Date: 2009-07-15
From: Stratton

To: View Entry
Miles today: 0.0

I'm officially alive and well in Stratton, Maine. I went back on the trail on Saturday, and arrived here at the Stratton Motel, which is a hostel, a little past 11 am today. The trail still feels the same from when I started, except that I'm starting to get into a good routine. I usually wake up a little before 7 am, hike til about noon, eat lunch, then keep goin hiking til around 4 pm. Of course I tend to eat a ridiculous amount of snacks along the way. I'll give you an idea of what I eat on a normal day.Breakfast2 packets of dry oatmeal (learned from my friend Andrew, who will be back with me shortly, apparently it expands in you stomach and makes you feel more full, even though I'm hungry just about all the time)1 granola bar1 tortilla filled with peanut butterHandfull of trail mixLunchTortilla with peanut butterTortilla with pepperoniTrail mixgranola barSnickers (or some candy bar)DinnerDepends, usually some form of noodles, or the delicious dehydrated food my mom sends me. Whatever it is it is usually in some sort of mass portion, but still never fills me up. I'm starting to develop what you might call a hikers stomach.More peanut butter tortillas and Trail mix.I tend to drink about 4 liters of water for the entire day, I should be drinking more though. The hiking along this section was actually very nice. It was mostly sunny and the trail was reasonably dry. Speaking of the trail, I still think it is more of a stream, mudpit, rockpit, vertical wall, root congregation area, and bog than anything else. I find myself cursing the MATC for not providing us a suitable area to walk. I am more often hopping from stone to stone, or wading through water, than walking. Other than that, there has been some spectacular scenery. There must be a thousand lakes in this part of Maine. I have been getting plenty of pictures also. At night if I am lucky I will camp in a lean to. A lean to is a house like strucure. It actually looks a lot like a front porch or so. The roof and 3 walls are covered, to help with rain, and the front is open to allow hikers to gain entry. There is a large floor where about 6-8 people can sleep. Packs and other items can be hung up on one of the many nails protruding from the shelter. A lean to is nice because it does a superb job stopping rain, and doesn't force me to set up my tent every night. It is also a nice place to meet other hikers. Every night I have been in a lean to it has been mostly full. The least amount of people in one so far has been 4. Since I left Monson, I have been been hiking with 3 other Soutbounders I met at the Lakeshore Hostel there. For the most part we hike alone during the day and meet up and talk at a lean to at night. The trail is set up in a way so that you hike with one group for a while, then for whatever reason, start hiking with another group. You really get to meet an amazing amount of people. The most memorable part of these last five days was hiking the bigelow mountain range just outside of Stratton. As we started heading up, One of my friends and myself got ahead of the other two in our group. We hiked roughly 4000 feet up, and when I say up I mean straight up. There are no switchbacks. On the way up it started raining, then would get sunny, then start raining again. It was pretty tough going. However the top of the mountain was amazing. I have some spectacular pictures. You could literally see everything. And with the type of day it had been, there were sparse sections of clouds that were being lit up by the sun that was really cool. After summiting the peak we continued on to a tent site. The tent site was about 3900 feet in elevation, and let's just say it was really cold, windy, rainy, and wet. It was defintly the most interesting night out here so far. The other two in our group decided to push it 3 more miles to the lean to, but by this point my friend and I already had our tents up. This morning we woke up at 5 am, and were hiking by 5:30 am to get off to mountain. I was wearing just about every pair of clothes I brought with me. It was really cool however to be up at this hour. There were no views, but I kept thinking that while most people I knew slept, I was on top of a mountain in Maine, walking. We finally got down and rolled into Stratton just today. I plan on taking tomorrow off, because I am starting to get some really bad blister spots on my feet. While I am starting to get my legs under me, my feet still have not quite broken in. I figure one day of rest should really help them recover. I'm happy to have gotten this far, and to have made some good friends out here. It was hard to start this trip mostly alone in bad weather, but I am feeling really positive about the whole thing now. I also can't wait until I meet my dad and brothers to hike the White Mountains. Well I hope everybody is doing well back home, and wish me luck with the next part of my hike to Andover.