Day 17

Did another 15 mikes but this time over two mountains. I was exhausted after this one. Even more tired than the 19 mile day. Since it's maine it rained while I was hiking. Luckily it cleared up a little but when I got on Avery peak. Got some nice 360 vista shots.

There was a sign up there saying only 2000 miles to go!


I camped in the valley between the two peaks in the mountain. Used my tent for the first time. Decided I need to get faster and figure out a way to set it up without getting wet when I have to set it up in the rain. I had to setup on a wood platform which made it really difficult to stake out. My tent needs to be staked out for proper water proofing. I didn't get the front staked and there was a pool of water waiting for me in the morning.

Day 16

Ferry didn't get started till 9 am. The innkeeper kept me at the in until 930 before he would shuttle me to the trail. The delay made me forget mt water bottle at the inn so I had to wait until 1030 for him to bring it out with the next shuttle. While I was waiting I got my first trail magic. There was a nobo who was meeting his family and they had brownies, lemonade, and watermelon on the trail for hikers.
The ferry was uneventful. A guy took us across the river two at a time in a canoe. It was totally needed as the river was waist deep and very fast flow.

I had to do 15 miles to get to my target lean-to. I made it easy, but it was the longest day of the year. Since it was the solstice we made a really big fire and stayed up to late. There were three other guys at the shelter spaceman, ben, and amen. Only one has a trailname.
Positive thought of the Day: For fresh strawberries when there are those that eat freeze dried.

Day 15

Day 15: The plan was to head to Caratunk and restock on TP and pick up more snack
food. I had enough main meals for the 5 mile hike but my snack foods would have not
lasted. The 15 mile hike to Caratunk was rather easy. I made good time I left around 8am
and made it to the road around 3pm. With about 4000 ft of total elevation gain/loss.
Staying at the Sterling Inn tonight. Caratunk doesn�t have the same effect on me that
Monson did. Probably because I just left a town 2.5 days ago. Either way I�m going to
restock here then get out to the trail early to catch the ferry across the kenesaw river in
the morning.
Positive Thought of the Day: For Real Pizza when there are those that eat tortillas
with pepperoni and cheese.

Day 14

Day 14: The plan was to do 22 miles over 2 mountains so we could stage ourselves for an
early morning 5 mile hike to the river ferry the next morning. That didn�t happen I woke
up early and had an upset stomach. I guess the steak sandwich I had packed out for last
nights dinner had spoiled a bit. I had to stop at the privy�s at each of the lean-to we
passed. I ended up calling it a day at the 13 mile lean-to. My legs felt fine and I had
plenty of time to make the 22 miles but I realized that I wasn�t going to have enough TP
for the 5 day trip. I ran into a really cool old, 71 yrs old, hiker named Froggie Pete that
was attempting to finish his 2nd AT hike. He had finished one 10 years before and
attempted one basically every year since. He had two hikes that he made it over 1500
miles before getting discouraged and stopping. After two failed attempts to start another
through this year he decided to finish his two 1500+ mile hikes by going southbound.
Positive Thought of the Day: For new Trail friends when the old friends are left
behind.

Day 13

Day 13: The day started out with us discussing the possibility of getting Lost�s legless
buddy out for the 37 miles of trail to the next town. There was a guy in our hostel who
said that this was by far the easiest stretch of the trail in Maine. After discussing it and
recruiting about 8 people for help play shirpa for him Lost decided his buddy just wasn�t
in good enough shape to make it. Once that decision was made I decided to leave
Monson and push on while Lost, Fireball, and Firefox took a 0. Before I left town the
hostel owner took me and a few other guys down to the next town to resupply. I picked
up a pack cover which I had left at dad�s, 2 sil nylon bags, one for food and one for my
�clean� cloths, and a new hiking stick. I didn�t get back on the trail until 3pm. Even still I
was able to cover the 10 miles to the next shelter in 3.5 hours cause it was by far the
easiest section of trail yet. There were almost no roots, rocks, mud and only a simple
�stream� crossing or 2. I caught up with Wallaby and Brightsides at the shelter. They
were talking about doing some serious hiking over the next 5 days, (22, 18, 17, 15, 20, 5)
so that they could skip the next town for resupply. I told them that I�d try to keep up with
them since I had enough food to make it. Later that evening a NOBO came in that did the
22 and said other then the 2 mountains it was easy enough. Right before dark 2 more
NOBO�s came in saying they had done 30 miles that day. They hardly looked tired at all.
One of the NOBO�s had gear very similar to me so I asked him for some advice on gear.
He suggested I use the top pocket for snacks instead of the front pocket since I could then
reach and eat without stopping.
Positive Thought of the day: It didn�t RAIN!!!

Day 12

Day 12: Monson was on our goal for the day. Just a short sweet 3 mile hike to the
highway were we had a shuttle that would pick us up and take us to the hostel arranged
for 10:30. Even knowing that everyone was up packed and out of the shelter by 7:15.
That actually worked out rather well since Lost�s sponsor sent a camera man down to
take some pics and hike the next stretch of the trail with him. They were a bit worried
since Lost didn�t do his usual check in with the Spot like he usually did and he was so
low on battery. We got a ride down to the hostel where we were treated to a free beer and
pizza. I really needed that long day in town to recharge. The 3 mile hike out was
miserable I slipped twice, one was fairly bad where I hit my left knee on a sharp rock. I
was able to walk on it fine so no real damage done just some skin and muscle. After a
shower, laundry, pizza and beer I was fully recharged and ready to hit the trail again. I
decided to ditch some gear and mailed it back to dad. I got rid of my Ratsack. The wire
mesh that it was made of actually tore holes in some of my food packets so it kinda
defeats the purpose of protecting my food. I also sent back those stupid silk long johns
and 5 fingers. There was something else I sent back but it wasn�t a big deal. Either way I
saved about 3 lb of weight without that stuff.
Positive Thought of the Day: For cars when there are those that walked to town.

Day 11

Day 11: A nice relatively flat 12 mile hike to stage ourselves for the trip to Monson. It
rained of course. So a nice and easy day turned into a terrible day. I slipped and broke
one of my temporary wood hiking sticks and fell into a bog. The day started out nice and
we had three stream/brook fords. Hung out with Wallaby, Lost, and Fireball until about
10:30 then Wallaby and I walked on ahead to the next stream crossing. We crossed the
stream around 2:15 then waited for Lost and Fireball until 3pm. They never showed. We
still had 8 miles to go and decided to just head on. We weren't to worried about them
since Lost carries a Spot and is a fully trained military medic. That being said he was
running on less then 2 days charge with 1 day to go. I got to the shelter around 7:15 wet
and miserable, hurray for sacred sleeping cloths! Lost and Fireball didn't roll into camp
until 12:30 am. Talk about a long day. It seems they got lost and found a cool old cabin
that they explored and hung out in for far to long. Oh just in case you weren't sure it
rained.
Positive Thought of the Day: For "Brook" crossing when there are those that
crossed rivers.

cut and paste fails

Tried typing ask these up in a txt document then copy and paste them into the blog. But I'm getting odd newlines and characters. either way I'm going to post them for now and will fix out later when I add the pics.

Day 10

Day 10: Had a nice 11 mile hike to Long pond shelter. We went up and down three peaks
but it was mostly ridge walking. There were some great views from all three peaks. Sat
and chilled with the new guys on each of the peaks since they walked faster then the
other guys. We hung out on the south face of Barren Mountain for an hour and could see
what our future holds. There was one peak that sounds really fun. There is a town that got
flooded by a dam and under the right lighting you can see the whole town under the lake
from the peaks. Believe it or not but it didn�t rain!!!
Positive Thought of the Day: For mountain vistas when there are those that
walked below treeline.

Day 9

Day 9: Day started out nice and dry again. We were doing 10 miles to chairback lean-to
and managed to reach the scrambling ascent to chairback mountain right as the rain
showed up. Hurray for scrambling over wet slick boulders with a 40 lb pack on my back.
There were 2 more SOBO�s at the shelter, Wallaby a local Maine guy who just finished
college and Brightsides another just finished college guy from upper Michigan. They
decided that they will walk with us to Monson. With the addition of these two guys the
room in the shelter is maxed. So if we have any more hikers join us someone is going to
be tenting. Just in case you missed it we got rained on�
Positive Thought of the Day: For stairs when there are those that had to scramble

Day 8

Day 8: The Day started out interesting. Lost decided to make coffee first thing in the
morning and reached over the stove without paying attention to where his right arm(the
bad one) was and caught his jacket on fire. Firefox had to yell at him twice before he
noticed that it was on fire. Nerve damage is a bad thing� The worst part of the situation
is Lost was borrowing another hiker�s $250 down jacket for the night and that is what
caught fire. So now Lost had to give the guy the money to replace it. Surprisngly enough
the day started out perfect. It was sunny and warm. I was finally able to get a view of
Katahdin for the first time after climbing it. I�m jealous of the north bounders cause their
whole hike up they can see their finish line getting closer and closer. Springer mountain
in Georgia is just another mountain unlike Katahdin which stands apart from and looms
over all the other mountains in the area. The boots haven�t caused any issues since I did
my surgery on them. I�m rather disappointed in my hiking poles at this point. The strap
on the pole I lent to Lost broke on him within the first 30 minutes of him using it and
dropped him into a bog. It wasn�t even the flimsy rope but the stitching in the leather of
the strap that broke. My right hand pole snapped in half on me today. I slipped down a
rock and put a little weight on the pole and next thing I know I�m on the ground and it�s
broken. I�m going to write and angry letter to black diamond when I get internet access
and see if they will fix/replace them. If not I�m going to bad mouth the poles through all
the remaining 2000 miles of my through hike. Oh to keep with the theme, it rained�
Positive Thought of the Day: For sunny days, when there are those that hiked
yesterday.

Day 7

Day 7: Woke up to a very cold and rainy day. By far the coldest yet. I need to get a
thermometer just so I know how miserable I should be. I was planning on doing an 11
mile day up and over white top mountain and leaving the group I had been hiking with.
Before starting I did surgery to my boots and cutout the plastic eyeholes above my ankle in the hopes that I would be able to wear them again. I did the first 3.4 miles to the first shelter. It was miserable, cold, wet, and the trail was flooded so bad that the boardwalks that were supposed to keep us out of water were 6 inches below water. After reaching the first shelter I decided that it would be a great idea to make myself a hot cup of cider and have some ramen as a pick me up from the cold and wet. That was not a great idea after all. In the time it took for the water to boil I lost all my body heat and couldn't get it back. I ended up just setting up camp and calling it a day at noon. It worked out though cause the guys I was hiking with stopped there and we talked story for the rest of the day.
Positive Thought of the Day: For walking the AT when others had to swim.

Day 6

Day 6: Got a late start trying to figure out my shoes. The boots are still bad for my
ankles, the 5 fingers cause blisters and sore arches, and the slippers are slippers. I decided to cut holes in my dress socks for my toes and use them with the 5 fingers. I was still hanging with the same group of guys and we were going to do a short 8 mile day. Right before we reached the shelter we had to cross the East Fork of the Pleasant River. This was a problem. I have no grip in the 5 fingers since they are meant for road running. When I tried to cross the river I slipped and got swept down stream about 10 ft. At which
point I encountered some logs that I grabbed a hold of and used to get out of the water. Luckily nothing in my pack got wet and the shelter was .3 miles away so I was able to change into the sacred sleeping cloths. I wasn't in any real danger there were 6 people crossing the river at the same time and the flow wasn't that strong. I am lending Lost my left hand hiking pole and my sleeping bag liner. His therapist thought he might have
depression if he used a hiking pole because his left arm would be buff and his right would be still useless. She didn't factor in how much more depressing it is to constantly fall down without the hiking pole. Oh and it rained...
Positive Thought of the Day: For shoes with grip when others walked with 5 fingers.

Day 5

Day 5: Feeling refreshed and full I decided to give my feet a break by switching from the boots to my 5 fingers. Did about 5 miles in those before the arch in my foot started cramping up real bad and I could feel a blister forming on the ball of my left foot. At which point I took the 5 fingers off, dried my feet, and walked 200 yards down trail to a river crossing. That pissed me off enough that I switched to my slippers and hiked the remaining 5 miles in them. On the bright side I didn't get rained on.
Positive Thought of the Day: For Moleskin when others walked with blisters.

Day 4

Day 4: Chaffing was better but still not up to doing a long days hike. The ankles were still tore up and I was still having issues with the boots. So I decided to hang out with the guys and head to a hostel in the 100 mi wilderness. They offered a 1 lb cheeseburger for dinner and an All You Can Eat(AYCE) breakfast, plus a hot shower and warm room as well as a resupply for my alcohol stove and moleskin. On my way there I walked past an
interesting Privy with 2 side by side toilets. There was a register in there with people claiming that they had used it side by side. I fell hard onto a rock on my way to the hostel and cut my knee up but no permanent damage. Oh and it rained of course.
Positive Thought of the Day: For Privys when others walked while holding it.

Day 3

Day 3: Forgot to mention this earlier, when I was on Katahdin I did some Kramers pics
for fun and I decided that Kramers would be my trail name. It was raining when I got up
and was raining all the way to the next campsite. It was very slippery; the entire trail up
to this point has consisted of mud, tree roots, and rocks. I started counting the number of
times that I used the hiking poles to keep me from falling by the time I reached the camp
I had been saved from 22 minor and 5 major.


I had originally planned on a relatively easy day to stick with my long day followed by a
short day plan for the 100 miles wilderness. But when I got to the first shelter it was full
and raining. I got there right around 1:30 and the next shelter was only 8 miles with just a
small 1000+- elevation gain/loss. I had also left my rope hanging from a tree in the
previous shelter and I didn't feel comfortable tenting in the "wilderness" without hanging
my food bag. So I decided to push on and take it easy the next day and hit the resupply. I
made it to the lean-to and there were three guys in there: Lost, Fireball, and Firefox.
Fireball is a cool college kid taking a break before he heads on to a job or graduate
school, he isn't sure yet. Firefox is an older guy about my age who has had a rough time
the last few years and is hiking to scatter his brother's ashes and escape from daily life.
Lost is a crazy wounded veteran. He has been shot, stabbed, blown up, run over by an 18
ton humvee, and a buncha other stuff. All this has caused him to only have about 75%
nerve damage, an unusable right arm, a barely usable right leg, brain damage, and has his
nervous system supported by a battery. The battery pulses every second or so to beat his
heart and diaphragm, but it also pulses the rest of his nervous system which makes him
very twitchy. All that and he is still doing the Appalachian Trail Southbound... talk about
crazy. He was originally going to attempt it with another wounded warrior with no legs.
They made it up to the gateway of Katahdin before turning around due to the guy with no
legs overheating. They were doing it for the challenge as well as to raise money for a
charity, Ride 2 Recovery. He has a blog and website but I forgot to get that info from him
before we got separated. I know he is sponsored by outersports.com and they have
updates on his hike.

I was wearing the full rain suit and still got soaked through. It wasn't a big deal since
while I was hiking I was more then warm enough and I have "Sacred Sleeping Cloths" as
Malia calls them. However, I was wearing my silk long johns thinking that the added
warmth while hiking would be useful. They weren't they tore my legs to shreds I had the
worst case of chaffing I've ever had. I'm getting rid of those useless things asap. I also
had an issue with my boots, I'm using a pair of Keens and they have a stupid lace loop
right below my ankle bone that just destroyed my ankles. By the end of the day I had
open wounds on the outside of both my ankles.
Positive Thought of the day: For boardwalks, when there are those that waded
through bogs.

Uploading pics not working

Not sure why this is but I can't seem to upload pictures from this wifi. I won't be holding pictures for these posts. I'll try to update then with pics later.

Day 2

Started out three day with rain in the forecast. Couldn't find my pack cover and I had to jerry rig something out of my tent footprint. No real issues after that was just a nice easy walk through Baxter park. One slight issue I ran into was a brook crossing. The water looked deep and fast but there was a high water bypass .9 miles down a blue blaze trail. My initial reaction was to just take the blue blaze and be done with it. So I hiked .8 miles down the trail second guessing myself the rest of the way. I finally just turned around hiked back to the trail. Once I got back to the trail I decided that my initial assessment was correct. So I added 1.6 miles on a blue trail for no reason.

I decided to come up with a pearce thought of the day for this trip to help keep spirits up.
For hiking over muddy bogs, when there are those that walk through them.

Katahdin

Spent the night at katahdin stream campground to get an early start. I should have stayed in millinocket at the AT lodge. They had a southbound special that would have saved me $50. Nice thing about the campground was how quiet it was. No sound at all except the steam.
Went up the mountain in the morning. Not a bad hike. There was some scrambling that had to be done, but all the hard parts had hand holds made out if metal bars. When I got to the top I ran into another southbounder, Danko.
He had caught the bus up from bangor with me. He was going to be moving fast from the start. I probably won't see him again.

One corner down

Made it to the most North Easterly part of the mainland today.

Saw a lot of Maine and spent a lot of time driving. I bet that it is truely beautiful come fall when the leaves fall.

Flight issues

Siting in the plane from Spokane trying to head to Maine to start my hike but the planet isn't cooperating. There seems to be an issue with the generator in the left engine. They are trying to restart the engine to see if that stats the engine back up. Either way I'm probably going to miss my connection in minneapolis.

Well I did miss the connection. I got rerouted to Detroit and put on a plane that wont arrive until midnight. That being said I really like the Detroit airport. The tunnel between concourse A and B is really neat.


I just got word that my plane is being delayed again and now I won't get into Maine until 2 am.

Mom Repels!!!!

I'm not sure how we did it but we talked mom into giving repelling off a cliff a try. Heather's boyfriend suggested a nice little cliff with lots of different difficulty repels. The first one we setup at was a bit to much for mom so we moved to a bit of a simpler one. The main appeal of the 2nd one was not the steepness but rather the very long approach. The first one was just a hold on tight and walk off the cliff type. The 2nd one had a good 10 yards to get used to using the ropes before going over the cliff. But over the cliff she went!

She had such a good time of it that we managed to talk her into going for a much steeper repel.

After that it was up to Salt Lake for a few days to send everyone home then on to Washington.

Zion and Canyoneering

The next day we got up super early(4:30am) to drive down to Zion, pronounced Zien by the locals, and troll for camp sites. We managed to get a really nice one as Sean was following the camp host around and picked out a good one that the host said was free. The girls drove down from Salt Lake and we spent a nice relaxing day doing easy hikes and riding the bus. Sean, Malia and I had a little photography shootoff trying to see who could get the best picture of a weird looking insect.

The next day Malia took Sean and me Canyoneering while Tricia, Heather, and Mom went to look at some pictoglyphs and a ghost town. Malia had a nice easy canyon with all the fun aspects, ie no freezing cold water, of canyoneering for us. We got to climb up and get some great views from the peak.

Then we got to repel down a 90ft and 50ft cliff.

Sean heading down to the start of 90ft repel.

Me repelling down the 50ft cliff

After that we gotta scramble across a skinny little crack to get out.

All in all a lot of fun. I can see why Malia and Heather are obsessed... but I didn't have any cold water, I know that is a big not gonna happen for me issue.

Hoodoooooooos

Next stop was Bryce Canyon home of the famous Hoodoos.

I really liked it here. I'm thinking of driving back here on my 2nd trip to finish off I70 and hike the canyons and back country. As long as I stay away from the old peoples RV Campgrounds I think camping here would be fun.

Capitol reef

Next up on our national park tour was capitol reef. This was by far my least favorite of the parks we visited. It was crowded, unimpressive, and full of mormon propaganda. It's only redeeming quality was a cute little prairie dog.

That being said we didn't stick around to do the more secluded trails and their most popular one was closed. Either way I'd go to any of the other parks in the area before going back there.

Bonneville Salt Flats

Hard to see in this pic but the haze was due to a salt storm. 50+ mph winds were kicking up the salt. Got as bad as a thick fog at one point.


Bonneville salt flats. Couldn't take my car out on them due to recent rain. But the highway near them was straight, long, and empty. No land speed record but I did set a personal record out there.

Pretty Flowering Plant in WA

Trying to get the phone app to work bit of experimenting. This is such a pretty flower that I'm leaving the pictures up.

pix#2

See if this works

testing

If I keep the pictures to one our two small ones the app seems to work

Gear Changes

I decided to change some of my gear around after driving and camping in it. I'm ditching my alpaca for sweater as my warm layer since it got really heavy and stinky when wet and picked up a patagoinia nanofiber jacket per Sean and Heather's recommendation. I'm also ditching my summer sleeping bag since it was not warm enough when I tried it on the road, I picked up a Western Mountaineering Megalite bag to replace it once I get warmer temps. Malia and Heather got me a Titanium pot so I'm switching to that and ordered a caldera cone stove from traildesigns.com to use instead of the catfood can stove. I am also going to try Columbia's new "Omni-Freeze-Zero" long sleeve shirt. It is supposed to have some stuff added to it that reacts with sweat to help cool you down. If it works that'll be great for the really hot months but I'm skeptical. I found a hat from Outdoor Research which is almost as comfortable as my tilley hat while being lighter and more compactable so I'm going to be using that. The only other thing I added was a MSR Hyperflow filter, I'm still keeping the Aquamira as backups but I decided I prefer the taste of water without the drops and the faster access to purified water the filter provides over waiting for the drops to work. We'll see if I decide at some point that the extra 8oz of weight is no longer worth those preferences.