Tuesday, 9/8
AT Miles = 10.1 / 1931.9
Other Miles = 0 / 60.0
Total Miles = 10.1 / 1991.9
Miles to Katahdin = 246.4
Ah, what a lovely day to be hiking in Maine! I set off early this morning and had a wonderful time slackpacking along easy trail through the cool of the morning. I covered the 6 or so miles to Hall Mountain Lean-to quickly, so ended up eating my lunch there at 9:45 this morning. It was so nice to just cruise along enjoying the forest instead of fighting for every foot of forward progress.
After lunch I did have to climb down into Sawyer Notch, and then make the steep climb up Moody Mountain. The trail up Moody Mountain washed out (last year, I believe) and there is a temporary reroute while a permanent reroute gets built. As I was starting up the climb I saw some blue falgging tape and followed that. It was quickly evident that the trail was a work in progress, with stone steps here and there and trailbed leveled in some places but not others. For much of the way the trail was just a new, raw scar which presented very challenging going. Then I got to the top of the relocation where it joined back to the existing trail, and I noticed two routes, one flagged in blue, which I had followed, and another route flagged with orange tape. There was also a sign here for southbound hikers which said to follow the orange flagging and not to follow the blue flagging until there were white blazes on the trail, which would indicate that the relocation was completed. Oops! Well, I never saw any orange flagging as I approached from the bottom of the hill. I don’t know why that is; whether I just mised it, or whether it was absent.
Tomorrow will be my last day slackpacking from here. I have really enjoyed my time staying at Pine Ellis. Ilene (I misspelled her name in a previous blog entry) and David are wonderful hosts. Tomorrow I will slackpack from South Arm Rd northward for 13.3 miles to ME 17. On Thursday I will start at ME 17 with my full pack and hopefully hike the 13 miles to ME 4 and then get a ride into Rangeley. I hope to base in Rangeley and slackpack a couple more days until I get through the Saddleback Range.
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“Home is where I hang my food bag”
Monkeywrench
Allen Freeman
allen@allenf.com
www.allenf.com
allenf.blogspot.com
