Date: 2011-09-04
From: Piecre Pond Lean-to

To: Day 115
Miles today: 18.7

PANCAKES! 13 pancakes (whole wheat + blueberry + pineapple,) eggs (scrambled,) juice (orange,) coffee (leaded,) and milk (whole) all for $11. Oh, and you can see the river, 2 footbridges, and a waterfall from the dining room in the lodge. Tim Harrison has built for himself a Heaven-on-Earth here in the Maine wilderness. He's also committed himself to waking up at 5:00 in the morning and cooking breakfast for hikers and B&B guests for every day of summer for the foreseeable future. I was the only hiker there this morning, whom he takes care of before his guests, so we had a chance to chat a bit. I found out the night before last, that group of 5 zany NoBo's stumbled into his place with a big problem. Sparkplug took a bad fall coming over Avery Peak and cracked a couple of her ribs. Then she proceeded to hike 22 miles in excruciating pain all the way to Tim's place. She even made it 17.5 miles before she gave in and let someone else carry her pack for her. That bitch is tough as nails I tell ya, tougher than most ER trauma nurses I know. Tim drove all 5 of them into Caratunk and got Sparkplug to the hospital where she belongs.    There was also kind of a morbid topic of conversation. When I was going through the log book at the last lean-to, I noticed that there was an entry from 2 weeks ago by a person named Open Mic that people had highlighted and written R.I.P. next to. Tim told me that he was a SoBo who had gotten off-trail to check out a popular but dangerous side-trail that leads to a waterfall. Poor guy slipped and was killed instantly when he bashed his head against a sharp rock. This happened no more than 2 hours after he left the Pierce Pond Lean-to. His last entry was rather eerie too. The first part was pretty standard 'stopping to take a break' stuff. But then he wrote a warning to other hikers about how slippery and dangerous the rocks were that day and how we should all be careful. Then he signed his note with the last words he would ever write: "It's a great day to be alive." He was my age. Talk about a reminder of how serious things can get out here. I am humbled by my mortality. Tim, who lives here year-round, regularly drives people to the hospital in town and refused to tell me how many people die here each year.      Tim also told me that a solid days-worth of rain is on its way. So, after eating my breakfast of champions and filling up on Tim's awesome well water, I set off to do another big day before the shit gets here. I do still have 2 big mountains to climb before I get to Monson, ME after all. I was out of Tim's, packed up, and on-trail by 8:00 AM. I stopped off at a really cool waterfall for a minute to give my Jolly Roger some air. Then I finished the 3.7 to the Kennebec River by 10:00. I crossed the mighty river with the help of Craig and his canoe and pushed on. When I stopped to deal with a small-scale crisis involving wet socks and open sores, Zen and Onager happened to walk by. They had both just zeroed in Caratunk. Zen was there saying goodbye to Sparkplug, who reluctantly decided to get off-trail because of her broken ribs. Onager was there saying goodbye to his girl Moxie, who is a lawyer in CA and reluctantly had to get off-trail to go back and do case work. I feel really bad for those gals; they fought for over 2,000 miles just to have to go home with 150 miles to go to Katahdin. I joined up with the others because I've been hiking alone for a while and could stand to pick up the pace. The 3 of us smoked hash and climbed mountains for a while. It was fun. We had to stop short (again) at the Bald Mt. Brook Lean-to because a wicked thunderstorm showed up early and started dumping on us at 4:00 PM. We decided to stay dry, save Moxie Bald Mt. for the morning, and sit there and get fucked up with Muffin Man and Ramblin Man there at the shelter instead. We had a good time exchanging stories and watching it rain well in to the night.