The Yellow Blaze Tour

 I’ll give ya’ll an update: Monday a week ago while tramping over the Little Bigelow and partaking of some wonderful vistas I inadvertently injured my plantar on my left foot. The AT in Maine is no joke. One is continually hiking on a bed of rocks and roots, and I don’t mean wimpy little roots. These roots will wrap around one’s ankle, snatch one straight up in the air and slap one to the ground back and forth like the Hulk did Loki in Ragnarok. Another delightfully little fun fact is the trail makers are clueless as to what a switchback is. So one is going straight up these mountains and straight down again. It’s helpful if one has mountain goat genes. 

My injury was the result of landing on a root with just a little too much ft/lbs pressure at a not optimal spot on my left foot. 

I was able to come back down the Safford Brook Trail back to Flagstaff Lake. There I caught a ride into Kingfield, and after a light lunch of town food I “yellow blaze” north to Stratton. A motel friendly to hikers there allowed me three night in a bunkhouse to recoup at half the price. 

My foot does well on flat surfaces but good luck getting flat surfaces on the AT. 

After three days at the Motel, I decided that my best option would be to move southwards and to do it yellow blazing. For those that are mystified with that term; yellow blazing is when a hiker hitchhikes on roads (the yellow center line is the “blaze”). I’ll visit each trail town as I head "southward" and upon my return in a couple of years I’ll know what to expect at each stop. 

So far I've gone to Rangeley, and stayed at the Hiker’s Hut, an off the grid place where hikers can shower, rest up and resupply. Sunday I made it to Andover to Pine Ellis hostel. It was here that I saw my first moose. I had sat up Sunday night and spotted it strolling down the street. The night lighting made gaining photo evidence next to impossible and I’ve been warned about startling a moose with a flash. 

Monday I made my way to Bethel and was going to stay at the Chapman Inn, which has a hikers bunkhouse, but alas the Inn has changed ownership and is in the process of renovation. I found a room at the Sudbury Inn just a small way down the street, (whereas this is a bigger town than the others I been in since leaving Bangor, everything here is just a small way down the street) that I felt was reasonable, (Maine must imposes a high tax on these hotels because until here all rooms I have price tended to be over a hundred a night. This one was under a hundred with a made to order breakfast to boot). 

Tomorrow I’m going to Gorham NH and I may ride the train up to the top of Mount Washington. Mount Washington is known for it's extreme weather conditions so getting it under my belt while the weather is cooperating is a plus. From there I’m going to yellow blaze it until next Monday before I try the trail again.  More than likely I'll be in Vermont by then and if my foot does well then I’ll be White Blazing it again. If not then I’ll return to yellow blazing.

Just wait until I start blogging about the deli and pub blazing.