On the other side of the Kennebec, three miles up the trail was the small town of Caratunk. We were all soaked and exhausted from the night before, so we decided to go into town and see if we could get breakfast at the Caratunk House Hiker’s B&B. We shed our wet gear outside, hanging up our rain gear and sleeping bags in hopes of drying them out. The B&B was a large old Victorian. The owner, Paul, greeted us and immediately took pity on us. He sat us down at the large farm table and started cooking us breakfast, charging us each only $4 for the feast.
I wistfully mentioned that it would be nice to not hike the rest of the day. Everyone agreed, but we all knew that our end date was set, making deviations from the plan hard. We continued to chat while we ate, mostly about our horrible night, and Erin’s ridiculous brush with death.
“I’ve got a plan,” Ben said, looking up from the guidebook, in what had become a common refrain. “I think we should stay here tonight. It’ll be our last quasi-zero day before we hit the 100-mile wilderness.”
He looked at Erin, “But listen, the hiking is supposed to be pretty easy in this last stretch, but it’s going to mean a couple of 30 mile days.”
“Okay,” she said. “I want to do it.”
Ben re-configured our mileage and we talked to Paul about rooms. Ben and I got our own room at the top of the stairs and the others shared a bunk room over the barn space. Paul offered to do a slack pack if we wanted, so Turbo, Erin, and Sug decided to do a quick 10 mile hike that afternoon to shave some mileage off of the almost 30 miles Ben had planned for the following day. Pilgrim, Ben, and I decided naps were more appealing.
As Ben and I climbed the stairs to our room, I said, “Look, I find you very attractive, but when we get in that room, the only thing I want touching me is the pillow.”
“Agreed.”
I caught a whiff of myself and revised my statement, “Okay, maybe shower first, but then I’m sleeping until dinner.”
* * *
The following day, Ben, Pilgrim, and I took off early while everyone else stayed for breakfast. I was excited to hike a long day, and Erin had told me that the 10 miles they’d hiked the day before had been easy. Soon, we reached Bald Mt. Brook Lean-to, about 14 miles into our day. Ben went to find the privy while Pilgrim and I had a snack at the shelter. There, we found Erin, Sug, and Turbo’s packs.
“What the hell?” Pilgrim wondered out loud, confused because those guys were nowhere to be found.
“Oh!” I said, “Paul dropped these off so they could hike a few miles this morning without packs. I guess they haven’t made it here yet.”
Pilgrim got a glint in his eye. “We should fuck with Turbo. He’s always fucking with me.”
Since we’d met him, Turbo had acted as the annoying little brother to Pilgrim. The dynamic amused me to no end.
“What, like put a rock in his pack?” I joked.
“YES!!!”
“Oh my god, that is so fucked up. He’s just going to be like, ‘So, whatsit, why does my pack feel so heavy?’” I laughed, doing my best Turbo impression.
Pilgrim found a giant rock and put it in the top pocket of Turbo’s pack. We figured he would notice right away. After wearing your pack for long enough, little imbalances of weight would start driving you crazy. If I put my stuff in a different order, I would be adjusting my pack cords all day long.
We started back up the trail, immediately climbing 1400 feet up to Moxie Bald Mountain. We hung out at the top, enjoying the view, when Turbo appeared. I looked at him, wondering if he was going to say something about the rock, but he just launched into telling us about his breakfast.
Pilgrim, Ben, and I exchanged looks and shrugged. We all started hiking again. A few miles later, we arrived at Moxie Bald Lean-to and sat down to take a break. Turbo unstrapped his pack, saying, “I think it’s because we slacked yesterday, but my pack feels so heavy today.”
We all started giggling, and Pilgrim said, “Did you check your pack?”
Turbo looked at us with big, sincere eyes, “Yeah, so whatsit, I thought it was heavy when I put it on and I went through it but there was nothing?”
“You checked the whole pack?” Pilgrim asked, grin on his face.
Turbo was already unzipping the front zipper, and the one compartment he’d apparently missed earlier. He held the giant rock in his hand as we laughed.
“You fuckers,” he said and turned and threw the rock in Pilgrim’s direction.
“DUDE. WHAT THE FUCK? You almost hit me in the head with that rock.” Pilgrim yelled.
“You put a fucking rock in my pack!” Turbo yelled back.
“Okay, okay. Calm down, both of you,” Ben intervened. “Turbo, it was just a joke, we thought you’d find it right away.”
Turbo shot Pilgrim an angry look, but I could see the edge was gone.
“And this is why I never do pranks,” I said.
* * *
At the shelter that night, Turbo retold the rock story to Sug and Erin, who had been just a few minutes behind us all day. Already, he was telling it as a funny anecdote, including the part where he almost took Pilgrim’s head off. We looked again at our mileage for the last stretch. Tomorrow we would go through Monson, our last trail town, to pick up supplies, and enter into the 100-Mile Wilderness.
The 100-Mile Wilderness is the last stretch of trail before you get to Baxter state park, the home of Mt. Katahdin. It’s considered the wildest part of the AT because there are no official roads in or out, meaning no chance for resupply and no easy escape route. The terrain wasn’t exceptionally hard, although there is still plenty of elevation gain and loss, but the black flies were legendary.
We arrived in Monson the following morning after a 9-mile hike. We had 15 miles to go, so while we couldn’t linger all day, we had time to check out the town, grab a meal, and get groceries. Erin and I were hiking together when we arrived in town. We stopped by Shaw’s Hiker Hostel to see if we could drop our packs while we wandered around.
Sitting on the front porch, we found a familiar face.
“Oh wow! Sweet n’ Low and Not Yet!” It was Vic, a hiker we’d met back in North Carolina. Vic was thru-hiking with her husband, Irish. We’d known they were ahead of us from the trail registers, but didn’t anticipate ever seeing them again. Even though we’d only hiked together a few nights, months ago, Vic was one of the few other women we’d met on the trail and because of that we felt a special bond. The three of us sat together and caught up, sharing stories of our adventures, reveling in the fact that we were probably within several miles of one another at so many points during our hikes.
“Are you guys staying here tonight? Let’s have dinner!” Vic said, calling over Irish to say hi.
We told her we couldn’t stop, that we had to summit in five days.
“We’ve really been dragging this thing out,” I told her. We all hugged goodbye and posed for a picture and promised we’d look each other up once we got back to the real world. It was a promise we’d made to many people we’d met along the way—both Erin and I had addresses and phone numbers lining the covers of our notebooks—and I wondered how many we’d keep.
Erin and I continued on to get groceries at the Monson General Store and then eat at the C&G Country Store. We sat in the window looking out at the town, full of hiker-types, eating our sandwiches.
“This place gives me the creeps,” Erin said.
I agreed. Our interactions in the town had all been pleasant, but there was still something off-putting. “Right? I can’t put my finger on it, but it’s like a cult runs this place or something.”
“Yeah, like we’re in the Truman show.”
As much as I had always looked forward to going into town, I thought I’d want to linger in our last true trail town. But possibly because we’d gorged ourselves on towns in the last few states, or maybe because I knew that soon all I was going to have was convenience and stores, I was happy to hike out of Monson and into the 100-Mile Wilderness.