Date: 2014-09-25
From: Shaw's Lodging

To: Long Pond Stream Lean-to
Miles today: 15.1
Weather: scattered clouds

I woke up at 5:30 after a restless night. I was awake until 1:30, I finally put a small fan on a chair and the breeze and the white noise put me right to sleep. I am not sure why I couldn't relax and go to sleep. I think that as my hike winds down I am spending more time looking back and reflecting on the whole experience. Today we will be hiking through the 100 Mile Wilderness and then into Baxter State Park. My son Carson will be hiking with No Rush and I and I'm a little nervous about that also. He hasn't hiked since May and we will pushing to get to the finish on Wednesday. Fortunately, Carson is also an early riser like me so we both got up and got our packs ready. We will be getting a food delivery at Jo-Mary road at mile marker 56 so we are leaving some food and extra gear at Shaw's to lighten our packs. I saved 13 pounds and that will make the climbs the first three days a lot easier. We weighed our packs this morning, mine weighed 33 pounds and Carson's weighed 31 pounds. As usual No Rush wouldn't let me weigh his pack, he has not known his pack weight this whole trip. We went downstairs for breakfast, Shaw's fixes you a huge meal for $9. Blueberry pancakes, eggs, potatoes, bacon, sausage, and coffee. We should be ready to hike after all of that food. We got dropped off at the trail about 9:00, Puzzle will be hiking with us also, we finally caught up with him from Rutland, Vermont. There was a sign at the beginning of The 100 Mile Wilderness warning hikers that they need to carry at least 10 days of food and be prepared for a lengthy stay in the woods. We took a quick break at Leeman Brook Lean-to and pushed on. We were going past several nice ponds but today it was about the miles. We had one nice view at Bear Pond Ledge. We had to go across Little Wilson Stream and Carson slipped off the rocks and got both feet wet. A little later we had to go across Big Wilson Stream and our shoes had to come off for the first time. They had a rope for you to hang on to and the rocks were slippery. Everyone made it across without incident. There was a skeleton of a moose on the opposite shore of the river, not the moose experience that I was looking for. I took pictures of everyone crossing since I went first and I needed my feet to dry off. We leap-frogged with Toots, J-Rex, and Navigator during the day. We stopped at Wilson Valley Lean-to for water and a quick break, we weren't moving as fast as we normally do because our new hiking partner wasn't broken in yet. Carson was working hard to push on though and we were doing the miles,even if we had to finish the day in the dark. It was going to be dark soon and we came upon a Trail Magic sign on the trail by a dirt road. It said sodas, hot dogs, and hamburgers for hikers 1/8 of a mile from the trail. No Rush was ahead of us somewhere so Carson, Puzzle and I went down to check it out. There were some hikers there but most of the food was gone. We each had a hot dog and I drank one Pepsi and took two more with me. One for tomorrow and one for No Rush. We had to finish our hike in the dark and got to Long Pond Stream Lean-to about 7:30. There were a few people in the shelter including No Rush, he thought we were ahead of him. I found a tent site in the dark and set up our tent for the night. Carson was worn out but I got him to eat a little something for dinner. I filtered water and then we hung our packs in the shelter for the night. Carson had no problem falling asleep even though our tent was on a hill. I worked on my journal and looked at the guidebook for tomorrow.         99.4 miles to go!