Our alarm clock was a very angry squirrel dropping pine cones at us. No joke. That happened. Warthog said he listened to a lot of cones drop. They landed with such a thud, at first we both thought someone was throwing stones at us. I think it was because they were fresh pine cones, so they still had the water and seed weight in them still. We would hear something hit the ground, then again and again. After a while the offended squirrel would scream his chattering noise – something I consider to be his war cry. Finally the pine cones started landing on the tent. Probably five to ten made contact. We were both afraid it would rip a hole. We didn’t have to be afraid for long. After his target was hit, it seemed like his mission was complete and the pine cone bombs stopped dropping. We chuckled at the absurd way to be woken up.
Later, I would paint a picture to our friends about a lady squirrel waiting up all night for her man squirrel to come home. He didn’t return until the wee hours of the morning spelling like someone else’s squirrel perfume. That’s it! She had it! The betrayed squirrel would run over to his beloved pile of pine cones and he would watch in horror as she threw them, one by one, out of the tree. Warthog and I just happened to be the poor fellows standing underneath as this all happened. I know it’s not a realistic depiction. The earlier story of a battle ready squirrel defending his tree is probably just as good as the other, but sometimes I like to imagine ridiculous scenarios. It’s what my mind does. A mind with lots of time to dream because all I do is hike and think… and sometimes eat.
Other than the fantastic wake up, this morning was rough. Neither one of us wanted to get up. Warthog was bumming a bit. We take turns being low. Apparently it’s his turn today. Long days and late night pushes are hard on us all. For Warthog, it’s especially difficult to get into camp when it’s dark. It’s really hard to have a big day and not get into camp late, especially since the sun is fully set by 7:30p now. We’ve lost an entire hour of being able to hike in the sunlight. I’m not sure if that will translate into shorter days or more time with the headlamps on. I expect the latter. We are so close to the end, we don’t really want to start compromising our miles. He’ll reset in a day or so. I know he will. Then it’ll probably be my turn to struggle. This is why we make a good team, each steps up to encourage the other when the encouragement is needed.
We left camp a bit later than normal, but it gave us the ability to snuggle in longer and avoid being pummeled by pine cones. It was 8:30a when we were hitting the trail. Even still, we made good mileage today. It wasn’t too difficult. There were hills /mountains to climb, but nothing as steep or as sustained as what we had yesterday. Tomorrow we have a rough climb out of town, so I’m intentional to appreciate the break we got today. The hiking, albeit muddy, was very nice. The forests and path were beautiful. On some of the rocky summits you knew there were supposed to be views, but they were hidden by the fog and clouds. I was okay with that, especially because it wasn’t windy or rainy while we were up there. Eventually the cloud cover lifted and we saw sunlight with blue skies. I’ll tell you… standing in sun brings so much hope and happiness. It’s seemed like we’ve had an incredible amount of grey skies and rain lately, I was so happy to have sun. It truly felt like a fall day in the woods.
Our weather report called for 10% chance of rain all day. There where a couple of times where it started sprinkling. We groaned in protest and put on rain gear. The rain didn’t last too long and never got to be more than sprinkles. After a bit we arrived at the spot where we planned to eat lunch. It was a narrow sandy beach on a large Maine lake… I was excited for the therapy of sitting while eating and listening to the water lapping. It started to be anyways. We hadn’t even gotten our food out yet when rain came. More groans of protest. We sat on the beach hoping it’ll let up. When we realized it wasn’t going to break, we decided to push on the half of a mile to a shelter where we could rest under cover. Not long after we arrived, the rain picked up harder. I was glad we moved on. Our normal hour lunch was extended to more like an hour and a half to two hours. We sat until the rain had long been over and the sun seemed bright before going back out. We’ve had our fair share of rain and really, really, really don’t want to hike in it anymore. The jokes on us. After a bit of sunny hiking, more rain came. But Mother Nature was kind I suppose, she let it rain while the sun was shining – something that happened probably three times today. It was kind of cruel really. Sort of like, “here’s what you could have… but no, you get to be wet.” Remember how the weather report called for 10% chance of rain? We joked it stood for 10% of the day. It sure seemed like it.
We were only hiking another 4.7 miles to a campsite. The group debated about going farther, but decided that this offered far more advantages than the next option 1.8 miles more down the trail. This gives us better water, a privy, a spot on a pond, and getting into camp before dark. We took it to a vote and unanimously we chose to stop. It’s a good thing we did. As we were setting up our tent, more rain came. Just like it’s been all day, it wasn’t heavy rain. It was just another pocket of precipitation. Poor Warthog wanted to have another fire. He had began preparing one, then the rain started. When it continued, he finally accepted the fact that it wasn’t going to happen. At least we were in camp early. The late night yesterday is what had him so down this morning. Hopefully a good night of sleep will bring his spirits back up. It’ll be an early wake up tomorrow – 5a. If we can get out of camp quickly, we can get into town for breakfast and a resupply. Breakfast being the main motivator. There’s nothing quite like the promise of delicious food to get hikers going.
-ansel