Northern Maine… It Comes with Rain and More Pain, but also My Favorite Brewery!

In comparison to the tough terrain of southern Maine, I was told that northern Maine would be easy. And… well.. yes… in comparison it was easier. But I would not define it as just plain ol’ easy. It was flatter, but that didn’t mean you were any less focused on watching your feet as you rock or root hopped around inundated trails that had simply become muddy swamps. It was beautiful to hike past lakes and rivers and not have to worry about when you could next resupply your water. But enjoying that beauty would been stopping hiking long enough for the mosquitoes to catch up to you and really begin feasting.

I start my story of northern Maine the day I hiked to the Kennebec River. On the way is Harrison’s Pierce Pond Camp, run by a man named Tim, who apparently makes a delicious breakfast for hikers in the morning. I was told to stop by, if only to at least get to see what a traditional Maine sporting camp is like. Sadly, I could not find Tim when I was there.

Crossing The Kennebec

I camped that night on the banks of the Kennebec River. The Kennebec River is a wide river with upstream dam releases every day that suddenly drastically change the depth and current of the river. For this reason, it is here, and only here, that the AMC has hired someone to shuttle hikers via canoe across the river. In the morning, I woke up to discover that the tramily of hikers whom I resupplied in Andover with (Lava, House, Twistys, Beanie, and Walrus) were also waiting to cross the river.

One of My Favorite Breweries

Once I discovered that they planned to go to the brewery in Caratunk (it was a brewery I had heard about back when I was in The Whites) I decided to stick with them for the day. First, we went to The Stirling Inn, which offered resupply, and free showers and laundry to hikers (even without staying there). We then shuttled to the brewery and arrived at the brewery brimming with excitement. Why were we so excited? What was so special about this brewery? I’ll tell you the reasons I was aware of: the brewery was known for its blueberry beer that they put fresh wild blueberries in and a giant 20-person jacuzzi we could use. Once inside, we found that it also had a giant pool, outdoor yard games such as cornhole, and that the food was just as delicious. We enjoyed ourselves so much that we ended up not leaving the brewery until after 3:00 p.m.

As we headed out onto the trail, we then ran into trail magic at the trailhead! Yes, we had just eaten. But hikers are always hungry, and we never say no to food. So we sat down and hung out there for another hour. So then it was not until 4:00 that we finally ambled onto the trail. Good thing it was a nice day with good weather. Right? Riggghhhttttt? …. Well, the sky heard our whoops of happiness and decided to open up and pour on us in response.

Well, we had spoken with some SOBO hikers that day at the brewery who informed us that the trail was full of mud, swamps, mosquitoes, and PUDs (pointless ups and downs).  We also knew that the next few days were scheduled to continue raining, and we all wanted to get out of the rain ASAP and make it to Monson as quickly as we could (this tramily was a group of NOBO’s and Monson is the official start of the 100-mile-wilderness, the gateway to the beginning of the end, so needless to say, these NOBOs were excited to be so close). So, as we set out from Caratunk at 4:00 p.m., with the threat of rain looming over our heads and the idea of muddy swampy PUDs in our future, we decided it would be a better use of our time and energy to road walk.

Road walking is exactly what it sounds like. It’s when hikers find a road that intersects with the trail that we can take and walk upon that will then drop us back off later down the trail. The benefits of road walking are primarily that it is flat, meaning we can walk faster (closer to 3mph instead of the 2mph we attempt to do on the root-ridden, mud-filled pathways of the AT). Road walking does not always guarantee lower mileage, often sometimes it means more mileage, but it is less mentally and technically taxing. Some thru-hikers detest the idea of road-walking since it takes a hiker around sections of the trail, and thus they may dub a hiker who road walks as someone who “did not actually complete XX trail.” I am not here to argue one way or the other. All I can say is that this was my first ever road walk, and I have no regrets. Even with road walking, we did not get into camp until 9:30 at night, spending the last hour of our time hiking with headlamps on.

We knew that the next day the trail crisscrossed over a river that SOBOs had warned us about crossing. It rained all night, and by the morning, we decided it would be safer to road walk again rather than risk the swollen river (river crossings are some of the most dangerous obstacles for thru-hikers, and this year of non-stop pouring rain has made them very risky). We still had to hike about 8 miles of trail before we could get on the road we identified would take us into Monson, and let me tell you… it was a pretty miserable, wet, cold 8 miles.

This was the single worst day of rain I had experienced up to this point. It was nonstop. Hard. Cold. Miserable.

Monson and Shaw’s Hiker Hostel

We got into Monson in the early afternoon, around 2:00. There is one main hostel there, potentially the most famous hostel on the entire AT: Shaw’s Hiker Hostel. Its fame is likely due to a mix of its longevity on the trail and that it was referenced in the well-known book “A Walk in the Woods.” Also, for NOBO’s it is at the entrance to the 100-mile wilderness and potentially the last hostel we will stay at before summiting; whereas for SOBO’s it is one of the first hostels they get to stay at and the owners provide a great “shakedown” (where they help you go through your pack and decide what items are necessary to keep on a thru-hike, and which items you can toss to save weight).

So I was not surprised when we got there to find all the beds were full and their only option was tenting.

However, I was lucky. I have a family friend in Maine who I called. She said she lived around 30 minutes from Monson and could pick me up within the hour. Unfortunately, we could not take the whole rest of the tramily with us, but I promised to come back and meet up with them for the 100-mile wilderness.

While I waited for my friend to show up, I topped off my fuel with my new FlipFuel device (I’m still loving this thing! If you want to know more about it, check out this post and remember, if you want one too you can get 20% off with my code “Rover20“) and rummaged through the hiker box and found enough protein bars to get me through the rest of Maine!!! (Not an overexaggeration. I really did get through the entire rest of Maine with these protein bars I found in the hiker box).

My family friend then picked me up, brought me home to shower and do laundry, and then took me out to a nice dinner that her and her friends put on at each other’s houses.

It was fun being surrounded by people and being able to tell them all about my adventures and plans to hike through the 100 and climb Katahdin… which is the topic of my next post!!!