The note said that I was once again single, nothing new for me but this time instead of anger or elation I just felt weary. I decided that if my wife was going so was that ball busting job. The plan had been for me to work one more year at the EPI and save shit loads of money then we would hike the Appalachian Trail in 2002. The problem was I hated my job so much that I was impossible to live with. I gave my notice and my wife Shelly returned and invited me to join her on a hike of the 100 mile wilderness on the Appalachian Trail.
The Appalachian Trail stretches some 2160 miles from Springer mountain in Georgia to Katahdin in Maine. The exact mileage is kind of vague. The AT crosses 13 states, and is maintained entirely by volunteers. As you hike north there are towns every 10 to 30 miles, the towns are anywhere from right on the trail to a dozen miles away, necessitating hitch hiking. The towns are where hikers resupply by local purchases or picking up goods mailed to general delivery by a friend or family member. These conditions apply until you get to Maine. There are fewer towns in the Pine Tree state and they are father apart. The trail itself is more unrefined as well. Due to the tough winters there are no bridges over the many ice cold rocky streams, build a bridge one year and it has to be replaced the next. One year a woman drowned crossing the wide Kennebec River prompting the Appalachian Trail Club to hire a a man to canoe hikers across. Maine is also a tough place to walk, roots, rocks, swamps and the aforementioned streams that can be waist deep and ice cold even in the dead of summer. The mountains are not terribly tall so they don't sound as daunting as the mighty Rockies until you hike them. They go straight up and down, any savvy hiker will tell you it's elevation gain and loss that makes a mountain tough. Also the last glaciers left precious little top soil so those 100 foot pines have a tendency to fall over, so while you are slogging through the mud at a 70 degree angle in a stream you also have to climb over or under a blown down tree with branches trying to remove your pack.
The last obstacle before reaching Katahdin [a formidable obstacle itself] is the hundred mile wilderness. From the town of Monson it is 102 miles to the next store, pavement, or any vestige of civilization. You have to carry enough food to last at least ten days. I have heard complaints that it isn't really wilderness, there are several logging roads that cross the trail and three lodges a few miles from the AT. True, but if you were out there with a broken ankle you might have a different view. Help is still a long, long ways away.
While planning Shelly and I decided to hike south because the finishing point would be the town of Monson instead of the Abol Bridge Campground where the nearest phone is 20 miles away in Millinocket. Shelly's mother dropped us off, took the "last known photo" and we stepped into the woods. We had planned to camp at Hurd Brook but we were fresh and pushed on over Rainbow Ledges and down to Rainbow Lake. We set up the tent and while Shelly made dinner I went to the lake to filter water. The sun was just dipping below the horizon, the lake was calm and silent, a leech came out to see what I was up to and If I wanted to swim. We had the first of many noodle dinners then turned in. I don't remember for certain but I think I slept like a baby. Not a real baby that has to be fed at 1:00 then changed at 3:00, the proverbial baby long and restful in my LL Bean sleeping bag. we had made seven miles that night.
We hit the trail at 7:30, none of this crack of dawn shit for us, we were on vacation. In the campsites Shelly and I settled into a comfortable routine, we set up, cooked, cleaned, filtered water, took down the tent with barely a spoken word. It almost seemed choreographed. A couple weeks previous we had nearly split up because our lives were so incompatible.
A couple miles down the trail we met our first through hiker, trail name "Bombadil." A through hiker is someone who hikes the whole trail in a single go, as opposed to a section hiker who does the trail in several hikes spread out over a number of years. A trail name is acquired as you hike, it's a moniker given to you because of some trait or preference, some are chosen by the hiker themselves. Anyhow "Old Tom" was out of food. He had been hiking on one Power bar a day for the last two days. He said he was doing fine and would make Abol bridge the next day, his legs were just a little wobbly. I delved into our stores and gave him a couple meals to see him through. Shelly was not happy about this, she pictured us crawling along with our ribs poking through our tattered shirts while vultures circled overhead. She had a right to feel that way but I was pretty sure we would be fine. As it turned out I was correct, we couldn't finish all the food we brought, pigging out the last two days, if eating two ramen noodles a piece could be called pigging out. Ramen Noodles are an entirely despicable form of sustenance, given a choice between starvation and "retchmen noodles" I would gladly starve.
When hiking with Michelle Curtain it is important to remember to carry anything you need for the day. Shelly has the curse of the Irish, which is to say she is short, but man can she hike. We both hiked at our own pace, which is as it should be, but I didn't see her until noon and she had the medical kit. My new boots were making hamburg out of my heels. I limped along the shore of Rainbow lake under the enormous pines. This area hadn't been logged in quite some time and there were some beautiful white pines. Rainbow Stream runs out of the west end of the lake then forms a series of small ponds, it was here I saw the only deer of the trip. A pair of yearlings feeding in the grass on the opposite shore.
After the ponds the stream drops into a small gorge below which the trail crosses to the Rainbow Stream leanto. Inside was Shelly waiting for me to eat lunch, I was carrying the food. The leant has a round log floor, what they used to call baseball bats. This was how they made them before the invention of portable saw mills allowed them to create boards in the woods. The leanto sits down near the stream and gets a lot of use because of the Nahmakanta camps about three miles away. The tent site was up on a hill under pines and was much cleaner and dryer. It was only noon but we called it a day after seven miles. I put on my old sneakers and fished then bathed.
We made an early start the next morning. The trail follows the stream for several miles. Rainbow is narrow, rocky, fast moving stream. It was notorious with the loggers, they wrote songs about what a bitch it was working on it.
The Maine woods are a dark and damp place even in a dry August like we were having in '01, and it had rained briefly the day before. After a couple hours we could see a bright light ahead, it was almost biblical after the green filtered light of the last three days. We emerged onto a logging road that crossed Pollywog Stream on a bridge. The light and warmth were amazing and we hung out for a while drying our clothes and soaking up the sun. A man and his son rode up on mountain bikes, they were staying at the camps a mile away. They invited us down for coffee and breakfast but we declined, the trail beckoned. Shelly could have used the coffee, she was having caffein withdrawal headaches for a couple hours every morning.
We both hated to leave that spot, it was somehow comforting. On we pushed along Pollywog Gorge and up Nesuntabundt Mountain where our brief longings for civilization were rudely dispelled. At the summit we could hear people yelling, it turned out a family was searching for a lost boy. The father said he wandered off, "did the same thing in Virginia." Perhaps they have a goal of losing their son in every state in the union, we promised to keep an eye out for him. We took a side trail to see the view which was amazing. Katahdin could be seen to the north and below us was the deep blue of Nahmakanta Lake. The view also came with a bald man talking at a machine gun pace into a cell phone. The climb had been tiring so we had the first of our Snickers bars, Snickers we found are worth their weight in gold on the trail. Having soaked up enough view and sugar we departed. The trail makes a sharp turn on the top, what's called a "dogleg". It was easy to see how the boy got lost, his mother said he was headed back to their van. Sure enough we found him soon after huffing and puffing his way back, red faced and with his sneakers untied. We gave him some water, a quick lesson in following the trail, and told him to tie his shoes, which he didn't do. This incident freaked Shelly out a little, it just annoyed the Hell out of me.
We stopped for the night at a sandy cove on Nahmakanta Lake. We set the tent up in a hole in the woods under pines that dripped sap on the tent all night. I wandered down the beach to fish. I'd brought a four piece fly rod, the fish weren't biting, they wouldn't for the whole trip. Too hot. While I was doing that Shelly was getting acquainted with another hiker named Jeff who had set up his tent down the beach a ways. He turned out to be our companion for the next few days.
For a remote lake it sure was noisy that night. Someone was running a chain saw across the lake, a fisherman putted up and down the lake in a motorboat, but the noisiest thing of all were the twenty loons hanging out in the cove. Loons are solitary birds, usually one pair to a pond but near the end of summer they gather in these groups and visit each other. They hung out all night calling to each other. Adding to the symphony was a giant bullfrog sitting in front of our camp. Shelly got a big kick out of him sitting stoically at the edge of the water watching everything with his great bulbous eyes, letting out a great roar every now and then. She sat with him in the twilight till it was too dark to see.
The next day took us south along the shore, among the rocks I found a wrist watch with a red strap. I attached it to my pack where I could see it as I hiked. Our pace was about two miles an hour, it helped mark the miles. At the end of the road were a few campsites and a dirt road. I could see some kayaks beached near tents. I went into the woods to pee and found several old trucks rusting away at the bottom of a gully. We crossed the road and followed Nahmakanta stream for four miles. Two miles along there is a campsite. We found a clothesline with jeans, shirt, socks, underpants, and a pair of sneakers hanging from it. They were covered with dust and cobwebs so they had been there a while. It's good to find these things in the woods it gives your mind something to do while you hike. Did the owner of the clothes go mad one night from the solitude and run raving into the night to drown in a lonely pool? The truth is likely more mundane, some lazy shit left them there so he wouldn't have to carry the extra weight.
We hiked with our new friend Jeff for a while, he was in between jobs. He wasn't very "trail smart" his pack had to weigh 80 pounds. He had a long stride and soon left us behind, our destination was the White House landing an old hunting and fishing lodge on Pemadumcook Lake. The lodge is run by a middle aged couple, they cater to snow mobilers in the winter and fisherman in the summer, they supplement their income by taking in hikers. To do this they "illegally" advertise on the trail. The Maine Appalachian Trail Club has fought them over this for years. We found their "illegal" sign nailed to a pine, it said "pizza and beer, one mile" and had a red arrow pointing down an old logging road gone to grass. A mile later we came to a dock on the lake, hanging from a tree was an air horn with a sign, "blow horn and we'll come get you. Blow only once as we may be busy." I told Shelly to block her ears and I pushed the button. I laid down on the dock using my pack for a pillow to wait for the boat. Soon we heard a motor sputter to life across the lake and in five minutes we in a boat flying across the lake. What culture shock to go from trudging head down through the warm woods to the wide open space of Pemadumcook, I kept dipping my hand into the water.
The camps sit on a hill overlooking a cove, there is a lodge and cabins spread out to the left and right, and a bunkhouse. The woman who picked us up cooked us lunch in the lodge, a beautiful rustic log building, with deer heads and fish mounted on the walls. Packs and boots are left on the porch. After several days of hiking I was not happy about exposing my feet to anyone but she must have been used to it. Shelly had a couple beers and a large loaded pizza while I had Pepsi and a cheese burger. This was not the McDonalds burger of my camping youth, this would have been the bully of the burger playground. It would have kicked Whoppers ass, stolen Big Mac's lunch money and pulled Wendy's braids. The lodge had a hikers box where others had discarded unneeded items in the hopes someone else will need them. I found some medicated lotion for a rash on my thighs, Shelly bought four Snickers.
Back on the trail we camped that night at Potywadjo Spring. The spring is huge, about twenty feet across. You can see the water bubbling up through the sand at the bottom. It's ice cold and delicious. For dinner we had the rest of Shelly's pizza, she lamented the beers as they gave her a tummy ache as she hiked.
The next day we hiked over Potywadjo Ridge where we found a field of blue berries. We feasted. Farther down the trail we stopped at Jo Mary Lake named for a famous Penobscott Indian guide. There is a huge white sand beach here, we swam for a hour. I walked out over my head and still had sand under foot. I would have stayed here for the night but Shelly wanted to move on. She was always ready to move, like she had an agenda. But that's how she is . The trail followed the edge of a big cove and came to the Antlers campsite. This was the site of one of the most famous sporting camps in Maine, now all that's left is some rusting metal and rotting wood behind the outhouse. Best outhouse name on the trip,"Fort Relief."
After the Antlers we passed Mud Pond, and Cooper Pond then came to the Jo Mary road. The road crossed over Cooper brook here and we hung out on the bridge. There was an old boot there and we took the lacing to tie down our rain fly. There is a small waterfall above the bridge where we filtered water. As we lounged a Toyota pickup roared by, in a cloud of dust. Shelly and I drove to this site a year later. It seemed so remote when we hiked there, to arrive in a truck seemed like landing on top of Everest in a helicopter.
The lake country was behind us now, we began a gradual accent along Cooper Brook stopping for the night at Cooper Brook Falls. There is a leanto below the falls which empty into a huge, deep pool. When we arrived there were four guys in the shelter, three were north bounders who soon left, the fourth was our friend Jeff. A small rain storm blew through which I waited out in the tent with the Princess Bride, while Shelly fraternized with the boys, then went for a swim. She swam up to the falls then turned her back and let the strong current push her back to the foot of the pool.
The rain stopped and I tried to read but the low slanting sunlight on the water brought me out fly rod in hand. While I cast Shelly and Jeff tried to start a fire. Where there is smoke there is bound to be fire did not apply on this night. I spent the next hour tossing various patterns at the water without success, then I remembered the journal entries in the shelter about leeches. I put on a brown leech and fished from the rocks above the pool standing in the falls. Just when I was about to give up a swirl and trout on. I pulled it up onto the rocks and held it in my hands, a beautiful nine inch native brook trout. I wouldn't be eating Retchmen noodles on this night. Then the fish flopped out of my hand and into the current, an epic battle between man and beast ensued. The fish swam over the wet rocks with myself in hot pursuit. The trout won it's race for freedom plopping into the pool and giving me the fin as it sank out of site. Ramen Noodles again. As I trudged past the shelter Shelly cheerfully asked, "catch any?" "grumble grumble" I replied.
The next day we stopped to fill our water bottles at a pretty beach on Crawford Pond. We didn't know it at the time but we would return to this spot often over the next few years. We did a lot of volunteer work in the area and usually came to this beach to let our dog Nick swim after a hot day in the woods. Near the summit of Little Boardman Mountain we stopped for berry picking then down to East Branch Leanto for lunch. Jeff was there as were several northbounders. Jeff and I went down to the river to get water and found the remains of an old dam and an enormous bullwinkle. We ran back for our cameras, behind us Shelly was grumbling "oh great another picture of a dot." referring to the many photos her family had taken of distant moose. Mr. Moose was gone when we returned to the river however.
At the shelter was a young blonde guy trail name "Clyde", claimed he was named after his Caddilac which he had been living in before his hike. How the car acquired the name he did not know. Clyde had been part of a group heading north until one of the party blew out his knee. Clyde helped his buddy the fifteen miles back to Monson and then had turned around and busted his ass to catch up. He was doing thirty miles a day and was pretty lame, plus he had developed a rash on his thighs. I had some earlier on the hike, it can make every step excruciating, and it can start to bleed. I had many a case when working the EPI. I gave him the lotion I'd picked up at White House Landing, Shelly questioned the wisdom of this act, but I figured I'd be OK.
On we pushed through the August heat, I was drinking four 30 ounce bottles of water a day and barely urinating. I was just sweating it out. We finally stopped for a rest on some steps leading up to the roughest road I've ever seen. While Shelly picked every last cashew out of our trail mix I had a Snickers. The phrase Sugar rush means so much more to me now. as we ate a large skitter went by then returned ten minutes later. As it passed I looked over my shoulder and it stopped backing up a little. The driver leaned out and asked, "don't I know you? Yes you work at the EPI down in Bar Harbor." It turned out he and his wife came to the Harbor every September to run in the 13 miler. After they came to the EPI for some of our home made soup. I was surprised he recognized me from the brief look he got at my face but on second thought I guess when all you have to look at is trees all day a couple of tired hikers is pretty interesting. After he left Shelly just looked at me and shook her head, she'd seen this act before. The EPI was so busy I couldn't go anywhere in the State without being recognized. Soon Jeff came stumbling up, he didn't look too good. His knees were killing him and he hadn't packed any high energy snacks. While I gave him some ibuprofen [known as vitamin I on the trail] Shelly dug out a Snickers for him.
We left him there and pressed onward up the increasingly steep trail. We passed an older couple who claimed to have started the same day we did. She looked pretty frail and was wearing smooth bottom canvas shoes more appropriate for the deck of a sailboat. I didn't think they stood a chance but they made as good a mileage as we did every day and made Monson before we did, but that was later in the story.
Half way up White Cap Mountain Logan Brook Leanto sits on as steep a piece of real estate as could hold a structure. The old folks pitched a tent while we slept in the shelter with Jeff. It was our only night outside the tent and it was a mistake. While we cooked I saw why Jeff's pack was so heavy, his mess kit was as big as my whole pack. Also he was carrying mace to protect himself from I don't know what. That night I barely slept, the mice crawled over me picking at my sleeves and collar. In the wee hours I heard Jeff banging and cussing. Turned on my headlamp to see what was going on, he said a mouse had been sitting in his tin cup eating his Chapstick so he booted it out of the shelter. Novice hikers worry about bears and raccoons but mice are the real problem.
The next morning we gave Jeff some ibuprofen to carry with him and we set out. White Cap is a bitch, steep, and all broken rock. The view from the top is excellent but was marred by haze on this day. On to Hay Mt. then West Peak and finally to Sydney Tappan campsite for lunch. The campsite is in a large grassy bowl surrounded by trees. I would have loved to stay there but it was too early to call a halt. We walked the quarter mile trail to the water source, ice cold Gulf Hagas Brook. By the time we got back to our packs we were trashed, I mixed up some instant tea packets that came out of an MRE that Shelly's step dad Phil had given us. We drank the whole bottle then napped in the grass for an hour.
Next stop was Carl A. Newhall shelter for a midafternoon break. Jeff showed up soon after much to our relief. There were several hikers there and an old man with snow white hair and long beard was holding court. His name was "Old Dave" and he was completing the trail this summer. He had done it in four section hikes. He asked us in his deep sober tones if we had ant toilet paper or Snickers bars we could spare. We did not but I mentioned how a chipmunk had gotten into our food bag at East Branch Leanto and eaten a few bites of one of our Snickers and that we had thrown it out. He looked at me solemnly and said, "you aren't a through hiker are you?" Then he asked if we still had said candy bar and if he could have it. I dug it out of our trash bag and gave it to him. "I am much in your debt." he said as thanks. I told him I'd never been thanked for rodent chewed caned before, to this he made no reply. Dave entertained us with stories about hiking from California to his home in Washington D.C. after he retired. People would stop their cars and give him money thinking he was indigent, cops would run him out of town as a vagrant. We later heard from others who had hiked with him that he was retired CIA.
Jeff planned to cross the West Branch of the Pleasant River that day, which was four miles. We didn't make it, the heat and slogging through four mountains had taken it's toll. When we reached Screw Auger falls I wasn't taking another step till I washed. Shelly found a hidden spot next to the stream and we spent a restful night.
Since we were illegally camped in a state park we made an early start and crossed the river ay dawn. It was already hot. We climbed the bank and soon saw Jeff camped with some other guys, rather than stop we just waved as we hiked by. We figured to see him later. we were wrong, that was the last we saw of Jeff, His knees probably got the better of him and he hitched a ride into Brownsville or Milo. We were sad we hadn't stopped, especially Shelly, she really liked him. Later at a road crossing she left a note for him with our phone number, this was after he didn't show up at the next campsite.
The trail out of the West Branch valley is very steep for the first mile, we stopped at East Chairback Pond. There was a lot of trash laying around which we packed out. I'll never understand why people come to places of indescribable beauty and leave their shit around trashing up the place. We reached Chairback Gap Leanto at noon and called it a day. We were spent and Shelly was cramping badly. We made the quarter mile descent to the water source. The water tasted like a mud puddle my dog wouldn't drink from. This is another shelter barely clinging to the side of a mountain. We ate quite heavily and cut up one of my shirts for TP and other things.
The next day quite refreshed we assaulted Columbus Mountain and then stopped at Monument Cliff, Long Pond was visible below. We would camp on it's outlet stream that night. I think that's when it hit me sitting there looking out over miles of unbroken wilderness. I realizes how unhappy I had been, all the misery was draining out of me. Some of it was leaking out of my eyes at that moment. Often on our hike I was reluctant to move from some beautiful spot while Shelly was eager to continue. For so many years I had not been able to fully relax and experience a place because I always had to be somewhere, usually work. To be able to stop as long as I wanted on a mountain or pond was more than a luxury it was like being released from some self imposed prison.
We hiked through the Barren/Chairback Range stopping at Cloud Pond and the summit of Barren Mountain. The old fire tower still stands on Barren but the platform is laying on the ground, the ultimate form of littering. The towers are obsolete because of airplane fire surveillance so the towers are left cluttering up mountain tops. At one time there were wardens all over the state living on mountains spending their days in towers watching for forest fires. I have found many relics of that era, mouldering cabins perched on the side of mountains. Reminders of a different time, perhaps not a better one but a slower, more thoughtful one.
Our stop for the night was Slugundy Gorge on Long Pond Stream. We bathed under the waterfall while trout darted around our feet. I fished later, but despite many strike I couldn't land a fish. Cold cheese noodles for supper, at least she hadn't cooked Retchmen Noodles.
That was our last night in the woods, we had planned to camp at Leeman Brook but on arrival there were several fat people with soda and chips there so we kept moving. That day was sort of torture. We lunched at Big Wilson Stream leanto, someone had left a grocery store there with a note, "help yourself". The closer we got to civilization the dumber people were. Leaving food festering in 90+ heat to poison hikers doesn't make you a trail angel. We packed it all out. Shelly left me in the dust the last three miles. Actually it was pine needles she left me in there isn't much dust out there.
After sixteen miles I climbed the steps and there it was, two lane blacktop, civilization. Shelly said she had a good cry when she got there, I didn't have it in me, I was too tired. Now all we had to do was walk the four miles of road into Monson. That was the worst part of the trip, about half way a brave lady picked up the two smelly hikers and gave us a ride, she didn't even hold her breath. It turns out the older couple I didn't think would make it were an hour behind us and got a ride from her first. They saw us plodding along and asked her to come back for us after she dropped them in town.
Shaws is the Grand Central Station for hikers in Monson. Every where you looked there were hikers, laying on the lawn, returning from the post office, arranging rides back to the trail. Mr. Shaw is a real French Canadian Mainer, about 5'2" and talks like he has a mouth full of mashed potatoes, nearly bald. His stoic wife and son work with him taking in sledders in the winter and hikers in the summer. For $35 we got a room with a rock hard bed, [Shelly slept on the floor and got more sleep than I did in the bed] a TV we didn't watch, and breakfast. We had missed dinner but were not upset because we were going to the world famous Spring Creek BBQ. We put our laundry in the washer then showered. An orgasmic experience, don't even get me started on shampooing my hair.
We headed out to dine, I was topless because both my shirts were in the laundry. We bounced up the steps of Spring Creek BBQ only to find them closed, Closed, the saddest word in the english language. A sign said "out of food." Shelly tried the door, then tried it again. It would have been comical if I wasn't so desperate for food not in noodle form. The Big Apple on the edge of town was open, shirts required. Shelly was shirted so she went in and bought us two subs, some chips, beer and Pepsi for me. Back at Shaws we sat on the second story deck eating as darkness descended. We hung out till 10:30 talking to north bounders hearing stories about shelters, lodging, rats mice, giardia, snow, rain, rednecks and many other topics. One guy kept swearing he smelled cow shit, sure enough Mr. Shaw had two cows in his garage for meat this winter.
At breakfast Mr. Shaw came to our table looked at me and grunted, "how many?" that meant how many eggs bacon and pancakes did I want. After I ordered he went back into the kitchen and didn't return till my order was done, then Shelly got to order. The food was awful, I read the paper, the Sox were still hanging around. They wouldn't begin their collapse until late August this year. Then began the long wait for Linda to come rescue us, we didn't really want to be rescued though. Shaws was such a cool place to hang out. I bought a book but never started it, there were too many people to talk to. Hikers from Alaska, Minnesota, San Diego and many other places. They were preparing to enter the country we just hiked. The trail is like a moving community, they all knew each other, knew some of the people we had met in the last ten days. As I got into Linda's Subaru I looked back feeling sad.
There is no end to this story, Shelly and I joined the Maine Appalachian Trail Club and volunteer in the hundred, she hikes a week every year. A year later we were back in Monson, it was October, we had been camping in the rain. We finally were eating at Spring Creek. As we warmed ourselves by the wood stove and pet the owners cat a hiker looked at me and asked, "don't I know you from down in PA?" I had not been in PA. He said his name was "Spider Man", it turned out Shelly had hiked with someone he knew in Vermont that summer. The trail is always there when e need it.
