Day 17-18: Last Two Days of Maine

On the morning of the 17th day I was still not feeling 100% but was feeling good enough to hike.  I ate a massive breakfast at The Cabin Hostel in Andover and then got shuttled back to the trail at South Arm Rd. to begin hiking again.  I did 18.1 miles to Baldpate Lean-to.  It was an absolutely gorgeous day to hike and the views from the Baldpate mtn. range are some of the best I have had in Maine.  I slept in the shelter because there were a bunch of guys tenting and they were really loud.  There was a giant bunny rabbit that lived at the shelter which was weird but I didn't hear a single mouse all night so maybe he scares them away.  The guys that were tenting were being really loud until 10pm which stunk and then woke up really early and started beating on a dadgum drum with drumsticks they had hauled up the mountain.  A drum for pete's sake.  They had zero respect for other hikers tenting or those of us in the shelter and that is really annoying.  On day 18 it was another beautiful day for the first half.  On this day I had to traverse through the Mahoosac Notch which is 1 mile of giant boulders wedged between two mountains.  The boulders range from the size of a Volkswagen bug to a two story house.  There isn't any real trail going through there you have to figure it out for yourself.  One second I was going through a cave on my hands and knees in below freezing temps and next I was on top of a boulder sweating.  There is actually ice that is in some of those caves year round which is cool.  My plan was to take my time in the notch and take a lot of pictures but of course that didn't go as planned.  Right as I was entering the notch thunder and lightning started to build up which I wasn't worried about but the rain on slippery rocks was my concern.  I decided to go for it and hope that the rain held off long enough for me to get partway through the notch before it got wet rather than wait it out and go through the entire thing when it was wet.  It only sprinkled while I was in there and did so for about 30 minutes.  Now the typical time for a person to go through the notch from speaking to people is 1.5 hours to 2.5 hours.  I never stopped and did it in 1 hour 3 minutes!  I have yet to meet somebody on the trail that has done it faster.  I was hauling butt trying to get through there asap to get out of the bad weather.  Due to this I only took one picture so I recommend if you are interested in seeing what the notch looks like google it.  After the notch I kept hauling it to the first shelter and hunkered down for 1.5 hours while the downpour and bad lighting commenced.  After that it was already 6pm and I kept hiking another 4.5 miles to the next shelter which I didn't get to until 7:40pm.  I am so glad I hiked because it was a nice cool temperature and some gorgeous views from my last mountains in Maine.  I camped only half a mile from the border and will cross first thing in the morning so I am counting today as my last day in Maine.  Technically from the exact time I started atop Katahdin if you count that as the starting time the morning will still be the 18th day on the trail.  Day 18's total miles was 16.4