We had a few late night battles with a mouse, but overall we had a warm, dry spot near the lean-to. The rodents are particularly aggressive here in New England. What a pain. I tried to destroy this one a few times with my one croc, but failed miserably.

Anyway, we had a magnificent day for hiking. It started really cold this morning, especially putting on our damp clothes from yesterday, but as the morning progressed it turned into a perfect day for hiking. We climbed over Little Boardman Mountain, which was ridiculously easy compared the other mountains in Maine. After that, we had some of the best good Maine trail. We cruised at 3 mph or better for a lot of the day. This part of the Wilderness is really flat.

Typical trail today snaking past ponds and bogs

Most of the hiking stayed like that all day. We had a nice beach to snack on at Lower Jo-Mary Lake.

Afternoon snack at Lower Jo-Mary Lake

We kept cruising along and then hit the Pemadumcook Lake. I bushwacked down to the water and was greeted by this.

KATAHDIN!!!

What a fantastic sight to see. The picture does Katahdin no justice. She looms over the area and completely dominates the landscape. She just shimmers brilliantly in the light as she did in all my dreams. It was trail magic beyond belief.

We hiked on for a few more miles and made a stealth camp across the north bank of the Tumbledown Dick Stream. The weather is getting really cold! Good thing we’re almost done. Tomorrow looks mostly flat again with a small climb in the afternoon. We plan to hike within 20 miles or so of the campgrounds at the base of Katahdin.

Vital stats for Friday, September 12th :
Milestone – less than 50 miles to Katahdin, Katahdin in sight
Miles hiked today – 22.2
Mood – Excited to finish the journey.
Physical state – good, a little tired from the 20+ mile day, but nothing is going to stop us
Smell – mixture of rotten eggs, sour milk, and bad cheese
Song stuck in my head – Forest by Kaddisfly