We killed it today… just under 23 miles by 6pm. The trail started off with some ups and downs around Bigelow Junior, but then we descended down into a valley, and most of the day was spent walking along ponds and lakes. It was a cooler day, and pretty windy, so windy that the ponds had waves with white caps, but it was mostly sunny all day. It ended up getting warm enough for us to wade into one of the ponds at lunchtime to cool off a bit. We’re camped out next to Pierce Pond Lean-to, right next to the water tonight. It’s one of the more pretty spots we’ve had on the whole trail.
There’s another large group here tonight. We’ve been seeing a lot groups of younger people over the last week, and we finally figured out who they all are. They’re all college orientation groups who are out for the few days before classes start. I think it’s a pretty cool way to start the school year, coming out for a short backpacking trip. My only complaint as an outsider to these groups is that they tend to kind of take over the sites that they choose. At least they don’t stay in the shelters… that would put out quite a few thru-hikers.
I’m purposely keeping today’s post short… mainly because I want to get to sleep since we’re heading to Caratunk in the morning. We’ve got a 4 mile hike which will include a canoe ride across the Kennebec River. The canoe ferry begins at 9am and we’d like to be some of the first hikers ready to go across. There is a hunting camp just down the hill from this Lean-to that apparently does breakfast in the morning, so we’re hoping the other hikers will get sucked in by that. We’re saving room for lunch tomorrow.
