Date: 2007-08-12
To: Gorhem
Miles today: 17.0

mi. 17sleep hotel/beddest. Gorhem day 31 After I was done writing last night 2 northbounders rolled up to the shelter. They were both big ultra-lighters. One of them started out not knowing too much and changed out most of his gear along the way. It goes it show that you should be always be open to switching out what you have if something better comes along. The other was a big ultra-lighter from the start. He goes by the trail name chopsticks. Both had to be carrying 10 pound base weights, weights sans food, water, or fuel. He was a big ray-way have. That is the company Ray Jardine has. He even made his own ray-way pack, net tarp, quilt. Pretty cool guy and I had a good conversation with him about making gear. One crazy thing he is doing is he hiked the trail from Conn. without using his hands at all. He doesn't use trekking poles either. That doesn't sound like much to those who don't know the trail. But there are lots of rock scrambles or other times where you pretty much need to climb up or down something. He calls it his the "No hands or die hike". Pretty crazy, but cool at the same time. His bet with his hiking partner is if he can hike Katadin without using his hands then his partner has to go vegan for a semister at school. Chopsticks is also a big vegan. But onto my story. Today like most days it seems can be divided into 2 parts. Before and afternoon. I'm usually hiking by 7am so that's about the midpoint of the days events. Today I got started by 6am. The goal was Gorhem. It also ment my biggest day to date. I was at the bottom of my foodbag again, so I kind of was committed. The last climb out of Maine was pretty crazy. More rock climbing with my pack. It's funny to look and see the blaze in front of you 6 feet in the air. When I started I would think, there is no way. Now I just kind of laugh and think who thought this ws the best way. I had a few times without the trekking poles. But, best of all I finally made it out of Maine. About 45min into my day I came across the border sign. There was a welcome to Maine sign, but no New Hampsire sign. No love for the south bounders. I got my pic and took ones for the other guys at the border. They hiked on, but I had to stay. I took a long break there and thought about the last month and drank some of the best coffee I have had to date. It was a great feeling knowing I finally made it out of my first state. It took me a month, but I feel like I finally made a big step in making it to Springer. For some reason I wasn't feeling it today. I arrived at the campsite I was aiming for just after 10am. I'm really glad I stopped when I did. I got there and Clay and Karl where sleeping and some guy was writng in the register. I ate a little and got some water from the pond. When I got back I read the register and had to laugh out loud. He wrote this big rant about the AMC and how everyone should sign a petion against them and complain to the US Forest service about the condition of the trails. I heard later from the other guys that he was ranting to them for awhile before I got there. Apparrently he is going around sepreading his cheer for a couple weeks. I did end up refilling my water after he mention all the bad pond stuff and the spring was north on the trail. It probibly didn't make a difference at this point. I talked to Clay and we walked to the next campsite where they were meeting up together. I was feeling off and didn't want to hike alone. He said he was feeling pretty off too. So it worked out well for both of us. It was a hot one today. I think part of my problem was dehydration and partly my food was less than what I should be eating, again. We fininally got to the campsite around 3pm. It was only 5 miles away, but we took a few breaks along the way. For some reason my legs just didn't want to move on the uphills. At this point I made my last lipton. I did add some dehydrated veggies that the weekender gave me, spices, and a lot of veggie oil. Probibly a good 1000+ calorie meal. I was pretty committed at this point to walking the 6.5 miles to town. All I had left food wise was gorp and coffee. I had stayed out an extra day than planned. I really need to start carrying more food. If I did I would have stayed here the night and went into town in the morning. All I had left was 2 climbs followed by a 4 mile downhill. The first climb was brutal. The second was easier, but still bad. The terrian wasn't bad, just I didn't have the go. On the end of the second up, I really caught my 4th wind. My meal finally caught up with me. The hiking into town was great. I had my wind and my stride. The down hill seemed to go on for ever. 4 miles of steady down is a lot. One thing I didn't realize from the map earlier was the last mile was a road walk. My longest todate. It sprinkled a little earilier, but when I got to the road it started to steadily rain. Nothing too bad though. It was a nice change hiking along the road again. I started to sing and humm singing in the rain. But I only know that one line, so it didn't really last long. It was fun the 20 times it did though. I forgot to mention before, but on the rock scrambles then theme to Spiderman keeps going through my head. I feel like him sometimes on them. But I really don't know the words to it either. I don't know if there are words, but I don't know the melody either. It turns into Particleman from They Might Be Giants. Which in itself is pretty funny. Along the road I saw there was a house for sale. So if anyone wants to live on the AT in N.H. there is a house with your name on it before route 2 in Gorhem. I got to the road and spent a few minutes trying to figure out which way town was. There is a small sign that says AT north and south that is hard to find. I had to use my map to find the town. I wanted to make sure that I hitched in the right direction this time. I don't remember if I said it, but in Caratunk I was trying to hitch in the wrong direction. I tried for a few minutes and then Karl walked up. We tried for a few minutes then a pickup stopped. I think what did it is that Karl gave him a come on man look and gesture after he pasted. He stopped a good ways from us. He turned out to be a pretty cool guy. A local that does a lot of hiking. Best of all he gave us both some fresh apples. They were great. He dropped us off at the hikers paradise hostel.