This morning Marching Band drove us north an hour to the other side of Saddleback Mountain and dropped us off a mile from the trail at Perham Creek. There was a contingent of Maine Game Wardens just start in another search for hiker Inchworm Largay, missing since 2013. We walked up a logging trail and turned south, forded Orbeton creek and headed up Poplar Ridge. We spent most of the morning climbing to Saddleback Junior. We ran into Goldilocks and Shaggy, Janezilla and Mushu, TK, Freestyle, Deja Vu, Toasty, Dapper Dan, and several other hikers. We ate lunch near Redington Camp, but did not go in as it is suspected as the cause of several bad cases of GI illness reported this season by SOBOers. Then it was up the Horn and main Saddleback, both of which are above tree line. The wind was fierce and the temp low, so we wore our rain gear and did fine.
After 2.5 miles we dropped back into the trees. The trail turned rooty but the grade wasn't bad and we made good time. At Ethel Pond we saw a cow moose feeding. We ran into hikers Mike and Jade and spent a while catching up. We made the road just before six and got picked up by Marching Band.
9/21/15 - Slackpack to Caribou Valley Road
Stacie with the Farmhouse dropped us off this morning at the Perham Stream logging road and we started up Lone Mountain. The climb was fairly easy for all its steepness, we made the first mile in a half hour.
The rest of the day was fairly easy, the trail was pretty rocky and rooty, but the elevation gains and losses were gradual and we made good time to Sugarloaf Mountain. The trail cuts around Sugarloaf instead of over the top and we stopped at a commemorative plaque for the completion of the last segment of the AT.
Crossing the Carrabassett River got me to thinking about the state of my eight year old Crocs. They have just about no tread left and have never fit well. I'll need to look into replacements before Monson.
We made the Caribou Valley Road crossing, turned east and walked a half mile to the parking lot and got picked up by Shane, owner of the Stratton Motel (and the Farmhouse in Rangeley). Tomorrow we'll go back to Caribou Valley Road and do eight miles over the Crockers to ME4 for a light day. And we'll hit 2000 miles on trail.
9/22/15 - Stratton Hotel
Today was an easy slack over the Crocker mountains into Stratton, ME. The trail was full of rocks and roots, but we're used to those and powered through by a bit after noon. We passed the 2000 mile point just before getting to the ME4 parking lot. The Mooners, Freestyle, Deja Vu and two seventy year old women doing the Crockers all crossed our path. Tomorrow we start the Bigelow range, which is the last major mountain group before Katahdin.
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