Date: 2004-08-26
From: South Shoulder of Old Blue Mtn, ME

To: Day 124: Sabbath Day Pond, ME
Miles today: 15.5

Expecting a tough hike on AT Day 124 I got up at 4:10 a.m. and hit the trail at 6:15 a.m. in my third day in a row of absolutely beautiful weather. The day began with what turned out to be a surprisingly easy, and therefore somewhat disappointing, 1,000-foot climb over about 1.5-miles to the mostly tree-covered 3,600-foot summit of Old Blue. At 7:30 a.m. the view was clear and inspiring, but nothing like what I had had on Baldpate and on many summits in the Whites. However, what really surprised me was that there were several ¢campsites¢ at the summit and all I could do was imagine how spectacular it would have been to have been able to star gaze under the clear skies of the night before. Alas, at least I was safe and ahead of schedule.Leaving the summit I quickly pushed on to see the old growth red spruce stand found in the col between Old Blue and Elephant Mountain. From there, I continued along the often muddy, but relatively easy to traverse trail to reach the 3,580-foot west peak of Bemis Mountain where I stopped for my morning snack. Like Old Blue the summit was tree covered and so there wasn¢t much of a view, but that soon changed as I descended and climbed over the much rockier and often very exposed, and cairn marked lesser peaks of Bemis Mountain. I stopped for lunch in the bright sunlight and cool breezes of the second of these peaks. The one-mile, 1,000-foot descent from the last of the Bemis peaks to Bemis Stream was steep, but once again, with the dry weather, the footing was excellent so I had little trouble. After fording the stream, I made the surprisingly challenging one-mile, 700-foot climb to ME 17 where I stopped for my afternoon snack and the awesome view of Mooselookmeguntic Lake (that¢s Abenaki for ¢portage to moose feeding place¢ ¢ how¢s that for a name!).During this short break I also I tried to make a phone call to Hot Chocolate to ask for her to pick me up one day ahead of schedule. Not surprisingly, the ¢cellular phone curse¢ struck again, but even though I was not able to speak to my wife I was able to leave a message at our new campsite, Deerfarm, in Kingfield, ME. The reason for the requested early pick-up was simply that I had been very conservative in my ¢post-Whites¢ estimate of how hard the trail would be in ME and even though I wasn¢t able (or willing) to do 20-milers like I used to in the mid-Atlantic and Southern states, with the great weather (and despite the ¢boot-sucking¢ mud) I was easily exceeding my original goals.Leaving the highway, I encountered a series of relatively easy to traverse hills on my way to first Moxie Pond, then Long Pond and finally, Sabbath Day Pond where I set up my tent after a total hike of 15.5 miles. All three of these ponds were extraordinarily beautiful and I got great pictures. At the Sabbath Day Pond Lean-to, I met a young SOBO AT through hiker, Plainsman (he was a recent graduate with a degree in building construction), from Auburn, AL, who told me that earlier in the day he had taken a swim. Unfortunately, by 5:30 p.m. when I arrived the temperature was already starting to drop into the 50¢s on its way down to a nighttime low of the mid-40¢s, so no swimming¢¦