Some time around 5:20, we got up the tune of birds singing and the sun rising. Not that we were ever probably asleep, but we started to get our gear together then. I tried to take a picture of the wonderful sunrise, only to find that...I was finally out of film. D'oh. There was no time for breakfast, just trail mix along the way. At 5:40 I moved out - Joe had left a few minutes earlier. It was only 2.1 miles to the Cloud Pond lean-to, but it took me nearly two hours to do because of the rough climb. There was also a section the guide referred to as the "Fourth Mtn. Bog" which was rather slow-going. The exhaustion from the previous day certainly didn't help either. My pace dropped to a veritable crawl at times, but I kept putting one foot in front of the other, telling myself "it's not that far, it's not that far". Along the way I passed a group of northbound French-speaking (Canadian?) girls who didn't seem too thrilled to be out here. I was not happy to see that the shelter was actually down a 0.4 mile side trail. Where the AT and the side trail parted, there was a sack attached to a tree with a note. Mike had left some food for Colonel & Co. since he knew they were running low. On the way to the shelter through that side trail I ran across Tuna as he was heading out. He had apparently stayed there last night with Mike and Quail (Runner), but was not as much of an early bird. This was the reason we kept catching up to him; even though he could do more mileage in a given day than we could, he slacked off in between, sometimes for an entire day.

    Joe and I rested at the lean-to until about noon. We ate, we wrote, we slacked. With the distance to Monson growing ever smaller, I tried to eat a bit more than usual in order to lighten my pack weight, futile as that may have been. I tried to call home, but the signal was too weak and I was only getting spurts of speech from my mom. There were various types of bugs buzzing around me, but luckily none of them were biters. The area around the shelter itself was rather nice. It almost seemed like a location for a moderately priced camp site, what with the sightly pond almost surrounding the immediate land. Monson still seemed doable by the next day (we were 19.2 miles away at the time), but it would take some effort. It should be noted that this information is the last bit retrieved from the actual trail journal, implying two things: (1) events got...interesting...from here on in, since I never had enough time to write in the journal again, and (2) everything from here is written purely from memory, so it may not be as descriptive as previous entries

    We set out from the shelter around noon, hopeful that our few hours of pampering would rejuvenate us for the coming miles. There was only about a mile's worth of uphill ahead of us. After that, there were some steep declines leading all the way up to the Long Pond Stream lean-to, where we planned to stop for "lunch". There were some very good views along the way, especially around the Barren Ledges and Slides. The going was slow at times because of the downhill, but it wasn't particularly exhaustive. We arrived at the lean-to sometime past 2, and were greeted with a pleasant surprise. There was a stash of food with a note attached! Apparently some northbound thru-hikers had brought too much food with them, so they stowed the leftovers here for any that may be in need. I decided to steal a scoop from one of the jars of peanut butter there, as mine was just about empty. We also each pilfered some type of fruit bar - it was wonderful to eat something in bar form that wasn't a Powerbar. I was going to take more, but then I realized that not only were there people (like Colonel) who would be more in need of the supplies here, but I was doing nothing to lighten my pack by eating someone else's food. I consumed a packet of tuna while Joe and I chatted about stupid things (i.e. correcting someone's away message, in code form). A pair of guys arrived from the southern direction, asking if we'd seen a pack of Canadian girls. I was a little fuzzy on the details, but apparently these guys were here to extract the girls. The ladies weren't having a good time, or something. The duo left after a short time, but just as we ourselves were thinking of moving (around 3:30), who should roll in but Colonel, Otis, and Collin? Obviously we couldn't leave right then, seeing as we had to have the pleasure of introducing them to the food stash and finding out what everyone did the previous day. They'd stayed at the Chairback Gap lean-to overnight, and left early to try and make up the distance. All the random banter and such led up to an hour very quickly, at which point Joe and I decided we'd best not delay any longer.

    Less than a mile out from the lean-to, we came across Long Pond Stream. I was certainly not going to risk another boots/pants scenario, so I took the time to put on my water shoes. The guidebook and maps indicated that we had two more streams to ford, but it was not to be. Vaughn Stream (about half a mile down), at the top of a 20 ft. waterfall, was passable by carefully finding rocks to cross on. Wilber Brook, which was almost immediately after Vaughn, was crossable by utilizing a fallen tree. The terrain turned back into an upward march, but nothing like what we'd encountered earlier. Less than 2 miles later, I came across a rocky scree slope. Joe had gotten ahead of me, and this was bad news because I couldn't find where the trail turned. I tried to yell out to him, but got no response. I was dreading the possibility that I might've had to climb UP that mess, but I saw no trail markers. I went perpendicular to the incline, but found no path in the woods on the other side. I called out to Joe again, but still there was no answer. I pulled out my map and checked the descriptions from where I guessed I was. It was written to "cross" the slope, so I was relieved that I indeed didn't have to climb up it, especially since it reminded me of the area on Chairback Mountain. Eventually I found where the trail turned, but the entire event took me a nervous 20 minutes or so to resolve.

    Unfortunately, we were again losing light, and I determined that I was at the base of the last big hump before the Wilson Valley lean-to. The good news was that after climbing the 300 ft. before me, it would be a gradual downhill to the shelter. The bad news was that, steep or not, going uphill in poor light was time-consuming, especially since the trail zigzagged up the incline. Soon I heard a shout from Joe, telling me to be wary of a particular sharp turn that would be coming up. I caught up with him in what I estimated to be halfway up the section. I veritably fell on my ass in an attempt to recover whatever energy I was losing while stumbling in the ever-increasing darkness. The flashlights were already out, and it was feeling like last night all over again. We checked the guidebook and map to see if there were any visual cues along the way which would indicate how far we'd gone. One particular passage on the back of the map caught my attention. It was a description for the top of the hump we were trying to get over: "Open ledges with views E toward Barren Mtn." Hmm. Open ledges. In almost total darkness. Oh yes...this would get interesting.

    Once we resumed the trek, I made sure that I took in a complete survey of my entire surroundings with my flashlight with each step I took. Thankfully it didn't take us long to reach the top after the break, after which we began a cautious decline. The bobbing of the flashlight in my hand annoyed me, but when I grabbed it with my teeth as Joe suggested, I found my mouth drying out very quickly. So, back to the bobbing it was. Once again we were almost out of water - we split the last bit Joe had in his Platypus. There would be a spring source at the shelter, so we were determined to press on. In fact, about 20 minutes before we arrived at the shelter, we heard a water source running somewhere. We kept moving down the trail, but used the sound of the water to make sure that we didn't miss the turn off for the side trail to the lean-to. Finally, we arrived, and I couldn't be happier that we'd actually made it. It was around 11 p.m., and even though we tried to sneak into the lean-to, we woke up the two guys inside. "Hey Bill, there are two bears trying to take our food." I was kind of surprised that there were only two there, since we walked through a sea of tents on our way in. Apparently these people preferred their tents to the shelter. One of the two guys went right back to sleep, while we chatted with the other, older gentleman for a bit before zonking out.

Joe: So, why does your mom call you "Daniel"?

Gene: Uh, no, that's my nickname in Ukrainian. "Genio".
Joe: Oh, I thought you had some kind of obsession with Stargate and insisted she call you "Daniel".