McAfee Hikes

Date Written: 8/06/2024 | AT Mile 18.6 | Day Total: 13.4 miles | Gain: 881 ft

Well deserved late start to the day. I woke up from a solid sleep around 6:30am with over 8hrs of sleep. We had light rain nearly all night and I have discovered a 3inch seam on my tent that was never seam taped. There was a nice but manageable puddle on my tent. Wiped off the boat load of condensation off the inside of my tent and ventured outside.

Apon further investigation everything, and I mean everything, was covered in a layer of sand and fine sand participles the seems to become an airborne and latched to every square inch of my bug net and anything in my vestibule including my freshly cleaned socks. I discovered that it was much easier to wash the tent like a car with my water bottle than to endlessly wipe the wet sand off. This took the better part of an hour whilst being quiet.

I grabbed my food from the cable and filtered some water for breakfast. At this point everyone was up and loaded with 10-12 hours of sleep. While cleaning up camp we had a 30-40mim conversation with a gentleman that was collecting thru hikers logs and complimented our tenasity. He was definitely a talker but very kind and was planning on creating a book of everyone’s entries.

We hit the trail at 9:52am, for reference the previous day we had already submitted Baxter and eaten lunch. We weighed our packs at the ranger station and after assembling our food for 10 days we all were pushing the limits of our bags.

Me: 34lbs
Nathan: 41lbs
Cole: 41lbs
Noah: 34lbs
Maddy: 38lbs

Easy hiking for the first 10 miles, a nobo told us it’s some fastest miles yet, and fast they felt after yesterday’s summit. I was not nearly as sore as I was expecting, the heels of my feet are tender but the most “pain” is now the 20lbs of food I’m lugging on my shoulders.

We hit a ton of bog boards which are popular to come by in Maine. Lots of stunning lakes and moss covered forests.

We stoped for lunch at Big Niagara Falls not to be confused with the Niagara Falls.

Maddy and Noah took off while Nathan, Cole and I hacked together a water system for Nathan, his camelback is leaking and is unrepairable.

We took a water break a few miles down from lunch at a flat rock where a group of 8ish girls were have been hiking for a few weeks. They have hiked 180miles in 20 days and were carrying 50lb packs! And yet they were some of the most energetic people we had seen. They threw those pack on like nothing and were skipping down the trail (I’m serious, a few of them were actually skipping with joy as they left).

One of the highlights of the day was this massive owl directly above the trail. We think he was guarding a nest because his was squawking at us as we passed.

We wondered around West Branch Penobscot River for a few miles and saw a few rafts with people floating down. Just across the road there was the occasional logging truck whooshing by. Upon arriving at the Baxter line we talked a bit with the ranger and turned in our yellow sheets to confirm our safe exiting of Baxter State Park. We would later see him fly fishing at Abol Bridge.

We loitered around at Abol Bridge’s camp store and dried out tents, and received a bonus charge on my phone and Garmin giving me more battery to journal. I got a cold Gatorade and a 750 calorie woopie pie! Never had a woopie pie before but it was really good.

Todays featured photo (the one at the top) is the view from Abol Bridge you can see (from left to right) the table tops, Baxter Peak, knife’s edge and the summit of Pamola.

Leaving Baxter was a strange feeling, knowing that there was no exact plans or schedule anymore. We could stop whenever and where ever we wanted for the night and not have to worry about reservations.

Walking up to the warning sign of the 100 mile wilderness was fun and nerving. We had fully loaded, heavy pack and were ready to take the 100MW on!

We made it 13.4 miles to Hurd Brook Lean-to for the night. There were a decent amount of others already here. So nobos, another group of high schools girls and the First SOBO I’ve come across! Ben, no trail name yet, is heading north through the 100MW and flipping back to Monson for a zero after summiting Katahdin. He’s also from Columbus Ohio! So I’ll keep a look out for him later but he’s been moving pretty fast and will be multiple days ahead of me.

This site is super cool because it’s all pine needles and it’s super soft. I squeezed my tent in between a group of trees with flat ground. This whole campsite is on a slight slope.

An unnamed pond is near our site and has large rocks smattered around. We decided to eat and cook on the rocks at the pond while talking with Ben. The mosquitoes were non existent and there were a bunch of dragon flies flying around.

We hung out at the pond until til sunset and I got some really good photos.

Noah took down a whole 6-8in dead tree with the weight of his and Maddy’s food bag while hanging it. Cole and Nathan were having fun setting up a bear line themselves in a sketchy high pine tree branch.

Currently listening to the ripple of the water exiting the pond with the occasional frog croak. It’s a very pleasant sound to write to and fall asleep.