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September 21 – Canoeing Across the Kennebec: From Injuries to Indulgence
9/21
We wake up in our tents at the side of the road; somehow we have avoided being murdered in our sleep by either axe murderers or moose. And Flamethrower must have kept me alive for my critical navigational skills, because I can’t imagine any other reason she didn’t follow through on her numerous facetious threats to unalive me and dump my body in the wilderness.
Anyway, so here we are… 1.6 miles from, hopefully, the trail. Or possibly less, to find out we can’t get there and need to hike a gazillion miles back. So after a quick breakfast, we pack our tents, dress, and leave. No cars have passed us since we started this adventure yesterday, and we’re not expecting any today either.
We make good time and get to the trail at 9:15. If we can get another 8 miles away before 2 PM, we can catch the ferry today. The trail is pretty flat, so we have a good possibility. The original plan was to get to Pierce Pond camp tonight and do the ferry tomorrow. But after all this excitement, I want a burger. I’m also playing on Flamethrower’s love of onion rings by mentioning them constantly. So the trail is pretty flat; there are a few rocky sections, but it’s an easy day. Lots of pretty moss, plenty of moose sign, still no moose. There is some water and mud on the trail, but it’s not too bad.
We’re making great time, and my knee isn’t even screaming, but at one point I hear a squealy scream come from behind me and assume Flamethrower has stepped deep into the mud; it happens. But not today. Apparently, she got a pretty good twist on her ankle. I run back toward her and see her limping away. I see images of helicopters in my head. She reports it hurts and that it cracked. I tell her cracking isn’t super abnormal for a twist, and she tries to walk it off. She is able to return to hiking speed, so now the two injured girls are hiking on, still racing the clock.
We make it to the shelter 4.2 miles away in under 2 hours and complete nearly all the elevation gain for the day getting there. I tell Flamethrower we’re not stopping and need to hike on.
This is where we take the blue trail to Pierce Pond Camp, because they have a bridge that crosses the river; otherwise, we’ll have to ford it, and the water is at least knee-high. We rush down the trail and fly across the bridge. We’re still trying to get to the ferry. I don’t know how close to 2 PM we need to get there to actually cross. Oh, and FYI, the ferry is a three-person canoe. It even has two white blazes taped to its belly.
When we get to the point with two miles left and we have two hours, I allow Flamethrower a 10-minute break to refill her water, eat a snack, and pee. I also need to relieve my bladder, and I hike around a bend, which is where we run into the first person we’ve seen on the trail all day, and he’s coming in our direction. Seriously, if I ever get lost in the woods, all I need to do is get ready to pee, and an entire parade of people will show up out of thin air just to watch… time to start a streaming service?
After the guy passes, I finally get a moment of privacy. Then I drag Flamethrower back to the trail to finish our death march to the ferry. The terrain gets a bit tricky and rocky, but soon we’re on the shore of the Kennebec.
I can see the ferry (canoe) on the other side, but the operator is walking away. I presume to use the bathroom. Soon he’s back, and I flag him down. He starts to fight his way over; then Flamethrower arrives, and another person. It’s the guy who didn’t finish his section hike last year that we met at the barn hostel. He’s also the guy, Old Bay, who gave us our first update on the injured hiker. We’ll get another update tomorrow.
The ferry can only take two passengers at a time, so we go first. I’m asked to help paddle. The current is strong, so we mostly fight to go upriver before getting to the shore. The whole trip takes less than 10 minutes, and most of the time is spent fighting the current.
We pop out, and I put my shoes back on. I switched to my water shoes, knowing I’d likely be stepping in and out of the boat in or near the water. Once out, we sit, and I put my shoes back on. My feet are very waterlogged from hiking in wet shoes, but now we’re 0.4 miles from town, so we head in. And by town, I mean the road.
Flamethrower has some signal and contacts the hostel for rooms and a pickup. We’re quickly collected and come into the hostel. We see Boojum and Cheeto and a few others out front. We’re excited to see each other; it’s been a long time. Then we go inside and get our room settled, then buy a frozen pizza and drink a few sodas. We change into loaner clothing, unpack our gear, hang up our wet tents to dry, cast off our vile shoes, then go downstairs to eat the pre-dinner pizza. I drink a root beer and a Moxie, both full sugar.
In less than 3 hours, we’ll be going to the pub for more food. As we’re wandering around, we run into Firebird. She just got in today too. She heard from the ferry operator that they were going to be opening the dam and raising the water level, so they may have had to close the ferry early today; thankfully, they didn’t. I would have been devastated to hear cars and smell food but be unable to get it. We catch up with Firebird and make some tentative plans for the 100-mile wilderness. She’s leaving tomorrow. I promised Flamethrower a zero because we wouldn’t have been here till tomorrow anyway, so we kinda earned it by rushing through the woods.
We retreat to have showers and put on cleanish clothing for the pub which is when we are greeted by Snow and Smoke, the two hostel kittens. Snow has wobbly kitten syndrome, so she’s not as playful, but Smoke is a fierce baby girl trying to play with anything and everything. At only 6 months old, they are still tiny and ohhh so cute. But they are all over our expensive gear, so I have to redirect that baby girl to the top of the bed for appropriate cuddles and snuggles. Omg, how precious. And how well socialized these babies are.
Soon it’s dinner time, and we’re whisked off to dinner at Northern Outdoors. They are also a hostel. We have beer, poutine, salads, and entrees. I have a nice piece of fried haddock. Then we kill an hour on the couch waiting for the ride to come back at the designated time. There is a 20-person hot tub just outside, but it’s too cold to go in. But boy, do we want to.
Soon we’re on our way back to the hostel; this is where I meet Sobo hiker Mouseketeer and Section Hiker, Kiosk. We all trade stories and info. It turns out that we’ve met Kiosk before. She was the ridgerunner we met in NJ that gave us a great rundown of all the water sources we might encounter. We also joked about the Pepto-Bismol pink privies in NJ. Apparently, there are two NJ privies that are pink on the inside. In a word, it was jarring, but still entertaining. We all chat for over an hour, mostly talking trail stuff, then soon head off to our rooms. Pretty soon I’m off to dreamland. My bed has four pillows. I’m in bliss.
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