Appalachian Trail - Day 130 - Bemis Mountain to ME Route 17

Day: 130

Date: Friday, 01 September 2023

Start:  Bemis Mountain (AT Mile 1960.1)

Finish:  ME Route 17 (AT Mile 1964.9)

Daily Kilometres:  8.1

GPX Track:  Click here for Julie’s Strava & Photos

Total Kilometres:  3195.9

Weather:  Cold night then mild and sunny.

Accommodation:  Motel

Nutrition:

  Breakfast:  Pop tarts/Trail mix

  Lunch:  Toasted Reuben sandwiches & fries, ice-creams.

  Dinner:  Pizza, Peach pie & ice-cream.

Aches:  Dave - still struggling with painful left knee and the usual niggles; Julie - emerging large lump and bruise on forehead and stiff neck from yesterday's fall.

Highlight:  On a perfect sunny calm morning with great visibility, we had expansive views in many directions while crossing the open rock ledges on the Bemis Mt Second Peak.

Lowlight:  None really.

Pictures: Click here

Map and Position: Click here for Google Map

Journal:

When going to bed last night our intention had been to make an effort to put in an 18 mile day, hopefully on less mountainous terrain, to reach a road that gave easy access to Rangeley, where we have a room booked for two nights.

Our alarm woke us at 5:00am on a very cold morning and we quickly decided that Plan B would be better than Plan A.  That is, hiking 5 miles to an earlier road crossing where we could get more indirect access to Rangeley.  The "cons" were that it would cost us the best part of a day in our schedule and cost us more dollars for a shuttle.  The "pros" were that we would get comfortably to Rangeley in daylight, have a less stressful day's hiking (where would have been watching the clock all the time), and we could sleep in for another 90 minutes and wait for the sun to hit our tent.  The last argument was the clincher.

Having made the decision, it was a nice change to have a leisurely pack-up on a beautiful sunny morning amongst the pine trees.  We were camped near a shelter (lean-to, in Maine) but, apart from the South African/Swedish couple who arrived half an hour after us last night, there was no one else camped within the vicinity of the shelter or staying in the shelter.  Very unusual and, perhaps, indicative that all of the late-starting southbound thru-hikers have now passed us.  Anyway, it was a lovely spot and nice to have it to ourselves.

We started hiking around 8:00am following a mostly rock-shelved ridge northwards to the North Peak of Bemis Mt with lovely views along the way.  Occasionally there were mud bogs and small technical ascents and descents, but generally very pleasant hiking.  In the distance we could see the highway which was our goal, but first we had to descend to cross Bemis Stream far below.  The descent was slow and taxing in parts, but we made it safely then had to carefully cross the stream on a logjam upstream from the trail crossing to avoid getting our feet wet.

There was a final longish climb up to the road where we waited for our shuttle driver, who had texted to say he was late (price reduction confirmed), at a scenic lookout with dramatic views over some large lakes and back to Bemis Mountain.

We were dropped off at our motel at 1:00pm in the cute little outdoors/tourist (and upmarket …. with prices to match) town of Rangeley, which lies scenically on a peninsula between two large lakes.  

Our room wasn't ready, so we left our packs and wandered into town for a relaxed lunch and a look around capped off with a large ice-cream by the lake.  We have discovered that there is a Trail Festival in town tomorrow, so our timing is good.  It's a long weekend in the US (Labor Day), signifying, unofficially, the end of summer for many and the town is busy with tourists.

On our return to the motel we checked in and did the usual chores before returning downtown for dinner.

So far, Plan B seems to have been the right choice.