Rangeley, ME 1973.9 (zero miles, 948.5 total miles)
It was a beautiful morning in Rangeley, and after lazing around for half the morning, we had bagels, bacon, and eggs for breakfast, before we sat down to plan out the rest of our hike to Katahdin.
With a tentative summit date of August 24th, we mapped out a pace that would still allow us to enjoy Maine to the fullest before reaching Katahdin.
I felt a little stressed after planning out each day and where we would camp and resupply. We were three weeks from the end of the northern half, and the final end of Catchup and Sunshine’s hikes.
I took a dip in the lake to cool down, both literally and figuratively. It seemed to help, then Catchup and Ashley gave me a rock skipping lesson, to which I was pleasantly surprised I seemed to get the hang of after a few tries.
Before we left for town, I laid out my wet clothes and tent in the sun, took a food inventory, and made a shopping list for my resupply. It would be a short, two day resupply to Stratton, Maine.
In town, we stopped at The Furbish Brew House & Eats for lunch. I treated myself to a blueberry margarita and got a bbq pork butt pizza with blueberry compote that couldn’t have been made any better.
As we sat outside, we saw various seaplanes fly overhead and land in the lake right near us. Out of curiosity, I googled who the company was and what it cost, and before I knew it we had booked a half hour flight tour for the following afternoon.
We stopped at Ecopelagicon, a local outfitter that seemed very hiker friendly according to the Far Out comments. That appeared to indeed be the case, as the staff were all personable, gear knowledgeable, and interested in our hikes.
I bought resupply food, bug spray (picaradin is the way), and canister fuel there while Catchup worked on figuring out where his sleeping pad was leaking from. Ashley and Sunshine grabbed a couple things, too.
Back at the IGA, we finished buying our food and returned to the cabin. We were all feeling quite tired by then, and sore with swollen joints as our bodies attempted to heal from the abuse we had put them through on the trail.
I lazily completed a couple more chores, briefly went back into the lake water, and proceeded to eat multiple meals worth of food, including the remaining half of my leftover reuben and fries from the day before, two large cookies, a fantastic cubano type melt and tomato soup that Catchup made, and a Klondike bar.
My stomach was uncomfortably full, as it often is in town, but I hadn’t lost weight on the trail, so that was a victory for me. I mended my sports bra strap that had torn a couple days back, and washed the dishes after Catchup was done cooking.
I’d also spent a good amount of time in the afternoon reading. After discussing the joke of us all going on a plane tomorrow with “Amelia Airheart”, we did research on the real Earhart for a while as a group. I also caught up on all of Catchup’s blog posts (he is an excellent writer – I recommend looking him up as “Catchup” on thetrek.co).
It was perfectly peaceful that evening at the lake house, as the sun set, loons called over the water, and rain fell gently outside the open windows next to the kitchen table where we set up a couple card games.
We first played blitz, which was new to me, and we counted down the rounds with pennies, until Catchup ultimately won. We then moved on to a very intense game of spoons, which resulted in a very crumpled up tablecloth and a lot of elbowing each other out of the way.
I laughed until tears were streaming down my eyes, and Sunshine claimed her victory over us all in the final round. I played a couple quick games of spit with Ashley and Catchup to round out the night, which had become quite late for three hikers and the mom of a seven month old baby.
It had been one of the best zeros all of us had gotten to experience on trail. The location and the company were both stellar, and I felt so lucky to have a best friend so generous, and a trail family I could always have fun with. One more day of rest and an airplane ride sounded just perfect to me.