We did it! We successfully completed the first hard section of the Trail – the 100 Mile Wilderness.

Last Friday, we hiked nine miles from the bottom of Mt Katahdin through Baxter State Park. It was an easy, gorgeous walk with some amazing views (we were thinking “Wow! This is great, we can totally do this for 2,175 more miles!”).

“Little Niagara Falls” in Baxter State Park

After leaving the park and grabbing a last real meal at the restaurant near Abol Bridge, we headed out into the Wilderness. We hiked a little over three more miles and made camp for our first night out 🙂

Abol Bridge

Making dinner and looking over tomorrow’s hike

The next day was pretty flat and we had a lot of adrenaline running through us…so, despite the rocks, mud, and bugs we somehow hiked a 20 mile day. Ugh. We quickly learned that we don’t need to push from lean-to to lean-to every night because there are campsites all along the Trail even if they’re not necessarily listed on the map (and you can almost always find several tent sites on any body of water).

The upside to our longggg day though was that we got to sleep on the beach! It was one of our favorite moments of the week.

We started the next day with tired legs and humid weather. However! We were in the part of the Wilderness that has plenty of sandy beaches, and we took full advantage of every.single.one of them.

That blob in the water is me?

The sad part of this day though was when one of my camp shoes (which are my Teva sandals that I wear when I’m not in my hiking boots) fell off my bag while it was drying ?

We made camp next to a great group of people that night, and ended up hiking with them the rest of the next day. And that day turned out to be a day FULL of trail magic. Trail magic is when there are randomly placed snacks, drinks, or anything of the sort placed along the way. Trail magic is more common for northbounders (or NOBOs) because there are so many more people hiking that way, but right now we’re all in the same hiking bubble. Many NOBOs are in Maine finishing up their thru-hikes now, us SOBOs are just starting our hikes, and Flip Floppers (or people who start down south with the NOBOs and hike to Harper’s Ferry before flying to Maine and hiking the second half of the Trail southbound) are beginning the second half of their hike with us now. Needless to say, the Trail is full of friendly faces and plenty of trail magic.

Our first magic of the day – a huge bucket full of cheezits, oreos, capri suns, and all sorts of snacks thanks to a local Boyscout troop.

And then a couple hours later – soda and cold waters!

We spent a gorgeous lunch break at Cooper Brook lean-to (no pictures though because our phones were dead) and right before we left a couple of people arrived and said “Is the girl who lost her shoe here?” AND THEY HAD MY TEVA!! One of our friends that we hiked part of the Trail with had seen it on the ground and passed it up through three different people before it made it’s way back to me! I was soo happy, and because there were so many people that had heard the story of my lost shoe, I have officially earned the trailname “Cinderella”. Trail magic #3 of the day!

Something we’ve really noticed over the past ten days is that everyone here is always looking out for other hikers. Even if you’ve only met someone once, people ask how so-and-so’s knee is doing or if someone else is still doing okay on the amount of food they have in their bag. It’s amazing how much of a community this Trail has quickly become.

We spent the night on another beach with some of our new friends, and picked up our food drop right in time for dinner.

The food drop was exactly half way through and worked out perfectly for us.

From there on out, we had to say ‘goodbye’ to lakes and beaches because then there were mountains. And not just one mountain, but A MILLION mountains (okay, not a million but it felt like it with our big backpacks). We were thankful that we had prepped our legs on Adk mountains first, but we were still so exhausted at the end of each day. We may have fallen asleep before it was dark out…twice…

Even though it’s called the “100 Mile Wilderness” it wasn’t really that wild. We saw tons of people everyday and the trails were very well kept. There were quite a few stone staircases, and even one metal one. We didn’t ever sleep by ourselves, even when we stayed at a random campsite along a brook. There were also several dirt & gravel roads throughout the section.

But somehow before we knew it – we arrived in Monson! Our first town in a week, and with that our first showers, laundry, and real food (although as you can see in the picture above, we always managed to find places to cool off at the end of the day).

The sign marking the end of the Wilderness!

Waiting for our shuttle to the Lakeshore Lodge (Shawn says this picture does not accurately depict my mood for the last four miles of the hike – let’s just say I was hurting and definitely not smiling). The Lodge was great though – it was right above the restaurant, and directly next door to Pete’s Place (where you can resupply, get a good meal, or a dessert like the one pictured below ?.)

Dinner with a view 🙂

Having a night off in town also gave us the opportunity to rethink our bags and pick up our next food drop (thanks for sending it, Mom!).

Between what we cut out and the food we decided to send forward to ourselves to the next town, we shed a total of 12 pounds out of our packs. We’re now at 24lbs and 34lbs bags each, not including water weight. Plus, Shawn lost 12 pounds since we started himself.

We filled up on a BBQ lunch this afternoon and are heading back out onto the Trail after the afternoon storm passes. Our next town is about three days away and we plan to restock & shower there.

Thank you everyone for the kind words and wishes! We’re so excited to have so many awesome people at home who care about us. And thanks Gramma (and Casey & Kierstin!) for the letter at our hostel 🙂

Have a great weekend, everyone!