Day: 143
Date: Thursday, 14 September 2023
Start: Gulf Hagas Mountain (AT Mile 2121.6)
Finish: Cooper Falls Lean-To (AT Mile 2138.7)
Daily Kilometres: 26.4 (Ascent 3048', Descent 4551')
GPX Track: Click here for Julie’s Strava & Photos
Total Kilometres: 3467.3
Weather: Mild with some fog and an early shower then mostly sunny.
Accommodation: Tent
Nutrition:
Breakfast: Pop tarts
Lunch: Trail mix
Dinner: Rehydrated meals, pop tarts.
Aches: Dave - the usual niggles; Julie - nothing reported.
Highlight: Early in our day's hiking we met some hikers going the other way, a couple and then, separately, a man, all of whom warned that the crossing of the East Branch Pleasant River that we had coming up during the day was very difficult and that they had heard the authorities were recommending by-passing it using an alternative route. The man said that he had spent a very worrying 20 minutes with his foot caught between two rocks beneath the surface in the rushing river before being able to extricate himself. This all happened yesterday before the hours of torrential rain we had last night, likely meaning the river would now be even higher. Although we worked out an alternative route, it would have meant spending most of the day road-walking so we decided to chance the river crossing. It was quite intimidating when we arrived - loud and rushing fast with the heavily tannin-stained water making it impossible to judge depths. Making use of some nylon cord strung across the river between two trees, we both made a successful crossing, but it certainly had the adrenaline pumping at times.
Lowlight: Very soon after the river crossing described above we encountered a huge puddle on the trail and Dave slipped on a wet log while trying to get around it and fell into the deep water, saturating half his body and pack.
Pictures: Click here
Map and Position: Click here for Google Map
Journal:
It rained torrentially for 3-4 hours after we went to bed and eventually some water seeped into our tent and some things got damp, but nothing too bad. When the alarm went off at 5:00am, Dave, who had had a bad night, firstly with the after-effects of yesterday's wasp stings and then the heavy rain during the night, said he didn't feel up to trying a 20+ mile day as Plan A required (see previous posts) and suggested reverting to Plan B with a shorter mileage for the remaining days on the trail and having an extra hour's sleep. Julie agreed so now we will finish the trail on Monday instead of Sunday.
After the extra hour's sleep, at least it was light enough to pack up without headlamps and we began hiking around 7:20am on a cool morning. We were immediately climbing steadily to reach the first of three summits, West Peak, followed by, with descents preceding each, Hay Mountain and White Cap Mountain (3644'), the highest. The latter had an open treeless rocky summit and we took a breakfast break and spread out the tent fly and other gear to dry. The views were spectacular. Soon afterwards we were joined by a "trail family" (or "tramily"), a group of six young hikers we have got to know quite well who also spread out all of their wet gear to dry. It was an amusing sight.
From the peak we had a long descent during which time we decided to attempt the river ford coming up (see above) rather than take the bypass route. The ford was challenging, but we made it across and had a lunch break on the other side.
Supposedly the AT is much easier in Maine once you get past White Cap Mountain, but it wasn't as easy as we hoped, with many large puddles and bogs, along with the usual rocks and roots. But, at least, it wasn't raining and we made reasonable progress along the sun-dappled trail through pleasant early autumn deciduous forest.
We climbed and descended another mountain and passed by a large pond as the evening approached, eventually reaching our target campsite just before 7:00pm, by which time it was dark. We found a good tent site and set up camp by headlamp, hoping that we can finish a little earlier tomorrow now we are on Plan B.
No comments:
Post a Comment