Day 175

I’m so glad to be back into the woods. The initial climb north of South Arm Road is a butt kicker with plenty of rebar ladders to boot. I had planned a short day with a bigger day tomorrow as I usually like a nice leasure day leaving town but there was only a single puddle of water as a water source from South Arm Road to the planned shelter and the water there was dry. I decided I wanted to push on another 4 miles to a stream that would still be running. I’m so glad I did because tomorrow is looking like rain and the extra section done today was a lot of rock walking on top of the two peaks of Bemis Mountain. I should call today, “Show me your Bluebs!” That’s the short name hikers have been calling the blueberry bushes and they were everywhere today. I don’t know how many I picked and ate along the way. They’re getting really sweet. I even saw what looked like bear scar that was clearly full of nothing but blueberries. Speaking of scat, I saw a ton of moose poop everywhere too. Still no moose sighting though. Anyway, after walking down Bemis mountain, I came down to a road where I found the biggest trail magic I’ve seen yet and I pigged out. It’s a bunch of people from town who come out once a week and do this. I got pasta salad and goulash. Also a Maine Red hot dog (they snap when you bite ‘em) and a bacon cheese burger with some chips and a couple sodas. I don’t know where all these hikers came from but there must have been over 16 people there! I hiked a little further after that to the stream to get water and set up my tent. We walked passed the big flat tentsite on the south side of the stream thinking that area would get packed full of people and instead found a small area that could fit about 3 tents on the other side of the stream. Well, we set up, a guy I’ve seen hiking around set up across the path and another girl joined our side and set up her tent. I figured our site was pretty full. Nope! It’s almost dark now and of course I hear two more guys come up and they’re squeezing their tents right in front of mine. They must be blocking me from the path now but they’re in for a surprise in the morning. I’m going to continue getting up at 5am and will step right over their crap if I have to. I miss the days of having a campsite all to myself. It’s been a long time since I had a nice quiet spot without being surrounded by others.

Anyways, I have some news. I believe I have a summit date for finishing. I am capable of finishing on Sept 2nd but I just don’t want to do so on Labor Day Weekend or on Labor Day. I think that could be busy in Baxter State Park and could make it difficult for family and friends to get into the parking area to meet me after my summit. For that reason, I have a coulple zeros planned and a couple leisure days in the 100-mile wilderness so I can summit on Tuesday, September 6th! That’s 3 weeks from today! So excited to finish this! I hope the weather cooperates.