Date: 2004-10-07
From: White Wolf Inn, Stratton, Maine

To: Horns Pond Lean-to
Miles today: 5.1
Weather: few clouds

I am feeling pretty content today, despite our relatively low mileage. I think perhaps I¢m finally reconciling myself to the vagaries of the trail, to my mileage, low or high, to the terrain, easy or difficult, simply to life out here. Maybe I¢m finally starting to believe what I¢ve been telling myself all along¢that none of this matters very much. What matters is living and loving life, or hiking and loving the trail, or simply loving the people around you. It¢s all very simple when it boils down to it. I¢ve always said that the trail is life in miniature, all the experiences and challenges of life reduced into a neat, tidy, and extremely difficult six-month package, and today I finally feel like I¢m getting a handle on that. Or lately I feel like I¢m getting a handle on that. Whatever happens will be okay. Maybe that rainbow on top of Baldpate really did something to me.We woke up this morning, and despite the temptation of eggs at the diner¢always my downfall¢I adore breakfast-we went for a box of cereal and a half-gallon of milk at the general store, which we ate in one sitting, out of our freshly cleaned MSR pot. Frosted shredded wheat. Mmm, dee-lish. Then we walked to the road to hitch, late of course, because we can never resist using every last minute of our room time in town. To do otherwise seems a blatant misuse of funds. Wingfoot recommends a specific place to hitch out of Stratton, the only time he does that in his whole book, to my recollection. I¢m not sure if he¢s wrong, or if Stratton is just a tough place to hitch out of, because we had a really hard time getting a ride. Which is weird, especially given how easy of a hitch in it was. Still, eventually someone pulled over. It was a utility van, and the driver was on his lunch break but on his way back to work. Crazy¢you see all these cars drive past, and the one that stops is never the one you expect.We rarely hitch to utility or work vehicles, because we figure they can¢t pick up hitchhikers on the job. If we do hitch to them, I don¢t feel bad when they don¢t stop. But here was some guy, on the job, giving us a ride. He was an interesting fellow, too¢he had worked making snow on Sugarloaf, so he and County had a lot in common. County lived at Killington in Vermont and made snow there for a couple of years. Crazy how easy it is to make connections with people, too¢I¢m sure if we had wanted to he could have gotten County a job on the mountain there for the season with some of his friends, and we could have settled right down. It¢s amazing what can happen if you just remain open to possibilities. But not us, not right now: we have mountains to climb. We¢re heading into the Bigelows tomorrow, our last 4000-footers before Katahdin. The guy dropped us off at the trailhead, and who should be sitting there but Knuckles and Underhill. He had already completed a short slack and was trying to decide how much further to go. We¢d encountered him going southbound a couple of times over the last several days, but so far he hasn¢t actually caught us.We hung out with them for a couple of minutes, drinking cokes¢they¢re on as tight of a budget as we are, so it¢s really sweet of them to keep a 24-pack of cokes in their truck for thru-hikers without support.Finally we took off, but we were in full-fledged lazy mode by that point. Before the first campsite, which was less than two miles in, we decided that we needed to stop and eat ramen. It¢s what comes of starving ourselves for the last week, I suppose. Here I took one of my favorite pictures of the whole trail, despite its fuzziness: County cooking. I love it because it so perfectly conveys what trail life actually was like for us¢the gear scattered around, the stove balanced on rocks on a stump, us taking a break in our little day. Trail life is great. After two batches of ramen we moved on, up 1900 feet in four miles to the Horns Pond Lean-tos. It wasn¢t a bad climb and the weather continues to be exquisite. It was also nice to get a lot of the elevation out of the way for tomorrow¢s hump up the Bigelows. County and I walked apart for almost the whole way¢it¢s nice sometimes when that happens. It gives us time alone with our thoughts. That can be rare sometimes, when one is continually hiking with a partner. The site of the lean-tos is beautiful, by another of Maine¢s gorgeous ponds, which doesn¢t look like that thrilling of a water source but is beautiful nonetheless.The lean-to itself looks out over a breathtaking view of the valley we just came out of, plus we can see Bigelow Mountain off to our left, towering above. It must be a really overused site, because there are two gigantic shelters, plus innumerable tentsites, a bulletin board with all sorts of information about not ruining the landscape, a gigantic caretaker¢s tent (if you can live there as a caretaker and get paid for it, sign me up!), and several elaborately constructed privies. You can always tell how used a site is by the privy. We have both shelters to ourselves, though. As dark fell a couple of weekenders pulled up, but they¢re tenting. The stars are beautiful tonight, and it¢s not even that cold. On my last sojourn to the privy after dark (it must be about a mile away¢-I got lost on one of the numerous lined paths), I stopped and just looked up at the beautiful stars. Staying at shelters when it¢s below freezing, even though we¢re outdoors all the time, it¢s easy to forget that they¢re there. I don¢t really want to drag myself out of my cozy sleeping bag just to look up. But it¢s well worth it tonight¢everything is beautiful and crystal clear.