Date: 2013-07-21
From: Hall Mountain Lean-To

To: Sabbath Day Pond Lean-To
Miles today: 21.1

The Hall Mountain Lean-to provided a dry night's rest, considering the rain continued off and on through the night. BB, Lugie, and their college friend (whom I recall was attending a university in New Orleans) woke early with me and were ready to hit the trail early. I inhaled my standard breakfast of a tortilla and peanut butter and a chocolate granola bar. We were about 30 miles into Maine and shooting for the Sabbath Day Pond Lean-to about 21 miles north. The vertical descent into Sawyer Notch was not far from the lean-to. I leaped ahead, enjoying my normal fast clip, making the descent with considerable ease considering how intimidating it looked from AWOL's topographic profile. It was muddy, but well stepped to prevent sliding. The climb up to Moody Mountain was the painful part and every bit as steep as it appeared in the guidebook, in fact, steeper than the descent, but up was a hell of a lot easier! I climbed, at times scrambled, where vertical steps exceeded what I could ascend using just my legs. The trail seemed to be a work in progress, like much of it, lacking a tread. By mid-morning, I made it to Black Brook, where I managed to cross it by precariously hop-scotching rocks from a deeply incised stream bank. I spread my wet gear along the side of ME 9 (which lead to Andover, ME) and enjoyed the warm sun while rehydrating and consuming tortillas with peanut butter. As I rested, a large truck stopped in the middle of the road. The driver introduced himself as Lobsterman. He was off the trail for a couple days and said he was slack packing. The name suddenly rang a bell. He was the author of the verbose two page diatribe written in the Lean-to log book of the Full-Goose Shelter, titled "Welcome to Maine" directed towards the north bounders. I didn't say much, but thought to myself, how ironic! The man who claims that the AT in Maine is tougher than the entire AT south of Maine, and he's slack packing! I'm not saying that slack packing is a bad thing here, but it certainly gives you an unfair advantage over any hiker who carries there weight, particularly over the rugged terrain of the Whites and the mountains of southern Maine. Lobsterman, I learned, was furthermore hiking the AT in sections over the course of years, which is why he probably had time to write such a diatribe in the first place. It was amusing to meet the elusive author anyway. The AT climbed abruptly again from Black Brook to the summit of Old Blue Mountain. It was here that I met up with BB and Lugie again. They had left their friend far behind them, apparently impatient with his significantly slower pace. While using my phone to snap some photos for the blog, I noticed I had reception, so left a message with Heart Rock. It was approaching 3pm when we realized we still had about 14 miles to hike with a significant climb out of Bemis Stream. The terrain north of ME17 was particularly rugged, with brutal near-vertical drops through large angular boulders and interwoven tree roots. In places, I found myself scrambling, leaping, or sliding on the seat of my shorts to the next step. The AT traversed the edge of Sabath Day Pond, which again, by California standards was really a lake, that appeared to have a cabin or two on the opposing shoreline. It was dusk when I reached the junction for the Sabath Day Pond Lean-to, which was a few tens of yards up slope of the trail. A group of scouts occupied the lean-to and the large wood tent platform along the approach trail to the Lean-to. I found a spot to pitch my tarp tent around the back. I hiked back down to the trail to the edge of the pond to fill my pot with water and collect a bottle for filtering. The water was like glass, not even a ripple from a jumping fish. In Maine, water sources seemed to more frequently be the stagnant warm water bodies they called ponds. I cooked dinner at the lean-to while listening to the non-stop chuckling of the two boy scouts having some make-belief conversation about super-heroes. While cooking dinner, BB and Lugie had arrived in near darkness. They searched for another spot to pitch their tent and joined the group in cooking supper. The mosquitos were surprisingly tolerable considering the gigantic natural mosquito hatchery down slope. I still covered my exposed skin with my rain pants and parka while I ate supper.