Appalachian Trail Adventure Day 1 (6/17/21)

Monson to Bald Mountain Brook Shelter 

22 Miles

This post is labeled Day 1, but I am going to use it as a combined post for Day 0 and Day 1. Day 0, as you might guess, is the day that I travel to the trail but don’t start hiking yet. Dragonfly rode with me up to northern Maine, and she planned to stay the night with me and then be nice enough to drive my car home for me. I really appreciated her help.

On our way up, we had to first stop by the Sterling Inn to drop off a resupply package. On the way there, we took US 201, which afforded us the opportunity to see a couple cool things. First, there was a wall next to the highway that seemed to be some type of divider. Well, the locals had turned it from a simple divider to a genuine attraction by lining the entire wall with birdhouses of all shapes and sizes. I don’t know if any birds actually use the birdhouses, being right next to a highway, but it was really a sight to see.

The other thing we did was pull over at a rest area overlooking the Kennebec River. Even with the recent lack of rain, it is a mighty river. Apparently hikers used to try and ford the river, and I guess some still do, but I think that’s crazy. These days the Appalachian Trail has a ferry (actually a canoe) across the river, and I intend to use it.

When we made it to Sterling Inn to drop off the package, there were two northbound hikers that walked in right after us to resupply. They were both wearing masks, so I couldn’t be sure, but I thought I recognized one of them from YouTube. More on that later.

After that, it was another hour to Monson, where Dragonfly and I finally made it to Shaw’s Hiker Hostel. I had stayed there with my friend Crick last year, and I was pleasantly surprised that they remembered me. They even asked how Crick was doing.

Shaw’s was kind of busy when we first arrived. One owner, Poet, was out on a shuttle run, while the other, Hippie Chick, was doing everything else, including taking care of her kids. Dragonfly and I decided it was a good time to go explore the town of Monson.

In Monson, there was an office for the ATC, the organization that runs the Appalachian Trail. Chatting with the lady there, I discovered that the ATC now allows section hikers to have hang tags. Hang tags are little pieces of plastic that you hang from your pack to designate yourself as an AT hiker. They used to only be available for hikers doing the whole trail, so I was happy that they are now respecting us section hikers. I was also able to get a patch for having done The Hundred Mile Wilderness last year, so that was a nice bonus.

After finishing up there, Dragonfly and I got checked in at Shaw’s, and then we went to the gear shop to watch Poet do pack shakedowns for people. A pack shakedown is when you dump all the gear out of your pack and then Poet tells you what he thinks you should keep and what he thinks you should get rid of or replace. It’s all an attempt to get your pack weight down. He first did a pack shakedown for a lady named Angie, and then a couple more for guys named Gump and Bear. He shaved an amazing amount of weight off their packs for them, oftentimes taking them down by twenty or more pounds.

After he was done with everyone else, I asked if he would be willing to nitpick my pack. I knew that I didn’t need serious help, but I am always trying to shave an ounce here or there. He was willing to look at it, but rather than make him go through the entire pack, I just handed him my Lighterpack list. Lighterpack is a piece of software that serious hikers use to track their gear and pack weight. What shocked me was that Poet, a true gear junkie who runs a gear shop, had never seen Lighterpack before. Nonetheless, he adapted to the technology quickly and gave me some good suggestions. However, all of the suggestions involve radically changing the way I hike, so I am not sure that I am ready to go that hardcore yet.

Shaw’s has an entire building built for hiker needs, and one of those needs is bathrooms. I was in there in a stall, and I thought that I locked the stall door. However, the pin got stuck, and so the door wasn’t as locked as I thought it was. I learned this when another hiker opened the stall door to find me standing there. Thankfully I was just adjusting my belt, but it could have been pretty embarrassing.

Dragonfly and I had a private room at Shaw’s, and I slept well. When the next day broke, I was ready to face the trail. Before that, though, there was breakfast to be had. Shaw’s is famous for their all you can eat breakfast. Dragonfly and I sat down to breakfast with some tourists. One member of their group was some kind of reporter doing a story on Monson. We all got to chatting, and we learned that they had traveled to New Zealand recently, which of course led into a discussion of our mutual admiration of Jacinda Adern, arguably the best world leader currently serving. 

After breakfast, Dragonfly drove me to the trailhead, and it was hard saying goodbye to her. I am going to miss her over the next few weeks, although thankfully I do get to see her at the middle and end of the hike.

The trail was pretty lonely all day. The only person I saw in the morning was a day hiker. He had some interesting stories to tell. He thru-hiked the trail back in 1989, and worked for a while as the trail maintainer for the section near Monson. He also gave me a warning that a brown eagle was dive bombing people just ahead and I should be careful. I told him I would, but thankfully I never saw the eagle.

A few miles into my hike, I came to a stream crossing. At first I thought I was going to cross on an old beaver dam, but then I realized it didn’t go all the way across. I was going to have to ford. Fording is where you cross the stream by just walking across it. Some people just keep their shoes on and get wet, but I change into my sandals. I don’t mind fording, but the process of shoe changing makes it take a while. As an aside, I wonder if Henry Ford’s name somehow came from fording rivers?

At any rate, the stream was only knee deep and I made it across fairly easily. One difficulty I was having, though, was that my Thermodrop thermometer wasn’t working. This was actually my second one. The first one was appropriately named, because I dropped it on my Massachusetts hike and lost it. This second one was a gift from Dragonfly and we had secured it better so that it wouldn’t get lost this time. Unfortunately, being well secured was useless if it wasn’t working.

I stopped for lunch at a shelter (peanut butter and jelly wrap), and while I was there I took a closer look at the Thermodrop. I realized that the battery had been installed upside down. Once I fixed that, it started working and has been doing well ever since. In case you’re wondering, the highest that the trail temperature got today was 67, so awesome hiking conditions.

The temperature may have been awesome, but there were two things that were decidedly not awesome: blowdowns and drought. Both were serious problems. Blowdowns blocked the trail and sometimes forced me to do some gnarly climbing to get over them. Drought was a serious issue because most water sources were dry, and it was hard to find water outside major sources like rivers.

I hiked without seeing anyone for the next several miles, until I ran into the same two northbounders I had seen in the Sterling Inn the day before. This time I was sure that the female hiker was Taylor the Nahamsha Hiker, a YouTube star that I have followed. After we said hello, I asked if she was Taylor. She looked surprised that I recognized her, though I have to imagine being recognized on trail is a common occurrence for her, given her profile. Her companion introduced himself as Cody, and we chatted for a minute or so. I think I sounded a little awkward, as I was a bit starstruck meeting a hiking celebrity. They did give me good information that there was another ford just ahead. They had wet shoes from having walked right it, but with two thousand miles under their belts, I am sure they just don’t care at this point. I do care, so I took my shoes off to ford.

This day was always going to come down to a choice. There was one shelter, Bald Mountain Shelter, at 18 miles. There was another shelter, Bald Mountain Brook Shelter, at 22 miles. In between the two lay Moxie Bald Mountain, a substantial climb and descent. My original plan involved stopping at Bald Mountain Shelter, but when I got there it was empty and I realized that continuing would put me in a good position for the next day. Thus, I decided to climb Moxie Bald. As an aside, this entire paragraph would probably have been more suspenseful if I hadn’t posted my ending point at the beginning of the blog entry.

Anyway, I climbed over Moxie Bald while learning about the legend of Paul Bunyan from the Myths & Legends podcast. I highly recommend that podcast if you’re reading this and you enjoy good storytelling.

I have noticed something about fallen trees on trail. It seems that the trees with the white blazes to mark the trail fall at a proportionally greater rate than the trees without white blazes. I suspect this is because the additional weight of the painted on blaze causes the tree to be more likely to fall. Alternatively, it’s possible that selection bias is at work and I tend to notice the white blazed trees more when they fall, but the first explanation is far more interesting.

When I made it to the Bald Mountain Brook shelter, I met an entirely new cast of characters. There was Hard Goods and Medicine Man, and they were two young guys hiking together southbound. There was also Widowmaker and his father Colonel Angus, and they were going northbound. I think they were sectioning, but I am not 100% sure. There were also a few other hikers that I didn’t get to know as well because they weren’t staying in the shelter.

Hard Goods and Medicine Man got a fire going, which was nice. The topic of discussion for the night was REI, because apparently almost everyone at the shelter had worked there at some point. I pointed out that there is currently no REI in Maine, but we are about to get one in Westbrook. I can’t imagine that it will be good news for EMS or even LL Bean, but I am excited for it.

Dinner for the evening was Outdoor Herbivore Pasta Primavera. I wasn’t impressed. The amount of water that they said to use was inadequate, and that was after I increased it. The flavor and texture were just mediocre, too. I am hopeful that my next Outdoor Herbivore meal will be better.

With dinner done, I settled in for my first night on trail. Thanks for sticking with me through this exceptionally long blog entry. Always remember that you can’t take flight until you spread your wings.

Oh, one more thing. I am going to try a new game this year. I am going to post a picture of flowers (or other plants) that I find on trail or in town at the end of the blog entry. If you can identify them, feel free to post about it in the comments below.