Date: 2009-08-01
From: Nowhere

To: Ethan Pond Shelter
Miles today: 7.1
Weather: broken clouds

Back in the shelters again . . . As nice as the huts were, and as fun as stealthing can be, Phil and I are really missing shelters. There is a kind of camaraderie there. Sometimes we get the shelters to ourselves, and it can be nice to have the quiet. Usually others come and we get to share the experience. A lot of the northbounders are completely exhausted and are just thinking about miles. A lot of the southbounders have passed us. We have gone really slowly through the Whites, and of all places Phil and I agreed that this is a good spot to be slow. Food hasn't been an issue (well, keep reading) and it has been breathtaking (in more ways than one). There is no point in rushing through the Whites. We met a NOBO who did 26 miles in one day - basically all the Presidentials, done in one day.   . . . Why? (Also: how?)Anyway, for whatever reason this was a ridiculously tough day for me. I don't know if it was the rain of yesterday, or the 3,000 foot descent, or what did it, but I was at my emotional limit. Poor Phil had to put up with me - and he's the one who should have been crying! On his first hiking day of age 27, he had his first real fall since the beginning of Maine. He managed to scrape up his upper back thighs pretty bad. I was hiking ahead of him and when I waited for him at the bottom of the mountain, he came hiking down and at first I thought he was hiking in a Speedo because he had hitched up his shorts so that the fabric wouldn't rub against the wound. I laughed really hard until I realized it was not a fashion statement gone wrong. Don't get me wrong. I think that hiking in a Speedo would actually be pretty comfortable sometimes, though I am beyond relieved that the style has never caught on. I did get a picture.And thus, yet another short day. Because we are in AMC territory, we had to pay $8 to stay here. We could have stealthed in the woods, but after being in the tent so much recently, we need the sanity break of a shelter. Ethan Pond is beautiful! Tonight we watched the sun set over the pond and that helped put me in a better mood.Part of the reason today was so hard is, I think, because of food. Our never-ending food supply somehow dwindled (two zero days will do that) and we've got just barely enough to get us to town. And then magic occurred. On the way here we crossed a parking area where a bumper sticker said "Something wonderful is about to happen." I was sceptical. No more.Phil overheard some overnight hikers talking about how they brought way too much food, and he went over and talked to them and offered to buy it off them. They came over to the shelter with their arms FULL of food they did not want. Peanut butter, jelly, cheeses, pizza sauce, tortillas, Snickers . . . more food than even we could eat in just a few days to town. It was magic. We forced them to take $5 (they wouldn't take more and didn't want to take any) and had another meal. So many times on this trail we are the recipients of magic, and I think both of us are really excited to pass this on whenever we can.Another bit of magic was the site caretaker, Garret. He is an amazing man who is working in the Whites for the summer before he heads off to Africa with the Peace Corps. He and I talked for an hour and a half and life and adventures and dreams, and it was such a nice break from talks about the trail. Sometimes Phil and I get so sick of trail talk that we want to bash our heads against the nearest bog bridge.