Date: 2017-08-18
From: The Farmhouse in Rangeley

To: Spaulding Lean-To
Miles today: 18.7
Weather: overcast clouds

Good night's sleep at the Farmhouse. Blackfoot is taking a zero and sleeping in. I quietly get ready and go up to the desk to sign up for the 8:30 shuttle back to the trail. I arrange for their sister motel in Stratton to meet me at Caribou Valley Rd, a gravel road 24 trail miles north. It's a reach, but I want to keep on schedule. Forecast is for light showers on and off all day. I walk the half mile to the IGA supermarket to get breakfast and lunch while I wait.While waiting on the shuttle I talk to a father who is thruhiking southbound with his wife, six-year-old daughter, and nine-year-old son. They're homeschooling along the way. He sees it as the best possible education - on self-reliance and seeing the world up close. I have to agree.Rain is already starting as I hit the trail. Dropped off with me are two southbounders, Admiral and Renee (Swiss). Admiral keeps asking Renee before boarding the shuttle if he wouldn't rather zero. He lost his poncho and seems very concerned about the rain. Renee assures him it's just a few drops.For awhile the trail is decent and the rain is merely a nuisance, one I convince myself to enjoy. No point in being miserable. But the trail has other ideas. As I start up Saddleback Mountain a southbounder passes and warns me "It's crazy up there! So much wind and rain! Shelter in the krumholz!" I don't understand his concern. It's not a thunderstorm. I've been rained on before on top of mountains. As I continue to climb I pass a dozen college kids on their way up. Why they chose today to climb is a mystery.Once I break above treeline, which at this latitude is at only 3000 feet, the southbounder's frantic warning makes sense. There are gale force winds and pelting rain. It's cold, and I soon wish I had my gloves handy. I have to brace myself against the wind as I walk. Near the peak it picks up force and howls around me. There is nothing to see, just fog and rain and bedrock and alpine ground cover. I'm trapped above treeline for three miles as the trail winds lazily over Saddleback then dips and climbs over the Horn. I have to dig out my gloves. My hands are numb and I have trouble opening the pack. Lazarus passes as I huddle in a protected stretch digging in the pack. All I want to do is get out of the wind. It is bone chilling and I am already wet. But there is nowhere to go but forward. Eventually we dip below treeline for awhile before briefly resurfacing to cross over Saddleback Junior. I follow Lazarus down to the next shelter. He has a habit of exclaiming his frustration every time he hits a difficult spot - which is constantly. The ups are steep and the downs are steeper. There are long stretches of slippery ledges and bedrock. In fact everything is wet and slippery - rocks, roots, mud, boulders, ledges - every step must be planned. I start to get frustrated myself with the constant obstacles. There's no way I'm making it to my pick up point today.We collapse in the Poplar Ridge shelter and eat lunch. I share a giant sub with Lazarus I picked up at the Rangeley IGA that morning. Lazarus ("born again on the trail") is ex-Marines, stationed in Korea and with expeditionary forces. He became an officer and went to Syracuse on the GI Bill. He hears I am an Econ major and asks my opinion of the Austrian economists. He is out on the trail looking for a direction in life.David, the section hiker being slackpacked by his wife I met yesterday, walks in. He is staying put here for the night. It's not even 3. I have my puffy jacket on but I'm starting to shiver. I call the Stratton motel to cancel the shuttle. Then I call the Farmhouse back in Rangeley about getting picked up at the closer Barnjam road they had offered to slackpack me from last night. It's 75 bucks, but I feel like hypothermia is coming on so I tell them to get me at 5:30 at Barnjam. Lazarus is also interested.It's four miles to the pick up with no major mountains in the way. I attempt to rock hop across Orbeton stream - the guide says to ford - but the rocks are slippery and my shoes are muddy. I fall in, soaking my shoes and gloves. First time in months that's happened, but they're already damp from rain. There's a gravel road just ahead but the guide says it's not Barnjam and is anyway a mile too soon. A little after 5 I'm making good time and feel I should be close to Barnjam based on the guide. I pass a southbounder, the only soul I've seen. He says, yes, there's a gravel road up ahead. All I see is a completely overgrown dirt logging road that no vehicle could access. The guide notes it too, but as being after Barnjam. As 5:30 approaches I still can't find anything that looks like Barnjam. It's not where my guide says it should be. I walk another mile and find an overgrown gravel road. In one direction a bridge is washed out. In the other it goes on for miles. It's an ATV road, but a 4x4 could drive it. Is this it? Too far north but it's the best candidate. Now I'm starting to panic. Where's my ride? In vain I start walking down the navigable direction hoping to meet my ride. In my mind I run through everything I know. Which road could/should it be? Suddenly I remember Stacy saying last night when offering the slack pack that they can only get you within a mile of the trail. You have to walk in. Oh, fantastic! So when I called today they didn't think to tell me specifically where to meet them? Now I realize I will never find them. It's almost 6 and I'm not fast enough to chase down all the possibilities before they leave. There's been no cell service for miles in this remote stretch.Furious and panicked at the same time I realize my only course of action is to continue to the next shelter, several miles north. I start climbing Lone Mountain. I indulge in self-pity and wonder why I'm doing this at all. It takes me awhile to calm myself down. I can walk to Stratton in the morning, I reason, only 13 miles. I promise myself a zero the next day. Seems like I need it. Fortunately I'm all warmed up from racing back and forth and the threat of hypothermia seems to have passed.At Spaulding Lean-To the shelter is full - of people I've never seen before - so I set up my tent for the first time in over a week. Lazarus is setting up his hammock. He was behind me and couldn't find the road either. I crawl into the tent, take off my wet clothes, put on every bit of dry clothing and huddle under the quilt. I doze off while journaling.