Appalachian Trail Day 24

The Moose Watch

First thing I did after waking today was restart the fire from last night. I ate a 1000 calorie breakfast including, oatmeal, Nestle breakfast essentials and a hand full of almonds.

I sat and warmed next to the fire. The temperature dropped last night and I became cold.

Last night I met a new bunch of hikers. I had seen them around but never introduced myself to them. There were 5 in the group including Gooey, hangman, magic, truffles and Pimento.

They were all from Mississippi and Louisiana, the deep south of America. Each one of them has a strong southern accent. I noticed that they all had something in common, they were all super friendly. Southern hospitality.

The first climb of the day was over 1000 feet and as it was cool I didn’t really sweat during the climb. At the top of the Pleasent Pond mountain the views were some of the best I’ve seen so far. I sat for a while and prepared to have a coffee until I realised I had no water.

I continued on up and over to the other side of the mountain where I then began to descend to Moxie pond. I filtered water from the pond sat down and had a coffee plus lunch, toasted bagels with cream cheese and salmon.

After lunch I carried on hiking until I got to my final destination of the day, Bald Mountain pond lean-to which sits at the edge of bald pond. I read in Guthook that there had been a moose spotted here this year.

Also earlier on in my hike I came across two Sobos, I asked them the usual question, “have you seen any moose?”. The guys told me that they had sat and watch a moose for about 30 minutes at rainbow pond in the hundred mile wilderness.

The advice they gave me in order to see a moose was to take time in the morning sitting next to a pond and be patient. And so that’s what I’m doing this evening sitting ready to cowboy camp right next to the pond, on moose watch.