Day 178
Start: Surplus Pond Road
End: Bemis Mountain Lean-to
Miles Hiked: 17.0
Miles on AT: 1959.1
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Today was another day when I didn’t want to hike. I still had a bit of a cough and a runny nose from my cold, so that didn’t make matters any better. I got a slow start to my day and started on the trail well after the sun was already in the sky.
As I got further into my morning, I was pleasantly surprised by the terrain. I was climbing and gaining elevation, but the grade was so gradual that I would’ve believed you if you said I was walking on flat ground. It was so nice, like what I had dreamed hiking the AT would be (haha). I reached the first summit easily and took a break to enjoy the fall view of the painted leaves and the clouds still hanging out in the valley.
I was moving with a bit more urgency to get bigger-mile days done now. By my calculations, I had to average 15 mile days to get to Katahdin by October 15th. It was going to be a challenge, but doable. I knew that there were some flatter areas and blue blazes where I could make up some time, but I couldn’t take any more zero days or slack off. If I wanted to make it, I would have to push until the end.
With that in mind, I kept on moving down the trail. I wasn’t moving fast today, but I kept putting one foot in front of the other. The ground was so littered with leaves that sometimes it was difficult to see where the trail was. I had to look for the break in the trees instead of the path on the ground to keep my bearings. But, I loved crunching through the forest on a painted path. The colors were so vibrant that it made the whole forest glow when the sun hit the leaves just right.
As the day progressed, it became apparent that I would have to night hike again. I passed a loose group of 3 hikers, including one named Steady Eddie, who I chatted with for a while before continuing on. As faithful readers know, I hate night hiking. I’m always afraid of what animals I could encounter, and I always have the primal sense that I shouldn’t be outside with my inadequate human eyes when it’s dark outside. Plus, this time I had seen more than a few indicators that moose were in the area.
But, as the sun set, I sucked it up, put on my headlamp, and kept hiking. I had another mountain to climb before I would make it to my target shelter, and, wow, was the sunset beautiful! This summit didn’t have an open clearing and was mostly tree-covered, so I couldn’t see a clear view of the painted sky, but the shot that I did get through the trees was sufficient.
A few minutes later, I ran into one of the hikers I had met earlier in the day. He was going to the same shelter I was and, like me, was a little freaked out about night hiking. Apparently, he had had a close call with a moose a few days ago and wanted to hike with someone else while it was dark to feel safe. I had objections to that, so off to the shelter we went.
Navigating in the dark was a little difficult because instead of trail, we were now walking on bare rock that was interspersed with ghostly moss. In the dark of night, the moss glowed white and looked like snow when our headlamps illuminated the patches of vegetation. Luckily, we were in Maine and the Maine trail club did an amazing job of blazing this portion of trail. We seldom had to look for long to find the next white blaze to lead us in the right direction. A part of me was a little bummed that I wasn’t experiencing this part of trail in the daylight because the rocky terrain seemed pretty cool. But, my mission today was to get miles done, so that was what I did.
Eventually we arrived at the shelter and found another hiker, Mace, there. My hiking buddy and him knew each other apparently and had started from the same shelter earlier that day. Tired after a long day, I didn’t linger and, after getting my water, said goodnight to the guys, set up my tent, and got ready for sleep.
And that’s day 178.
A version of this post originally appeared on TheTrek.co.