Day 122 – East B Hill Road to Bemis Stream Trail

After sleeping on a fair incline that required me to periodically hall myself up the mattress (not really an inconvenience since I have to reinflate the leaky mattress every time I wake up) I discovered a much better tentsite, very flat and with great seating, just down the path. This is one of the frustrating things about FarOut in the Northeast. Further south I found all kinds of comments about where to find the best stealth campsites, whether a shelter was in good shape, whether a water source was flowing or dry…. Somehow in New Hampshire and Maine these comments are almost nonexistent.  Two theories: by the time most hikers get this far north their enthusiasm has waned so they’re less inclined to comment; or FarOut has a bug. I think the later because I’ve added a few comments recently and they don’t show up.

The day was going to be long with lots of climbing: 18.8 jmiles and 6600 feet of ascent.  There was a shelter that far, and the next closest was only 11 miles which was not ambitious enough.

The climbs and descents, it turned out, were very time consuming. The trail had stones and exposed roots to hop on or over and I almost never had a steady pace. There was thunder around noon and it rained intermittently until 1, so I didn’t stop for lunch until 2 when the trees had dried off enough not to soak my food with each gust of wind. After starting at 7, I was still only 10 miles along by 2, which is an average speed of under 1.5 MPH. That would get me to the shelter around 8 pm.

A SOBO had warned me that the shelter had a pretty sketchy water supply, and the closest decent stream on FarOut was 4 miles south. At 6pm I filled up there. At 6:15 I crested a hill and saw two tents up. Zeus and Windowpane told me there was another decent site fifty yards down a sidetrail.  I set up camp there, relieved not to have another ninety minutes of walking.

The location is fairly high up, and it was a cold day today, so I expect it to be quite cold tonight.  I put on my pants, nightshirt, thermal top, button shirt, rain jacket and wool cap, and climbed into my sleeping bag to write this. That may prove to be overkill but it’s nicer to wake up hot and take something off than to wake up shivering.

Mile 1940.8 to mile 1956.9 = 16.1 miles