Date: 2011-07-20
From: Abol Bridge

To: White House Landing
Miles today: 30.5

First three days.Back to the AT Lodge in Millinocket on Sunday and on the 6:30 AM shuttle (by myself)to Abol Bridge Monday morning. By 7:30 I was starting the 100 Mile Wilderness. One is first greeted by a sign that ominously warns of a remote section without the possibility of resupply or help for a full hundred miles. Carry food for 10 days it advises. The woods beyond the sign seemed particularly dark that morning, the trail a mere sliver of bare ground and roots, most unwelcoming. I plunged ahead. A few miles later I was at the Hurd Brook shelter in a thickly wooded area. Three youngish guys were packing gear. From Hartford and brothers. They took off after a brief conversation and I was alone at the shelter, eating my meager snack. For the remainder of that day I hiked alone and saw no others on the trail. After 11 or so miles I stopped at Rainbow Lake campsite. Two other hikers showed up after I had pitched my tent so there was some conversation at the end of that long day. The routine became established early. Stop somewhere around 4:30 PM. Set up for the night. Cook some dinner. Clean up, arrange things for the morning. Get in the tent as the bugs really start to gather strength as dusk comes. Read in the tent, go to sleep early. The predawn light begins at about 4:30 AM with lots of birdsong. It is a struggle to stay in my sleeping bag until 6 or so. Packing up and a quick breakfast takes a little over an hour, so by 7:30 I am back on the trail. The trail varies enormously. Some parts of it look exactly like the forest scenes from the Harry Potter movies. High bare roots, gnarly, twisted trees, almost no light filtering through the dense canopy. Other stretches are needle strewn forest paths that would grace Central Park. Occasionally there will be masses of moss covered rocks that disappear up a slope. But what I remember is the climbs over large boulders and roots and the corresponding declines. Struggle up and up, and then down you go, only to repeat a short time later. Maine is apparently not really flat anywhere along this section. A couple calling themselves Bonnie and Clyde, whom I had met at the AT Lodge, were heading north toward Katahdin to complete Clyde's 12-year sectioning of the entire trail. They ask my destination for that night and recommended a hidden campsite on a natural beach on Nahmakanta Lake, a little beyond the Wadliegh Stream shelter. I found it at the end of the second day, after 12 miles. Perfect place for my tent and a swim in the lake before dinner. I listened to the wind in the trees and the lapping of water on the sand all night in splendid solitude.The third day was shorter. By early afternoon I was at a trail through the woods to a dock on the lake. Bill came by boat and brought me to White House Landing, a former Maine sporting camp now a hiker hostel. Showers, bed, pizza or hamburgers for dinner and a fine breakfast before the return trip across the lake. Good swimming in that lake and an opportunity to do laundry in tubs of lake water. Three days, 30 trail miles. Knees holding up, back objecting mildly to the weight of the pack, feet blister free so far. By morning I had purchased some addition supplies from Bill and Linda for the next six days -- 70 miles to go before the town of Monson.