August 13, 2004 - All I can say is rain. It rained all night and most of the day. I left camp in between the rain storms so that was nice. Had to start the day off with the big climbs up The Saddlebacks. It wouldn’t have been so bad had I not been hiking up streams and waterfalls. There had been so much rain the past 36 hours that the rain was pouring down the mountains along the trail. When I was hiking uphill through the streams I had to walk through these huge puddles of water, which seemed like small ponds. My feet go very wet and never really got a chance to dry out. The Saddlebacks wouldn’t have been that hard had the rocks not been so wet and slippery. Almost fell coming down, luckily my shine stopped my fall as it hit a huge rock. After The Saddlebacks the day was pretty easy, just a few ups and downs over Lone, Abraham, and Spaulding Mt. The best part of the day was fording across the Orbeton steam because of all the rain was the cause for the overflow of the river making it move very fast. They say it can be a dangerous ford after a big rain storm, but it wasn’t too bad. The water level was almost at my shorts. When I first steeped in I didn’t think it was moving as fast as it was and almost fell down. I made it across with no problems. I ended the day with taking the Sugar Loaf Mt Trail that led to an old ski lodge at the top of the mountain. Had a hard time finding the shelter at the top of the mountain because it was so cloudy around. The lodge was a good place to stay to get out of the rain but it was a little leaky but nothing too bad. The guy I hiked with today is also a runner and we talked about doing a marathon together after the trail. I’ll hit Stratton, ME in the morning and maybe make it to the all-you-can-eat breakfast. I really hope this rain stops soon, don’t want to spend my last week hiking in the rain. 19.8 miles today, less than 200 miles to go.
