Four weeks ago, I got a phone call from my sister-in-law Lisa. She was calling looking for Lynn and was surprised to find me answering the phone on a beautiful Saturday.
I need to be more careful what I say. This is the fourth Saturday since then, and it has rained each day. Out of the four rainy Saturdays, this was the worst. The weather was calling for steady rain all day. It wasn't going to stop me, but it did make me alter my plans. I was going to hike from South Arm Road to Route 17, but I changed my mind because of 3 reasons:
There is a stream about .5 miles from where I would be finishing. There is a warning on the back of the AT map stating that this crossing can be difficult in high water.
So with this in mind, I picked the next section north from Route 17 to Route 4. Although I've read this can be a wet trail (and even wetter on a day like to day), there are no major streams to cross. Also, I don't believe this section has any scenic views that I would be missing. Most who do this section can add 13.1 new AT miles to their mileage counter, but I only get to add 9.3 miles. Last year when I first started hiking some small sections of the AT, Lynn and I did the first 3.8 miles together. Rather than try to find an access trail that goes in to where I left off. It will be easier to hike straight through, especially since Lynn will be crewing me today.
Lynn, Snoopy, and I drove up to the 'Height of the Land'. This is a popular spot on Route 17 that I have driven by many times. On a nice day, the view of Lake Mooselookmeguntic is terrific, but as you see, today we are clouded in.
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Lynn walked with me a couple of hundred feet down the road to the AT trailhead.
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A couple of minutes into my hike, I saw this sign stating I had 13 miles to go. It would be a very, very, very wet 13 miles.
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Fortunately, there were a lot of bog bridges. A few of them were rotted out, but most were in decent shape, and all of them were extremely slippery. I had a choice: walk in the water and mud sinking 6-12 inches in the muck or walking on the slippery boards. I chose the boards. I usually hike with just once hiking pole, but today I knew I would be needing them both. They helped out tremendously on these slippery bog bridges.
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Snoopy and I walked passed Moxie Pond. This was the first of several ponds that we would go by today.
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There weren't any major elevation changes today, but lots of little ones. Below, Snoopy and I just finished climbing down Bates Ledge.
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We came to a lovely spot along the southeast corner of Long Pond (which is really a good sized lake). The trail comes within just a few feet of the pond where two small picnic tables have been placed.
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After a brief stop, Snoopy and I continued another 10-15 minutes when we came across Sabbath Day Pond.
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I took the 200 foot side trail up to the shelter.
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I decided to take an extra long break here. It had been raining steady, and this was a good chance to get out of the rain for a while. From reading 'Runtrails' journal, I knew there would only be one more possible place to get out of the rain today, although when I get there I don't think I will be staying long (more on this later).
I ate my lunch and fed Snoopy some dog treats. I decided to read the
trail register for a while. The notebook hadn't been replaced since last year so I had a chance to read some of last years entries. 'Runtrails' states in her journal that she signed most of the registries so I looked for her entry. Unfortunately, I couldn't find it. Either I missed it, or she bypassed this shelter since it was a little off the trail. I did recognize some of the names though from reading 'Runtrails' journal such as the 'Honeymooners.'
This lean-to was providing me with shelter from the rain. The bad part was that it was tough to get motivated again, especially knowing I had 9 more miles of walking in the rain. At home Snoopy hates the rain, but on the trail it doesn't seem to bother him. We got back on the AT. The next landmark we crossed was a powerline. Judging by the map, we have about 7 miles to go. After another 3 miles, we reached the other possible place I could stay dry today.
Ready.
This is it....
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Now you know why I said I wouldn't be staying long. This privy or outhouse, was located about 2 feet off the trail. It did provide me a place where I could pull out my map and study it without worrying about ruining it in the rain. To my surprise, there was another trail registry inside, so this privy comes with its own reading material. I looked for familiar names in the registry, but there were not very many entries since this notebook had recently been replaced. There was also a bit of privy humor with this sign on the door.
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Just after this I reached Little Swift River Campsite. As you can see from the sign below, I have less than 5 miles to go.
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I got off the AT and walked a few yards down towards Little Swift River Pond. There were a couple of canoes there equipped with oars and life jackets. I'm glad the life jackets were there, because the bottoms of the canoes were covered with patches.
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I continued on for another 2 miles when I went through a bog. This is a very wet area and extra so today. I came across some beautiful, purple flowers which really helped brighten a dreary day.
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Today's course was tough to navigate. There were countless slippery bog bridges, rocks, downed trees, and gnarly roots like the picture below.
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I passed South Pond which was my last landmark of the day. I had two miles to go. About 45 minutes later I saw my first and only hiker of the day coming from the other direction. I was quite surprised to see someone else hiking today. Then I realized it was Lynn. When she crews me, she often hikes in from the other direction to meet me, but I sure didn't expect to see her today.
"I can't believe you came out in this," I said.
"I can't believe you hiked all day in this," she added.
"I was all ready to give you a hard time about not coming out to meet me, but you came."
"Of course."
"How far away are we?" I asked.
"Ten minutes at the most."
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When we reached the parking lot, we took one last photo for the day by the giant AT symbol.
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I think Snoopy and I need to change our names. When we left we were "White Blazes" and "Snoopy Dog". After 6.5 hours in the rain and muck we looked more like "Wet Blazes" and "Sloppy Dog".
