This was it: the home stretch. Waking up in the morning at the Wilson Valley Lean-to, we had roughly 10.4 miles between ourselves and Monson. 10.4 miles. Phhbt. That's scrub-hiking material. We could do that with our eyes closed. But it wouldn't be quite that easy...at least not for me.

    As Joe and I proceeded with our morning routines of breakfast and packing, we exchanged banter with the old men who'd been in the shelter, as well as a young couple who'd had a tent a few yards down from us. On my way to the privy, I saw a a circle of teenage girls holding hands and singing some utterly strange song. I wasn't sure if this was another girl scout outing or just some weird siren ritual, and so I simply continued on. I was eventually ready (though not as early as Joe would've liked), and we set out toward Monson.

    Not long after we passed a set of old railroad tracks, the time came to ford Big Wilson Stream. I couldn't be bothered to put my pack down and get my water shoes out, as I was impatiently eager to get moving, so I decided to take my boots off and cross the river barefoot. The stones in the riverbed were smooth and broad, so it seemed like it would be an easy jaunt.

    It wasn't.

    Despite their smoothness, the pebbles were painful to walk over. Again, being impatient, I didn't want to turn back, get the water shoes out, and then start again, so I continued across Big Wilson as gingerly as I could, keeping the boots in my hands above the water. Joe had crossed the stream before I did, and so he had started moving again while I was still drying my feet and putting my socks and boots back on. He quickly got out of sight, but I figured I'd meet up with him half a mile later at Thompson Brook. However, this brook was very narrow and didn't require fording, so I figured Joe had kept going.

    It had been another two miles before I started to question why I hadn't seen Joe. I called out his name several times, but received no answer. As I crossed the next big hump before Little Wilson Stream, I spotted two hikers coming northbound and asked them if they had seen a guy a few minutes ago. They responded that, no, they hadn't seen anyone recently. I thought that was odd, so I picked up my pace and took advantage of the gradual downhill section ahead of me to try and close the gap between us. I knew Joe was eager to get back to Monson, but I didn't think he'd be moving this quickly.

    I approached another steep uphill climb, whose only saving grace was the visual refreshment of Little Wilson Falls. The guide book claimed it was a 60 ft waterfall, and it was certainly nice to look at. I even saw a few parents with some kids swimming in the water that the falls dumped out into, and wondered if there was a parking area nearby, or if they all actually walked 6.5 miles in from Route 15. Regardless, my focus was still on finding Joe, but no one was able to confirm seeing him. I figured it would be difficult for people to pick out one hiker from another, so I shrugged it off. Things weren't getting any better, though. On the way up this section, my left ankle would periodically give out on me. It wasn't injured, at least I didn't think it was, because there was no sharp pain. But every once in a while I'd take a step and the ankle would just kind of twist off, as if the muscles and tendons holding it together weren't responding. It wasn't a huge deal since my boot forced my foot to pretty much take a proper alignment on each step, but it was an uncomfortable feeling. I had to take extra care heading downhill, as that would've been the worst time for the joint to sporadically give out. In addition, about half a mile out from the waterfall, I realized that I was running out of water, and Joe had our water filter. It was a warm day, and there were lots of minor (but sharp) up-and-down sections which the topo maps didn't have the detail to represent. I checked the guide book (since Joe had the maps) and saw that the next body of water I'd be passing was...Mud Pond. Not exactly a water source I want to risk taking an unfiltered drink from.

    Passing Mud Pond temporarily dumped me out of the dense woods and onto a gravel road. It wasn't clear which way the trail went, so I had to rely on the guide book. It turned out that the trail followed the road for a short distance, then took a sharp right back into the woods where I crossed a typically narrow plank of wood over some water to continue. I was beginning to get nervous about the water situation, as it had been a while before I had taken a drink and the detour on the gravel path put me right under the sun. I could physically keep going without much of a problem, but I wondered how soon that would lead to manifestations of adverse effects.

    About a mile after that section, I came across the outlet stream from what I later found out was North Pond. I sat down to take a lengthy break and eat up a bit, which I wasn't too keen on doing because eating often made me more thirsty. I decided that the water coming from the pond looked "clean enough", and so I filled up half of my Nalgene with the unfiltered goodness. At that point, I didn't care exactly how clean it was, I just needed to rehydrate. Of course, after filling up and taking my big gulps, I noticed a frog sitting up in the stream I'd just drawn from. I told him that I hoped he wasn't too filthy, gathered up my gear, and moved out.

    The filthy water was more than enough to get me to the Leeman Brook Lean-to, where I threw down all my gear and sacked out. I needed a break because the stress of trying to correct my ankle, which continued to spazz out on me, was finally starting to result in a dull, aching pain. There were a few people in the vicinity, including a scout leader and his troop, whom he'd led there yesterday. He was giving them a day off before undertaking more hiking. I asked one of the guys sitting around if I could borrow his water filter, and he happily complied. I carefully ambled my way down the sharp wall to the Leeman Brook, drank my fill, then maxed both Naglenes and climbed back up.

    I'd been resting comfortably for a solid half hour or so when Piper came bounding into the area. Upbeat as always, he asked me how things were going. I told him it was OK for the most part, except that I thought Joe had powered on to Monson without me. He asked if that was really true, and I said that I didn't know what else it could've been, especially given how he'd been talking that past morning about really wanting to get to a town. Fifteen minutes later, Colonel arrived, and my spirits were lifted by the growing company. He, too, asked me how things were, and I gave him the same answer. He looked at me with a confused look and said "No, he's not ahead of you. We just passed him a few minutes ago."

    WHAT.

    "Really?" was all I could blurt out. How on earth did I get ahead of Joe? How could I have passed him and not seen him? How could no one else have seen him until now? But sure enough, another 5-10 minutes later, Joe arrived, much to my continued confusion. I inquired as to how this could possibly be, and he explained. Back when we had crossed Big Wilson Stream and he pulled ahead, he continued down the dirt road. He didn't notice the trail marker designating that the trail made a sharp left turn into the woods and off the road, and so he continued uphill on the road. And continued, for a quarter mile or so...until it came to, in his words, "a small cabin with a few outbuildings. All old and disused with the color faded out of the wood. Very stereotypical horror movie fare." At that point he realized that he very likely wasn't on the trail anymore, and should double-back to find where he'd strayed. He claimed that he tried to move faster in order to catch up to me, but since I was moving faster to catch up to where I thought he was, we weren't going to meet up anytime soon.

    When I told him what I thought had happened, he said "Naw man, I wouldn't do that to you". This certainly cleared everything up, and I felt bad for assuming Joe would've pulled away and gone to Monson without me. After he had his own break and refilling of water, we proceeded back down the sharp decline to the brook, up the other side of the mini-canyon, and bounded down the trail, ready to finally get to Monson. The going was relatively easy, and we had bodies of water to let us keep track of the distance. When we started from the Leeman Brook, it was about 3 miles to Monson. Lily Pond indicated that we were about two miles away, and then Bell Pond would be a mile beyond that. We ran into Speedo along the way, who was bouncing around checking for anyone that would be reaching the highway soon, as old man Shaw had a truck waiting there to take a bunch of us into town. He wanted to make sure we didn't leave if anyone else was nearby, which I thought was nice. At this point, we'd started hearing the occasional car in the distance, which gave us even more pep in our step. I kind of ignored the ankle issue and thought of the infamous Shaw breakfast I'd be having the next morning.

    When we came out of the woods and onto the highway, we took a picture for the sake of victory, and loaded ourselves alongside a few other hikers into Shaw's truck. The old man was as foul-tongued as he was short ("Ha, pie lady, that old bitch!"), and the two made for a highly amusing combination. Picture the old man from King of the Hill and you're pretty close - Google it if you really have no idea what he looks like. A couple of guys had intended on staying at the Pie Lady's hostel, but since the bulk of us were going to Shaw's, they changed their mind and came along with us (to the Pie Lady's chagrin, heh, as some of them had sent supplies ahead to her location). When we arrived at Shaw's hostel, Joe and I chose our room (I got the top bunk, woo), after which Mike offered to take us to the local minimart in case we wanted food. To this day I remember exactly what I purchased: a quart of orange juice, a donut, a slice of pizza, a turkey sandwich, and a large bag of sour cream & onion chips. It was random, but I cared not, for it was food, and more importantly, it wasn't food in dehydrated form. Back at Shaw's, we ate in the common area and relaxed. Some people did laundry, some of us exchanged chips & Doritos, some people watched TV, and some just wandered around. As Joe commented, "You've never seen so many people limping around, yet looking so happy". When it finally got dark, we realized our bodies were still slaves to the sleep cycle we'd obtained on the trail, and retreated to our rooms for the night.

Mike: No, no, no! I did not just walk 120 miles to watch a Seagal flick. Change the channel!