Day 125
Location: Ceasar Brook Campsite, CT
Miles hiked today: 7.3
Miles from Springer: 1,467.3
Miles to Katahdin: 708.9
Elevation: 760′
I was careful to try to avoid getting into poison ivy this morning, but as I was camped in it, it was very difficult. I have to handle my tent, and I suspect that the oil from the plant is all over the tent, so I am just praying that it doesn’t spread. I really enjoyed the walk along the river, and know that these are some of those rare, flat miles. Soon enough the trail turned to go up yet another steep mountain.
I planned a stop at the town of Cornwall Bridge, simply because they have a deli there, and I would like to drop some weight at the post office.
When I got there, the post office was closed for lunch but the deli was worth the walk. I ran into Freestyle, a fellow hiker who said he had just rented a hotel room, and I was welcome to use the shower if I needed to. That sounded like a great idea, so I headed over. There was also cable TV and ice cream, and before long a few more hikers showed up. We ended up watching Comedy Central for about 4 hours, awed by the contraption that delivered moving pictures to a hotel room. It was a rare sensation to vegetate in front of a TV.
By the time I left it was after 5 p.m., and yet again my plans for big miles had been foiled. I wanted to get into camp before dark, and I realized that I would not make it to the next shelter by that time. So I stopped at Ceasar Brook Campsite, and after contemplating my options, I decided to put up camp there. It was a large campsite with lots of tent sites, and you could walk back quite a ways to the rear for the sites too. I chose one of these, well hidden from the trail.
A little while later I heard voices, and I was pretty sure I could recognize Sprite and Freckle’s voices. To my amazement, they chose the same campsite I did, coming out of Kent earlier in the day. As they did not know I was there, it was fun to surprise them by appearing out of the woods. Pretty soon Papa Sarge arrived, along with Kick-It, Castaway, and Dal-wa-he. I guess I wouldn’t have to camp alone after all.
There are so many accidents you can have out here, and a thousand ways to end your hike by injuring yourself. Many of these you have absolutely no control over, and things can happen to anybody at any time.
Later that evening, I was reading in my tent when I heard the last sound I ever want to hear in the woods. Directly above me, high above came a very loud pop, followed by a hundred snaps, cracks and splintering sounds, quickly accelerating. It was the sound of a falling tree, coming from directly above me. I had plenty of time to cover my head and curl in a ball, but no time to do anything else. A strangely calm thought passed that I could very possibly die. It seemed like forever until the tree actually hit, and it took me a split second to process that it hadn’t landed on me. My tent was unscathed, but from the sound of the crash, it had landed mere feet away. Praising God, I scurried out of my tent to investigate as others shouted to see if I was all right. There was no great scene of splinters and branches everywhere, so it took me a second to realize what was different outside my tent. There, lying no more than 3 feet away from my tent and perfectly parallel to it, was a log that was not there before. There was another huge limb that had landed about 12 feet away, so rotten that it had shattered when it hit the rocks. The limb right next to my tent was about 12 feet long, and plenty heavy enough to do real damage had it hit me. It had fallen from the very top of the tree above me, which otherwise looked to be very healthy.
I praise Jesus that I am still alive, and unscathed. I am also very thankful that my friends had shown up in camp, as had that thing hit me, they could have gotten help. I will definitely be a little more careful from now on about where I set up my tent!
Walken' 