Date: 2007-09-05
From: Hurd Brook Lean-to

To: Katahdin Stream Campground (Millinocket)
Miles today: 13.4
Weather: few clouds

We slept pretty well again, except for the mouse. I woke up in the middle of the night to the distinctive sound of a mouse chewing¢¦and it was coming from the direction of our food bag. Now mind you, I had put all our food in a garbage bag, threw a line over a limb 12 feet in the air and four feet away from the trunk of a tree and hoisted the bag 8 feet off the ground, so I was a little skeptical that a mouse had made his way up there. Still, I got out and lowered the bag to the ground but found no visible signs of a mouse. So, I hoisted it back up and tied it off in the same spot. All was quiet for a while, but I woke up later to that distinctive sound again. This time when I lowered the bag to the ground, a mouse about an inch long popped his head out of a hole in the garbage bag and scurried off into the woods. I think my mistake was that when I tied the string off to a nearby tree I let the leftover string dangle on the ground. Those mice have probably found out that at the other end of any string they find on the ground they usually find a veritable cornucopia of ¢mouse food.¢ So¢¦this time I moved the bag to a new location, and when I tied the string off to another tree I tucked all the excess string up high in the tree. Don¢t know if that was really why, but I didn¢t get any more visitors the rest of the night. Oh¢¦the good news was that the only thing the mouse chewed in to was our bag of trash¢¦none of our food was ruined. When morning did finally roll around, we got up and got packed up pretty quickly. Doing over 28 miles in the last two days was taking its toll on Stacy¢s ankles and we had another 14 mile day ahead of us. Luckily we were only 3 12 miles from the Abol Bridge Campground and Kim could meet us there this morning if we wanted her to. So when we got to a place where we had cell service we gave her a call and arranged for her to meet us there. Stacy and I finished the 100-mile wilderness and hiked up to the Abol Bridge Campground and had breakfast with fresh hot coffee at the camp store. Since Kim wouldn¢t be arriving for another hour or two I headed on up the trail to get to Katahdin Stream Campground and Stacy hung out at the camp store until Kim arrived. This actually worked out very well because I wanted Kim and Stacy to get to spend some time together before Stacy had to head back to Colorado. Kim picked her up not too long after I left and took her to see a chiropractor to work on her ankles. They spent the day together and I met up with them in Millinocket later that afternoon. When I got to the Katahdin Stream Campground I registered with the park ranger to climb Mt Katahdin the next day. I was number 160 to register to summit. I don¢t know if that counts SOBOs and flipfloppers or if it is just NOBOs finishing the trail. After I registered I started hitching toward Millinocket. It took me an hour or so to catch a ride but I still got back to Millinocket before Kim and Stacy did. I had my trail angel drop me off at McDonalds and Kim and Stacy picked me up there about half an hour later. We got rooms at a B&B and had supper delivered in. It was really nice to have two of my three girls with me. Cheers¢¦357 Magnum