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| Looking down the Hamlin Ridge Trail |
I've come a very short way off the summit and down the Hamlin Ridge Trail. I'm finally protected from the roaring wind, so I'm stopping to take a few pics, and even my first ever mountain-top video. The view of the mountains and the forests and the lakes is awe-inspiring. The trail goes right down the ridgeline, so I'll have views at every step of the way. But now that I look closer, it's not actually a trail - it's a path over big boulders. Unless that changes as I get lower on the mountain, it means that I won't be walking - I'll be picking every step from boulder to boulder. I'm sure-footed (*knocks wood*) and am good at rock hopping - but that means slow going. As the ranger predicted, I haven't seen another soul since taking the fork to Hamlin.
1:12pm
The views continue to be everything I could hope for, but the trail is slow, hard going. It's a steady downhill over boulders, and I'm being slow and careful. A false step could mean a fall and maybe an injury, and there's no one on this trail but me. I'm feeling a little weak, so I'm going extra slow. This is harder than I thought. I've taken some good slow looks into the North Basin, but I haven't seen any wildlife.
I'm feeling a little bit of despair at how far *down* there still is to go. I've been giving up elevation steadily over the last hour, but I'm still up on the ridge, and pretty far above the valley floor. I'm not feeling great. I've taken some extended looks into the basin, and as much as I willed some black dots to be moose or bear, I don't think they were.
2:08pm
Junction of the main trail from Chimney Pond to Roaring Brook Campground. Thank goodness. Now I know exactly where I am and how far I have to go (a little over 3 miles.) The last 45 minutes or so were not pleasant. I was feeling weak and I'm running low on water, and I wasn't sure how far there still was to go. The ridge trail was beautiful, but much harder than I thought.
I even started having thoughts about the possibility of having to spend the night on the trail. (I never thought it was likely, but I did start thinking about some "what if's".) I'm prepared - but I could be more prepared. I do have my emergency survival kit with me, but I should have another set of warm clothes in my pack, and I should have brought more water. I also noted with alarm that my cell phone was getting low on battery, so I turned it off (to save a little bit of battery for if I really did need to try to send a message for help.) That's why there's a section of purple on my GPS track. The red line ends where I turned the phone off. I drew in my estimate (in purple) of how I connected back to the main trail.
I'm back home at lean-to #7, and very happy to be here. The last three miles were long and hard and rocky - but I was no longer worried. I was back on the main trail and never went too long without passing other hikers. Many had full backpacking gear and were heading to Chimney Pond Campground to camp (as there's no road access - you have to park at Roaring Brook and backpack in.) I was almost out of water, so now I'm going to drink a lot of water, and then drink some more water, and then get out of these wet clothes and into some dry cotton...and then maybe lay down for a short nap. John isn't back, and I'm wondering where he is and how he's doing.
4:35pm
I've changed and napped and am feeling much much better. But I'm starting to worry a little about John, mostly because of the text message I got from him - specifically, the "may try Hamlin" part. I can imagine him feeling good, deciding to go from Katahdin over to Hamlin, then down the ridge trail I came down. If he fell, there'd be no one to help him. Or he might run out of daylight - it took me much longer to come down the ridge trail than I would have thought from looking at a topo map. I'm not super worried...just a little worried.
He's still not back, and now I'm a little more worried. He's been gone for 10 hours. I've walked up to the trailhead to watch people coming off the trail. I'm commiserating with a woman in a car who's driven here to pick up her daughter after a hike of a few days. We're reassuring each other that everything will certainly be fine.
I just saw the ranger, and asked him what the procedure is for a hiker who doesn't return. He said to come back and see him tomorrow morning when he comes on duty at 6:30am. That makes sense - there's nothing they can do once the sun goes down. They have to wait until morning.
It's silly to wait here, I'll go back to camp.
5:45pm
John just walked into camp, thank goodness. He said I shouldn't have worried...but I couldn't help it, especially since I didn't know his route. It turns out he didn't do Hamlin too - he went to the start of the Knife's Edge, pronounced it "crazy", and turned around and retraced his path back down. He saw a moose close-up, and I'm green with envy. I didn't see any moose or bears.
We have a fire going, and dinner will be soon. The menu is hot dogs and leftover sausages from last night. That was a strenuous day (damn, I used the "s" word again...but it's the right word.) Much more than I intended. In hindsight, I should have avoided the Saddle Trail and the Slide. I should have *ascended* the Hamlin Ridge Trail, just going up as far as I felt like (not necessarily all the way to the summit), then turned around and came back. I would have had a good hike and seen the spectacular views. But it all worked out.
John is very happy, as he should be. He didn't feel good about not summiting Marcy last year, and I think he wanted to see if he could still do a hike like this. He also stunned me by saying that he didn't stop once going up the Slide. I bet I stopped 20 times.
I may not have mentioned this yet, but this campground has no facilities. Pit toilets, no showers, no running water. Our running water is Roaring Brook (and the two big jugs we brought with us.) Also, no trash collection. You pack out your own trash. We're washing up with Wet Wipes, which does the job - but I'll admit I'm fantasizing about a hot shower.
We're both joking about where we feel on the "Sanford" scale. I think we're both at about a "medium Sanford." On our first boys' trip (2007, to the Southwest), Phil was so tight after the first big day of hiking, that I joked he was hobbling around like Fred Sanford in "Sanford and Son". Since then, the mark of how you feel after a hard day of hiking can be measured on a scale of "no Sanford" to "light Sanford" to "full Sanford." (See this trip report, three paragraphs from the end.)
8:30-ish
Sack time very soon. Dogs and sausages were delicious, then we sat at the fire and reviewed our hikes. It's not as cold tonight as it was last night, and sleeping should be good.
The plan for tomorrow is get up, pack up our gear and load the car. There's a hike to Katahdin Lake which isn't too long, and more importantly, is mostly flat. We'll leave the campsite, make the short drive to the trailhead, do our hike, then leave the park and drive to Millinocket, where we have a motel room reserved (presumably with hot showers.)
Today was a very good day - tough, but rewarding. Nite nite.
Total distance: 9.8 miles
Elapsed time: 7 hours
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