Today's miles 10. AT miles 1786.6
We woke up to another beautiful sunny morning at our lovely stealth camp site, a bit cooler again which is nice. We had an easier and shorter days walking today, a couple of gentle up and overs to Glencliff and the Hikers Welcome Hostel as tomorrow we go over Mount Moosilauke, the first big mountain of The Whites. It would have been too much to try and continue over Mount Moosilauke today. The woods were a bit of a pain with mosquitoes early on in the lower damper ground but higher up they weren't so bad. We saw some moose footprints in the mud today. There's lots of evidence they're around but we've still not seen one on or near the trail yet.
Just before leaving the trail and heading down the road to the Hikers Welcome Hostel there was a very blunt sign saying 'stay on trail or stay home' by the State of New Hampshire, Bureau of Trails - we thought it a bit frank! We arrived at the hostel just after 1pm. It's a very friendly but basic hostel with a choice of bunks or camping, we're camping. They have an outdoor shower, toilet and washing facilities, all decent and working. They have a communal room inside with snacks available to buy and the biggest DVD library. No Big Deal was there when we arrived and then Fancy Pants, Cola and Doc turned up in the evening. Today being the summer solstice is traditionally 'hike naked day' - we dont know anyone who partook in this hiker tradition!
Nigel had an afternoon snooze while I checked up on a few bookings and payments required for our South American holiday leg. I've also booked us a week long wilderness canoeing trip on the Allagash River for the end of July, once we've finished the trail. We've said all along we wanted to go canoeing whilst in Maine when we finish hiking and its not too far away now.
We had to listen to the constant noise of a battle between wild boar and wild Turkey during the night. Everyone in the bunk room heard it too, in their fighting they'd knocked the rubbish bins over. It was noisier with animals camped in the hostels back garden than in the woods! Not normal activity we're told.
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