Last Day in the HMW

So, day six, September 18. Leaving the 100 Mile Wilderness today. We needed to put down another 15 miles, and we all wanted to end our hiking day fairly early, because we were headed to the general store and campground that are right before the state park. And as I said yesterday, soda, beer, ice cream, and real food are all great motivators.

So Salamander, Carolina Sunshine, and I were up and out of camp by 6:30, and it was barely light out. About 2 miles into the hike, we came to a dam at the edge of a river that’s apparently a very popular camping spot, and we finally caught up with Groovy and Halfboot there. They’d left Shaw’s the same day we did — just a few hours earlier — and it had taken us six days to catch up with them! It was really great to see them. Boots with the Fur was there, too, and some other people we knew. It was an absolutely beautiful campsite, but it was just too far for us to make it to last night. As it was, we hadn’t made it to our campsite until after dark.

We all hung out for a while before continuing on our merry way. We saw several snakes in the area, all harmless. At one point, Salamander just reached down and picked one up and kind of held it a bit before letting it go.

We hiked up to an area called Rainbow Ledges, and from there, you basically get your final view of Katahdin from the trail before you enter Baxter State Park.

But generally, hiking-wise, the day was relatively uneventful. It was just Let's make these 15 miles and get out of the 100 Mile Wilderness and get to the campground and store.

So, the Abol Bridge Campground, where we stopped for the night, is a private campground, which meant we each had to pay separately to stay there, even though we were all sharing the same site. We would have gotten two sites and spread out a little more, but there was only one available, so we didn’t have much choice.

Not long after we arrived, Not Yet and Hootie showed up, so the campsite was filling up quickly. As a kind of thank you for letting them camp on our site, the two of them bought a bundle of wood, some hot dogs, and ingredients to make smores. I’d gotten a couple sandwiches from the store for my dinner, but I happily ate a hot dog and some smores, too. And Not Yet and I split a six pack of lager from Baxter Brewing. Munich Mule came into camp and hung out for a little while, too. He had some beers with us, and we all just relaxed and had some nice time together.

There was a film crew at the campground who were making a documentary about the Appalachian Trail — or it might actually just be about hiking, in general — but anyway, they asked to interview some of us. I kind of stepped back, because the younger folks in our group seem to be more engaging, so I figured they should have their time in front of the camera. But then the crew came up and asked me to do an interview, too. I accepted, and that turned out to be pretty fun.

The person sponsoring the documentary is a guy who thru-hiked the trail a couple years ago. His hiker name was Smooth, and he’s the founder of Greenbelly, which specializes in foods for backpackers and bikers and general outdoorsy people, I guess. He took all our information down, and if the documentary ultimately gets released, he’s supposed to let us know. So that was interesting.

We spent the rest of the evening just relaxing and talking and kind of mentally gearing up to enter Baxter State Park in the morning and get to the campground at the base of Katahdin.