Underwear Pair #2 Donned

    I was asleep on and off throughout the night, so I knew well before it was time to get up that the rain had ceased at some point. Thankful was I - there would be no eating of breakfast and gathering of gear in a downpour. As good as the spot I picked was, my tent was still on a slight angle. As such, parts of the bottom were wet, but my gear was safely dry in the shelter. Joe said he and Tunaberry were taking bets as to when people would wimp out because of the rain and run into the shelter, but the dozen or so us out there stayed in our tents. The rain didn't dampen the spirits of the mosquitoes either, but I was planning on wearing my rain gear. Even if the rain had stopped I was unsure if it would pick up again, but more to the point, everything was still wet and I'll be getting water dumped on me with each branch I brushed by. With my arms and legs completely covered the bugs wouldn't be able to annoy me as much. As I was about to put my socks on, I noticed that one of my liners was getting rough near the heel area. As my left heel seemed to be developing a hotspot anyway, I put on some BlisterBloc to prevent any problems. I had also noticed that my sleeping bag had re-torn near the bottom where it had initially come apart at the seams during our shake-down hike. I was hoping that was as far as it would go, but realized it would probably get worse. But, then again, that's why I had things like duct tape with me.

    Due to my slowness in the morning, there were only two people left near the shelter when we departed. I was moving so slowly mainly because I was trying to pack my tent in a way that would prevent the wet areas from dampening everything else, but I shortly gave up and just rolled everything into its bag. As Joe had said previously, "A journey of a thousand miles waits for Gene to get his shit together." When we finally set out (15 minutes later than we had planned on leaving) I found that, for the time being, a combination of my rain gear and mosquito net kept the insects from bothering me. We frequently passed dung along the trail that we believed to be moose pellets. Occasionally we ran across some darker, larger pieces that I suspected were from bears. Despite all the marks they left behind, neither of us had observed any moose or bears. Not only that, none of the other hikers had either. These creatures did a fine job of avoiding notice.

    When we stopped for water I noticed someone had left behind a new, sealed bottle of water purification tablets. I snatched it up just in case we could use it later on, or in case the person who had left it behind needed it. The terrain, while not being the pushover it had been the previous day, wasn't inherently challenging, but the heavy rain overnight (and likely from other days) made our going slower. To quote exactly what I had written in my journal: "rain we can thank for TONS of mud and puddles - made walking take much more time". We were forced to avoid or cautiously cross large sections of mud with varying consistency. Sometimes it was fairly thick to the point where I'd leave no more than a deep footprint if I went over it slowly. Other times my foot would sink in up to or past the ankle before I could jam my walking poles into something solid enough to pull my foot out. Luckily my rain pants were waterproof and I had tightened the Velcro straps at the bottom, creating a nearly airtight seal with my boots. The boots, too, were nearly waterproof to begin with, and I had carefully treated them before the trip with a silicone waterproofing spray. My pants and boots would get muddy, but not a drop of it touched my legs or socks. Some areas which I suppose were commonly waterlogged and/or muddy had logs going over them to offer safe passage; however, there were still plenty of opportunities to get dirty. The logs were more often than not wobbly anyway and I'd be lying if I said I made it across each one safely. It was difficult to properly navigate each unsteady log if someone else was walking across it at the same time, so one of us waiting for the other to cross ended up slowing us down even more.

    A little over seven miles or so later we found a clearing where several other hikers from the morning were resting. This was the Rainbow Spring Campsite, not to be confused with the lean-to we were aiming for. To the left were some clear spots on the ground that were apparently the campsite. To the right lay a short path to a spring and the lake which it poured into. Since I was no longer under the shade of the trees I took off my pack and removed my rain gear. I used my pack's rain cover as a tarp to sit on and took a brief respite. I told myself I'd relax for 10-15 minutes, eat lunch, refill my water at the spring, rest some more, then move on. The mosquitoes were far fewer in number than they had been just a few miles back, but with my rain gear off I wanted to keep them at bay. I activated my MosquitoControl buzzer - I didn't believe that it really worked, and I didn't even believe it would work when I bought it, but I figured for $10, I'd be a sucker just this once. The device was supposed to emit a sound at the same frequency a dragonfly, a natural predator of mosquitoes, flaps its wings at. It could alternately be set to the tone of a male mosquito, for whatever that was supposed to accomplish. Anyhow, through coincidence or not, shortly after I had activated the device I was besieged with blackflies. The little bastards came out of seemingly nowhere, and while I was not the only one affected by them, it was an annoying condition to eat lunch in. One guy told me that the bugs weren't as bad down near the water. It was true, and I consumed my PowerBar and spoonful of peanut butter on a large rock in the shallow part of the water.

    The rest of the day's trek was similar to what we'd already encountered. At some points I felt an extra blaze on a tree here or there would make the trail safer to follow - we wondered several times whether or not we were still on the trail. Each time we'd stop to rest momentarily from our walking, we were forced to interrupt the break. When we weren't resting, bugs were normally behind us a few inches and couldn't settle on a spot before that arm flew forward or that leg kicked upward. As Joe walked in front of me I could see a small veil of insects circling behind him - always following, only occasionally able to land long enough to do any damage. Thus, as we stopped to catch our much-needed breath, we were inundated with the little menaces as they pounced on the opportunity. We often found ourselves moving on again very shortly after sitting down merely to be rid of the pests. In this way we were oddly able to do more mileage in a given amount of time that we had anticipated. I personally wanted to be rid of this half of the 100-mile wilderness and didn't mind putting in the extra effort to move out of it all the sooner.

    Along the way to the shelter I lost the ring from the bottom of one of my walking poles - it had caught on something and flung off when I pulled on the pole. We looked around for it momentarily, but I wasn't about to spend half an hour scouring the area. I was surprised that I couldn't find it right away near the area where my pole had been before they had separated, but so be it. By the time we had gotten to the Rainbow Stream Lean-To, nearly everyone we had seen that morning was there, and then some. The shelter itself was already filled to capacity with six individuals, but the area uphill of the lean-to had few enough trees that there were plenty of spots to set up tents. After the traditional breather I unpacked my tent to air it out. I hung both the tent itself and the rain fly between two different pairs of trees to let them dry before setting up for sleep. While they flapped in the occasional winds, I spied out a location to call my own. While the region was large, there were at least a dozen people already in the surrounding area. Much of the tree-free land was no good because it was too slanted, forcing everyone to seek coveted spots on the flatter terrain at the top of the local wooded hill.

    While we feasted on the mighty mashed potatoes I prepared, we pored over the topographic maps and attempted to decide how many miles to do over the next few days. The closest shelter was 9 miles away. There were 11 miles between THAT shelter and the next one, and another 11 to the following shelter. The distances were fairly similar for the next few shelters - too short for a day's hike, but too far to fit two shelter-hops into one day While doing a paltry 9 miles to the next shelter certainly wasn't out of the question for two unconditioned hikers, we wanted to complete the wilderness in a reasonable amount of time. If we consistently did under 10 miles a day we'd be running low on supplies before long. Additionally, I wanted to stay with the bulk of this group. Our conclusion was that we'd try for the Potaywadjo Spring Lean-To 18 miles from here, and if we found at any point in the day that we couldn't do the milage, we'd stop early at the Nahmakanta Stream Campsite. Campsites weren't as appealing as shelters to us, but they were better than nothing.

    We saw Rachel and her boyfriend come into the area as we were finishing up dinner. We had first run into them when we broke at Abol Bridge, and again at the Hurd Brook lean-to. Rachel was having problems with her ankle so we had loaned her our Ace Bandage, though we knew that it was likely that we wouldn't receive our "loan" back if they fell significantly behind us. Anyhow, her boyfriend (his name escapes me - Joe deemed we should refer to him as Dread Man, you shoulda seen his hair) came right up to me, held up a metal ring with rubber grips and asked me if I'd lost this. I just stared at him for a second - not only was I surprised that he had seen the ring, wherever it might've been, I was even more surprised that he had thought to carry it and guess it was mine. My sticks were somewhat different in style from everyone else's since these were, as I mentioned, ski poles and not specifically designed to be walking poles, but still. I thanked him heartily and reattached the ring to the bottom of my bare stick. That bit of courtesy reminded me of the water purification pills I was carrying with me. I asked around the tent sites if anyone was missing a bottle, but everyone replied that they either didn't use the pills or weren't missing any. I was met with the same response down at the shelter, and someone added "wow, that's really nice of you to carry that and ask around man". I felt good - this is what we should be doing for each other out here, and sure enough, that's what people were doing. I put the pills back into my pack and hung onto them in case I ran into the person who lost 'em or simply someone who badly needed them. I returned to the hill where a few people, including Joe, were sitting around talking. In particular, they were talking about September 11th. Being that we were both in the city that day, Joe and I each had our unique experiences that day and we shared them with these folks, who were mostly from the south. While it was nice speaking with these people, the blackflies were getting a bit too annoying for my tastes. I changed into my standard sleepwear - my lucky Spidey boxers - and took down my tent parts from the trees. I was a bit upset that, as I was putting my pad and sleeping bag into my tent, a few flies got in. If I was to bother and chase them out, I'd likely have ended up with more of the bastards sneaking inside my tent while the door was open. I shrugged and figured that while these few flies might snack on me, I'd at least be protected from any further bites for the night. Joe and I had agreed to get a very early start on the next day to try and make our 18 miles if possible, so I tried to relax and get as much rest as possible. Eighteen miles would be no small task for a newbie hiker like myself, especially on my fourth day on the trail.

Joe: Hey, Tuna, wait up! You left your bandanas in the lean-to.

Tunaberry: Ah, shit. Thanks man. I'd forget my dick if it was detachable.

Gene: ...that's not how the cliché goes.