9/06/01
Cold air filtered into the shelter overnight, so I cinched the mummy bag up tight around my body and face. Finn appeared comfortable on his side of the shelter as the sun rose. Neither of us moved and I intentionally stayed in the bag until the sun's rays began warming the air outside my toasty bag. Finally we both packed up and ate breakfast, then I hit the trail around 9:30 a.m. Immediately I faced a 1,750' climb to the top of Barren Mtn. The first 1000' were moderately steep, so I took my time getting to the Barren Ledges. There, I caught up to several Nobos who had dropped their packs to view the Barren Rock Slide and the surrounding wilderness below. They left as I sat down on the Ledges. I had the whole spectacle to myself for about 30 minutes until Finn arrived. We both spent another 30 minutes there before continuing the climb to the top of Barren Mtn. From the top we dropped a little, then faced a series of five more peaks and gaps in between. The trail was rugged in many places throughout the next several miles. We stopped for lunch at the Cloud Pond lean-to, which had a beautiful pond setting next to the shelter. As we were returning to the trail, Priceless passed us as he was heading to the shelter for water. He told us that both he and Phantom were feeling better and that Phantom was ahead of him, so he was also ahead of us. I struggled all afternoon with all of the roller coaster ups and downs.
Finally by late afternoon we reached the Chairback Gap lean-to where we found Phantom resting. Thinking that Priceless was just behind us and knowing that we had 4 miles down to the river where several of our fellow thru-hikers were stopping for the night, we decided jointly to press on. I was running on empty and had to stop on the four mile jaunt for a snack to get me to the river. I got there after Phantom and Finn, around 6:30. This gave me just enough time to cook, set up the tent, retrieve water, and do all the other camp chores before dark. We had quite a crowd tenting and cowboying together on both sides of a small stream, which feeds in to the Pleasant River. After dinner I joined the social hour already in progress by the campfire on the other side of the stream. Our thru-hiker (all Nobos) group included me, Phantom, Finn, Bad Moon, Leslie, Longshanks and Blur, Fiddlehead and Smiles, Cy, and Smitty. We had lots of fun by the campfire, sharing trail stories and reminiscing about our journeys. The majority of the crew is ready for the journey to end, including me, but are sad that the wonderful relationships and friendships which have grown, are about to be torn apart as we return to our homes and lives away from the trail. We enjoyed each other's company for an hour or two before going to bed for the night. It was a rough and challenging hiking day in the wilderness of Maine, but beautiful and peaceful all the way along the trail. Today's stats: low 40, high 65. Sunny. Today's mileage: 15.3; cumulative mileage: 2,084.0. I forgot to mention that Priceless didn't catch up to us, so we are assuming that he is four miles back. Also, it appears that Redneck has decided to break from the Fab 5 to travel with Greenlight. Katahdin fever is in full swing.
