Historic Mud Pond Carry

July 20, 2024

Mile 582.5-593.1

(Lost Spring Campsite) (1.6 miles of portaging x3 trips)

Opened my eyes this morning to about 50 mosquitoes buzzing around the ceiling of our tent and Henry’s door open a crack. Sigh. I laid there watching them swarm inside and then saw them landing on the tent outside as well and really, really did not want to get up. We started the portage a little after 8.

Henry carried the canoe with the paddles and life jackets strapped in on his shoulders and I carried my pack and whatever else I could and filmed on the GoPro with my free hand.

It was 1.6 miles of ridiculousness but once I embraced the absolute suckiness of it, it became more fun.

The mud was deep and sucked at our shoes and the water was tannic and cold. There were several downed trees and sinking into the muck up with water up to my thighs was a sensory nightmare for me.

The first trip went by surprisingly fast though and we dropped everything off at the pond and took a quick rest before emptying our packs of everything and going back for a 2nd load. Going back felt slower, we took another break back at the campsite before loading the remainder of our gear into our backpacks and taking off again.

At the put in we high fived, feeling thankful to be done with one of the notoriously worst sections of the trail. We took another longer break where I crawled around inspecting mushrooms and read my book, then put on some music, organized the canoe and put in the pond.

Henry walked me and the canoe out into the muck until it was finally deep enough to paddle. Then spent a good 5-10 minutes repeatedly rinsing our socks and shoes free of the caked up mud as best we could and setting them in the middle of the canoe to dry in the sun.

We had a quick, windy paddle across the pond then were subjected to Mud Brook. Shallow, rocky and downed trees. Although it was downstream we still had to get out and pull the canoe or risk scraping a(nother) hole in the bottom of the boat.

Next up was Chamberlain Lake where we paddled into a headwind. Lord have mercy. This day.

We paddled over to a sandy beach to take another break, Henry laid half in the water, half in the sand. I walked around on the beach naked picking up every feather I could find and soaking up every scrap of Vitamin D I could. We sat and chatted about the future for awhile before I encouraged him to get up so we could make some miles. I felt strong and invincible and played music on the JBL and paddled like my life depended on it. We made it here to the campsite and decided to stop since it was empty.

My lower back and knee are hurting bad for some reason. Since we got here fairly early I took time to wash the sunscreen off my legs, moisturize my body with goat milk lotion, brush and braid my hair and rub pain relieving balm on my aching joints. Chicken Alfredo for dinner. Stood in awe and watched the full moon rise above Katahdin from our pebbly beach. I cannot believe this is one of our last nights out here. It doesn’t feel real yet.