Walkin’ Map 6 on the AT in Maine, Day 1/4

My first day of walking involved a paid auto shuttle, my first.  The Stratton Motel has a list of places they can drive you to on their website, and after I coughed up $52.50, Drifter drove west toward Oquossic, then 11 miles south on Route 17 where we found the AT crossing.    Sounds expensive, but it works out to a reasonable rate of $35 per hour for the driver to make a round trip, and I think it took Drifter close to an hour and a half to deal with me.  The charges are the same regardless of whether there is one hiker or there are 4 hikers in the vehicle.  On the positive side, there is no charge for shuttles to the Appalachian Trail road crossings for Rangeley (Route 4) or for Stratton (Maine Hwy 27 – also know as Route 27 or Route 16 on some maps).

At 10:45 I made it to the Sabbathday Pond Lean to where I applied moleskin to my left toe, ate and moved on. I was walking in and out of light rain, with air temperatures in the low 50’s.

Still Muddy in Places on the AT

I couldn’t sit  and rest for long without getting cold. It was weather that kept me walking.

AT View

It’s crying time again. That sure hasn’t happened at  home.  I had just made the approach to a former campsite at South Pond where MEGATEX stayed in 2007 when a power rush of memories overwhelmed me. I believe that I cry rather than allow the size of the feelings inside to blow my chest out. Originally, I planned to stop for the night here, but it was only 3PM, and cold out, so I decided to keep walking. So that’s what I did, eventually crossing Route 4’s construction zone

Not the Usual AT Signage

, and up the hill to  Piazza Rock Lean-to, rolling in at 4:45 PM. 15 miles in from Rt. 17.
I only saw two other hikers all day, thru-hiker hopefuls heading north to reach Katahdin by the overnight closing date of Oct. 15. There are also  flip floppers on the path, folks who have been walking from Georgia who are running out of time that hitch all the way to Baxter State Park and walk south until they reach their prior furthest north point.  I’m staying in the shelter with one of them, Lone Wolf ( Michigan model). There is also a caretaker, Slayer, here who is living in a platform tent  here on her last 10 day stint. On the AT,  many of the hiker’s trail names stay the same,  year after year. They are all out here, the Rainbows, the Mountain Men, the Striders. Only the faces and body types change. Birdlegs is right on when she notes that even the comments and points of views in the shelter registers live on, year after year. How could they not? It’s the same walk, same challenges, same realizations.

It’s clearing off here at the shelter,  and at 2080 feet in elevation, the temperature is dropping into the 40’s.   Slayer said it will drop into the 30’s before daybreak. It just 7:10 PM and I’m way down in my sleeping bag, leaning against the back wall of the lean-to, typing on my iPod Touch with cold fingers. My body is aching enough that I believe I’ll down some Advil. Last night in the motel room I glued up the two holes I finally located in my leaky Big Agnes and have big hopes that I won’t need to refill the mattress in the night.

Lone Wolf and I were talking Trail as we lay in the dark. He told me that he made up his Christmas presents at his last town stop in Stratton. He bought a $2.99 can of spray polyurethane and applied it to a couple dozen moose dung pellets. Whey they dried, he mailed them home.
Lone Wolf predicted that we’d see someone come in even after dark.  He was right.  Bear Bait rolled in through the pitch black night at about 8 PM. He was a thru hiker headed N who was on limited gear and funds. His Thermarest had a couple of serious holes in it, which I helped him  try to fix the next morning.
After I had been asleep for a couple of hours, I leaped out of bed out with serious case of double leg cramps.  I was whimpering and frantically rubbing them out when the other two guys woke up. Bear Bait advised me to apply hard pressure to the fleshy area between my thumb and my index finger and miraculously, it worked. I have never been able to interrupt the inevitable progression toward further agony before, and was intrigued that it might not have just been a coincidence.
When I awoke at daybreak, my  thermometer verified that it dropped to 35 degrees on my first night out.

Hiking the Hundred, Part 3 of 3

I woke up to the sound of loons crying.

Photo by Mark Shaw

It was already another warm, very humid day. I had one of the worst sleeps I can remember, waking up at least every hour throughout the night.  Why, I don’t know.
After gathering up some dry pieces of wood from the campsite, I boiled up water for a strong cup of coffee, ate my granola , powdered milk, and Medjool dates. I had just 8 miles to walk this morning, back to my car, which was at the Abol Bridge store.
I was just starting back up the AT, when I saw another hiker.  He was camped not more than three hundred feet away from me yet I had not seen nor heard him. He was out for a 12 day traverse south to Monson, and proudly showed me his 30 pound food bag.  With his pack and gear he must have been humping 50-55 pounds at least.  Good for him. I had enough to do with my light pack as I headed up the 600 vertical feet with the immediate goal of topping out at Rainbow Ledges in two miles.
I came to the top of the ridge at the Ledges and spotted an obvious thru-hiker sitting at the Katahdin viewpoint. Here is photo of me on the Ledges taken previously by Bad Influence.

Photo by Mark Shaw

There was barely an outline of the mountain visible in the thick heavy atmosphere.  I stopped , sat, and talked a bit to Kuru, from Big Sky, Montana, who was hiking with his cousin who was up ahead.   He sometimes rode the steep snow slopes with my friend Eric Morrison, who also lives there.  Kuru told me that of the 30 plus people that started around March 24, he and his cousin were the only ones left walking the Trail.  The wet conditions this year just wore people out.  He said that the mud in Pennsylvania was the last straw for the stronger ones that even made it that far.  I gave Kuru the 4 ounces of denatured alcohol I had in my emergency bottle, and we hiked and talked the whole two and a half miles to the Hurd Brook Lean-to.  I met his cousin there, and learned that she had spent summers at Alford Lake Camp in Union,  the site of my first job in Maine.  I decided to let them have their time together at the end of the Hundred and pushed on.  Here are some additional photos  of the area by Mark Shaw, who is my favorite AT photographer. 

Wet section ( note white blaze)

In no time I finished the final 3.5 miles, exiting the woodland section of the Trail, taking the right turn and walking a bit of the Golden Road before I hit the store for some snacks.  There were a couple of young women working there.  They told me the thermometer at the store registered 95 degrees yesterday.  I had one of them make me up one of those day glo- red hot dog, with relish, mustard , and even onions for just $1.26.  A pint of chocolate milk washed it down.  I love the place, and hung around talking with them until Kuru and his cousin showed up.
Kuru and I  exchanged info about our blogs and I thanked them for the time  they spent with me. I appreciate Kuru letting me know he has been able to use his iPod Touch, with a free WordPress App, to successfully compose for his blog, which then automatically connects and then posts when he reaches a Wi-Fi hub.  I wished the duo the best on  walking the last 10 more miles into Katahdin Stream Campground and then up to the summit when they end their long walk tomorrow.

As soon as I reached Millinocket, I hightailed it to the air conditioned Appalachian Trail Cafe, where I ran into Paul (“Ole Man”), owner of both the Cafe and the Appalachian Trail Lodge . I met him several times on my 2007 AT Thru-hike, both at day 1 , in Georgia, and five and one-half months later in Millinocket. Paul is from Fall River, MA, where I grew up.  We shared grief at the fact that our favorite chinese noodle supply station, The Oriental Chow Mein Co. had burned down recently.  We both have a big bag of those noodles stashed away in our respective freezers.

Paul told me the Lodge was empty last night, but that last year on that date he had been full.  He reported that  this year’s hikers were running about 2-3 weeks behind the normal schedule, due to the rainy weather delays.
All in all , I ended up hiking 31 miles on the Appalachian Trail  in 48 hours.  I was especially encouraged that the mileage was attained on the two hottest, most humid days of the summer, so something has dramatically improved with my stamina in the heat and humidity.

I head home for two days to work, but in three days I’ll be right back on the AT in New Hampshire, with the hope of walking the Franconia Ridge Trail in that infrequent  5,000 foot range, between Mt. Lafayette and Mt. Lincoln in the White Mountains.

New titanium Backpacking Wood Stoves!

I got a UPS package from Don Kevilus at Four Dog Stoves at 6 PM last night, just as I was ready to go out for pizza with Marcia.  The box had two brand new ultralight backpacking titanium wood stoves that were sent for me to test.   Here is a photo of the brand new Bushcooker Light I .

Stove fits into the Snow Peak 700 cc mug on left

The stove is tiny, only 3.5 inches wide and 4 inches high.  It weighs 2.5 OZ.  I was so worked up about the stove that  I was out there last night at 9PM and actually burned up just 1.2 ounces of wood to successfully boil up 2 cups of water in my MSR titanium pot.  The stove can also burn alcohol, solid fuel tablets, charcoal, even dried dung!
I was so worked up about the stoves that after I came home, I went outside and started a fire in the tiny cooker.  I actually did not think the stove was capable of carrying out the task, as the firebox appeared to be too small to even hold enough wood to boil 2 cups of water.  Wrong, hit a rolling boil.  Weighing the stove indicated that I consumed only 1.2 OZ. of wood!   Unbelievable!  I can’t wait to work with the stoves on my canoe trip this upcoming week.  The stove is really something!  Full review later.

For those of you who need to know more about this stove, I’m posting the new page to Don’s catalog, which does not even appear to be on his website yet, but should be up around the 4th of July.

The page was sent to me as a scan, so it is fuzzy, but here is a better picture of the new lineup.

New Light series of the all-titanium Bushbookers

DIY Tyvek Stuff Sack

Every once in while, I stumble onto a neat idea related to backpacking.  This one is a hoot.  Make a stuff sack out of USPO mailing envelope.

Free, but also a federal offense

Full instructions from the blogsite :  http://pig-monkey.com/2009/06/22/diy-tyvek-stuff-sack/

Try it, it’s fun to make stuff ( sacks).

The Thoreau You Don’t Know

The Thoreau You Don’t Know: What the Prophet of Environmentalism Really Meant
by Robert Sullivan

Not only does this book illuminate the myth of Thoreau, but it unearthed to me another interesting writer, Sullivan himself. Consider this sentence alone, “Walden is the light on at night for the person on the back road, for the tired traveler wondering how much farther they have to go and then realizing that the path is what matters”.
I feel privileged to have camped a month ago on Pillsbury Island, furthest northern point of Thoreau’s expeditions to Maine. Pencils, canoes, and firewood continue to be viable tools here in this northeast corner of the US, and to have any connection at all to this original thinker and his books gives me hope.

View all my reviews.

National Trails Day

I love Baxter State Park.

I signed up to work at Baxter State Park for National Trails Day, Saturday,  June 6.  I had a lot to do the day before , so left the house at 4:45 Saturday AM in order to grab some breakfast and some coffees on the road and report at 8 AM for work at Katahdin Stream Campground .  The deal is that in exchange for working all day, you are allowed to camp for free in Baxter Friday and also Saturday nights.  I have volunteered for this before and hoped  to take a hike on Sunday.

The 12 volunteers were joined by the regular trail crew and the lead ranger.  There were 20 people working on two different jobs.

In the morning we worked on a new section of trail that went from Daicey Pond out to the Perimeter Road just  across the entrance to Katahdin Stream Campground.  The Park has petitioned the Appalachian Trail Conference to make this new trail  into the AT, which would cut out an existing AT road walk.  We were given saws and  loppers and had to cut back the overgrown brush, clearing the edges of the path one arm’s length into the woods.  Then we each had to pile up the brush and haul it into the woods an place the brush pilesin low spots away from the line of sight.  Took all morning, although we took a buggy break at Grassy Pond which had some wind to keep the black flies at bay.

Bug nets and hard hats

In the afternoon, we drove down to Abol Campground where the task was to clean out waterbars all the way up to the Abol Slide area.  Here we worked in groups of three.  One of us had a mattock, one a ” potato rake”, and I was the one in my group with a shovel.  We received instruction in how to clean them out. It is a job that needs to be done every couple of years, as these drainage ditches tend to fill with silt, leaves, pine needles, and sticks that eventually causes the water to run straight down the trail instead of being diverted off into the woods.

Safety talk

Here is a shot of the other two guys on my crew mucking out a waterbar. We took out the rock.

Waterbar detail

We finished at about 4 PM.  The deal was that we would be treated to a barbeque supper as appreciation for our work.  This meant driving again, this time down to the Abol Narrows administrative lean-to’s, where we were offered camping spaces for the night, if we wanted them.  It was a really decent barbeque, with chicken, hot dogs, burgers, salads of all types, chips, dips, and sodas.

I decided to stay the night, but it was supposed to rain and it was really thick with mosquitoes, so I decided to set my Tarptent up in a lean-to, and pack up dry in the morning.  The bugs were so bad people didn’t hang around. We were done eating by 6:15 , when everyone cleared out except for me and two other parties that each took their own lean-to’s.  I ended up giving two other volunteers that I knew,  Barbara and Bill Bentley,  a $35 check as my membership in Friends of Baxter State Park.  Bill gave me a 2009 Baxter photo calendar as a free gift.  Even thought it was only 6:30 PM, I had no problem hanging out in my tent , listening to music on my iPod, and reading a bit.  When I shut off the music I was lulled to sleep by the satisfaction of hearing the high pitched whine of hundreds of mosquitoes pouncing against the OUTSIDE of my tent screening.  I had high hopes that it would be clear enough in the morning for a hike up to Mount Katahdin.

Allagash Wilderness Waterway – Final day/8

I woke up with a startle after I remembered that it was my 37th wedding anniversary and that I had just spent the night in a tent with Mike Gundel instead of my wife Marcia.  Or was it tomorrow?
We had our last breakfast together.

Gus the cook

Gus and Beck had eggs, and Mike and I each had another  wagon wheel pancake with bacon.

Mike and the wagon wheels

The river this last day was holding maximum water, with many more audible feeds streams swelling the flow rate.  It broadened out as well.
Mike and I had many chances on whitewater today, as we successfully dealt with two major sections of Class II rapids in the 12 miles of river this morning.  In the end, we only had two really close brushes with swamping our canoe, along with the usual numerous near mishaps. Both times Mike and I abandoned the canoe, jumping out into the rushing waters.  We eventually pushed,  pulled,  and leaned the craft over enough to slide off the partially submerged ledges. A few times, we  careened off serious boulders that we did not have the time, experience, or both to avoid.
We’ve finished the trip in 8 days.

Uncle Tom and Captain Mike complete the trip

Canada is in sight.  The takeout is right before the bridge in the village of Allagash on the Canadian border, within sight of the confluence of the Allagash and mighty Saint John rivers. After we hauled the canoes up to shore, we walked up a hill.   The first house west of the river is Evelyn McBride’s place. Even though it was approaching noon it was cold out.

Cold morning

We knocked on her door as instructed by the shuttle service. The local outfitters park their customer’s cars on Mrs. Mc Bride’s property so that the cars will be near the landing when customers finish their trips.  Evelyn charges $2 per day for parking and $1 for landing.  Mrs. McBride lives alone.

Evelyn McBride

She told us that her husband died 30 years ago, had been in the lumber business, and that she was 92 years old. She was a Pelletier, and the Pellitiers had owned this river frontage for several generations and formerly operated the ferry across the river where there is now a bridge and the canoe landing.    Mrs. Mc Bride appears to be to be related to most everyone in town.
After we placed the canoe on the rack of Mke’s car, he reviewed some visual history from our trip on the river.

“Damn, I lost the crown of my tooth!”  exclaimed Mike, just as he was enjoying the the cheeseburger special and fries at Rock’s diner in Fort Kent.

Crowning moment at lunch

We were eating an early lunch.
Mike and I had been reviewing the partial list of challenges that we have faced over the course of the week:  the remote location, lack of personnel to rescue us if we encountered an emergency, black flies and mosquitos, below freezing temperatures, incessant wind on the big waters, rain, wet feet ( daily), cuts on my hands, hot temperatures and humidity, a sleep deprivation experiment involving a wild mob of 23 Russians, black and blue hip from slipping and falling on the rocks ( Mike only), bare miss of hitting a canoe broadside that had crossed out path at the last minute while we were exiting a rapid, reversed waves on the river due to high winds, at least one day of steady 30 MPH winds that halted our forward progress at 10 AM.
The Allagash trip would pose most, or all,  of these challenges to anyone. Note that the list above does not even include our lack of technical skills needed in the rapids.  Mike and I  worked very well as a team, and Mike revealed that after taking in Gus’ s advice he sometimes was reciting the Lord’s prayer after only counting to three.
We both feel that we’ve received much more from being in the outdoors than we expected.  Up here, Mike and I  strengthened an already deep bond that began way back on that rope belay on Hurricane Island when Mike held me from the end of the rope on the ground, and I swallowed hard, leaned forward , gave it all up, and flew into the sky.

Allagash Wilderness Waterway – Day 7/8

It is 26 degrees at 5:30 AM.  Water that was left out was frozen, with white frost riming our gear that was out.
Today we traveled with Gus and Beck.  We somehow, without speaking directly, coordinated our departures so that both canoes pushed off from the shore together at 7:30 AM.  Made sense, actually, as we’d help each other today.
Parts of the trip this early morning allowed us to lazily drift the river, gliding past huge elm trees that are so isolated here that they have managed to escape the dreaded Dutch Elm Disease.

Drifting on the deadwater

Even not paddling moved us forward, as the current now is stronger.  The air was cool, with the wind still dormant.  At one point while the sun was shining down on us, Gus reminded us, “ It doesn’t even get any better than this, guys.”
The river is moving faster now, after it has gathered increased water from the many streams that have been feeding into the main channel for the past several miles.
By 10 AM, we had completed the third of a mile portage around the majestic Allagash Falls after traveling just three miles on the river.     Mike and I followed Gus’s canoe today, studying his every move in our attempt to improve our whitewater skills.  Gus’s main advice if we get ourselves stuck in a bad place in the rapids was, “ Count to ten and say the Lord’s Prayer.”  Gus added that most of the time, you don’t have to do much of anything to move a canoe off a rock. Unless the canoe’s exact mid point is fully engaged, some principle of physics eventually releases the canoe.
For the whole trip , I had been nervous about this final stretch, as it lists two sets of Class II rapids.
Gus is the real whitewater deal.  Gus has told us he had been certified as a whitewater instructor with the American Canoe Association, was the instructor for the Penobscot Paddle and Chowder Society, and works part time in the summers running rubber rafts loaded with paying clients for one of the rafting companies up in the Forks, which runs trips on the Kebnnebec and Dead Rivers.    It was uncanny how Gus appeared out of nowhere to assist us.  Just his quiet, steady presence was enough to improve my confidence.
We were fighting wind and pushing through shallow waters again today.  As we approached the roaring Allagash Falls, a warning sign appeared on our right.

Danger ahead!

We eventually beached the canoes, when Gus told us that it might be possible to move the canoes even further downstream, cutting the portage distance.  Gus took all of us up the hill where we eventually found the path down to the shore. What I saw looked scary as hell.  Gus explained that, “You have to get the canoe right in here, because just a bit downstream is the falls.  You have to hit this.”   He explained that he was confident he could get a fully loaded canoe through the rapids, multitude of boulders, and weave across the river in time to avoid a trip over the falls.  He had done it before.
So Mike and I watched Beck and Gus push their canoe off upstream and confidently maneuver their craft right over to our feet.  There was no way that Mike and I could pull off what Gus just accomplished, so Gus offered to stern our canoe with either Mike or I in the bow. I graciously relinquished the front seat to Mike, and watched him and Gus smoothly execute the serpentine watercourse.

Mike and Gus make good.

Mike told me that when approaching an obstacle Gus told him instructions like, “ Give me two strokes and a draw.”
We four carried each of  the two canoes over the portage trail, which was much easier on the shoulders than with just two people carrying the one canoe. It took no time to move everything to the put-in site below the Falls.
Down the trail on the portage we encountered a party of 8 men who were struggling to portage their gear, which included numerous coolers and four outboard motors, which appear to associate themselves with many additional gasoline jugs.  There are no marinas here that sell gas, mainly because there is no service of any kind on the whole 92 miles of the AWW.
We fished , or lounged a bit beneath the forty foot Falls.  Here is quick video on the action. 
We could reach the cars today and head home if we wanted to, as the vehicles  were only 13 miles away in Allagash village, and we had the whole afternoon to get there. Both groups decided to stay on the river another night;  Gus and Beck because they planned it that way, and Mike and I because it just made more sense to stop this afternoon.  We still had to drive home after we loaded our vehicles. Incredibly, home was five or six more hours south.
We stopped at the Big Brook North campsite.  It was early enough that I made up a pot of Darkstar.

Perkin' up.

Tonight I made a super pasta meal, rehydrating a pint of tasty tomato sauce with meat, cooking up the ziti, adding parmesan and cheddar cheeses, and finishing it all off with a half a Whoopie pie.
Tomorrow would be our last day in these woods.

Allagash Wilderness Waterway – Day 5/8

The Russians are history.
This morning we were approached by a Ranger in a motorboat headed south.  He was headed to the bridge at the end of Umsaskis to intercept the flotilla, which has been merrily violating a expanding list of rules that justified booting them off the AWW, including lying about their group size.  The limit for one group is 12 people. They had 23.  They had reassured the Ranger at the dam that they would keep the 12 person units apart, and would not camp together on the same site.  We learned that in addition to our complaints about the significant dent they made on our own wilderness experience, the Eastern mob also did not communicate back to the Ranger at Churchill Dam that they wrecked a canoe in Chase Rapids. They had left the two pieces in the water.  Another set of canoeists went back to the dam and reported the damaged Old Town Discovery canoe ( illegal again) . This caused much aggravation to the Rangers there who initiated a search of the river, as they did not know if they were facing a potential drowning. There appeared to be even more violations that the Ranger was keeping to himself.    [ Ed. Note:  Mike e-mailed Katahdin Outfitters (KO)  after he got home inquiring (and complaining) about the Russian horde.  They were the commercial service that was transporting the Russians to and from the river. Mike heard back from KO that Russians were picked up by their drivers at Michaud Farm, where the Ranger there would not let them continue.  They settled with KO about the wrecked canoe after a bit of haggling.  KO told Mike that they would not rent to the Eastern wave again, even foregoing income in excess of $1,000 on renting those 12 canoes, paddles and life jackets.  The owners thanked Mike for his report about them.]

After our brief night of about 4 hours of sleep, Mike and I made a quick oatmeal breakfast and were on the water by 6:30 AM.  The wind was up even at that hour, but was at our backs, which resulted in us moving ahead another 20 miles today,  as we cruised over Long Lake and Harvey Pond.
Mike and I stopped to fish for an hour or so at the remains of the Long Lake Dam, where we had another portage.

Lock Dam remains

It was here that we spotted our first and only canoe, being ferried around the rapids by one familiar face.  There are just over 1,000,000 people in Maine, and what are the chances that I’d know one of these folks?  I spotted Gus Szabronski, of Searsport.

Beck and Gus

Gus and I go back to 1978 when he plumbed my house.  He is an outdoorsman, and we had even camped in neighboring tents together on the snow in Greenville on January 13, 2005, at the send off for Winterwalk for the Wild.  I’m even quoted in a Boston Globe article about the event.
While we had some hard knock whitewater lessons today, we did manage to keep the canoe afloat through it all.  Additional challenges on the river today were the the strong winds, which kept changing direction on the river, constant sub crosswinds, and at least three scary encounters with those guys in 20’ canoes with outboard motors.

Heading downstream

Here is one scene: picture two men, each barely competent white water novices, are struggling to keep their 17 foot canoe pointed downstream.  Two sounds are prominent in the background:  loud wind whipping the tops of the evergreen trees back and forth on a frenzy, and the rushing roar of white water which is no doubt amplified in the narrow river corridor. Occasionally there are places in the river that are low enough for us to scrape the bottom of and even halt the progress of our craft.  The flat light and rippled surface  are combining forces to make it impossible to see into the water to estimate depth.  Add  the additional carom/video-game effect of trying to aim for a tongue of clean, safe water between two dangerous and exposed rocks. We’re factoring in the flow of the river pushing us around at the same time the winds are moving us side to side.  For the past couple of hours, Mike and I have done fairly well at learning to let the flow of the river move us through the best places, with minimal steering on my part in the stern.  That has all changes as the wind is blowing up a gale on this new section of rapids, and I’m terrified!  Instead of slipping into the right spots, we’re missing them, careening off rocks and twice getting dangerously caught up on them.  Twice we had to  just jump into the cold water, grab the bow and stern ropes,  and wrestle it out of harm’s way, as we were slipping and sliding over the slimy rocks on the bottom.  And as we rounded one turn there loomed  three of the 20 foot outboard blocking the main watercourse, with no apparent movement to at least slide aside to let us pass.  After we picked a spot that would permit us to  escape ramming two of them, we committed to a less favorable line, but just as we were already moving through that narrow opening,  the third canoe decided at that moment to cross right in front of us!
I yelled at them, “ Get out of the way!”
Thankfully we just missed them, but as we were told, “You will face innumerable challenges on this trip.”  We just didn’ t think this sort of nonsense would be included.

It is really exhausting to pull so hard on the paddles, move as quickly as you can, shout out directions and moves, and then repeat.  I think I’m going to call my canoeing partner Mike Marvel.  He’s unshakeable.

And easy to cook for.  Mike has what I’d term conservative  food preferences.  I didn’t need to pack any extra coffee.  Mike told me he tried a cup once in college, “ I didn’t like it.  It was bitter and tasted bad to me.  Why would I ever have another cup?”
I have all the hummus to myself.
The good news is that Mike packed Oreos and chocolate chip cookies.  He also brought along a bag of little Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, that he put in the cooler to keep firm. Bless him when he tore open the $2.95 bag of real day glow orange Chee-tos. Who thinks up these genius food concepts that endure generations?  I asked Mike to tie me up a new fly that looked just like a Chee-to to commemorate the trip.

For lunch, Mike cooked up a true-to-life version of the Boxcar Hash.

Mike hashing it up

This time he used sausages and ham instead of bacon.  I even toasted a whole wheat bagel over my Uncle Tom model wood stove after I perked up another batch of Darkstar coffee.
We made camp early,  two miles downstream from Round Pond at the Croque Brook campsite after surviving the Round Pond Rips.  Here is a video of me in the process of drying out.  Mike and I were in good spirits after another day of adventures.

Allagash Wilderness Waterway- Day 3/8

Our only hope to get off this Island was to start early, and try and cross back to  the western side of Eagle lake and move ahead.  We packed everything we could the night before, grabbed a bar and a swig of water, and pushed off into the water at 5:15 AM.  Mike and I were really hoping to move ahead at least a few miles, as the wind was also supposed to pick up today.  Our crossing was quick and the wind , although present, was manageable.  We chugged along the shore at about a 2 MPH pace until we started to home in on our next landing site, known as the Tramway Carry.  We were hoping to locate the remains of two steam locomotives that hauled logs here from 1927-1933. This article provides a brief history of the most ambitious and unique venture.
The only signs here on the Waterway were the initial entrance sign, and the small triangular brown wooden signs that discreetly mark each campsite. There was no sign for the path that leads to the engines, but we were summoned to the correct place by the loud splash of a beaver whacking its tail on the water just in front of a beaver lodge that marked the entrance to a little cove.  We expected to push through overgrown thickets to find the trains, but after a brief uphill rise, an opening in the forest revealed these gigantic locomotives, each over 60 feet long.

Sixty foot long steam locomotive

The wheels were 5 feet high. We were floored to see them here, so far into the deep woods.

Two Engines

Mike and I explored them a bit, snapped some shots and then were on the water again.
The wind kept coming at us, and we continued to hug the western side of Eagle Lake, and eventually made the 1 mile crossing of Russell Cove.

Waves are building

Next, we skirted the two mile long shoreline of a big peninsula where we passed three campsites.  The only watercraft we saw on those sites were the usual 20 foot square ended boats  fitted with 10 horepower outboard motors.
Next, we planned to stop at the Eagle Lake Ranger Station, mainly to cook up our belated breakfast. There was nobody home, and after using the outhouse, we were getting ready to unload the cooking gear when the white powerboat from yesterday came right at us.  It was the same ranger who checked on us yesterday.  We learned his name was Kevin, and we thanked him for his advice to head back to Pillsbury Island and wait out the wind.
Kevin laughed and told us, “ Only 10 per cent of the people I talk to ever listen to me.”
We listened even more carefully when he looked at his watch and told us “ I’d get off this beach as soon as I can.  It is almost 10 AM and that is when the wind really picks up”.
I asked him if we had time to whip up a quick breakfast, and he said, “ If it was me, I’d eat later.”
We said good bye and he headed off.
Mike and I really struggled to get off the beach, which by this time was getting clobbered by high rolling waves, which were big enough that if you went broadside, would swamp the canoe. By pushing directly into the waves, and paddling like heck, we managed to get off the beach, but furious paddling into the waves was now causing us to go out into a two mile wide mini-ocean, which was not good.  If we swamped out there, we’d be goners.  Shouting back and forth, we agreed to surf back into shore again and somehow move the canoe left along the shoreline. Adrenaline was copiously entering my bloodstream.   We tried to paddle along the shore but couldn’t do it.   Mike spotted a quieter pond of water behind a natural retaining spit and we jumped out the the canoe into the water and haulded it back over the rocks and were able to paddle along the shore in this more protected channel for a few hundred feet.  Eventually the pond ended and we pulled the canoe back over the wall again and really had to dig deep to make forward progress.  We inched two miles up the shore paddling into whitecaps, and our full strength strokes were not even giving us 2 MPH.  This was the final solution until we reached the protection of the Fred King campsite in the most northeast corner of Eagle Lake.

Mid-day respite

For a brief moment in time, we entered camping la-la-land: a sunny, sheltered spot; fresh clean water bubbling past us from a visible stream; and a rest, preparing us for the afternoon’s adventures.
Mike prepared huge servings of “caboose hash”, a family recipe handed down to him through his grandfather, who was connected with the railroad: bacon, eggs, cheddar cheese, onions, with white and sweet potatoes.  I perked up another pot of DarkStar.
The Waterway narrowed down as we moved through Round Pond, went under John’s Bridge, and evenually reached Churchill Lake, where we ended our day at what has to be one of Uncle Tom’s Top Ten campistes of all time : Scofield Point.  All and all , we moved close to 20 miles today.
In the spirit of “ a picure uquals 10,000 words”, here’s a two minute walk-through of this most spectacular site, which was all ours for the next 18 hours. 
Mike was fishing off the point this afternoon, where encountered a nesting pair of Canada Geese.  He had first noticed their empty downy nest, and on his second trip out there spotted 5 freshly laid goose eggs.
Mike and I seem well suited for this work together.  Both of us might be described by some as mostly focused in our energy, and both of us are taking a cautious approach to the challenges we’ve faced so far.
Kevin visited us again this afternoon.  He gave us some tips about the best campsites for the next few days, mentioned some preferred fishing holes, and offered us a strategy for dealing with the wind on the upcoming Umaskis Lake.
Mike and I beamed like two proud children when Kevin told us, “You two are good canoeists.  You are going to do all right from here. I knew you guys could get up this far today”
Later, as I sat on my sheetrock bucket writing these notes, a big gust of wind came up,  and I instinctively started rocking my hips, as if I was in the canoe again.
At 7 PM, Mike is fishing again, “ I almost brought in a 12 inch Brookie ( trout).  Now I know they are out there. Don’t wait up for me.  I may be here into the dark.”

Mike in action