Experience: that most brutal of teachers

Hundred Mile Wilderness Weekend Hike –

Knowing Memorial Day would provide our only opportunity for a double overnight trip, we took our time deciding where to hike this weekend, all the while keeping a watchful eye on the weather forecast. Mike is far more conscientious than I am in these matters. My input was simple – let’s just hike with a lot of weight! Mike, however, had the foresight to suggest we make a trip to Monson, Maine, even though it would mean a four hour drive, to get firsthand experience on the Hundred Mile Wilderness.

We opted to stay in Old Orchard Beach Friday night, which gave us a head start, and we were on the road again by 7 AM Saturday morning. We made a stop at Walmart to grab a couple of essentials and Panera for one last meal. Riding in the passenger seat, for the last hour of the drive, I was able to take in the scenic farms – pigs, cows, chickens, horses and goats – while Mike navigated the windy roads. We made it on the trail around 10:30 AM.

When we started, Mike’s pack was filled with eight days worth of food to mimic the weight he’ll be carrying when we start our thru hike in July. I was a little uneasy about diving right into such a heavy pack weight. Before this weekend, I’d never carried more than four days worth of food at once. Figuring that I could ease my way up as we train over the next month, I only packed for five days (I feel it’s worth mention that I did add a few snacks after we left the house that tipped the scale a bit higher). Mike weighed in around 40-45 pounds. I was somewhere between 25 and 30.

It became immediately clear that this hike will provide us with wonderfully varied scenery. We navigated carefully over roots and rocks through old and new growth forests, balanced on planks as we crossed through bogs, hopped across rocks as we passed through brooks, and changed our shoes before fording streams. We saw active railroad tracks and logging roads and an abandoned stagecoach road. There were ponds and waterfalls. Clearly, despite the lack of “named” and famous summits on this hike, we will not be bored.

So the terrain will be beautiful… but it will also be tough. Aside from realizing the incredible experience ahead of us, we had some harsh discoveries as well. We knew that committing to hiking without a resupply would mean carrying a lot of weight, but having experienced it firsthand, we’re inspired anew to cut out as much weight as we can. Personally, before this weekend, I didn’t realize the importance of going slow with such a heavy pack. Really slow. My urge to hustle up and down mountains as fast as I can will not do me any good on this hike. Slow and steady will be the mantra as we go from our usual 2 MPH down to a respectable 1.5 MPH. We’re pondering the delicate balance between time and pace as we consider adding a day to our hike to accommodate a slower speed, while being mindful that more time means… more food and more weight. We have a lot to think about, but this weekend gave us plenty of new insight.

Some realizations were more straightforward. I need new shoes. Wilson Valley Lean-to isn’t a shelter that we’ll want to stay at again next time (the water source was convenient, but the campsites were only okay and there are a lot of supposedly great shelters in close proximity to ponds and streams). Mike’s new sleeping bag and raincoat were both great (coincidentally, both items are the “Helium” model.. his raincoat from Outdoor Research and sleeping bag from Mountain Equipment. He was kind enough to lend me his raincoat and I liked it so much I ordered my own when we got home). Our new tent footprint from Big Agnes performed as well as expected. The legendary black flies we’ve been warned truly are villainous.

After a rewarding but brutal two days, at my suggestion, we drove home Sunday night. My novice mistake of moving too fast with a large pack burned me out to the extent that I thought it’d be best to go home and regroup. We learned a lot about what lies ahead, but the most obvious realization, despite all the planning that remains, is that we’re both very excited to return to Maine for our thru hike in July, incorporating all that we learned this weekend.