Aug 30 - Maine

DAY #142
START LOCATION: Surplus Pond Campsite
FINISH LOCATION: Bemis Mountain Lean-to
TODAY'S MILEAGE: 16.9
TRIP MILEAGE: 1,941.4
MILES TO GO: 237.7

The moon was my alarm clock this morning. I had my rainfly open over my head in the tent last night. At 5AM, the moon reached a clearing in the trees and shone right in my eyes and woke me up. This was perfect timing. I was on the trail by 6:45AM along with NLC and Casper. We needed a big day to make Rangeley in two days. These days called for a 17 to Bemis Mtn and a 19 to ME Route 4 for the plan to work.

We pulled into Hall Mountain Lean-to around 8:30 and realized we didn't need water. I was disappointed to hear that NLC and Casper had seen a moose on their way there. I was sending my 8/29 blog post on a high point with phone service and must have missed him by a few minutes. No worries. I've already seen some and probably will again. Their mud tracks and poop are everywhere.

The three of us hiked together the next few miles to Sawyer Brook and chatted about life, the trail and other topics... It made the miles pass quickly. We got some water at the brook in anticipation of the 1,400' climb and 1,000' descent from Moody Mountain. It wasn't too bad and we all regrouped at South Arm Road for our next climbing adventure... Scaling Old Blue. But before we did that, we needed to camel-up on water. The book showed the 9 mile stretch from South Arm Rd. to Bemis Mtn Lean-to as completely devoid of water sources. As we crossed Black Brook which ran parallel to the road, we didn't like what we saw. The brook was slow moving and brown looking. This usually means warm, sedimented and brown colored drinking water. We'd luck out though... As I crossed the brook, an SUV was pulling up. It was the Pine Ellis Hostel shuttle dropping off a hiker. I asked the woman about potential water sources coming up... She said the books were correct, there weren't any until Bemis. But if we walked 100 yds south on South Arm, we'd see a piped spring. Casper and I were all over it. We quickly realized that 100 yards to a Mainer was actually 1/3 of a mile. It was fine... The spring was gushing, cold, clean and worth the walk. I ate my lunch as Casper and NLC headed up Old Blue.

Old Blue Mountain was ultra steep starting out, then leveled out a bit and got steep again along it's 2,200' ascent. The southward views from it were awesome though. Atop the mountain I met back up with NLC, Casper and the dropped off thru hiker, Two Rings.

Rolled up and down along the Bemis Range hitting all three of it's peaks. It was real special for me to see this different perspective of the Rangeley area having spent so much time here over the years. It's my family's go-to summer vacation spot. As I crossed the range I could see Upper Dam, the Richardson Lakes, Mooselookmeguntic Lake, Bald Mountain, Sabbath Day Pond, Height-of-Land and even glimpses of Rangeley Lake. It was a great feeling to be somewhere so familiar.

As I made my way down the third peak of the Bemis Range, I saw Casper resting and NLC nearby on the cell phone. She was calling for rooms in Rangeley for tomorrow night and was hearing of little vacancy. They landed on Gull Pond Lodge, a hiker hostel north of town on ME Rt-16. I then pulled out my phone. Since I skipped Andover I decided I might splurge a little and tried for a room at The Rangeley Inn. Their reservation desk said they'd call me back, but after 25 minutes and a setting sun, I decided to speed things up. I called the Town and Lake Motel on Main Street and they told me to just walk up... Plenty of room tomorrow night.

I'm really looking forward to spending some time in Rangeley. It's been a couple years and I miss it. To most thru-hikers it's just another resupply point, but it means more to me, so I might spend some extra time there. Especially now that I'm hearing Katahdin Stream Campground reservations are full on the day I'd like to summit with the ol' man. So, we pushed a day to Monday the 20th. That's the goal... Finish my thru-hike on September 20. Let's hope the weather is good. I need to be in Austin, TX on Wednesday, September 22! No sweat.

-natedog