From Hazard’s notes:
Day 120: September 6, 2009
Travel:
From: Nahmakanta Stream Campsite, ME
To: Hurd Brook Lean-to, ME
Beginning: 7:00am
Ending: 6:30pm
Number of miles hiked:
a) Trail – 25.4
b) other -
c) AT Mile Marker – 2159.6 cumulative.
Weather:
AM & PM: Cold morning, Perfect day.
People: Bookworm, Guy who saw moose, guy living in shelter, Flying Scotsman crew.
Animals:
Money: $0, $2141 cumulative.
Notes of the day:
AM: Woke up and rolled over to get my breakfast out of my food bag and chowed down while staying in the warmth of my sleeping bag. It was a cold morning so Spoon and I took the tent down and packed up quickly to get moving as fast as possible. I went to go tell Crocstar and Nick that we were on our way out and I could see puffs of smoke billowing out from under Croc’s Dryfly. Neither of them were very excited to get moving that morning. Spoon and I continued to follow the Nahmakanta stream until it outlet into Nahmakanta lake. We passed by a campsite where a family was cooking a big breakfast that smelled awesome and their two dogs chased after us down the trail until we waited for a family member to come and collect them. As we walked along the shoreline we ran into Bookworm (who we first met in Bennington, VT) who had flip-flopped and was heading southbound. He asked us if we would take a few minutes and be interviewed by him about our experiences on the AT for an art show he was producing. A few minutes turned into 45 minutes and by then Crocstar had showed up and joined the interview. Sitting on the shady beach with the wind blowing across the lake had frozen me to the bone and when we finally wrapped things up with Bookworm I was numb all over and hiking felt a little weird until I warmed up. Spoon and I got lost heading up Nesuntabunt Mountain because the trail was rerouted and poorly marked. Once at the top we took advantage of a short side trail to an overlook of the lake and of the big guy himself, Katahdin. A day hiker showed up and took our picture and he told us that he had come from a campground that he pointed out to us on the shore of the lake. He had flown in on one of those small prop-planes with pontoons that use these lakes as runways. We came down the mountain and followed the trail as it drifted between and around Maine’s numerous lakes. We took an early lunch break on the side of the trail since we were both starving. I had saved my summer sausage and pepper jack for today and I ate it like it was the first time I had ever tasted meat or cheese. The Flying Scotsman crew blew past us but we eventually passed them when they stopped to eat lunch at Rainbow Stream Lean-to which was a really cool spot with the stream roaring right in front of the shelter.
PM: After crossing Rainbow stream over a pair of wobbly tree trunks we hugged the edge of Rainbow lake, passing a couple pulling a canoe out of the lake, a guy who about two hours ago saw a moose and wanted to warn us as if the moose was going to stand there the entire afternoon waiting for us to show up. Once we had traversed the length of the lake the trail took us upward to the Rainbow Ledges where the aforementioned moose was spotted. Not surprisingly there wasn’t a moose waiting for us at the top, however, a spectacular view of Katahdin with the afternoon sunlight highlighting its grandeur took my breath away. It was just too unreal to think I would be climbing that beast in two days. When Spoon and I got to Hurd Brook Lean-to Crocstar and Nick were enjoying a fire prepared by the shelter’s temporary resident. The guy staying here comes out for one or two weeks a year and basically lives between this shelter and Rainbow Stream Lean-to. It was great because he had a ton of firewood prepared and maintained the fire until we went to sleep that night. Spoon and I cooked our last meal together, I dried my sweaty clothes by the fire for the last time on this trip, and I fell asleep on the first and last baseball bat floors in the final night we would spent out in the woods on this wild adventure.
