I apologize for not updating the past few weeks, my phone which I use to do the blog updates has been acting very strange lately, only a few of the updates I'd try to update would actually go though, the rest would crash my phone for some reason.
I'm in Monson Maine right now at mile 2066 with 115 left. We will head out tomorrow for the "100 mile wilderness". It's not as bad as it sounds and there are chances to get out if we need it. What has been troubling us is the bad weather that has hit the east coast, first Irene kept us in Stratton and made all the river fords more difficult. There are some hikers that were stuck at river crossings for a day or so before the river went back to acceptable levels to cross. Normally this wouldn't be an issue, but in Maine there are no bridges for the trail, we have to take off our shoes and ford the rivers. Sometimes we can rock hop without getting wet, but other times we are up to our waist walking through some swift water, good times. Our weather outlook isn't too good but we're going to go and see how far we can get. I'll be carrying 7 days of food, up from my normal 4 days to make sure we have enough if the storm limits our daily distance. The "trail" in Maine is difficult, the first 100 miles were extremely difficult and sometimes dangerous. The trail since then has been basically flat, but the trail is just a huge mud bog forcing us to hop from root to root and rock to rock to avoid knee keep mud. Miles and miles and miles of hopping on your tippy toes can get tiresome, but we're so close we'll get it done.
We got a shock today while watching the news when we heard of a hiker 88 miles from Katahdin whom broke his leg and needed to be rescued by helicopter. I'm not going to say his name since his trail journal has been pulled and obviously doesn't want a google search picking up his incident. I can't imagine how heartbreaking that would be to have the hike ended like that this close to the end. We were all shocked and saddened when we heard the news. It's a reality check to remind us that we can get injured at any point, I can't even count how many times I've slipped, slid down rocks, or came extremely close to a major fall. The only thing to do is laugh at the good fortune and keep on hiking. Our hiking group is hiking closer together during the day after hearing these reports and we will always wait every few miles for everyone to catch up. This is necessary due to the remoteness of the trail we're walking through. We may go several days of hiking before we cross a road or anything that would give us a clue about where civilization is near, so we hike closer and keep tabs on each other.
I need to go to sleep now, we're leaving early as usual for the last stretch to Katahdin. I'm hoping for good weather and strong footing, wet rocks and roots are not my friend.
