Date: 2011-08-21
From: Pierce Pond Lean-to

To: Northern Outdoors, Caratunk ME
Miles today: 3.8
Weather: broken clouds

(In which I see my first moose and nero into Caratunk)The other hikers in the shelter get up early to head over to a nearby lodge for a breakfast of pancakes with berries. Not wanting to pay $9 for pancakes with blueberries and apples in them, I abstained from putting in a required order the night before, but tag along anyway to see the lodge, having heard that the proprietor Tim had extended an invitation to even hikers not eating to stop by. The lodge is a quaint generator-run cabin with views of the river and waterfalls, and Tim is friendly to me and lets me fill up my water bottle from his sink and hang out with the paying customers.I leave while the rest of the hikers are eating breakfast, and head back to the trail. Tim tells me about the short way back, but I decide to head back on the side trail I came in on to not miss any of the AT. Despite not being an ultra-purist and not keeping track of every foot of white blazed trail near shelters and other rest stops, I try not to intentionally miss segments, and I'm happy to find out that the segment I might have skipped has an interesting pond-side dam that the trail walks on top of.Up the trail I see Don, a section hiker out for two nights who stayed at the shelter the night before. Don is holding a camera and has a grin spread across his face. "Been taking some pictures?" I ask, and he turns his camera around to show me the screen, which shows a close up picture of a moose. "Better be quick," he whispers, and behind him I see the moose walking off the trail and out of the frame. "Ohshit ohshit," I whisper and immediately enact emergency moose sighting procedures, dropping my pack, pulling out my food bag and grabbing my camera.I follow the moose off trail, firmly into 'you did *what*?' territory, and get close enough for the "I saw a moose" photo. As I follow the moose I see it effortlessly topple a medium-sized tree that was in its way, and when I get close enough for it to notice me it turns and gives me a glare that says, "Hey dumbass, do you have any idea how weak and puny you are compared to me?" The idea hadn't entirely escaped me as I was staring up at the legs significantly taller than me, but at the moose's suggestion I give it some more contemplation, after which I switch to emergency moose evasion procedures. Being less researched, these consist entirely of hiding behind the nearest tree. Luckily this seems to suffice, and the moose wanders off to eat a more peaceful breakfast somewhere else.I find the trail again without incident and compare photos with Don, whose small point-and-shoot was witness to much better angles and lighting than my heavy SLR. Mean Gene and Bum Knee walk up, and when they hear that a moose just walked by they take off down trail hoping for their first sighting. When I see them at the river crossing they shake their heads sadly, still mooseless.The Kennebec river is a few hundred feet across, but it's the unpredictable upstream dam that makes fording ill advised. I have little enthusiasm for fording rivers anyway, so I'm glad that the danger of the dam drove the ATC to hire a ferryman to row hikers across. A few hikers still try to ford it, but the white blaze painted on the bottom of the canoe makes it clear which approach the ATC considers the official path. The canoe takes two people across at a time so I ride on the first trip of the day with Mean Gene, he helping row and me taking pictures.I walk through the small village of Caratunk to examine the hiker box in front of the post office, having heard that it is frequently stocked with tasty goodies. This doesn't seem to be the case on Sundays, but I do score some free wifi in the middle of the road. I also call the Northern Outdoors resort from the phone outside of the post office that makes free local calls. I balk when the lady on the phone quotes me $21 for a bunk cabin tent instead of the book's listed $15, at which point she informs me that actually if I come tonight it's $15. I wait by the trail for the shuttle, and when Guinea Pig, Sherpa, Sprout and Scrappy show up they decide to come along for lunch and then hike out to the next lean-to.I go straight for the ice cream sundae while the others eat lunch, and when they head out I check out the resort's hot tub. It is indeed hot, and after fifteen minutes of sitting in water up to my neck my heart is racing and I feel like I've been exercising to the point of near collapse. Sitting above the hot tub with my feet dangling provides a more pleasant temperature balance, but even this begins to feel too hot so I towel off and retreat to the cool lodge.I spend the afternoon surfing the net, downloading music on my iPod with the Spotify app and reading, which is not a terrible way to spend an afternoon.* * *If there is a downside to spending the afternoon in the lodge it's that, this close to the end of the trail, surrounded by tourists with no other thru-hikers around, I can feel the spell of the trail beginning to wear off. The thought of life after the trail and all of the decisions that come with it, so long abstract and irrelevant concerns, have returned like a patient fairy tale villain come to collect on its bargain.So soon the trail will switch from present to past tense, a fixed event malleable only in its recollection and retelling. My fondness for the five or so months I spent hiking the AT, already strong, will grow until the trip becomes the one perfect period of my twenties and thirties, the rain and bugs and exhaustion just so many challenges overcome with pluck and good humor. Because if I wasn't completely happy on the trail, free of responsibilities and surrounded by friends, then where could I be?But of course I am happy, and why should I sabotage the nostalgia of my future self? Other than maybe to realize that happiness of the trail is like any other, tempered with conflicting emotions, good days and bad. It is a good life out here, but not an incomparably perfect one, and there is happiness to be found everywhere if you know how to look.