Magic in the Mountains

September 1, 2021 (28 miles)

Cloud Pond Shelter – East Branch Shelter

***I didn’t take any pictures on this day, so these photos are from other days on my hike***

What a long and tiring day! We had a nice and slow start to the day – the pond was beautiful and it was nice to not really rush. My shoulders were really hurting me today (my pack is way too heavy with 6 days of food… thank goodness it’s almost over!) so my first few miles felt slow. They were also straight down and straight back up so that didn’t help. Truffles hiked with me, though, which made it better.

We found a blue blaze (in the 100MW, what?!) and decided to take it down to a road to cut out a few miles and some very unnecessary climbing. At the AT junction, we discovered we could walk the gravel road all the way to the shelter past where we originally planned to go – hell yeah!

Since we walked on the road the whole day, hiking was pretty uneventful. We stopped at a nice river for lunch and continued on our way. There was next to no elevation gain or loss the entire duration of the road which was lovely. It got boring and my shoulders still hurt, but it beat the hell out of climbing over White Cap (the last big mountain before Katahdin)!

I mostly just listened to podcasts and talked to Truffles, nothing too exciting. We were able to get to the shelter before 7pm; I am glad we’re finishing within the week because it’s started getting dark so much earlier.

When I think about the grand scheme I know we don’t have much trail left (sub 70!), but I am so looking forward to being done and only hiking for pleasure. I am tired and achy.