Monday, August 1st

Speck Pond Shelter (1922.5 mi) to ME 26 Grafton Notch (1927.1 mi)

Hiking Miles: 4.6

Total Ascent: 864.2 ft

Total Descent: 2,777.9 ft

Total Grade: 791.8 ft/mi

Steps: 16,907

ELTON JOHN – Bennie & The Jets

Gator/Sunrise: Staying the evening on a wooden platform felt no different than on ground. However, I did have to pay close attention to where I stepped when getting out of my tent for bathroom breaks. I did misstep off the deck once in the dark and almost toppled onto uneven ground.

Today we planned a short hike to ME Route 26 in Grafton Notch where we would catch a 10 mile shuttle to The Cabin, a well-known and recommended hostel in Andover, ME. The Cabin was a great spot to stay and re-group. It provided all the amenities (breakfast, dinner, shuttles to the market, slack packing, laundry, showers, etc.). Timing was also good whereas tomorrow, Croc scheduled a 3-hour phone interview for a new position at Target, and a stay would provide a proper venue to conduct it.

Even though it was a short 4.6 mile hike today, the overall grade was the steepest we experienced on trail (almost 800 ft/mi), essentially all downhill. Croc loved the downhills, but with my knees I would have taken an 800 ft/mi uphill climb instead any day!

About one-half mile from our destination, we crossed paths with a hiker named “Plow” who had thru-hiked the AT 5 years ago. He informed us that he left a cooler full of beers at the base of the hill that he felt we’d enjoy. Hearing that trail magic is just over the horizon immediately boosts the spirits – Thank You Plow!

We swiftly made it to the bottom in time to enjoy a summer ale while we waited for our pick-up. The ale went down real smooth, and it felt good to know that we would have the remainder of the day to grab some food and just relax. Our wait was getting long, so Croc decided to enjoy another ale, especially given the day was hot.

An old car pulled up in the lot, and out came a man (in his mid sixties maybe) whose balance looked unsteady, and when he spoke, his speech was somewhat incoherent. We had no reason to believe anything was suspicious, and he clearly was looking for someone. We explained that we were waiting for a ride to The Cabin, and that is when he surprisingly informed us that he was our driver. His name was Don, the son of the hostel owner.

I was thrilled that our ride finally showed, but I was also concerned that this sketchy character was our transport driver. He wanted to quickly get back to the hostel because all he was talking about at this point was the lasagna dinner that was being served that evening. That sounded wonderful (as all food did on trail), but before we could eat dinner, we still needed to arrive at the hostel safely.

We placed our equipment in the trunk of the vehicle, an old Buick I recall, and Croc and I both sat in the back, with me sitting behind Don. My suspicions about Don were soon materializing as he sped out of the parking lot, then slowed down, then sped up a bit. Perhaps it’s the car I thought, but I dismissed that notion when the car started swerving left and right and dangerously close to the trees to our right. We both asked Don if he was okay, and he blamed the car for being old and unsteady at times. I looked at Croc and it was then we knew something was not right. And within seconds, we were absolutely convinced that Don was under the influence of something when he veered left across the painted divider line and just missed side swiping a monstrous MACK Truck headed in the opposite direction. Two thoughts (one scary, one logical) went through my head at that instant and I acted on one of them. The scary one was we were both going to be seriously injured and hospitalized, but finally off this trail, and the logical one that I immediately acted on was having Don pull over and stop the car, which he did. Fortunately (and he didn’t really have a choice), he agreed to let me drive the remaining 14 miles or so back to the Cabin. Once he was securely buckled in and we were ready to start out again, he asked me if “I had a license to drive”. This guy is a total piece of work, and one person who should not be on the road unless he is in the passenger seat. I do recall taking a big sigh of relief as I was driving and thinking how lucky we were to be alive. We were destined to finish this trail.

When we made it to The Cabin, I did have a serious conversation with Honey, and she assured me that Don would not be allowed to shuttle drive again. I’m not sure whether she meant it, because I did find out this wasn’t the first time he drove irresponsibly, however during the three days Croc and I stayed, Don stayed clear of vehicles.

That evening, we were joined at the dinner table by some great folks – Bumble Beast and Rollo, who we first met at the Barn, and the Skogmans, a wonderful family of five (A mom, dad and three boys), who were all hiking together, and a couple whose trail names were Livin’ It and Lovin’ It. Honey dished out her famous lasagna as everyone passed their dinner plate around. Honey was a sweet and generous 90 year old lady who owned the hostel. She was very well-known in Maine, and considered a respected legend on trail as a person who cared about hikers. Honey and her late husband Earl, also known as “Bear”, were avid hikers in their youth. She was still quite active, and without fail made home cooked dinners every night for her guests, and plenty of it.

Note: The Skogman family was impressive. The dad (Darryl, trail name “Skipper) was a high school math teacher who took a leave from his job, and the mom (Joni, trail name “North Star”) homeschooled their three boys ages 16, 13 and 10, I believe. They were indeed avid hikers, and the boys were all named after National Parks – Jasper (trail name “Ninja Squirrel”), Baxter (trail name “Texas Pete”) and Grayson (trail name “Fish”).

Croc: I woke up this morning to Gator still asleep in his tent, and it was nearing 7:00-8:00 AM, which was an anomaly on the trail. Our original plan for today was to knock off as many miles as we could, hit the closest road crossing, and grab a ride to the Cabin since we were going to take a zero tomorrow. However, seeing that neither of us had even started hiking and the Maine terrain was no joke, we ultimately discussed over breakfast to just go the 4 short miles to the first road crossing and enjoy a nero. This would also drastically help me as it would give me some time to prepare for my phone interviews that I had the next day since I hadn’t been able to practice or even read the full job description at this point due to limited WiFi. It was a win-win since, even if I didn’t get the position, I still had my amazing previous job that allowed me to go on the trail in the first place.

When we did finally get going, it didn’t help that we crossed paths with the Site Monitor as the last people out of camp. He already thought we were noisy day hikers, and leaving late in the morning didn’t help our case to convince him that we were actually thru-hikers. And I didn’t have my tag since it fell off!

After an hour or so, we made it up the steep incline to the top of Old Speck, a 4,000-footer in Maine. We technically didn’t go up the blue blaze to the peak, but we figured we’d hit it another day. We did run into a lady with her dog who had previously completed all of the 4,000-footers in New Hampshire (or was about to complete this summer), and she planned to start hiking all of the 4,000-footers in New England. I’m not sure how a dog is going to get up Katahdin, but that is an incredible feat for the dog! We also ran into two hikers on top of Old Speck who were hoping to hike Mahoosuc Notch today. Since the hikers had no gear and just a couple of bottles of water, I warned them that it was probably not doable to complete, let alone reach, Mahoosuc Notch by nighttime. It was almost noon, and they had only made it three miles up Old Speck and would have to hike another grueling three miles over Mahoosuc Arm to even reach Mahoosuc Notch. Then they would have to make it back. I’m not sure what they ended up doing, but I hope they just enjoyed some time on top of Old Speck.

As we hiked down, we gave the Cabin a call when we were about halfway down the mountain at the Eyebrow Trail. It was the last location that would have a cell signal and it gave them a good 45 minutes (on average) to come pick us up. I was starting to get pumped about our nero day but couldn’t shake the feeling that I wasn’t going to enjoy our stay at the Cabin. I know it had breakfast, dinner, shuttles, slack packing, etc., but I felt like we had SO MANY beautiful hostels/hotels along the way that we decided to skip on a zero day (The Notch, Lady Di’s, Gatlinburg, etc.), and now we were staying at a random house in the woods. I would later completely change my mind about all of this, but I’ll get to that further down.

There was a nice pick-me-up when we reached our destination since someone left an ice-cold cooler of trail magic (beers!). I was only going to enjoy one beer and leave some for the rest of the hikers, but as we waited (without cell service) for over an hour, I decided to grab another to kill the time. I was getting a little nervous the shuttle forgot or maybe picked someone else up because there was no way for us to contact anyone. Eventually, a guy (Don) in a rundown car came swerving into the parking lot. At first, I thought “no way this is our guy” because I spoke to a woman on the phone, and this guy could barely walk to the porta-potty, which he spent at least 5 minutes in. When he came out and was looking around for people to drive to the Cabin, I knew this was our guy, even though he was asking for different hikers (who we’d later meet that night). And then the unimaginable happened. I’ll let you read Gator’s great recap above about our drive home. At first, I wanted to give the guy the benefit of the doubt that maybe he was just weird and didn’t know how to drive properly because he lived in the middle of the Maine wilderness, but that quickly faded. Luckily, Gator had the killer instinct and courage to tell the guy to pull over as he drunkenly almost swerved into a tree and a huge semi-truck. He even admitted to drinking “a few” before he picked us up and then had the balls to ask if Gator had a license when Gator took over the driving duties. I’m surprised Don could even give Gator the correct directions to the hostel. Also, the whole drive, Don was explaining how he “practically runs the place” when clearly he does nothing and can’t even do the simple task of picking up hikers. We instantly knew this guy was going to be our trail topic of discussion for the next week.

When we thankfully made it to the hostel, I wasn’t impressed. The bunk room was old and stuffy, Don’s garbage was everywhere (his room was right next door), and the amenities didn’t look great. I was thinking about the luxury spa hostel that we could have gone to and felt like we missed out big time. I was even telling Gator that I was going to immediately look up a different hostel to stay at tomorrow since I was already so fed up with Don and didn’t think this was even worth our stay. At this point I was picturing the paid dinners being a kid cuisine, microwavable movie night dinner.

However, I would quickly learn that I was SO wrong about the Cabin. First, the owner, Honey, was a sweet old lady who cooked us the most incredible dinners and breakfasts that powered us through the next couple of days. And I’m talking about those big Italian-like dinners (flashback to the Moschetto’s) where the food keeps coming. Second, those dinners were also family dinners where everyone who was staying at the Cabin would come upstairs and eat together, so it felt like a big family experience. As much as I complain about everybody on the trail and having to converse, it was actually a nice change of pace to feel like you’re having a family dinner again. Third, we met some incredible people, as Gator mentioned above. Many of whom we’d be hiking with for the final stretch of our journey. Also, I’m sure Gator will mention this in future blogs; we met Hopper, who truly runs the Cabin (basically everything except handling the money). Fourth, the grungy old beds were actually extremely comfortable, and the rest of the amenities at least worked. It wasn’t a 5-star hotel (or even 2-star hotel for that matter), but it had everything I needed. Most importantly it had reliable cell service to call Christina and my interviews. It quickly started to grow on me. Enough for us to take a nero, zero, and a slack-pack and stay there three nights in a row.