Another beautiful day! We’re getting some of our best weather of the whole trip in Maine! The mountains were pretty tough today but dinner more than made up for it! Rockhound and I stopped at the last road crossing and made a deal. I lugged a few pounds of his stuff up the final climb to the shelter. In exchange, he hitched into Stratton and picked up keilbasa, red onion, horseradish mustard, buns & a root beer for me! That’s gotta be one of my top two trail meals! It was insanely good!

The pond here is real pretty. I broke out my fishing gear for a while but only got one trout to rise. It’s good to get a bit of practice time in though, since it’s been two years since I last fished. I did a good job not hooking section hiker David—now named ‘Damaged’ from the wounds he’s incurred on his legs & feet. Sometimes not catching anything is better than hooking a hiker!

I just went through my trail guide and set out possible dates for where I’m staying through the end of the hike. Definitely in range to summit on the 12th. Might slip to the 13th, but I doubt anything beyond that!

I saw my second moose of the trip coming down from the mountain this morning. I think it was a cow since I didn’t glimpse antlers but it moved away pretty fast after hearing me.

Nice time hanging out with SOBOs Louise & Hawkeye (with their dog Chewy) and caretaker Jen in addition to Rockhound, Condor, Damage and father & sons: Slowtoe, Magic and Bug. Louise & Hawkeye are just out of the Navy and Hawkeye had a bit of single malt scotch he shared out. That’s by far the best whiskey I’ve tasted on the trail!

12 miles tomorrow? 17? We’ll see what it feels like. I don’t need to stay in Caratunk if I’m staying in Monson 2 or 3 days later…