Date: 2005-09-07
From: Flagstaff Lake 6:24pm ÃÂÃÂ¢ÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂ Shooting Star 

To: Pierce Pond Lean-To 6:53pm ÃÂÃÂ¢ÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂ A Little Help from My
Miles today: 15.8
Weather: clear sky

Pierce Pond Lean-To 6:53pm ¢ A Little Help from My FriendsThe entry for yesterday is brought to you courtesy of Red Wing and Hopeful. Follow their adventure at http://www.trailjournal.com/redwing. Note that I also filled in as a guest author for their 9/6 entry.9-6 To Flagstaff Lake Campsite12.2 Miles TodayHello to all of you who have been following Papa Razzi online. My name is Redwing and my wife is Hopeful. I have had the fortunate opportunity to hike with Papa Razzi for the past few weeks. Today, we decided we¢d mix things up a little and write entries for one another.The day started much like most of the last 8-10 days. Hopeful and I woke up and got moving a little before the others. Papa joined us about 20 minutes later. As always he was ready to go within minutes and then proceeded to wait patiently for another half hour. Certainly those of you who know him understand that he is patient and not a complainer. We¢re thankful for those traits as it seems he is often waiting for one of us to pee or put our pack on. Then again, maybe Papa Razzi is just easily entertained. He stalked a red squirrel, camera in hand, during his wait time this AM.Our hiking day was a unique one and we found many reasons to celebrate. It was unique because we went over the Bigalow Range, an incredible ridge line with phenomenal views in all directions.It inspired us to take several ¢act natural¢ pics that are hopefully breathtaking, but quite posed. From the ridge we were able to sense the openness of Maine and how rugged it is. Below to our left was Flagstaff Lake which ran the entire length of the ridge. To our right was Sugarloaf Mountain miles across a nearly untouched valley. Throughout the day we caught various views of Mount Katahdin. Our reasons to celebrate included the last 4,000 foot mountains until Katahdin itself and our miles hiked now being over 2,000 total. The only frustration that we all have is the current hiker void that we find ourselves in. Hazy Sonic has been crossing our path over the past two days and Thunder passed us today, all smiles, on a southbound slackpack. There are rumors that others are nearby but we continue to be the only hikers who we consistently see through this stretch. Operation Stall (our best effort to not hike while allowing others to catch up) has been a failure. Those who have caught us have somehow slipped by without our knowing it. Others who we thought were on our tails have still not caught up.One beautiful thing about the AT is that it doesn¢t allow one to dwell on the negative things long. How could one ever not enjoy a day in the Bigalows? To finish this day right, we stopped along the beach of Flagstaff Lake. Here we had a view of the mountains and their perfect reflection in the water. Earlier, somewhere between swimming and dinner, a looe swam by, which we hope to hear throughout the night. Hopeful and I set up our tent. Papa Razzi is sleeping out under the stars and as the sun sets the night seems like what we dreamed the AT would be. It¢s hard not to be sentimental on nights like this. Who could believe that the trip that began with snow in Georgia would be wrapping up already here in the Maine sun?To hear Papa Razzi¢s take on the day, please check out our journal entry at www.trailjournals.com/redwingIn closing, I thought it was really interesting the other day when I overheard Papa talking to Dick Cheney over the phone.