August 3rd, 2018, Maine
After another breakfast of plate-size pancakes with butter, blueberries, and syrup we headed outside to pack and wait for the shuttle.
Around 8am the shuttle started back to our trailhead. The hostel shuttle was a converted school bus (small one) and had a TV installed with 80s music videos playing. It was entertaining but kind of surreal as we roared down the curvy rural roads of southern Maine.
We learned that Mark was a yoga instructor and yesterday he lead a session for stretching the legs, hips, and back. And we decided a good trail name for him would be Yogi Bear. He accepted the name. So Yogi decided to slackpack today—that is leave your main pack at a location like a hostel and take a light day pack with water, snacks, and a few essentials for the day’s hike. The hostel or other service then picks you up at a different trailhead and you spend another night with them. Then the next day they return you to where you left off and you continue with your full pack. So he was doing about 10 miles and I was hoping to make it almost 15 to Frye Notch Lean-to.
The weather called for rain in the afternoon and overnight and the clouds rolled in early to make it a cool grey day. There weren’t many views today.
Late in the day I passed Dunn Falls and Dunn Cascades. I didn’t take the side trail for a better look because light rain had already started. I hoped to get set up somewhere before any heavy rain began. But I could tell looking down that it would have been a spectacular sight from a different angle. And I got a kick out of a broken sign announcing how “fragile” the area is. Yes, so fragile even the sign got broken…
So I continued in light rain for the next several hours. It took at least an hour for the trees and plants to get saturated and start dripping down onto the trail. I was glad it never rained harder and I reached the lean-to just before 7pm—after almost ten hours of hiking. There were a couple tents already set up but no one was in the shelter itself. I decided to take up a spot and was surprised that no one else came and I had he whole place to myself.
I got water from a stream, made dinner, hung up the food in a large tree nearby, and settled down for the night. If there was heavy rain in the morning I planned to wait it out in the shelter for a while. It was supposed to start clearing by mid day. After spending a couple nights in a bunk room with other hikers the contrast with this empty shelter was apparent. But i was happy to be “inside” tonight, with the rain pattering on the metal roof above.