Day 15, June 30
13.5 miles
Spaulding Mountain Lean-to
In the morning, I bought a dozen eggs and ate about half of them for breakfast. I’m sure I’m not getting enough protein on the trail, so I try to make up for it when I can. I wrapped the rest of the eggs up in a couple tortillas and packed them up to bring with me for lunch.
The night before, I had met a young couple, Maeve and Sancho, and Wizard, Rivet, Athena, Bo-line, and Skywalker, all other sobos. The latter five call themselves “Los Sobos Lobos,” collectively, and I had been following them in the registers for almost a week. Athena was very excited that I was female. There are stretches that I go for days at a time without seeing any other women, so female company is definitely appreciated. Skywalker is also 18 and just graduated from high school, the only other thru hiker I have met that is my age.
We split up into groups of two or three to hitch back out to the trail. Skywalker and I walked out the door, I stuck my thumb out, and the first car pulled over immediately and offered us a ride. The woman who drove us said she had never picked up hikers before, but her husband, who guides bear hunts, picks up hikers all the time. So far hitching has been a breeze, and since all the guys want to hitch with women, because we get picked up quicker, I don’t have to worry about hitching alone if I feel unsafe.
We spread out pretty quickly when we started hiking. Skywalker is very fast, as are the other men, but most of them prefer to hike shorter days, so I’ve caught up even though I started six days after most of them. The hike was tough. We went over a few 4,000 footers, and some of the climbs were just that, pretty much straight up. I think the reason I have been so fast so far is not because I hike quickly, because I don’t, especially now that I’m hiking in crocs, but because I am simply willing to keep hiking and push longer days, and so far my body has not broken down, or even really complained much. So now that we are starting to hit some real mountains, I am going to have to slow down. I get really tired going uphill, and I have to be very cautious of my feet on the downhill.
It was nice to get to camp knowing there would be friendly faces already there, and I enjoyed spending time with people I had already met and people my age. (Or at least closer to it: Rivet is 41).
Day 16, July 1
8 miles
Poplar Ridge Lean-to
We had checked the weather in town and knew a storm was predicted for the day, so Los Sobos Lobos decided to take a zero day (hike zero miles) at the shelter. I still wanted to keep moving and planned on meeting a friend the next morning further along the trail, so I headed out for a short day to the next shelter.
The rain was light at first, but I was drenched by the time I got to the lean-to. There were a couple other sobos, Becca and Flower Child, taking a break, and a handful of nobos showed up shortly after I did. The nobos decided they had had enough for the day, after walking through hail on the summit of Saddleback, so they and I settled in for the night. The nobos were four guys in their twenties, but they were waiting on a 73-yr-old named Lucky who hiked with them as well. Lucky had just lost his rain jacket, so they were getting worried when it had been two hours since they had arrived at the shelter and he still had not shown up. Flower Child and Becca left at half past two, and not five minutes after they left, Lucky showed up. He told us he had spent the past two hours in the privy, because he walked past the privy originally but did not see the lean-to (this privy was exceptionally far from the shelter), so he decided he had to get out of the rain somehow, and if the wind and weather lightened up, he would continue on then. It was not until Flower Child and Becca went to use the privy on their way out and told him we were all waiting just ahead that he finally left the privy.
Everyone was relieved Lucky was safe, so once he settled in, we all fell asleep and took a two-hour nap. The sound of the rain on the aluminum roofs of the shelters has proven to be more effective than any “nature sounds” at putting hikers to sleep. As soon as the rain blew over, we all woke up. Per thru hiker custom, we promptly cooked dinner, ate some more food after dinner while we all lay around chatting, then went back to sleep.
We cannot figure why sometimes there are so few blazes you are not even sure you are on the right trail, and other times when the trail itself is obviously the trail, not just a stream, or a moose run, there are an abundance of blazes. I never realized before this trip just how much work goes into maintaining the trail. The number of massive blow-downs left from this winter that we had to work around was gargantuan, yet there are so many more that have already been cut. There are also bog bridges, or logs that are sliced in half and mounted a little off the ground in some particularly wet areas. Often the trees begin to encroach on the trail and need to be clipped back, and erosion presents a constant battle that can only be fought with brute force and machinery. Thank you so much to everyone who volunteers to help maintain the trail (shoutout to Rory Schadler and Maddy Allen, who are both working trail crew sometime this summer) and everyone who donates to make those repairs possible.
Day 17, July 2
10.7 miles
Sam’s house!
I had arranged a couple days before to meet my friend Sam from home on the top of Saddleback Mountain at 10 am. Sam’s family owns a home in Rangeley, the next town I was crossing through, so I would stay with them for a couple nights, rest a little, and get to see Sam. To get to the summit of Saddleback, I first had to climb Saddleback Junior and the Horn, including at least 2 miles above tree cover. I caught up with Flower Child and Becca at the summit of the Horn. The wind was blowing so fiercely we struggled to keep our balance, and Becca’s hat went flying at one point. It seemed like the perfect moment for a photo op, though we knew the pictures could not do justice to the crazy weather. I ran into a surprisingly large number of northbounders while crossing the ridge line. I think both parties have been startled by the number of thru hikers coming from the other direction–us because we did not expect to see so many nobos so early and the nobos because they did not expect to see so many of us at all!
Meeting Sam right at the summit was a bizarre feeling. Since no one has passed me yet, for the past week, everyone I meet while walking is someone new. I never know anyone ahead of me, and I certainly do not know any of the nobos. Knowing exactly whom I would see, and where, was a different kind of excitement. I also had not seen anyone from home yet, so it felt a bit like worlds colliding.
It was awesome to sleep in a room with no one else in it for the first time in weeks.
Day 18, July 3
Zero miles
Sam’s house
I woke up in the morning and ate a wonderful breakfast with Sam and his family, then sat and supervised while Sam built some stairs and cleared a few trees. After lunch, Sam took a nap, and I sorted through my food.
We kayaked around the lake before dinner for a couple hours, which was not only incredibly beautiful, but also really interesting because we were on the same lake that I canoed on during my Outward Bound trip two years ago.
After dinner, Sam and his younger brother and I drove into town to watch the fireworks. Rangeley’s fireworks are the biggest for miles around, so there were thousands of people. I loved seeing Sam and getting to spend some time with nowhere to go, but I’ve got miles to go before I sleep.
zucchini walking 