Day Eight

Day 8

No annoying CapitalWorks call on day 8.  Breakfast was scrambled eggs, bacon, potatoes and good homemade bread, the latter two items giving us our weekly requirement of carbs all in one meal.  Our hike was to be the Third Mountain Trail to West Chairback Pond.  One of our fellow guests had returned from this hike a couple of days previously with a bleeding head, having lost his balance on a steep part of the trail and doing a header on a rock. 

The trails in the east are different from the trails we hike out west in the Rockies.  In the west the trails are graded for horses and mules, while in the east they just go wherever they are going and simply follow the topography, even if it is straight up or straight down.  This makes for some exciting ascents and descents.  Hiking poles are a big advantage.

We had heard there were trout in West Chairback Pond so we brought our fishing gear and a couple of canoe paddles (the pond had canoes but no paddles--presumably on the theory that a thief might pay 20 bucks to get onto the AMC grounds, then hike 8 miles into the woods, steal a canoe paddle, then hike back out with his loot).

We had a beautiful hike with only a couple of really steep stretches.  We met a couple of friendly through-hikers at the summit.  They had started at roughly the same time in Georgia this spring and would finish the hike in a few days at Mount Katahdin.   They were both reluctant to see it end.  One would be going to graduate school and the other would be returning to work in September.

Ann

We ultimately got to West Chairback pond and had lunch.  Fred and I then hopped into a canoe and went out to catch a fish.  Unfortunately it was the middle of the day which is generally a challenging time to catch fish.  The lake was shallow, we could see no fish and there was nothing rising.  We paddled out to the middle of the lake and Fred cast a wooly bugger and trolled it behind the canoe.  Something grabbed the fly and when he reeled in, there was nothing there--the fly was gone.

Fred claimed that he had felt a strike that must have been a large fish and that it just ripped the fly off his line.  It is much more likely that he tied a bad knot and snagged a weed while we were trolling and lost his fly that way.  He preferred his theory about a huge fish with ninja power that could rip flies off the leader at will.  It was one of those pointless arguments like whether President Obama was born in the United States.  (Everybody knows he was born in Afghanistan but some people just won't admit it.)

Fishing on West Chairback Pond

We got totally skunked at fishing and returned to our spouses as losers.  We had failed at providing for the tribe--a big blow to our self esteem and sense of manhood.  We got over it by eating a chocolate chip cookie.  We then threw on our day packs and hiked back to the Lodge.

After a nap and dinner Fred and I decided to have another go at fishing so we drove a couple of miles up to Little Lyford pond and borrowed one of their canoes.  We had better luck there.  I caught one fish right away on a nymph and then caught one on a grasshopper pattern.  The fishing went cold for a while but then we both put on a Parachute Adams and each caught several fish.  We determined before we left that they were taking an emerging caddis but the mosquitos were getting to us and it was getting dark so we went home to bed rather than put on new flies.  All told we probably caught 10 nice brook trout.  Manhood restored.

Ann and I were going to be leaving the next day.  I think that, notwithstanding her trepidation before the trip, Ann actually had a good time.  Our plan was to spend the night at a nice hotel in Kennebunkport on the way home and I knew she was looking forward to fluffier pillows, better sheets, less hillbillies and better food.