Date: 2017-08-23
From: Bald Mountain Brook Lean-To

To: Shaw's Hostel
Miles today: 22.0

It pours overnight for hours. I'm glad to be in the shelter. Packing up and drying out a wet tent is no fun. But I can't complain about the weather. Other than a brush with hypothermia on Saddleback and a lightning storm way back on Smarts Mountain the weather has generally been great for hiking since Hanover. Of course in some places the rocks and roots never dry out, but that's not the weather's fault. In fact the last several days have been too warm and left me drenched in sweat. But the next five days to Katahdin look perfect - partly sunny with highs around 70.Over breakfast in the shelter - my usual two cups of applesauce - I meet two tenters who are also flip-floppers who started from Harper's Ferry. Once they reach Katahdin they'll fly home to Florida for a week then go back to Harper's Ferry to hike south. At this point another thousand miles sounds unattractive to me even with a week's break. I am completely in sync with the Georgia-to-Maine crowd that is eager to get it done. Out I go to make the miles - 22 today to Monson. The trail is not as consistently pleasant as yesterday - unsurprisingly there's more mud and wet rocks - but it's generally fast terrain. Moxie Bald is the only mountain today, and provides another remembrance of southern Maine, slowing me down more than I expect. Must be the humidity. The rest of the day drags with little to distract me but counting down the miles. I scan ponds and bogs for moose with no success. I stumble upon a pair of some kind of game bird up on a bald. They don't move until I'm within a few feet. Once or twice I hear crashing in the brush not far off. Could be a deer, or something larger. Frogs frequently hop across the trail, and the occasional small snake slithers away from this rampaging hiker.Only a handful of southbounders pass by and I pass only one northbounder, a girl with a giant pack gingerly fording the Piscataquis River. I follow a precariously laid log across instead, but it requires some agility and ledge scrambling up the bank that a heavy pack would preclude. At the other branch of the Piscataquis I walk across a makeshift dam of small rocks and branches that seem to float on the water. So far no wet feet at any of the fords called for in the guide. But I stop at a brook to get water and linger too long, listening to it babble and enjoying the blue sky. I presume the trail crosses it and I hop over across rocks. But there's no trail on the other side. I hop back, choosing a loose rock that sends my foot underwater. Oh well, wet socks for the rest of the day. I find the trail further up from the bank on the original side.In the final stretch towards Monson I cross a dirt road that leads to a trailhead parking lot and find trail magic! Lucky1 greets me and his buddy puts a PBR in my hand. They're grilling up burgers and dogs. Four others from the shelter last night are already there - the twins, Murphy, and her companion. They've been pacing me since the Whites. The cold beer tastes great and the fat hot dog takes the edge off my hunger that had put food fantasies in my head all afternoon. Lucky1 has 4000 miles on the trail including a 2013 SOBO thruhike. He's doing another hike through Maine this year but took time off to help a friend in Caratunk and do some trail magic. He's ex-Army, took a bullet to the head fighting in Sadr City in Iraq in 2008. His trail name refers to his miraculous survival. Earl Shaffer, the first thruhiker in 1948, said he did it to "walk the war out of me". Lucky1 seems to have done the same.At the road, Ishba, 2015 thruhiker, picks me up for Shaw's hostel. He sought a hostel job to stay close to the trail and thought about opening his own hostel, but is put off by the long hours. Hikers are a demanding lot, for sure. Shaw's is a trail icon, serving thruhikers for 40 years. The place is swarming with hikers, some in bunks and some tenting on the lawn. There are lawn games and people lounging around the picnic tables. The current owner shows me around while carrying her baby boy Finn on her hip. Waterboy is lounging on the couch, recovering now from sore knees instead of Giardia. He's 18 years old. As I'm taking care of a shower and laundry I run into the last people I expected to find here: River Rock and Jibber Jabber, folks I met last month in Pennsylvania on a section hike with my son Phantump. We were all sheltering from a sudden rainstorm. The two Georgians were taking it slow and decided to stay put for the night around 11am. Now they've flipped up to Katahdin and finished the 100 Mile Wilderness and have been resting at Shaw's for a couple of days, slowly working on an 18" gas station pizza.Gas station pizza is a real thing in Maine. It's good stuff. I get a 12" buffalo chicken pizza. But I've made no progress since that first pizza I bought way back in Pen Mar park, Maryland on my second day. I still leave two slices and donate them to hungry hikers. In fact there's a scale here and I weigh in at only 155 pounds. I'm probably in the best shape of my life, and eating more than ever, but I can't keep the weight on. I started the hike at 177, well below the 210s I had occupied for years, and even by Hanover I was still 165. My size 32 pants have a cinch strap that is no longer enough to keep them from slipping. My size 30-34 backpack waistbelt can be tightened no further. I'm going to market the "Southern Maine Diet" and see how that flies. Of course, three months after I stop and my metabolism figures out it no longer needs to burn 6000 calories a day, I'll be in trouble. At the AT visitor center in town there's a register for summiting Katahdin. I put myself down for the 28th. Pretty Boy is down for the 29th. I see Mantis and Family Size, two guys I met on my first day in Maryland, also scheduled for the 29th. Three months and 1100 miles later and we end up in practically the same place, despite my on/off schedule. At the hostel I see Lucky Penny and Already Stinky are checked in, a couple I met and last saw in High Point Park, New Jersey where I clued them in on the free sodas from the staff.It's amazing what happens when everyone is moving in a one-dimensional universe. You tend to bump into the same people again and again.Housekeeping note: I will likely not be able to update my journal until after I summit Katahdin on the 28th. There's no wifi or even cell signal in the 100 Mile Wilderness last I checked. In the meantime, Mom and Dad, I will not have been eaten by a bear or fallen in a ravine. Fifty people a day will pass by if I need help. There are logging roads for emergency access. Next you hear from me I will be done the northern half of the AT!