Day 169: Pierce Pond

September 30th

Little Bigelow Lean-to to Pierce Pond Lean-to

Miles Hiked: 17.7

AT Milage: 2036.8

Today I slept in since I knew it was an easy day of hiking and it wouldn’t take me long to get to the destination. It was the flattest the trail has been in a very very long time, if not one of the flattest days on the trail. There was only one bigger climb of 800 feet which is almost nothing compared to what we usually have to climb in one day. The whites in NH and southern Maine are notorious for being some of the hardest parts of the entire trail but people say it’s smooth sailing after the Bigelow’s to Katahdin. There will still be some mountains to climb but they will be less frequent and not as difficult compared to what we’ve been seeing lately. Anyways, I hiked about 5 miles by myself before Doc caught up to me and then we ate lunch about 7 miles in by a really pretty lake. My food bag was dwindling but I was glad because my resupply was planned for tomorrow and I didn’t want to carry extra food.

After lunch we passed a sign that talked about the history of this part of the trail being a portage route between two Rivers. This made me very happy and explained why the rest of the day was really flat and easy. Eventually we ran into a stunning white Sandy/stone beach on the shore of an even bigger lake where we hung out with two other hikers Phantom and Smilez. We all enjoyed the sun and talked about how easy the trail was today. Everyone was happy for the relief on our legs. One thing that’s constantly being discussed on the trail lately is how many days we have left on to Katahdin which makes me really sad. It’s as if this journey suddenly has a finite end that was so far away if seemed non existent before. It’s felt this was since crossing the Maine Border. Every time I do something I wonder if it will be the last time. Today I was wondering if I was eating my last snickers bar on the trail and got really sad.Doc and I decided to stop and camp at a lean to that overlooked a massive and beautiful lake. There was an opportunity to get pancakes in the morning from a traditional Maine hunting camp called Harrison’s. To get them, we had to walk 0.3 more miles to place a breakfast order so it would be ready in the morning. We were going to wait on Phantom who expressed that he wanted breakfast as well. He never showed up so we walked over to place our order without him. No one else showed up so we had the shelter to ourselves and just hung out for the reminder of the evening. We stopped pretty early but the ferry across the Kennebec River didn’t start until 9am so its not like we could put in too many miles anyways. Glad we chose to have breakfast at a cool place in the morning!Happy Trails!