Day 119 The 100 Mile Wilderness

Today we began the 100 Mile Wilderness, the most remote section of the AT.


I slept incredibly well last night, with AC, no bugs, and a real bed. We slept in and my mom made us a big breakfast of eggs, bacon, and an orange glazed pastry. Real food was fantastic. Thank you so much! Shelby and my mom dropped us off at the trail just after 9:15 and we began our 17.6 mile day. 



It was incredibly hot today, reaching over 90 degrees with a ton of humidity. Very quickly into our hike we decided to see if Shelby and my mom could meet us again at a road crossing 3 miles into the day. This way we could eat lunch in air conditioning and maybe get ice cream. It worked out! They picked us up around 11 and we went to the Monson General Store where we got sandwiches for lunch and ice cream for dessert. Just being out of the heat for an hour was fantastic. Shelby and my mom dropped us back off at the trail at around 12:15. 

After lunch we began the 100 mile wilderness, a stretch of trail without any towns or road crossings. Just woods, a few mountains, and a lot of lakes and streams. We had a few good views before the beginning of the 100 mile wilderness. 





The woods were nice and we stopped at a large waterfall as some unexpected thunderstorms rolled in. We waited for the thunder to pass down in a gorge before heading up the next ridge. The storm broke most of the heat which was a huge blessing.




After the worst of the storm we climbed up Moxie Bald, which had some good views. 




Then the trail dropped back down into the valley.



We forded a couple rivers, including Big Wilson stream. 




With about a mile left on the day we saw a big sign for trail magic down an old logging road at a cabin about a quarter mile off trail. We went by and enjoyed conversation with Dan the trail angel and some of his friends. We had a cold soda and looked out at Barren Mountain which we will climb tomorrow. 





To finish off the day we hiked a mile to Long Pond Stream, where we had a somewhat precarious river ford. We made it across and found camping right on the other side.


We made it to camp pretty late, which isn’t that surprising given the amount of time we spent eating lunch and hanging out with the trail angel. Tomorrow will get an earlier start and hopefully get to camp a little earlier as well. We are camping 100 miles from Katahdin tonight. I can’t believe it’s that close.


Good night, 

Walker 

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