June 21
End: Matagamon Wilderness Campground
Miles: 25.4
Total: 4086.8
I wasn’t exactly up early for my first morning on the International Appalachian Trail. An hour or two after sunrise I got up and packed up all my things, which were inconveniently lying all over the lean-to. I set out and got some water from the nearby brook.
Almost immediately I was back in the woods. Tall grass, mud, and an almost totally unused trail were on the menu for the first part of my day. I was able to follow along well enough, and never got off the trail very far. Wading through the trail, I encouraged myself with the knowledge that this terrain was not typical of the IAT, which others had described as largely road walking.
After an annoying ford or two, I delved deeper into the woods and met up with some old jeep or wagon trails, also little-used. The going was a little difficult at times because of this factor; the trail went along sloping hillsides that no one had trampled flat, or through dozens of fallen trees that will probably never be cleared.
Coming to an old fire warden’s cabin at the bottom of Deasey Mountain, I started ascending. I was not happy. The Appalachian Trail had shown me more mountains to climb than any person could ever want to climb, at least in one year. Nevertheless I climbed the steep trail and found another small building at the summit.
I persevered through the rest of the woods and finally came out to join some old logging road, which led to Lunksoos Lean-to. There was no log and the spot wasn’t beckoning me, so I didn’t even take a break there. More logging roads ensued, and I contentedly strolled them all, just happy to be out of the woods, though I was not away from the mosquitoes yet.
I came to the bridge to Bowlin Camps, and opted to go check it out. What a good move. The manager was super friendly, and let me take a shower and even charge my phone, though they used a generator to do it. As I talked to him I got a sense of the real solitude we were in out there in north central Maine. I even used a radio-relay telephone (I told you we were in the boondocks) to talk to Dick Anderson, the president of the IAT, to arrange a meet in the next couple of days.
Finally I got back on the trail, if that word indeed qualifies in this case. The logging road became tall grass, and very muddy. Basically I was hiking through a marsh, and the mosquitoes and black flies did not let me forget it. Determined to just keep moving, I made it to Grand Pitch Lean-to in the middle of the afternoon. It was a little early to stop, and I was sure the mosquitoes would be present the rest of the day and maybe even the night.
I hiked on, and the road became gravel again. I just kept going and going, past the not-very-nice-sounding Haskell Deadwater and on and on. Finally I got out past a gate. It was interesting to find that none of the roads I had hiked that day were accessible by car. Continuing on down the road, I got out to a paved road (!), and explored the area for a decent spot to sleep.
I walked over to the Matagamon Camps, but not before talking briefly to Baxter State Park Law Enforcement on his way home. I sat down at one of the sheltered picnic tables, and soon enough the guy I just talked to drives back and starts quizzing me on everything that I did at the park.
I don’t mind talking about my journey, but I get a little upset when someone out of their jurisdiction is taking notes on who I stayed with at Katahdin Stream Campground, etc. He also hurt my chances of being able to sneak into the campground by alerting the owners with his truck. When he left I sadly walked back a bit on the road, climbed up on a dirt bank and uncomfortably cooked dinner.
I settled on a gravel lot nearby. This worked out fine until after midnight, when it started raining on me. I hurriedly grabbed my stuff and jogged back to the sheltered table, where I arrived amid thunder, lightning, and a torrential downpour. Exasperated, I just tried to keep my stuff dry and get back to sleep.
