It turns out I wasn’t alone after all. Fresh arrived around 7:30, deeply stressed because he had lost Trillian several hours earlier and worried something terrible had befallen her. There wasn’t much he could do at that point other than use his Garmin to send text messages.
In the morning he gave me the good news. His parents had somehow found the number for her father, they had called him and he confirmed that at her daily 7pm check in, she had texted that she was at a shelter an hour north. Fresh left half an hour before me to try to catch up to her.
When I met them an hour later standing near said shelter, I gathered that there had been several miscommunications about where they would meet. Also Fresh had convinced himself that she could not possibly have moved ahead of him, but somehow she did. Anyhow, they were happily hiking together today so all is well.
Much of the day the trail followed rivers and lakes, sometimes right by the shore, other times climbing unreasonably far up, only to shoot back down again a few yards later. So lots of small climbs. One biggish one up a mountain with poor views, but there were lots of great views from the higher sections and even the shores of the lakes. This part of Maine very much reminds me of northern Ontario.
Other than Fresh and Trillian, I saw no one on trail the whole day. I made it to an unofficial campsite around 6:30, where a mother and her 20ish son are doing a multiday hike, and a structural engineer is doing an overnight. My tent is in the middle.
I pushed pretty far today, because I think I might be able to make it to the campsite at the base of Katahdin tomorrow. That would allow me to summit on Saturday, a day early. While I’m enjoying being in nature and the routine of the hike I am kind of ready to be done.
Mile 2152.3 to mile 2175 = 22.7 miles
Katahdin in the distance
