Questionable Humor
All right. Today was my second day in the 100 Mile Wilderness. It’s September 14th. I woke up this morning at the Long Pond shelter, and these days, I'm trying to get a very early start on the day, so I got up at around 5:15 and was hiking by about 6:40. The task of the day today was hiking the Chairback Mountain range. I don’t know why it's called that. Maybe it's because there are very steep ascents, followed by ridge walks and then another steep ascent — which would resemble a chair if you drew it out. I have no idea, but that's my best guess.
So the morning started off with a very, very steep climb up the first chairback. And there was just a beautiful view once I got up to a viewpoint. It was really nice.
Salamander and Carolina Sunshine had left camp a little bit earlier than I had this morning, but I ended up catching up with them, because they tend to spend a little more time on the summits, admiring the view. Ordinarily, though, I wouldn't be able to catch them, because they're both pretty fast hikers. I'm very, very happy that I've been hiking with them, because they set a good pace, and they keep me moving.
The trail today passed by the wreckage of a plane crash that happened a while ago on one of the chairbacks. It looked like it was a pretty small plane, like a small Cessna or something. And after looking at the wreckage, it's miraculous to think that both people who were in the plane actually survived and managed to hike out to safety. If you see the pictures, it's pretty remarkable. [Wife note: I couldn’t find a dedicated article detailing what exactly happened, but the story seems to be that a father and son were out on a fishing trip in 1984, and their plane crashed. They were able to camp out overnight and hike out the next day. The AT was rerouted in 2022 to go past the wreckage.]
The weather was really quite warm. It was very sunny, very warm. I’m just amazed at how lucky we've been getting with the weather. At one point, I crossed paths with what I think was a grouse in the middle of the trail. For a while, it just did not want to move, so we kind of hiked along together for a bit. But eventually, it ran off into the brush.
Later in the day, we came across a trail maintenance crew who were working on the trail. And the trail is in just wonderful shape in the 100 Mile Wilderness. We met one of the guys who was the leader of the group in charge of maintaining that particular section. He was an older Mainer.
And you know, what was interesting was that everyone in the group was definitely in their 60s, at least. I’m hoping there are enough young people out there who are interested in doing trail maintenance in the future, or else the trails in Maine might not continue to look as nice as they do now.
One of the older guys told us that there’s a way to tell whether moose droppings came from a male moose or a female moose. He said, “You touch the moose poop with your finger and just give it a little taste, and you’ll be able to tell.” So I guess you try to trick people into tasting the poop that way, but it's all a ruse, of course. The joke is that you touch the poop with your index finger and then lick your middle finger instead.
The miles today were pretty slow. Today was one of the challenging sections of the 100 Mile Wilderness, and tomorrow's supposed to be another challenging day, but then the terrain evens out a little bit.
At around 5:30, we got down off the mountain, and there's a little area between a logging road and a sort of a state park, or maybe it's a preservation area, where you're not allowed to camp. So there are a number of stealth spots over maybe a half-mile stretch or so. Salamander, Carolina Sunshine, and I found an area alongside a babbling brook to set up our tents, and it’s just lovely here.
