Snowman Says: On the AT - East Flagstaff Road to Caratunk

August 4, 2008 | Miles: 19.9
Start: East Flagstaff Road
End: Caratunk

Squish.

20 miles of mud.

In all honesty, the majority of the details from this hike are very blurry due to the relative uniformity of the trail and the constant squish of mud and splash of water. 75% of the trail was either mud or standing/running water. It was really sloppy. Due to the conditions, this section was both completely forgettable and totally memorable. It was terrible and awesome. All in all, just another day on the AT.

After dropping car #1 and a cooler full of trail magic at the trailhead in Caratunk, we picked up a pizza and headed for Round Barn Campsite on Flagstaff Lake. Round Barn is one of the coolest spots around, and, yes, pizza is perfectly acceptable camping food.

Despite the dry evening, it rained most of the night and was still pouring at our wake up time of 6:00am. We stayed in the tent for another 45 minutes, when the rain stopped. After packing up, eating and driving to the trailhead, we hit the trail at 8:00am, about an hour later than planned/hoped. Normally, start time isn't an issue, but today we had to make it to the Kennebec River 19.6 miles away before 4:00pm in order to catch the ferry (canoe). The Kennebec is waaaay too big to ford, so the Maine Appalachian Trail Club has hired a company to ferry hikers across the river. There's even a white blaze in the bottom of the canoe!

As I mentioned, it was wet, muddy, slippery, sloppy and yuk. Due to the conditions, we weren't able to run as much of the trail as we would have liked. D and I each almost hit the deck a handful of times, but no official falls were recorded on the trip. Although D tried to kill herself twice: once slamming her shin squarely into a bog bridge and another time slipping on a rock while fording a stream. Luckily, she caught herself on a rock in the middle of the stream to avoid any actual swimming.

It was a tough day, but it was more mentally hard than physically. It rained on us, at times quite hard, for most of the morning. When, really, more rain was the last thing that the trail needed. The section between West Carry Pond and East Carry Pond was the worst. I was really getting frustrated through here. A couple times, I yelled at the rain to stop. (Didn't help.) Then, just when I was ready to crawl in a mud hole and give up, we hit a flat, level, pine needle cushioned beautiful section of trail. I yelped a WOOHOO and took off running...fast. It was awesome. It was less than a half mile, but it was great. Just what I needed to pick me up, and I was good the rest of the day. In fact, the ridiculousness of the trail actually became quite comical. At times, I'd stop to try to find away around a puddle or mud pit, when suddenly D would crash right through laughing (cackling?) hysterically. After all, once you're saturated, you can't get any wetter.

The day also featured a handful of river fords because...well, why not? There was so much water out there, one of the fords wasn't even listed in the guide book or on the map. In other words, the day was just nuts.

The best news of all was that we reached the Kennebec around 3:15 with plenty of time to catch a ferry ride. Well, D rode. I paddled. Once safely on the other side, it was a quick walk back to the car and dry clothes. My feet were very happy to be out of those wet shoes. After all, they'd been wet for 7.5 hours and nearly 20 miles. Just another day on the AT.