Unbothered

August 20

Miles: 19 (2063/2189)

Location: Stealth campsite along Piscataquis River, south of Monson

Weather: Very nice, other than some threatening clouds and light drizzle this morning

Complaint of the Day: My brand new water filter, the one I picked up less than two weeks ago in Gorham already has a significant leak to it. I had had my old one for over three months and it still worked pretty decent, but I wanted to replace it before it got bad in a place where I couldn’t do anything about it. But now this one is already leaking. I’ve started adding bleach drops to my filtered water just to be safe. I’ll be happy when I won’t have to worry about this sort of thing anymore.

Today was another pretty easy day for the most part, though my legs and feet are still complaining as if I had done a much tougher day. I started the day climbing up one peak, Pleasant Pond Peak, that was arguably the easiest climb I’ve had in a month. Then after a few miles of fairly easy hiking, I came to another small mountain– Moxie Bald. This mountain was a little different in that it the trail split right before the mountain offering hikers like me a chance to short cut the climb up to the top and save a half mile of hiking by going on the side trail. I should feel guilty about choosing the short cut, but I really don’t. I’ve hiked up so many freaking peaks on this trip that skipping one and shaving off a half mile off the overall total doesn’t bother me at all. The only peak I care about at this point is Katahdin. 

Tomorrow I am going to hike into the town of Monson, ME and have my last chance at real civilization before I get to the end of the trail. I will enjoy a chance at laundry and a shower as well as sitting around for an entire afternoon doing nothing.