't have to. Check 6's notes:I wrote yesterday about breathing deeply ascending...I learned today that's only on easier terrain. Going up Barren Mountain I was gasping for breath again! It was a tough day. I hate that we had to hike downhill .4 mile to get to this shelter (it's going to be a hard hike back up to the AT in the morning!), but I'm extremely happy we're dry in the lean-to as it's thundering all around us and pouring rain!!!! The sun was shining when we got here! This reminds me of a shelter we hiked just about as far to get to when we were still in thru-hiker mode in 2009.. It was a long way downhill, and not long after we got there the worst storm we saw on the trail hit. Big hail and a LOT of rain. No hail this time, but it sure is pouring out right now. The temperature is dropping, too. I feel sorry for the hikers who are still hiking right now since it's much earlier than most thru-hikers stop hiking for the day. Old Goat is listening to his radio right now...ugh! Sounds like we're in for some rain over the next few days. We've been so lucky to have had perfect weather so far since we started hiking this year. I hate hiking in rain!!! Oh well, we won't finish if we wait for nice weather. It's later now for me, too. It stopped raining a while ago and now a heavy fog has rolled in. It doesn't feel as cold as it was when it was raining, but that could partly be because we had a hot dinner and are warm from the inside out. I'm just happy it's not raining, and I like Old Goat's thoughts about being flexible with our plans since we don't have any hard deadline to hit. Sent from my iPhone