Date: 2021-06-28
From: Little Bigelow Lean-to (mile 172.9)

To: Horns Pond Lean-to (mile 183.1)
Miles today: 10.7
Weather: few clouds

Absolutely perfect sleeping weather last night. Around 70 with cool breezes keeping the humidity at bay. Viewmaster got up in the middle of the night to set up her tent in the woods to escape the mosquitoes, but they didn't bother me much. It started raining around six so she hurriedly picked up the freestanding tent and carried it into the shelter to stay dry. I left camp intending to hike to route 27 and get into Stratton. It's only 15 miles. But Pappy, Viewmaster, and Just Maine didn't expect to make it, so I debated with myself if I was moving too fast. I might find another group of hikers ahead. But I'd have to slow down eventually if I didn't want to pass them too. The lure of town was great, though.It was mostly sunny and very humid. I was sweating buckets climbing up Little Bigelow. From the peak I could see Sugarloaf and its ski runs across the valley, and the angular Bigelow peaks farther up the ridge. The trail ran down into Safford Notch, below a cliff called Old Man's Head. The next hour or more was consumed by a mere mile and a half of trail to Avery Peak, but it required climbing 1800 feet over rocks, roots, and boulders. By this time my shirt was on the back of my pack drying off, and I was dripping with sweat and praying for breezes to cool me off. I could hear my heart racing as I steadily climbed the wall. This is hard. Harder than I remember as a NOBO.I was rewarded with steady breezes above tree line on Avery Peak. The peak is named for Myron Avery, the head of the Appalachian Trail Club in the 1930s who oversaw and personally built much of the AT. He was the first to walk every inch of it during various construction visits. It was his idea to extend the trail into Maine, so I personally owe him my gratitude for blazing access to this wonderful section of the country. Without him the trail would have ended on Mt. Washington in New Hampshire.Met a ridgerunner in the col between Avery and West peaks from Vermont named Becca, or Bus Driver. She was inspired to do this by meeting a ridgerunner during her 2017 thruhike. Ridgerunners monitor the shelters, remove trash, answer hikers' questions, promote Leave No Trace, and report areas needing trail maintenance. For that the trail club gives them a small salary and stipend that covers maybe four nights a month in a motel to clean up and relax. The rest of the time they live on the mountain. Also passed several dayhikers and section hikers. A man named JJ is working on his final section after 14 years of section hiking. He abandoned last year's section after being harrassed by hut croo about camping in the Whites and is bitter about the way he was treated. A younger guy is section hiking from Massachusetts and seemed to be having a great time. A NOBO named Skywalker met me on Bigelow's Horn peak. He started March 23rd, less than 100 days ago. Said he just wanted to get to Katahdin and be done. I sympathized but told him I regretted rushing. We'll see what he does. A section hiker named Elsewhere was waiting for his slower buddy at the intersection with a side trail to North Horn Peak. I took the four-tenths mile round trip and was rewarded with a view of the Bigelows' north side I've never seen. Plus since the peak is 3800 feet it's probably on some list. By this time I'd reflected a bit and determined the only thing I really wanted from town was a cold soda. Pushing to get to town this afternoon was possible but would mean a night in a hostel, buying dinner, etc - basically a $60 soda. Plus I might miss the hostel dinner run anyway, hitching might not be easy, and I'd be leaving the others behind. So I decided to stop at Horns Pond where there's a campsite and shelter. I swam in the pond - a rocky, muddy, shallow one - and relaxed in the sun before retiring to the shelter. 13 days of swimming in a row! Pappy and the girls showed up within another hour. Pappy even cooked me one of his dehydrated meals since I'd eaten nearly all my food last night in the expectation of getting to town. Viewmaster asked about the forecast, wondering whether to tent to escape the bugs - the gnats here are bloodthirsty. I miraculously had a bar of service and saw a 30% chance of rain, so she set up her tent in the second lean-to. Twenty minutes later it began to drizzle, and over the next hour it alternately drizzled and poured. Such is weather forecasting in the mountains.The shelter has two neighbors who visited us before the rain. A red squirrel who seems intent on finding our food, and a large, brown, floppy-eared rabbit. And I thought the mice were bad.