Sabbath Day Pond Lean-to
Today was short but sweet. The day started with finishing off the Bemis mountains I started yesterday. There were two more summits to go over and each was a treat in itself. The all had short hardy plants and huge views. I think the Bemis Mountain Range are some of the most soildly stunning mountains thus far on the AT. Each has a goregeous view and the plant life in itself is worth taking pictures of.
Also there are the blueberrirs which are just ripening now. I spent a good long while collecting and enjoying wild blueberries.
The weather cooperated with me on the summits, proably a large source of why I like them so. The air was clear, tempatures not too hot, and each had refreshing breeze.
The breeze however would soon grow stronger as the clouds above grew darker. Timed perfectly with my dropping below tree-line the wind whipped up making the tall pines sway like drunk patrons of bar walking out at 2AM, looking like they are about to fall over but somehow staying upright.
At Bemis stream there were a large number of dry rocky riverbeds paralleling. At one my trekking pole lost it grip sending me down into the rocks suddenly. I hit my hand very hard into some rocks and banged my knees hard. When I got back up to my surprise my fingers weren't broken and everything still worked. Well that is not entierly true, my left pointer finger tip was numb for about and hour and my left knee was bleeding from what turned out to be shallow abrasions.
After that bit of excitment the day went rather quickly. I was planing on heading into Rangley today to resupply my food but it started to rain lightly and cool off. At this shelter I ran into a couple of guys from last night, Green hornet and Ragoon, who were hideing from the rain and I joined them. We all had the same resupply plan but with the rain we decided that getting a hitch into town would be impossible so we waited the rain out. Unfortunatly the rain had staying power and pretty much went from 11AM to 5PM making it impossible to cover the distance we needed to before dark. As a result I hiked from 8-noon roughly.
With nothing to do I settled down, did some reading, watched the wildlife, and when the cold got to me I pulled out my sleeping bag and slept through the afternoon. It was a good though unnecessary nap.
The wildlife here was great with some of it comming right up to the shelter. There seems to be a oolony of jack rabbits nearby becuase there are maybe a half dozen roaming the campsite getting within a foot or two of us at times. They have short tan hair and seemed to harbor no fear of humans. I also saw a black eyed junco, a small bird I have been seeing a lot of recently. It has a black back with white belly. I have heard them also called camp robbers too. On the floor of the shelter I watched several yellow slugs roam around looking for tasty morsels. What do slugs eat anyhow? None of us knew. Of course there was also the red squirrels which are cute but perstering.
After dark the loons came out and though we couldn't see them I could hear their calls. I went down to the pond watch the mist rolling off the near bath tempature water. In the water life was everywhere. I saw many small fish, some with 1 set of dorsel fins and some wth two. A frog hopped up on a rock near me. Earlier I had thought that warm water might be nice for a swim but now I saw numerous leeches making their way through the water and along the rocks. It appeared they may have been attracted by my headlamp beam. As they moved I was surprised to see how long they can strech out as they move along. Some would go from about 3/4 of inch long to about 4 inches. I am glad I skipped the swim!
I hear the weather will be better tomorrow so hopefully I can make a long day of it.
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