Almost There!

Day 162 Pond Camp To Caratunk ME — AT Daily Miles 3.6; AT Total Miles 2046.0

I had a great night’s sleep listening to the thunderstorm. The rain was really heavy on the cabin’s roof. It was still going on in the morning even. The good news was we had a very light day planned so we could wait out the bad weather.  By 8:30 AM, the storm front passed and it was time to hit the trail. We only had about 3 1/2 miles to get in to get to the next town and had about a five hour window between storms to do it. The trail cooperated and we were at the Appalachian Trail’s ferry across the Kennebec river in two hours.

The Kennebec river is too deep, wide, and dangerous to try to ford. There are drownings here every year. So the ATC has a person with a canoe to ferry two hikers at a time across the river. It’s one of the iconic moments of the trail.  Once across the trail, it was less than half a mile to the pick up point for our shuttle to the inn we were staying at. The Sterling Inn caters to hikers and has a great resupply. With storms forecasted in the afternoon, Airhead and I decided to take the afternoon off and get ready for the two hard days ahead of us into Monson, Maine.

Once in Monson, we will have to check the weather again before heading into the last big challenge before Katahdin, the 100 Mile Wilderness. We will need about six days to get through it and an additional day to summit and finish. Though we have a deadline we want to be smart and do as much of our last week and a half worth of hiking in as good as weather as we can choose.

Cabin Stay

Stream Ford

Kennebec River

Day 163 Caratunk ME To Bald Mountain Brook — AT Daily Miles 14.7; AT Total Miles 2060.7

I was talking to my wife last night and she was laughing about how much food I eat these days. For you AT’ers, I thought I would detail what we eat when we get into a town. Yesterday was two high protein oatmeal packets for breakfast, three trail bars and a pack of pop tarts for lunch, a half a large three meat pizza and a pint of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream for second lunch, two pints of beer and fish and chips for dinner, and then another pint of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream before bed. I’m not sure how many calories we burn in a day but I’ve heard it is somewhere around 4000. We have to eat as much as we can when we can since we can’t carry that much food realistically when hiking.

Hiking for the day wasn’t really good or bad. It was just typical Maine. That means lots of roots and mud these days. There were a couple of ponds and a couple of bogs too. Again, typical Maine hiking so far. Throw in a few mountains that we climbed over and it was a full day at just under 15 miles.

Now it means at least a 19 mile day tomorrow to get to the trailhead and could be as many as 22 depending on how the day shakes out and where the shuttle will pick us up. We got to the shelter early tonight so that will mean early to bed and an early start in the morning. It’s supposed to be a nice day with not as much elevation gain as we had today so we should be able to get some good miles in and get into town at a decent time. If for some reason, things don’t go well we will just spend another night in the woods and go into town the  following morning.

Mountain Top View

Beaver Pond

Stream Crossing

Day 164 Bald Mountain Brook To Monson ME — AT Daily Miles 18.7; AT Total Miles 2079.4

We ended up getting up at 4:30 AM and on the trail before 6 AM. Within an hour we were over our only mountain climb of the day. That’s the way to get a day started! We expected the rest of the day to be mainly flat or downhill so we knew we would make good time. We would need to because it would be 18 miles to the trailhead that leads into town plus another 2 mile road walk.

The day itself went pretty much as expected except that there were three different rivers that we had to ford. In all three cases the water was just above our knees. On one of the three I slipped and went down on my rear end so I got quite wet lol. The worst thing about crossing these rivers is the time it takes to take off your shoes and put on something more waterproof and then get your hiking shoes back on again after the river crossing. I hate getting slowed down like that, but it’s necessary.

In the end, we were able to make it into town and check into the hostel by 4 PM. If you’ve been reading my blogs, then you know my routine by now. That means a shower, laundry, resupply and a big dinner. The biggest difference in this case though is that Airhead and I plan on taking either one or two days off to let weather pass so the resupply is going to wait until we are sure what we need.

So tomorrow I should know more about what the weather is going to do and how much time off I’m going to take off before tackling the 100 Mile Wilderness. Then it will be about six days of hiking there plus one day to summit Katahdin and my Appalachian Trail through hike of 2024 will be complete. I can’t believe it’s almost over!

Morning Hike

River to Ford

Lake Hebron

Days 165-167 Monson ME Rest Days — AT Daily Miles 0; AT Total Miles 2079.4

The plan of two zero days to avoid the weather turned into three and still won’t avoid all of it. It will avoid a good portion of it, and put us on the trail for more good weather than bad though. Plus, we will still meet Airhead’s deadline to get him finished in time for his motorcycle convention. That was always an important goal for us. Plus taking days off at Shaw’s could be a lot worse. It’s a very cool hiker friendly hostel.  Shaw’s has everything a hiker could possibly need and more. That includes first-hand knowledge of what’s upcoming and great advice. Poet and Hippie Chick have been wonderful hosts. I will really hate to leave here.

The town of Monson Maine is very cool too. It doesn’t have a lot of amenities but just enough. I’ve been having dinners at the local tavern and the gas station serves good lunches. Combine that with the tremendous breakfast here at the hostel and I may actually put back on a few pounds.

The plan for the rest of the trip is now to do the 100 Mile Wilderness in five days instead of the originally planned six. That’s largely due to so many rest days here. Then we have one day to get registered at Baxter State Park and hike to the trailhead where we will summit Katahdin on the following day. That’s the plan at least for now. We have one extra day built into the schedule if we need it.

The next blog will detail the end of the journey. I plan to do some follow-up blogs on what worked and what didn’t. On all my trips I like to do what’s called an autopsy detailing what I might change if I ever did it again. It helps me better plan for the next trip. I’m not sure there will be anything quite like this ever again in my future though! Maybe just some week or multi week treks.

Shaw’s Hostel

Monson Maine

Poet’s Pancake Masterpiece