9/23-25/2015
The hiker trap
My first view of Mt. Katahdin
We started into the 100 mile wilderness today. Only one dirt road crosses trail in this span. I thought the wilderness would be a place of solitude, but I found it to be crowded and mostly unpleasant.
The first few days were rough. I was hiking as hard as possible to get to the road on my birthday. Flask and I had been communicating about meeting up and it seemed that it might actually happen.
I saw a moose, a weasel and many beautiful views on this section of trail. It was rugged and the temps. were getting low at night. We had a cold snap that was throwing me back to those colds first nights on trail. On the 25th the temp. got down to 17 degrees. We made a morning fire to unfreeze out fingers.
On this section of trail I started encountering a group of hikers that I really disliked. I tried to make friends with them, but they had a problem with everything I did. They were grouchy and controlling. I wanted to ask them: “Why are you here? Why don’t you just go home?”
This group was also extremely territorial about campsites. I felt pushed out or rather crowded out of every site I shared with them. I felt unwelcome in a free place. It was very discouraging to find, that after so much hiking, they hadn’t learned anything from trail. I wondered how much of the trail they had actually hiked because they acted like inconsiderate section hikers.
I was so happy to be seeing Flask again. I needed to be reminded of what it was like to be loved and to love.
