Introduction
At the inspiration of Terry Bomkamp, the Katahdin Four – Terry (Buffet), Dave Niswonger (Buppa), Steve Collins (Mountain Goat) and myself (One-Tenth) made an agreement to hike this section of the northern end of the Appalachian Trail together, ultimately to crest out on the Great Mountain. We started planning in the spring with a departure date of September 16, allowing 12 days to cover the 114.7 miles. This turned out to be the fatal flaw in the plan – a deadline that proved to be unattainable, established without a much deeper knowledge of the trail laying before us. There were other lesser flaws, but the expectation that we could cover 10 miles per day on average was too ambitious.
It was decided that Terry as the most experienced wilderness cook would develop the menu, purchase and organize all the food. Each member would cook his own meals and they were to be simple involving boiling water basically.
The route with stops and daily distances was my responsibility as the most experienced AT long distance hiker. At the outset my AT mileage stood at 1,398.6 miles. I assumed that I had seen it all, especially since just finishing New York in August and Pennsylvania in June, but it was a poor assumption. Generally, the AT becomes harder as it goes north. The difficulty of the White Mountains of New Hampshire is widely known, but not the mountains and bogs of Maine. I set the daily distance at 10 miles per day. The trail profile is deceptively flat; the myriad of roots, rocks and intervening bog log walkways are unyielding. One mile per hour for hikers of our age is about the maximum possible as it turned out, but there were only 12 hours of daylight. Not a good combination.
Equipment Upgrades
My big upgrade was to replace my tried and true Merrell Moabs with Hoka Speedgoat 5 Trail runner shoes. Advantage – 15 ounces less on my feet and faster drying. Comparable traction. I was not disappointed with them in my training hikes. Also for the longer duration without power I changed to a 12 oz. 25,4000 mAh power brick from my old 8,000 mAh (6.6 oz) brick.
Conditioning
Realizing that one doesn’t run a Marathon to train for a Marathon I stuck to a regimen of 10 mile and 14 mile hikes that included 4 trips up the St. Pat’s tubing hill. This was the best I could do. The total elevation change was 685′.
Day 0 – Monday, September 16 – South Bend to Monson ME
Terry as instigator took the lead with the travel arrangements. A joint ticket on American Airlines from Chicago O’Hare to Bangor, with our vehicles parked at Terry’s daughter Sarah’s house in Chicago and an Uber got us a shuttle to O’Hare. Our destination was Shaw’s Hostel in Monson ME, near the beginning of the 100 Mile Wilderness. We arrived after dark due to a mechanical failure with the plane at O’Hare. We deplaned and had to wait for the flight from Montreal to arrive before leaving. The big problem was it was Moose Rt season and no one drives after dark in Maine during the rut if they can avoid it. But “Lavender” from Shaw’s took the challenge and got us there without incident. It was a 90 minute drive, and she stopped to let us pick up Wendy’s for dinner. Buppa flew in from Rochester NY separately and had time to have a nice lobster dinner at the airport. He didn’t rub it in too vigorously.
The best known of all the AT Hostel’s Shaw’s does it right. Accommodations were more than adequate and the place was packed. We had our own room with two bunks on the first floor. Day 0 ended well inspite of the flight delay.
Day 1 – Tuesday, September 17 – Shaw’s Hostel to Wilson Valley Lean-To
Day started with a sumptuous spread at Sha’s with two eggs, bacon, home fries, blueberry pancakes, juice and coffee. “Poet”, the owner, did all the cooking and added olive oil for extra calories. It was family style with incoming people and some who had crested Katahdin the day before. “Hippie Chick” or “HC” for short, the wife of Poet, was the business end of things.
The Office didn’t open until 9am, but we were soon on our way after that. It was a 3.5 mile ride to the trailhead at ME-15, then off we went. We had our first three days of food with us. Setting the tone, I fell on my first step on the first bog log 25′ into the trail. Embarassing.
The plan today was to hike 10.3 miles to the Wilson Valley Lean-To. The trail was a series of short ups and downs, but included descending steeply along Little Wilson Stream Falls and crossing the stream on a rock hop, then a major ascent and descent to Thompson Brook. We spent some time at the top of Little Wilson Falls. Thompson Brook was far as we got with the late morning start, but it turned out to be an excellent trail camp beside the stream on the old, flat logging road. The location was the site of an old logging camp, and I thought that Earl Shafer had surely gone this way. Spirits were high and we were well organized. Prepared and ate dinner without incident.
Miles Today – 9.0 Total miles – 9.0
Day 2 – Wednesday, September 18 – Thompson Brook to Cloud Pond Lean-To