Date: 2011-08-03
From: (118) Baldpate Lean-to

To: (119) Bemis Mountain Lean-to
Miles today: 26.8
Weather: light rain

It was cold in the morning, so I slept in until 6:30. Mad at myself for being lazy, I packed fast and beat Tridub and Red Moose to the trail. I was planning a 27 mile day due to a large gap between shelters and the possibility that it would rain again, though I highly doubted it would.It did rain, and I found myself soaking wet for the second day in a row. Lucky for me I was hiking shirtless, so only my shorts and shoes got wet. I hiked all day at rapid pace, and only stopped to sign shelter logs or drink water from streams. It was overall a wet and miserable day, with terrain every bit as tough as The Whites, but at least nothing bad had happened.While going up Old Blue Mountain, something bad happened. I stepped on my hiking pole and snapped it in half. Now I will have to try and replace the broken segment tomorrow when I go into Rangeley for more food. My pole breaking happened at a bad time as I was exhausted from the high mileage, extreme difficulty of Southern Maine, and mud pits/slippery rock from all the rain. Three legs are not as efficient as four, and I can¢t imagine why anyone would hike without poles, but that is their business (I had already fallen several times in Maine, pretty much doubling the number of times I have fallen since I started in Georgia. My hiking poles have saved me countless times).I reached my goal at 7pm, a total of 26.8 miles through brutal Southern Maine. The shelter was full of South Bounders, but I ended up finding a spot anyway as a girl had hung her hammock inside the shelter, allowing me to simply sleep under her (Not as awkward as it sounds, though I did sit up once and pump my head off of her. Nothing like sleeping with somebody hanging several inches above your face). After claiming my spot under the hammock by rolling out my sleeping pad, I talked to some of the Sobos and learned that somebody had pooped in the spring, the areas only water source, and that they had also pooped in several other streams ahead of me on the trail. I found the spring, which was full of toilet paper, and frowned. As if I hadn¢t had enough bad water in Maine already! I walked further up the hill that the spring was coming out of, and found a whole in the ground where a rock had been pulled up. All of the recent rain had raised the water level, and as a result the hole was full of clean Earth filtered water. I filled up.Back at the shelter, and in between sips of poop water, I listened to the Sobos talking to one another. All of their topics of conversation were ones that I had heard a thousand times before, such as questions about what gear they are using, or acting knowledgeable about what is ahead on the trail (The places I had already been, I rolled my eyes until I was dizzy). They were all so new and na ve to everything, having just started the trail themselves and asking me the same annoying questions that I had been hearing since I started in Georgia (¢I hiked 7 miles today! What did you do?¢¢¦) . And there I sat, an old salt, worn out and tired and just wanting everyone to shut the hell up! But this is often the case with Nobos interacting with Sobos. The South Bounders are all so bouncy and green that the burnt out North Bounders can¢t stand them. It is like we are soldiers coming back from the front lines, wet and muddy and thin, and they are our bright eyed replacements, excited for combat and curious about the dead look in our eyes. Looking around, I highly doubted that any of the annoyingly cheery Sobos would finish the trail before winter drives them bonkers. Having only made it this far so late into the season, the Sobos around me were simply too slow for their own good (Most South Bounders choose to start in June or July in order to beat winter, it is now August.That is LATE). In addition, they were too brand new for the winter hardship that was to befall upon them. Evidence of this fact was obvious: As I sat comfortable in my shorts and t-shirt, they were, every last one of them, bundled up in long underwear and coats.