Sept 29

Into the Wild

Woke up several times last night.  Between the off an on again rain, and all the animals, it was pretty noisy.  We got off to an early start on this grey and misty morning.  We're close to town, and there's no sense in sitting here in the woods in the rain.  Down the trail, I came to a new sign that had been posted by the MATC.  The next section of trail was under a reroute due to beaver activity.  Those things had dammed up a stream and flooded a large area, placing part of the trail under as much as 3 feet of water.  I shook my head, chuckled, and headed down the reroute.  We all met back up after hitching rides into Monson.  I had some awesome BBQ at a shop in town.  Slims was in town too, waiting for us to catch up.  Good to see him again, finally.  Tink was here too, with another group of hikers.  There's a couple of great hostels in town, where they had been staying.  I stopped by the Post Office to pick up some packages that my parents had mailed to me, full of hiker food.  I also stopped by the general store, but only to buy a few snacks.  My food bag was overflowing, and I had to put some of the items in some of the outside pockets of my pack.  We went back to Shaw's hostel so Slims could grab his gear.  We could have stayed in town to take a break, but hearing the weather report, we decided to head back out to the trail.  Rain, rain, and more rain.  Well, if we're already wet, and it's not going to let up for several days, we might as well just keep hiking.  It's not like the temperature is going to get any warmer either, so we need to try to close in on Katahdin before it snows up here.  The hostel owner was making runs back up to the trail head, so we hopped in for one of the trips.  At the parking lot, the trail headed north into the woods.  Shortly we came to a sign, marking the entrance to the 100-mile Wilderness.  It gave hikers a warning, not to proceed unless they were adequately prepared.  I had six, maybe seven, days worth of food, and just over 100 miles left of the trail to hike.  How bad could it possibly be?  I hiked on, as a cool drizzle fell.  I made use of another beaver dam to cross a stream at Spectacle Pond.  More misty rain, and a couple more ponds, over the next three miles to Leeman Brook lean-to, the first shelter in the Wilderness.  We waited for a bit with The League, but Apache and Rainbow didn't catch up.  It was only about 8 more miles to the next shelter.  It doesn't look like there's any notable climbing today.  The trail has just been wet, rocky, and muddy.  We should be able to make it to the shelter in a few hours.  The trail meandered around a few more ponds.  I stopped for a snack break at Bear Pond Ledge.  I continued on, to more streams, cascades, and ponds.  It's amazing how much water is in this section.  The road crossing was just a handful of miles back, but already the Wilderness felt, well...wild.  At Little Wilson Stream, the guidebook listed a ford, but I managed to rock-hop across to the other side.  After the stream, it was a couple hundred feet of elevation gained up to a small ridge line.  A-Bomb was out in front, and I was hiking with Tomato, Yogi, and BooBoo at this point.  We stopped for a break when we got to the top of the ridge.  From this outcrop I had nice views of the pond below.  The tree colors were a stark contrast from the grey clouds hanging low just overhead.  The view was changing quickly though, as more clouds blew in.  We were just on the other side of the ridge when it got dark.  Seems we didn't have enough time to make to the shelter by nightfall.  We had a couple more fords before then as well. Under the light of my headlamp, I managed to rock-hop over the crossing at Thompson Brook.  A half-mile farther on, I came to Big Wilson Stream.  What I saw stopped me in my tracks.  Atom Bomb had arrived here just at dark, and decided to set up for the night.  Great decision.  The rest of us all set up next to the 'stream', in a cramped campsite.  I seems Big Wilson, lives up to its name.  Our headlamps barely illuminated the opposite shoreline, and the water was raging.  This was the first time I was legitimately worried about a river crossing.  There's no way we're doing this in the dark, it will have to wait to morning.

Entering the 100-mile Wilderness - the final stretch.