Wednesday, August 3rd

ME 26, Grafton Notch (1927.1 mi) to South Arm Road (1947.5 mi)

Hiking Miles: 20.4

Total Ascent: 6,846.1 ft

Total Descent: 6,926.5

Total Grade: 675.0 ft/mi

Steps: 51,963

RETROFILE – Try So Hard

Gator/Sunrise: At 5:30 am, I climbed the staircase to the second floor to help Hopper once again with breakfast. I wasn’t sure if she wanted my assistance for a second morning in a row because. Sometimes when you have a system that works, you don’t mind introducing something new once, but not more than that. However as I opened the door at the top of the stairwell, Hopper greeted me with a big smile and a warm “Good Morning”.

I took the opportunity to learn more about her thoughts regarding our final 250 miles. She was very familiar with the territory, and my anxious mind was somehow seeking reassurance that things were not as tough as I had thought. When your body, mind and even spirit are so beat down and tired, you can either throw in the towel or totally embrace the suck. And I soon came to realize (as I absorbed and accepted Hopper’s advice regarding the trail) that Croc and I were getting very good at embracing the suck!

Breakfast was once again a success, although the menu and the outstanding service was exactly the same. After cleaning things up and selecting a day pack, Croc and I were shuttled to the trailhead. We had a 20 mile slack pack day planned consisting of several steep climbs and descents starting with Balpate West Peak (3 miles into our hike), Balpate East Peak and Little Balpate. It turned out that they all were essentially rock climbs that got our blood pumping. The 360-degree views at the top were spectacular. One hiker we met made himself comfortable there for awhile to just soak it all in.

A number of times I found myself moving slightly faster than a snail’s pace, and Croc noticed that I was struggling to keep up. A number of times he encouraged me to turn on music to help with motivation, because I typically responded well to it. However, for whatever reason today, I insisted that I could push through the lethargy without it. I was wrong.

As the day moved on, and the sun closer to setting, we still had a steep Mount Moody to climb. Hopper had instructed us to call her from the top of Moody to allow her ample time to pick us up. It was much too late at this point to turn on my music to gain any advantage, but I did anyway. While I listened to 70’s tunes again during the climb, I shifted my thoughts to the chicken dinner that awaited us back at The Cabin. Just after 8 pm, Hopper arrived at South Arm Road and found us waiting there. She was totally impressed with our accomplishment, and had no doubt in her mind that we would finish strong and complete the remaining miles in two weeks time.

Back at The Cabin, Hopper not only saved us dinner, but she saved us a lot of it. We had Honey’s popular fried chicken, along with potato salad, corn on the cob, fresh homemade bread and lemonade. I was impressed that Honey joined us at the dinner table (sitting to my left and directly across from Croc) and took the time to check on our well-being and to share her stories with us. She smiled the whole time and didn’t move until we cleaned our plates of her delicious food, and when we could eat no more. It was a wonderful dining experience.

After a hot shower and a change of clothes, it didn’t take long for us to crash for the evening. Tomorrow after breakfast, we would be leaving The Cabin for good and headed for a long homestretch.

Croc: I woke up right at 7:00 AM (again) in time for breakfast, where I loaded up on coffee for today’s hike. Although I was feeling well-rested, it was going to be our first 20-mile day since Day 94 when we hit the Hiker’s Welcome Hostel (excluding our 21-mile slack pack over the Wildcats where we went full speed all day). I was really hoping it wouldn’t be a full day hike again so we could enjoy some dinner and downtime before we left the hostel.

We began our hike going up the Baldpates, which were absolutely incredible. They had vertical rock scrambles to their peaks, but it wasn’t a bunch of giant, scattered rocks similar to the White Mountains. Rather, it was just a flat rock face that you had to vertically climb. Said another way, it was less like climbing stairs and more like walking up a treadmill with an incline. I thought it was a fun change of pace! Of course, when we made it to the top, we were gifted with incredible views. I think this was our first introduction to the amazing lakefront views that Maine had to offer. Although the hiking was getting harder, the views were getting better.

There wasn’t much to recap today, and I also didn’t take many pictures or videos. We did ultimately end the day before the sun went down, and Hopper picked us up at the trailhead. It was nice to crank out another 20 miles via slack pack and come home to dinner, a shower, and a bed. As Gator mentioned, Honey was waiting for us with some leftovers from her earlier dinner. It was really nice to have some one-on-one time with Honey and hear some of her stories as she watched us eat. I was very much feeling the “don’t judge a book by its cover” sentiment when I finished dinner because I seriously thought that this hostel was going to be a mistake, but it turned out to be one of the best memories on trail (minus Don).

Also, I’m not sure if this happened during our zero day or today, but Don did find me and Gator and apologize for driving us drunk. It was kind of a “fake” apology where he beats around the bush and never actually says “I’m sorry.” It was more of a “I have never done this before” and “I didn’t drink that much.” I think Gator just said, “Never do that again,” or something along those lines because we neither of us wanted, or trusted, an apology…. we just wanted Don to not kill anyone in the future.