This morning I woke up an hour earlier than usual. I wanted to be walking at first light, on the off chance that I was moving slower today. I also figured I had to ford the east branch of the Pleasant River to start my day. And I wasn’t sure how long that would take. By just after 4:30 AM, I was packed up and heading north once more.
It was less than half a mile to get to that first river crossing of the day. In 2023 it had rained the 24–36 hours prior to us crossing that river. And when we arrived, we were surprised to find it was chest deep in most places, and incredibly fast moving. Initially, some Boy Scout leaders tried to guide us across. But we were experienced thru hikers who had made it all the way to Maine. At first we dismissed them and didn’t think we would need any help.
Once we physically got into the water and reassessed the situation, though, Sweet Pea and I were very grateful for the assistance. We burnt a lot of time trying to get across that river. And wound up only getting across because we were able to throw our packs to the guys on the other side. We did this by standing on one rock before an incredibly deep portion which would’ve required swimming. We had made it part way across by balancing against massive boulders in the water. But then we came to a portion where your feet wouldn’t have been able to touch and the current was super fast. So we tossed our packs to the guys and then actually jumped across the deep part. Which I never would have been able to do if there wasn’t a large man on the other side who caught onto me and pulled me across.
The east branch of the pleasant river was a rock hop this morning.
Even having hiked through the Sierra Nevada in 2017 during a very deep snow year, that was still one of the scariest river crossings I’ve ever done. And I’ve crossed rivers in the Sierra Nevada that hikers quite literally drowned in days prior. I just really wasn’t expecting the rivers in Maine to be nearly as bad.
Going up one of the only climbs of the day.
But it’s important to note that their levels fluctuate massively when it rains. So you want to be very careful in New Hampshire and Maine when it comes to fording rivers after it has rained for 24–48 hours continuously. A river can go from a dry feet rock hop to a chest deep dangerous ford in literally a day.
Incredible views off in the distance from the final high point of the day.
This morning when I went across, I was able to keep my feet dry. Which was absolutely wild. It also made me realize I probably could’ve hiked a little bit further yesterday. I just preferred the idea of camping with dry feet and waking up with dry feet. Versus getting my feet wet right at the end of the day. I really don’t mind fording a river and having wet feet over the course of the day. But it turned out I never had to get wet feet wet at all.
Crossing over a damned river.
On the other side of the river, I began a fairly gradual climb. And the next few hours were quite nice and easy. The best part was the terrain wasn’t even that bad, and I knew it was only going to get easier throughout the day. As time went on the rocks, roots, and elevation gain subsided, almost entirely. After a while, I was just walking along a regular dirt and pine trail through the forest. When you’re going northbound, the first half of the hundred mile wilderness is basically the same as all portions of the trail throughout Maine. Then as you get into the second half, the trail is wildly flat and easy. White cap is basically the last mountain you have to climb before Katahdin.
A cute little privy.
Today for the first time since my injury, I was actually going pretty fast! Even faster than 2 mph, which felt wild. The funny thing is when I’m walking, it’s pretty hard to tell the difference. 2 mph and 3 mph basically feel the same to me. It’s really only significantly slower pace or significantly faster pace where I can tell the difference. That’s why I like having the Coros watch that I have. Because it’s very hard for me to gauge my speed without it.
A sign along the trail.
When I was about 8 or so miles into the day, I went past the next shelter. I wanted to use the privy so I walked down the spur trail. And I actually ran into a hiker that I met back in Virginia somewhere. I remember running into him maybe just before Pearisburg. He was doing a section hike and actually gave his fuel canister to Punisher. Because it was his last night out and he wouldn’t be needing it. And Punisher was super low on fuel and unsure if he would be able to get more in the next town. Unless towns have a gear shop, sometimes you’re not able to find canister fuel in town. And if you can, it’s often one of the very large canisters.
The bugs have been pretty bad, so I have to wear my net a lot.
It was cool to see this guy again and it’s so funny how things play out. I was asking him and some of the other guys at the shelter if they had an updated weather report. I haven’t really been able to check specific weather since I left town. I used my GARMIN to get the weather last night, though that weather is very unreliable. When you check weather online, you’re able to focus your search to exactly where you’re headed. So, I can check the weather specifically on Mount Katahdin. But the garmin weather just does the weather for your exact location.
Crossing a bridge over a river.
The guys at the shelter indicated that Tuesday looked clear, whereas Wednesday look to be the worst weather. Originally it was looking like I would get to the mountain on Wednesday. I would have to do two really big days to get there any earlier. But just last night, I started looking at the map and realized I might have an alternate option. There’s a road walk coming up, which would shave off some mileage. I haven’t done any alternate or blue blazes on the entire Appalachian Trail this year. Because of the circumstances, though, I was definitely considering it.
A waterfall just off the trail.
Alternate routes in my opinion exist for a few different reasons. On trails like the CDT they give you lots of different options and you can choose your own adventure. And on the Appalachian Trail, most of the blue blazes are bad weather alternates. Especially on the southern portion of the trail. There are plenty of high points, which you can bypass along alternate routes. And typically those routes actually shave off mileage as well. This year, though I chose not to take any of those alternates. It just didn’t align with my goal for the year.
Now, however, it seemed like a pretty intelligent decision. Summiting a mountain like Katahdin can be incredibly dangerous. Quite literally two people just died on the mountain a week or two ago. Going up in light rain can mean sleet and freezing temperatures towards the peak. Plus, the climate itself is a time is across three scramble. Going up if the conditions were poor would not only be really uncomfortable, but could definitely be life-threatening.
If I do take this road walk today, then it would shave off enough mileage that I could arrive at Abol bridge tomorrow. That would mean I could camp out at the base of the mountain tomorrow night. Then I could go up and climb the mountain 1st thing Tuesday morning when the weather looks clear. Otherwise there’s absolutely no way I’ll be able to get up on Tuesday. Even if I did too really big days the next two days I would still have to do 15 miles the following day to get up to the top of the mountain. But there’s a campsite called the Birches which is right at the base of the climb. Only 5 miles from the top. By doing this road walk, I could set myself up to camp there for the night tomorrow.
Walking through a very flat and lush section of trail.
I know I have the next 11 miles to Joe Mary Road to make this decision. But it seems like a pretty easy decision to make. The most important thing right now is making intelligent decisions when it comes to my safety. The only reason that I wouldn’t want to take this alternate route truly would be because of pride. Because I haven’t taken any alternates this year on the Appalachian Trail. Though the idea of going up the mountain in terrible weather sounds awful. And I really don’t want to risk that. It would be very nice to get to enjoy the climb in the end of this trail.
After the shelter, the remaining miles to the road were super easy. There did wind up being a ton of mosquitoes though. So I put my wind layers on to help keep them away and I wore my bug net. The combination always makes the bugs tolerable. At least then they can’t get to me. Even though I was a little uncomfortably warm. Then I wound up getting out to the road right around 10 AM. Maybe even a little bit earlier.
Going by a Cascade as I got closer to rainbow lean too.
I knew I was ridiculously early, but I really didn’t mind. That meant I could take a nice long break and maybe get some writing done. Plus I had a feeling that Mike was going to be early too. And I was right! He wound up getting there only 10–20 minutes after me. So I got to go through my food drop and pack everything away. I also drank a soda and threw out my trash.
After that, I said goodbye to him. And I let him loosely know my plans for today and summiting. I’m probably going to get picked up by Shaws after I reached the Canadian border. So it’s nice to keep everyone in the loop if I can. Then he headed out and I continue to along the road for the foreseeable future. Because I’m doing this road walk it’s going to wind up being a longer mileage today than I was intending. I’m trying to ease and slowly and not do huge days. But it seems like a smarter idea to do more miles on a road walk than to climb Mount Katahdin in bad weather.
The surprising thing was that the road walk actually felt pretty good in my body. I think it wound up loosening certain parts of me up, which hasn’t been stretched out in a long time. And it was probably a lot of the muscles which I was beating down on the PCT. Because so much of that trail is flat and very similar to road walking. Initially, I was a little bit sore on the road. But I wasn’t sore in the hip flexor area, which I was originally giving me problems. I ended up getting sore in a few random areas which I haven’t felt in a long time.
After a while, though, I started to feel much better. By the time that I’ve been on the road for a few hours all of the soreness completely left my body. I was shocked that I felt amazing actually. Practically brand new. It made me wonder if I had somehow worked all the kinks out just by road walking? It was far too soon to say. But in the moment, I was very hopeful that that was the case. My hope was that at least it would help me in the long run.
The road miles continue to stack up and I just kept feeling good. I took a break along inside the road and had a snack and drink some water. Then just continue to make my way back towards the Appalachian Trail. The trail crossed the road at another point along the way. But I waited a bit longer before reconnecting, just to save a bit more time. Then I was back to trail around 4 PM. At this point of the day, I was also about 26 miles in. My first marathon since getting injured. I certainly didn’t expect to be doing mileage like this already. I’m just glad that I felt ok, because this kind of had to happen. Doing this hard walk today has basically insured that I’ll climb Mount Katahdin in good weather.
The forest was beautiful as the sun began to set and I made my way to the shelter.
Right when I got back to the trail, I ran into a southbound hiker. We got to talking briefly and it turned out that he was injured to some extent. so he was attempting to get in touch with the people from the Appalachian Trail hostel in Millinocket. Luckily, he had tons of food, was right by a water source, was right on a road, and I knew that someone would be getting back to him shortly. You couldn’t have been in a better position when it comes to attempting to get off trail.
I continued into the woods after that and filled up water at the next available source. I wasn’t planning on going much further for the day. I’d already done so many miles, I really didn’t want to do any more. But unfortunately, the trail had another idea. There was absolutely no place to camp because the path was following along a river on a sort of cliff. So I had to continue another couple miles to the rainbow lean to. Which I did remember was a really nice shelter right next to a river. But it wound up being just shy of 29 mile day!
Fortunately, by the time I got to camp for the night, I still felt fantastic. I could’ve practically forgotten the I’ve ever been injured at all. I wasn’t sore and nothing was hurting. When I got to the shelter, I set up my tent because of the bugs. And even moving around and getting everything situated, I still felt great.
I got into my tent and the first thing I did it was my long stretching and exercise routine. I wanted to make sure I didn’t lock up, especially after such a big day. But as the night progressed, I just continued to feel amazing. And tomorrow I’m only planning on doing a 20 mile day! It seems like I found a perfect balance between these two days.
The shelter would have been a great place to spend the night, if the bugs weren’t so bad!
It felt so good today to do actually big mileage. I would love to believe that I’m going to be able to keep doing this. I obviously don’t want to push myself too far too fast. But while I was hiking, I felt incredibly good. Inside my tens I had a delicious dehydrated dinner. Then got some writing and video work done and relax for the rest of the night. It’s still wound up being a really early night.
The shadow of the trees through my tent.
As the night went on, a few more hikers came and got set up nearby. I did a bit of planning for getting to Baxter State Park tomorrow. And also for the days following my summit of Mount Katahdin. I’ll hopefully be making my way to Canada in about two or two and a half days. Unfortunately I haven’t really had service since I left Monson. I’ve gotten it very briefly and I’ve been able to send a text message too. But I haven’t really had time to look anything up or things like that. So I haven’t been able to do any planning for my route towards Canada. Hopefully maybe tomorrow I’ll get a bit of service to figure out these last minute things. But I’m so excited that I’m going to get to Baxter State Park tomorrow, and climb out goes out in the following day!
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