Date: 2015-08-22
From: Carl Newhall shelter

To: Little Boardman Mountain 
Miles today: 14.2
Weather: light rain

We woke up to a very welcome sound, actually no sound. There was no rain this morning. We slowly got up and started the long task of breaking down camp and trying to dry everything off as much and possible.   It was a very long process.    We are normally ready to hike within 45 minutes of waking up but this morning it took over an hour and a half. Lavender took all the dry items and put them in the shelter. Two people had left the shelter already.   So, there easy room. She also took the backpacks into the shelter. She worked on drying the packs as best as possible. Then, she packed them. Count was trying to dry the tent on the inside and outside as best as he could.   Then, it was time to put on our nice wet, cold clothes and our wet, wet, wet socks and boots. This was not pleasant as all. We started hiking as soon as possible. Hiking warms us up and helps to dry out our wet clothes. Our packs felt much heavier from the weight of the water. Our boots felt the same way. We must have been carrying 2 or 3 pounds of extra weight from this. We continued the climb up Gulf Hagas Mountain. We had started some of this climb yesterday in the pouring rain. Today, we climbed 800 feet. As we were climbing, we saw blue sky. Lavander slipped on a wet rock and fell within the first mile. Could it be possible, there will be no rain today? We summited and descended Gulf Hagas Mountain only to start climbing West Peck. This was another 800 feet climb. The sun was peeking through the clouds now. Again, could it be possible, there will be no rain today? After West Peak, we climbed 400 feet to Hay Mountain. By now, the sun was shining. We stopped and set our tent up on the trail as we wanted it to dry. Of course, clouds covered the sun for a bit. But, we hung out there for an hour. Between the sun shine and the breeze, the tent was dry. When we woke this morning, we didn't think we would have a dry tent tonight.      We packed everything up and continued hiking. We descended a bit and then started the climb up to White Cap Mountain. This was the last big climb before we get to Katahdin.   Once we made it to the top, we had great views and beautiful sunshine.   Since it was so sunny we decided to get everything out of our backpacks to let it dry. We had stuff strewn everywhere drying. It looked like a yard sale! We ate our lunch here to give our stuff more time to dry.      After an hour lunch break, all our stuff was nice and dry so we packed everything up and we were on our way. We had about a 2500 descent coming off of the mountain.   Part way down them mountain there was a view point and from here we could see Mt. Katahdin nearly 50 miles away. It looks impressive even from this far away. Hopefully we will be at the top in 5 days.    At the bottom of the descent we hiked through a beautiful surreal forest. We hiked through a pine forest with huge boulders that were covered in vivid green moss. It was very peaceful and relaxing hiking through this section. It seemed like a scene for a movie set.   But then we came to the East Branch of the Pleasant River which we had to ford. This normally wouldn't have been to bad but with all the rain the day before the river was swollen and moving quickly. We scanned the river for where we thought we could possibly cross. After attempting 2 different crossings and turning around each time, we found a place we thought we could make it. If we could step on some of the larger rocks the water was just above our knees, however if you slipped off the rocks the water was above your waist and you could be swept away by the rushing water. Count slowly made his way across with Lavander following. Lavander was almost across when she slipped on a rock and went in the water up to her waist. Fortunately Count was able to help her up and we both made it the rest of the way across. We were both exhausted from the crossing. We hiked on climbing up Little Boardman Mountain. We were going to hike down the mountain but were both tired from the days events. Instead, we looked for a campsite at the top. We found several nice flat areas but there were moose droppings at all of these places. We found an OK site and chose it for our tent. We set up camp and had dinner. We were tired so we turned in early. As we laid there going to sleep, we listened for moose but none appeared.