Mile 1549.2 – Upper Goose Pond Cabin To Mile 1558 – October Mountain Shelter
This morning the cabin’s caretaker made pancakes and coffee for everyone. Best. Pancakes. Ever. She even made sure there was a mug of hot chocolate for Rocket.
Rocket checking out the pond first thing in the morning
Breakfast
We planned to hang out at the cabin for the morning knowing that we’d need to hike efficiently in the afternoon. We took the canoe out for a while and Rocket swam some more. There was even time to curl up in a chair and read for a while.
Paddling
After lunch, we packed up and left around 1:00. After a few hours we found some amazing trail magic. We were already running short on daylight because it was so hard to leave the cabin, but we couldn’t resist this.
This summer, L.L.Bean has teams of employees relay hiking the trail. A couple that was participating decided to do some trail magic after completing their leg of the relay. They had chairs, drinks, snacks, grilled hamburgers and hotdogs… Even fresh fruit.
Trail magic from L.L.Bean
We enjoyed talking for a while and hanging out with some other hikers who arrived behind us, then rushed off. It is so amazing how many kind people we are encountering. We are finding the trail has a community around it, from trail towns, to people who hiked in the past and want to give something back.
We enjoyed the morning so much we almost didn’t mind the 90 minute thunderstorm we had to hike through after that. One thing we are learning on this hike is the value of difficult circumstances. Pancakes are great any time. Today’s pancakes were life changing because of the context and the kindness of the caretaker who got up early to feed a bunch of weary strangers.
RocketWalk 