Day 148, miles today - 13.0, total - 2,062.4, miles to go - 123.5

August 13, 2013

Bald Mountain Brook Lean-to to Horseshoe Canyon Lean-to.

I woke up this morning before 6:00 as the other two guys in the shelter were getting their gear together. B-Rocket and I hadn't talked about what time we were going to start this morning. We didn't get to the shelter until 11:00 last night and we were only planning to do thirteen miles, so I was okay with a late start. I fell back asleep for a little while longer, and just laid there relaxing.  I didn't wake B-Rocket up until 9:00. We were able to get on trail at 10:00. It wasn't raining at that point.

We went up 1,300 ft. over Moxie Mountain. We had a great view. There were a lot of blueberry bushes. We stayed there for thirty minutes eating the berries. They were very sweet. Trail fruit is always great.

 It was still fairly clear, but the sky was changing. After the climb over Moxie, the rest of the trail today had only small ups and downs. Some of the trail was as easy as trail you'd find at a city park, or at least close to it.

B-Rocket slipped in a muddy section of the trail. When she fell she landed sitting in the mud. She wasn't hurt, but the back of her shorts were covered  with mud.

By early afternoon there was a very light rain. It continued for a couple hours.

                                                                    Bald Mountain Pond

We had to ford the West Branch of the Piscataquis River. It was no more than shin deep. There was a rope strung across the river that we were able to hold onto as we crossed. There were a couple other stream crossings today that we were able to rock hop across.

Before reaching the shelter we saw Yard Sale fishing in the Horseshoe Canyon Stream. He had already been to the shelter a short distance away.

We reached the Horseshoe Canyon Lean-to at 5:15, there are fourteen Nobo thru-hikers here. We have been in this same bubble of thru-hikers for several days now. It's 8:30 pm, the eight people sleeping inside the shelter are all in their sleeping bags. Most of them already asleep.

Tomorrow we will go into Monson, ME. It's our last town stop. We will spend the night there. B-Rocket's mother is going to meet us and drive us fourteen miles to a town with a grocery store, so that we can resupply. After Monson we enter what's called the 100 mile wilderness.