Down Hurts

All right. Today is September 4, and I woke up especially early this morning, probably around 5:15. I camped last night at Eddy Pond after about a 17-mile day. I had originally planned to do 17 miles the day before yesterday and 11 yesterday, but I ended up kind of doing the reverse, and it was definitely the better distribution of mileage. It worked out much better, and I’d positioned myself very well for a big day today.

Unfortunately, these days, if you get up early, the sun isn't up yet, which is a little bit difficult psychologically, but I had to get moving. At first light, I checked out Eddy Pond to see if I could catch any sight of a moose along the shoreline, but no luck. I headed out a little bit before 7 o'clock and had four main peaks ahead of me. The first one was Saddleback Mountain.

When I was at Pine Island Camp, I hiked over Saddleback many times. And it's funny. There have been some parts of the trail that I’ve hiked before that seemed very familiar to me when I did them again on this thru-hike, like in the Presidentials, but some other parts of the trail that I know I've hiked before didn't seem familiar at all. But as soon as I got up onto Saddleback, it all came back to me very clearly. I just remember it really well.

Saddleback's a unique mountain in that you get above the tree line pretty quickly, and it's just a very nice hike up to the peak. It's known for having a lot of false peaks, meaning that you think you're almost at the top, but then when you reach the point that you thought was the peak, you realize it’s not, and you have to keep going.

So back when you had to use paper maps and kind of guess where you were, false peaks had a much different effect. Whereas now, with the Far Out app, you always know how far you actually are from the summit of whatever you’re climbing. So if you think you're approaching the peak, you can check Far Out, and it’ll tell you whether you've still got further to go or not. So the disappointment factor is definitely mitigated that way, which is nice. Personally, I really like the technology. Some hikers sort of scoff at it, but I absolutely love having that kind of information at my fingertips.

Today was going to be a more-than-5,000-feet-in-elevation day, but I don't feel like I need to worry about the ups so much anymore. These days, going up is a heck of a lot easier and better than going down. Down hurts. Up requires some exertion, but we all have our hiking legs now, and my hiking legs are good. And sure, it gets a little sweaty sometimes, but otherwise, going up is just so much better. Yet I find that whenever I look at the route on Far Out the night before, I tend to still focus on what the climbs are going to be, rather than checking out the descents.

Anyway, I got to the peak of Saddleback, and then the trail went down a little bit, and I hiked over to something called the horn. Next, I went over to a peak called Saddleback Junior. And when you're standing on Saddleback Junior, you can look back and see very clearly the horn in Saddleback. It's just a really nice vista, and it’s cool to be able to see the progress you've made. From Saddleback Junior, there's a huge, painful descent — very steep, very long, lots of rocks, not friendly on the knees. But you know, if you go up, you’ve got to come down.

About halfway through the day, I came to a lean-to — I believe it was called the Poplar Ridge lean-to. And I’d seen some comments swirling around on Far Out from hikers, especially ones going SOBO, warning all the NOBO hikers that there’s a homeless person who has taken up residence at the shelter. So when I arrived at Poplar Ridge, I wanted to stop and eat a snack there, and lo and behold, I see the guy.

Apparently, he always wears a black Covid mask. I'm not really sure why. Maybe he hasn't gotten the memo yet that you don't need to wear a mask if you're outside and 20 feet away from everyone, but nonetheless. He immediately asked me if I could give him a pair of socks. And asking a thru-hiker for their socks is like asking a scuba diver if you can have their oxygen.

I mean, socks are just so important out here. But I understood, because his were all ripped to shreds. I just didn’t have any I could spare. Then he asked me for some food, and since I knew I was going into town for a resupply pretty soon, I looked in my bag and gave him a couple things. And then he asked for money.

I mean, he seemed harmless, but I can see how it might make some people uncomfortable to have someone out there constantly asking for things. It was a sad situation, and we've all seen it a few times on the trail. It's not overly common, but I think some people just choose to rely on the generosity of hikers to get by, rather than trying to make it in a more populated area. Generally, though, I just don't think it's a very safe way to try to live. Not everyone is going to have food or be willing to give you things. Anyway, enough on that.

At that point, I had one last major climb of the day, and just as I was getting ready to head up, I got a text from S. I had good signal, and we haven't really been able to talk for the past couple days, so I stopped for a bit so we could have a phone call. It was nice to get to talk to her while I was on the trail.

But then I had a thousand foot ascent up to a ridge. And when I got up to the top, the trail gifted me with a nice, smooth probably 2.25-mile ridge walk to the Spaulding Mountain lean-to. Sometimes these structures are called shelters, but in Maine, they typically use the term “lean-to.” I was the first person there, and then Carolina Sunshine showed up, followed by a guy who kind of looked like a young version of Grizzly Adams. He pretty much just put up his tent and got in it, and we never saw him again. So Carolina Sunshine and I had dinner together in the lean-to before retiring to our tents.

I feel super lucky to have gotten such nice weather today. Tomorrow should be another big hiking day. A lot of the hikers I saw at the Trail Magic yesterday in Rangely went into town, so that’s allowed me to kind of get ahead of the bubble a little. It's been nice to camp with new people the past two nights and to have plenty of space at the campsites. We'll see if the bubble catches up.