Kevin's AT Thru Hike

Day 154, Wednesday, 8/17 – I woke up at 4:30am and left with Birthday at 5:22am. It was overcast, so Birthday hiked out with his headlamp on. We got to the top of Pleasant Pond Mountain, and caught the tail end of the sunrise. We passed 3 high school kids on the summit that day hiked up to the peak to catch the sunrise.

On the downhill side of Pleasant Pond Mountain, I caught back up with Genie and Splitzy. They found a stealth spot a few miles North of the shelter where Birthday and I camped. I was feeling good and hiking strong, and got it in my head that I would hike to Monson which was a 31 mile hike.

I ran into Queen Diva again at Moxie Pond Road. I first met her at Hikers Welcome where she gifted both Aqua and me with chili. She wasn’t at Moxie Pond Road to do trail magic, she was just picking up her friend Circuit Rider. Even still, she asked me if I needed anything. I asked if she had a cold drink. She poured me a cold brew coffee, then offered me 3/4 of a sausage biscuit. I made sure she wasn’t just giving me her breakfast, but she’s so dang nice that I’m not convinced that that’s actually what happened. Birthday caught up with me when I was chatting with Queen Diva and Circuit Rider. I convinced him to hike to Monson with me.

We had a lot of miles in front of us, so we started booking it. We got to the top of Moxie Bald, which gave us some great views. We got another view of Katahdin, but it still looked pretty far away.

We met Free Bird on the top of Moxie Bald. She told us there were some really wet parts of trail coming up where she opted to go barefoot. Birthday and I then hiked off of Moxie Bald and grabbed lunch at Bald Mountain Pond Lean-to. It started raining after lunch, which was about 12:00pm. Since we were moving fast, we didn’t put on rain jackets because it would have made us a sweaty mess.

We met some other hikers on trail that warned us that there were some some “squishy” sections of trail coming up. We got to the “squishy” parts which was a bit of an understatement. We hiked through a muddy bog, then about a half a dozen river crossings, most of which were thigh deep. We both kept on our hiking shoes for the crossings which had our feet soaking wet through the remainder of the day.

I introduced Birthday to a fun game on the hike. It doesn’t have a name, but here’s how you play. One person thinks of a movie, then gives an accurate, but awful, description of the movie. The other person has to guess what movie they’re describing. Here’s an example, “Hey, have you ever seen that one movie, about that guy that lived with his Aunt and Uncle? They weren’t nice to him at all. He just wanted to go to school, and they didn’t let him. Turns out he was actually famous. Anyway, he went to school, made some friends, but then killed one of his teachers.” The other person would be correct to guess “Harry Potter.” This game passed the time well, and we played for the majority of the hike.

A few miles out from our destination, the rain turned up. We climbed up Buck Hill, which was about 2 miles from our destination, and I started to slow down. My feet were starting to hurt, and I could tell I was getting tired. I also put on my rain jacket because I was getting cold from the wind, rain, and sweat.

We got to the road at 5:17pm (Mile 2079). We did 31 miles under 12 hours, which was incredibly fast for me. We only took short breaks, and kept up a fast pace the whole day. We both ended the hike with a large sense of accomplishment. It was a great day of hiking.

We started to hitch at the road, but we were both cold and tired. We called Shaw’s for a shuttle, and Trash picked us up shortly after.

At Shaw’s, Trash gave us a quick tour. We told him we didn’t have reservations, and and asked if they had any bunks available. There were only 2 left. We obviously felt lucky, and took them both. It was going to rain all night, and neither of us wanted to be outside for it.

I showered up, then ran into Aqua! She left us from Broadway’s to meet a deadline, but we caught her since we did the big day.

After showers, Birthday and I went to Lakeshore House with Four Runner. We were both starving from the hike. I got a French onion soup, Bruschetta, a Caesar salad, and a pot roast.

Aqua joined us to hang as we were eating dinner. After dinner we went over to the gas station and each got a pint of ice cream. Birthday, Aqua, and I took the ice cream back to Shaws and ate it in the common room.