I wanna go to Maine

Day 131:

Today is a day for leaving. 3 times leaving. But we’ll get there. First, we left the hostel, and the white mountains behind at 7:30. We got dropped off at the rod we slackpacked to yesterday, and were underway. The early morning was easy. We started with a nice long road walk, followed by a pretty steady climb up to the mountains. What mountain? Well I have no idea. But we climbed it with ease.

Whoever said Vermont was the muddy state, LIED. New Hampshire is really the muddy state. We learned that yesterday during our slack pack, when our feet were soggy for literally 12 straight hours. Did they dry overnight? Absolutely not. And so, our feet were soggy again today. And on the mountain tops it was again boggy and wet. Our feet got covered in mud, and literally never dried again.

The views were pretty nice up there though! We got some nice looks back at the white mountains, which look a whole lot bigger from where we were than when we hiked through them. You could’ve almost convinced me that they were 10000 footers. But as beautiful as it was, it was insanely windy. And so we couldn’t linger too long on the summits, we had work to do.

Thems the Whites!

Approximately 0.5 miles before we got to camp for the night, we hit our second leaving for the day. We left New Hampshire! And into Maine we go! Our final state! It’s a pretty crazy feeling to be honest. We’re literally like 2.5 weeks away from Katahdin, which is nutso. But we still had a little hiking to do, so we continue on (after listening to Maine by Noah Kahan, duh). The rest of the way was rocky, but not very hard.

MAINE!

The third leaving? I left my god damn TENT. Where did I leave my tent? I haven’t the faintest clue. I called the hostel we stayed at, and they didn’t have it. It’s simply not in my backpack. I haven’t the faintest clue where it went at all. So that’s truly wonderful. Fortunately we’re at a shelter tonight, so it’s not an issue for now, but I’m really really upset about it.

Quote of the day: “What’s this conversation about? Testicles?”

Today I’m grateful for ponds, big boards, and fixable problems.

Day 132:

Today is the day. Probably the hardest single day we have on trail. We’re about to cover the 2 slowest miles of the entire trail. Good news? We’re refreshed and ready to go! Bad news? My shoes are STILL WET. So yknow, not the most pleasant way to start the day.

Before we hit our tough part of the day, we have to cross a couple mountains first. It was cold, windy, and damp up on top. Which was certainly less than pleasant. But there was some good news! We had been told all the way up the trail that there were thigh deep swamps on top of this mountain, with no big boards to get over. And we were fully prepared to ride that out. But fortunately, someone replaced all the boards! So we crossed totally dry!

10:30 was when we hit the first part of our challenge for the day. The Mahoosic Notch. This is an infamous boulder field which is well known to be the slowest mile on the trail. Some of the people we talked to yesterday took a full 2 hours to clear it. And we were about to take it on.

You’re telling me this is the trail???

And you know what? It was actually pretty damn fun! It just felt a lot like rock climbing! And a mile of rock scrambling? Sign me up! We had an absolute BLAST going through there. Up boulders, across chasms, under caves. We had to pull our packs off a couple times. Did we have to make an emergency medical stop to patch a knee? Potentially. We definitely walked the line of having too much fun and not enough safety. But yknow what? Sometimes in life you just gotta ride that line and see what happens.

Lindsey chillin in a cave after her medical procedure

All in all it took us about an hour and a half to do the notch, including the medical stop. Pretty darn quick relatively speaking, but enough time to bring us to lunch. We sat at a nice tent site and fueled up for the next challenge of the day. You see, the Mahoosic Notch leads immediately into the Mahoosic Arm, a 1600 foot, 1 mile climb. And super technical at that. So this is the second half of the hardest 2 miles on trail. But honestly? The climb wasn’t that awful. It was long, for sure, and not easy. But I think people were over worrying about how bad it was. We hung out at the top to recoup for a minute, then hit the road.

Our other challenge for the day was to solve my tent problem. I had to contact a shuttle driver and head into town to try and get a new one. We did just that, and got into town around 5:30. The store didn’t have a great selection of tents, but I got one that will work well enough for 2 more week (holy shit???), and we were back under way. After a quick or stop at a gas station, we hit the trail again around 6:30.

It was only 2 miles from there to the shelter, so we got there in good time, around 7:30. Relatively late for us, but considering the day we had, I’ll take it. I setup my tent, just to experiment. It’s not the fastest to set up, but it’ll do for now. And it’s a 2 person, so boy is it spacious. And then it was sleep time!

Today was a really fun day all in all. This is traditionally considered the toughest day on trail, but I found it lore fun than anything. I like a good challenge, plus I also think the Mahoosic Notch is so up mine and Lindsey’s alley that it was way more fun for us than most people. And we solved the tent crisis! I do really miss my old tent, but maybe it’ll show up. The trail provides.

Quote of the day: “I’m being birthed”

Today I’m grateful for boulder bros, Rodney, and buffalo chicken.

Day 133:

Well what’s the best way to follow up the hardest day in trail? Well with a pretty easy one. Obviously I didn’t know that was gonna happen when I woke up, but spoilers I guess. We had a short climb to do first. We had to too the Baldpates, a twin set of mountains which provide an amazing view of basically all of Maine in front of you. And indeed they were pretty cool. From the east peak, it looked like a looooooong way to the west peak, but it was actually a really quick crossing. From the saddle in between I saw Lindsey on top of the other peak. I tried to take a cool picture but it didn’t really come out.

I ended up catching Lindsey about 20 minutes later, but she wanted some more alone time, so I stopped at the shelter to hang out and use the privy while also giving her time to get ahead. And I took the rest of the day pretty chill. But the trail really provided for that. It was flat and wide, and mostly on dirt and pine needles. There were even fewer bogs than normal. This was probably the easiest day of hiking we’ve had since, oh vermont? Massachusetts?

Anyways it was LOVELY. I sat by a nice lake for my lunch, hoping to see a moose (I didn’t), then started to long, steady ascent up to the mountain top and the next shelter. I found Lindsey there, almost asleep. She said she was feeling pooped, so we decided to call it early and just stay there for the rest of the day. That turned out to be a great call, cause we ran into a bunch of our friend who were also staying there the night. Marathon, Chappie, Hawaii and Red Maple all ended up there, and we had a nice little party at the shelter. We almost had to fight some chipmunks, but other than that all good.

Man Maine is really a treat. The trail is open and well maintained, the views are all stunning. I can see why people say this is the best state on trail. I’m lovin it, and I’m feeling really good. Would Iike to push more miles? Probably, but somehow when enough friends show up to the shelter I can live with it. Shocker there.

Quote of the day: “Oh don’t worry, I have to poop so it’s all good”

Today I’m grateful for dirt, balds, and pissing leaves.

Day 134:

Today was gonna be a bit of an interesting day. To start with, we had to make our way 4 miles up and down a seemingly very steep descent, climb, and second descent, to get to a road where we were gonna meet a shuttle into town to resupply. So yeah, big itinerary ahead. I was out by 6:45 to meet the shuttle at 10.

Why so early for only 4 miles? Well, it was hard to tell just how long those were gonna take. The topography looked pretty steep, and it’s always tough to judge how long climbs and descents are gonna take, especially out here. But there was no need to worry, this one didn’t take very long at all. Apart from a 10 minute stretch where I got very lost and ended up walking over to a beaver dam before thinking “surely this can’t be right.” I found my way eventually though!

Marathon met me in the middle of the descent and together we met Lindsey at the road at around 9:30. We enererfained ourselves with a nice game of “try to bounce the rocks through the trekking poles” until our shuttle got there. Shout out Marathon for providing the poles. We got dropped off at the general store, where we ate, resupplied, and charged our devices. And that was basically our next 4 hours! We just hung out for a good long while.

We rolled back to trail around 3. We had one steep climb in front of us, which was kinda brutal with our packs newly heavy from resupplying. But we all ended up making it up. From there, it was a pretty chill 3 miles to the shelter. We still ended up getting in pretty late, but overall it was fine. We were still there before dark.

A pretty dope view we got right before the shelter

Today was an even more chill day than yesterday, somehow. Even though the terrain was harder, the 4 hour break in the middle made it real nice. But yeah, still feeling pretty good. Have had plenty of town food the last few days so that definitely keeps morale high!

Quote of the day: “You can’t ask for a silver spoon when you’re shitting in the woods”

Today I’m grateful for trekking poles, haze, and deep conversations.

Day 135:

I woke up late today. How late? 6:30! What a sleep in. Well actually today was probably not the day to sleep in, considering i had 19 miles to do. But oh well. And while I’m sleeping in I may as well do a chill morning, complete with hot breakfast. And after all that, I still hit trail by 7. I simply don’t understand how that works but yknow, magic I guess.

Today was a super cruisy day, with barely more than a few hundred feet of elevation change in any direction at any one time. This morning, that flatness came with open, gorgeous views of the mountains in front of me. That’s kinda the fun part of Maine, it’s back to seeing all the mountains you’re gonna climb. It’s like way down in Tennessee. Now sometimes that ISNT super fun, when you have steep stuff to climb, but today that was pretty nice.

Around 9 I climbed up to an overlook that looked back towards the lake that we’ve been walking by since yesterday. Not super close to it or anything, but it’s been there since like a mile from the shelter, so it’s been there a long time (it’s a big lake). There was a bench there, so I sat and just looked at the view for a while. Rabbit and Marathon caught up to me up there, and we sat and ate snacks and chatted for a little while. Eventually I decided to push on a little bit before them. That would be my worst mistake of the day.

Hello water feature!

Like I said, the day was super cruisy. The trail in Maine so far has been really really nice, mostly open plain dirt, with a few roots here and there to trip you up. There are for sure a fair amount of bogs, but nothing awful. By noon I had arrived at the shores of another lake. This one had a nice little sandy area right in the shore. It wasn’t quite wide enough to sit and eat lunch, but there was a campsite I sat at there to eat anyways. And it was lovely.

The rest of the afternoon passed without event, until I paused to fill my water and got caught up by Rabbit and Marathon again. Remember when I said leaving them was a mistake? Well turns out they got trail magic literally 30 seconds after I left. Absolute tragedy. But it’s ok, they were very kind and shared some of what they packed out with me. We spent most of the rest of the day hiking together.

We got to the shelter little late, around 6:30. I went and checked in with Lindsey, but she went to bed not long after I got there so we didn’t hang out much, which I feel a little badly about. But there was a sick crew in the shelter tonight, and we sat and talked for a long time. It’s been raining for the past couple hours, and to be honest I’m quite glad I’m not in a tent tonight!

Man, maine just keep getting better. The views here are tremendous, the hiking is lovely. There lakes ad rivers and every type of water feature you could ask for. This is for sure one of my favorite states so far. Tomorrow it’s gonna get a little tougher again, so maybe I won’t be as high on Maine after the next couple days. But something tells me that won’t be the case.

Quote of the day: “Is the pigeon… snoring?”

Today I’m grateful for benches, hohos and the trail providing.

Day 136:

A rainy morning in the shelter = no one wants to leave. Well, except lindsey, who was still dutifully out at 6:30 in the morning. But the rest of us sat around and hung out until almost 8. It would’ve been really nice if we hadn’t had a low key really tough day ahead of us.

First, we had a big climb up and over Saddleback mountain. We only have a few more 4000 footers left, and this I think is one of the harder ones. Especially in the rain, when all the vertical rock surfaces were soaking wet and slippery. But honestly the climb was much shorter than I expected.

The top was on and off very pretty. Sometimes it was cloudy and freezing rain on our heads, and sometimes it was clear and undercast (which is a cool new word I learned!). Unfortunately my phone is not letting me take pictures so I can’t really… SHOW it, but yeah. That’s a problem i’ll solve at some point.

We only had 2 more big mountains to cross for the day, and both were pretty easy. After the Saddleback climb, it was basically an easy traverse across to the Horn, and then to Saddleback Junior. The weather cleared up nicely as we crossed the ridge, so we were finally getting some good views and dry shoes!

The decent off of Saddleback Jr took a while. Not because it was particularly hard, but because, again, everything was wet. But after that is was a nice easy cruise to the shelter. We ended up cramming 7 people is what was allegedly an 8 person shelter, but ZERO chance 8 people got in there. And yeah, that was that, another day done!

Too tired for coherent reflection or quotes tonight, my apologies.

Day 137:

Today is a big day! We’re going into town! And zero other reason. But we still have 13 miles to do and 2 4000 footers to climb. So let’s get after it.

By get after it, I mean we didn’t actually leave until 7. We had a slight miscommunication about who was ready when etc etc, and so left a while after we could’ve. But again, pretty short day so no biggie. We made it up our first mountain in no time, which made sense considering we started about half way up it last night.

We also saw this pretty cool marker!

We were held in by clouds this morning, so no great views from the top. The first interesting thing of the day came as we descended off the mountain, when we hit the 2000 mile mark! That’s a pretty damn big milestone, and means we are OFFICIALLY within 200 miles of Katahdin. We’re really getting down to it now!

2000 miles!

All that’s left to do for the day is get up and over another 4000 foot mountain! Oh boy! This one was significantly more challenging than the first. It had one of the steeper sections of trail we’ve had since the Whites, and we had to climb almost 2000 feet to summit. But the motivation of town food and a shower got us up and over.

And after that? Another nice cruise down the last 5 miles. It felt like forever, mostly I think because miles always feel longer when you’re walking into a town. But we got there around 2, and made it to the hostel by 3. The rest of the day was cleaning up, hanging out, and just relaxing. All in all, a great day.

We now have a plan from here to the end of the trail. Like a full plan. 13 more days, 188 more miles. And that’s ALL. it’s absolute insanity that we’ve come this far. Time

for the home stretch!

Quote of the day: “Can you eat that literally any other way?”

Today I’m grateful for pop tarts, hot pockets, and showers.

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