Julie and I are hiking the Appalachian Trail in the US from Springer Mt, Georgia, to Mt Katahdin, Maine, in the north, a distance of almost 2,200 miles (3,540 km). Our journey will start in early May 2023 and is expected to take about five months. We will be mostly camping, carrying 3-5 days of supplies to get us between resupply points, where we will be staying in hostels/hotels/motels where we can. I hiked the entire Appalachian Trail back in 1986 so it will be interesting to see how much has changed and how much it has stayed the same.

Appalachian Trail - Day 135 - ME Route 27 to Little Bigelow Mountain

Day: 135

Date: Wednesday, 06 September 2023

Start:  ME Route 27 (AT Mile 2010.0)

Finish:  Little Bigelow Mountain (AT Mile 2022.3)

Daily Kilometres:  20.1 (Ascent 4862', Descent 3317')

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

Total Kilometres:  3287.3

Weather:  Very warm and humid and partly sunny.

Accommodation:  Tent 

Nutrition:

  Breakfast:  Breakfast buffet

  Lunch:  Turkey, ham & salad subs 

  Dinner:  Rehydrated meals 

Aches:  Dave - the usual niggles; Julie - nothing reported.

Highlight:  The 360 degree vista from the summit of Bigelow Avery Peak (4088'), named for Myron Avery who first had the idea of creating the Appalachian Trail, was spectacular and made the climb worthwhile.

Lowlight:  None really.

Pictures: Click here

Map and Position: Click here for Google Map

Journal:

We enjoyed the hostel's excellent buffet breakfast, shared with a number of other hikers amidst some good conversation, at 7:00am, so a bit of a sleep-in.  Our French Canadian friends, Matthew & Christine, were also staying there and were shuttled back to the trailhead with us after breakfast. They hike faster than us, though Christine is on anti-inflammatories for a foot injury, so soon disappeared into the forest ahead of us.  They seem to be on a similar schedule to us through to the end of the trail, so we will likely see them again.

Given that we didn't start hiking until around 8:30am, and that we had about 5000' of climbing in front of us as we tackled the Bigelow Mountain range, we didn't have high expectations of how far we would get today.  After a couple of relatively easy miles we climbed more steeply to a lookout from where we could see the beautiful Horn Pond far below, before we descended to walk along its shore and then began the serious climbing.  Up, up, up to the Horns (3831') then a long technical descent before another long climb through the gnarly moss-carpeted conifer forest until we emerged above the treeline to reach West Bigelow Peak (4145') with great views and where we took a lunch break.  We could see the peaks we had climbed in a chain behind us and the peaks we still had to climb up ahead.  Awesome and sobering at the same time.

It had been a hot sweaty climb on a very humid day but, thankfully, there was a nice breeze at the higher altitudes and that made the hiking and day much more tolerable.

After lunch, there was another long descent before we climbed to Bigelow Avery Peak and more good views (see above).  By this time it was starting to get late and we decided that we would collect some water, which was scarce along the range, as we headed towards Little Bigelow Mountain, the final peak in the range, then look for somewhere to camp.  Both finding water and finding a campsite proved difficult, but we managed both in the end, eventually nestling the tent in a tight spot on a sloping root-covered spot at about 7:00pm.

It got dark as we set up camp and ate dinner by headlamp but we were satisfied with our 12 miles and the scenery we had enjoyed throughout the day.

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