August 1st, 2018, Maine
I got started early in order to finish the 12 miles to the next road before the hostel shuttle arrived at 3:30pm. It was another nice day but we heard rain was expected later in the day and overnight.
The hike went over the Beamis Mountains which were covered in blueberries up top. It seems like we are at the peak ripening period for blueberries at this spot. Unfortunately I had already eaten a big breakfast and wasn’t very hungry but I stopped a few times when I found a bush with lots ready to eat. I also discovered that the spruce grouse loves blueberries. They are up on the hilltops now with their chicks eating berries. I happened to see a male and couple females plus several large chicks. The male wasn’t afraid of me and fanned out his feathers and strutted around for a bit. The female flew up to a roosting branch. And the chicks ignored me and continued hopping up to reach blueberries on bushes above them. They weren’t quite tall enough to reach them so just jumped up to pick one berry at a time—which entertained me for a few minutes.
Mark had arrived to the same camp site as me last night and we decided to head into Andover together for resupply and a rest. Matt, a 19 year old hiker from central New York State, also caught up with us and we all hiked together for part of the day. Although Matt is from New York people think he has a Canadian accent—so he got the trail name “Old Canadian,” which is pretty funny for a 19 year old.
We reached the pick up point at the road around 3pm. Old Canadian hitchhiked into town and Mark and I waited for the shuttle. There were some NOBOs there eating and getting ready to get back on the trail. They had been into town earlier. We talked with them about what to expect over our next several days.
The shuttle picked us up and took us to the Human Nature Hostel which is pretty far out in the country. They provide breakfast, laundry, and a shuttle to Walmart at noon the next day. I was already planning to spend the day here resting and Mark decided to spend a “zero day” (day with no trail miles) as well. We had house-made pizza, pasta salad, and watermelon for dinner which was really good and filling.
There are 14 bunks at the hostel and a good number were full. While inventorying my remaining food at the table downstairs I had a nice conversation with Bluebird, a NOBO hiker from Texas about my age who said she has lived her whole life in Houston and Austin and wanted to experience some other places in our country. She was hiking on and off with another hiker from Minnesota but I didn’t catch his trail name. There was also another young couple from Minnesota hiking SOBO that I had seen briefly at Shaw’s some time back. An English lady called Little Red Riding Hood had been hiking with them since Shaw’s or maybe earlier. Since they were hiking SOBO I expect we may run into each other from time to time.
And here are some other things I enjoyed seeing today:
