I misunderstood Spoon and Beast, they don’t just want town food, they are both out of food and can’t camp another night. I have too much food and gave them some of my things, but we still needed to make it to town.
14 miles really isn’t far on trail generally, but I’m Maine it can be. I knew going up Spaulding, then down to the valley and up and over the Crockers would be intense, and depending on the terrain maybe too much.
I woke up and got ready, Spoon and Beast actually got up early and weren’t far behind me. I went up the AT and then took the side trail to the summit. No view and no reception… well that was wasted time.
Not long after getting back on the AT Spoon caught up to me. We stopped at a view point and talked about where to stay in town. The hike down was steep, there were some views but the haze was intense (I was told later it’s from the fires out west).
At the bottom we crossed the South branch Carabasset river, which was an easy rock hop. Took a break to soak our feet and grab a snack, with the intention of lunching at the top, even though it was already 11 and we were hungry.
The hike up the other side was really steep as expected, but it wasn’t technical, so it was relatively easy going.
Beast (living up to her name) was the first at the summit, and I was very relieved when I came around the corner and saw her because I knew that was the majority do the climb. We lunched near the summit of South Crocker then descended about 300 feet to climb back up 500 feet to North Crocker. Guthooks (the app I’m using to get trail info) said it was a really tough climb… it was not. Sure it was steep, but again had very good footing and was rather moderate.
From there it was almost all downhill, the down was delightful, a little steep at first, but then leveling out and providing a long easy down over the next five miles.
We got to the bottom just before 7 PM, we called the Maine Roadhouse to pick us up, they made us grilled teriyaki chicken sandwiches with cheese, bacon and avocados and it was delicious.
Side note: apparently it’s very common for hiker hostels on the AT to have loaner clothes that you can wear when doing laundry. It’s kind of mind blowing when you are used to doing laundry in your rain clothes!