On Monday, July 25th, Kathy and I got into the car at 4AM to drive north to Maine.About 10 hours later we arrived at Grafton Notch campground, where we had a reservation for the night.It’s a small, nice, campground about 5 miles from Grafton Notch parking.The following morning we drove to the parking lot at Grafton Notch where our shuttle driver would pick us up at 8:20 and drive us to the route 4 trailhead near Rangeley, Maine.At about 10 Kathy, our dog Tora, andI started hiking southbound on the Appalachian Trail.Our destination for day 1 was Little Swift River Campsite, a little less than 5 miles from the start.It is on the edge of a lake with a small spring for drinking water.Since we don’t hike very fast our days were between 4.5 and 8.3 miles long.We planned our daily destination so that we’d be camping near a water source each night. We did change our itinerary 1 day to sleep on top of a mountain, with no water available. On day 2 we had a special surprise.At Sabathday Pond Lean-to we were able to swim in Long Pond, which has a sandy beach and access right from the trail.There were leaches in the water but they didn’t keep most hikers from a cooling swim.On succeeding days we camped at Bemis Mtn. Lean-to, the very top of Old Blue Mountain, Sawyer Notch, Surplus Pond, Frye Notch Lean-to, and finally Baldpate Lean-to.At this shelter a group of girls, from a camp in Maine, was camped near us.They had started 7 weeks earlier at the north end of the AT and would finish in Gorham, New Hampshire.Almost all the girls lavished our dog, Tora, with all kinds of attention and affection.As it turns out 2 of the girls are from our town, what are the chances of that?And besides that, one of their counselors remembered us from 2015 where we camped at Old Speck Pond with her group from that year.The final day we hiked a few miles down to Grafton Notch where our car was.The trail in this section is full of rocks and roots and each day brought more and more of a vertical component.Part of the reason we hiked this section sobo was to give our bodies the opportunity to get used to the ups and downs as best as possible.There were several places along our route where ladders were in place to make it up or down the rock faces.The weather was a welcome relief from the heat wave at home and most days saw a high temperature in the mid 80s.Most mornings were in the 50s but when we woke up on top of Old Blue Mntn. It was 42 degrees with a stiff wind.Delightful!The only rain we saw was a short shower that started minutes before we got to the lean-to at Frye Notch.Once at the car we cleaned up a little and drove up to the town of Rangeley to get a motel for a couple of days so we could shower, eat some hiker sized meals, and make arrangements for the next part of our hike.But that’s a whole other story that will have to wait for another day.
Photos and part 2 later
Photos and part 2 later