We were up early getting things together for our 8:00 appointment with the shuttle back to the trail. Made a quick run back to the general store for breakfast sandwiches and managed to locate a few articles of clothing that had been missing from the laundry. Turns out the dryer at the hostel was missing a piece of the inside back panel and there was some kind of weird alcove that had accumulated several socks.
Once we were back at the trail we headed up Blue Mountain, the biggest obstacle of the day. We ran into a few other thru-hikers on the way up but none as interesting as the one at the top – Nomad. 220 miles from Katahdin and here was one of the people Strider and I spent some nights with back in southern Virginia. Pretty sure I hadn’t seen Nomad since Grayson Highlands, and back then he was doing 20 to 25 mile days comfortably. He said he’d slowed down quite a bit lately, the people he had been trying to catch up to he did catch, but they both eventually quit. We enjoyed the view from the Blue Mountain summit – the fall colors starting to come to the Maine woods and the ponds visible in the distance.
Unfortunately Miranda has been feeling a bit under the weather the last few days and it seems to be getting worse. Some kind of stomach / digestive issues, can’t keep food down, and generally uncomfortable hiking. We made it to a campsite at Bemis Stream and decided to camp there. Short of our original goal, but fewer miles while sick was necessary and it sets us up to make a stop in Rangeley to get off the trail, perhaps see a Dr, and spend some time getting well. The campsite was nice and with all the sun lately we were able to get a fire going rather easily and enjoy an evening of warmth and relative comfort.