Day: 137
Date: Friday, 08 September 2023
Start: Carrying Place Stream (AT Mile 2040.1)
Finish: Caratunk (AT Mile 1047.0)
Daily Kilometres: 11.0
GPX Track: Click here for Julie’s Strava & Photos
Total Kilometres: 3327.2
Weather: Overcast and humid in the morning with some light rain, then very warm and humid and partly sunny in the afternoon.
Accommodation: Bunk room in Inn
Nutrition:
Breakfast: Pop tarts
Lunch: Pizza pockets/Hot meat roll.
Dinner: Meatloaf burger & fries, ice-creams
Aches: Dave - the usual; Julie - nothing reported.
Highlight: Crossing the Kennebec River by canoe, another major milestone on the Appalachian Trail. Back in 1986 when Dave first hiked the trail, you had to ford the river but, after a couple of drownings and more near-misses, the Appalachian Trail Conference arranged for a canoe crossing to be available and deemed it to be the official route.
Lowlight: None really.
Pictures: Click here
Map and Position: Click here for Google Map
Journal:
The night was marked by thunderstorms with some lightning strikes seemingly very close, and quite a bit of rain. We woke at 5:00am to a very wet tent fly but at least it was not raining.
We were hiking by 6:00am in the faint hope of reaching a hunting and fishing lodge three miles away where we knew hikers could get a good pancake breakfast, though you were supposed to book it in person the night before (it is close to a shelter/campsite on the AT), that only a limited number of hikers were allowed and that it started at 7:00am. We didn't have our hopes up and just as well as we missed out on all counts - hadn't booked, were too late and exceeded the permitted numbers.
Just before we reached the very rustic lodge at 7:30am, it began to rain, so we ended up eating our pop tart breakfast on the covered verandah of the lodge and chatting to Matthew and Christine who had made it to the lodge breakfast. They then left for the four mile walk to the Kennebec River and we soon followed as the rain let up and the humidity returned.
The four miles was not particularly easy walking after some of the better trail of yesterday, but we also knew they were our last miles of the day, which often seem to drag. We reached the river around 10:00am and waited a short time to cross, two at a time plus the boatman, with us split between two trips. The river was impressive, subject to fast rises and falls depending on dam operations upstream, and an AT milestone (see above). We do feel like we are in the home stretch now.
We had booked two bunks in the bunkroom of a B&B Inn which goes out of its way to cater to hikers. They picked us up from the trailhead near the river crossing and a few minutes later we were checking in and had our showers and laundry done by lunchtime.
We have a couple of days hiking to the hamlet of Monson from here and then tackle the 100 Mile Wilderness which takes us to near the end of the trail on Mt Katahdin. We will need to carry food for 5-6 days for that last stretch, so spent a bit of time after lunch today making up a parcel of gear we do not think we will need for the remainder of the hike to lighten the load (a very little). Julie then walked to the tiny Caratunk Post Office (run by one of the two guys who run the Inn) and mailed it to ourselves care of a post office in Boston where we will pick it up post-hike.
The balance of the afternoon was spent on admin and reading on the lovely big verandah of the Inn on a very warm breezy afternoon.
Later we took a shuttle to a pub a few miles away where we had dinner with Matthew and Christine before returning to the Inn and an early night.
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