Day 157 - 4th Sept - East Hill Rd (Andover) to South Arm Rd (Andover) - 10.1 miles

Today we do our first 'slack pack' for the trail - we leave our packs at the hostel and head back to the trail to walk the section of 10 miles between the two roads, with a ride back to the hostel, so we get to stay two nights in the one place. Sourdough and Trooper join us. Trooper heads off at high speed and we don't see him again. We walk with Sourdough and we are very lucky - we have our first moose sighting - Sourdough sees it across the lake on the opposite shore and we watch it using Sourdough's binoculars. We would not have seen it if we were by ourselves. Up until this point we had seen lots of moose poo but no moose. It was to be our first and last moose sighting on the AT.

We have two very steep climbs and descents made easy using just the day pack. We get to the road 45 minutes early and so proud of ourselves. A couple in a camper offers us beer and cookies - they turn out to be the parents of thru-hikers that we had met in May, waiting to meet them at the road. These hikers were twice as fast as us, ding 25 mile days when we met them in May, so we are surprised that they are behind us. It turns out they have suffered from Lymes Disease as well as serious foot problems. We are still waiting at the road - and who are we waiting for - FOG - Friendly Old Guy - who is also doing a slack pack backwards to south Arm from further north. We sit in the car with David and wait and wait and wait. Finally FOG arrives very apologetic and we give him heaps!

Pine Ellis Hostel - Andover - David and Digby

Back at Andover we ring Donna Wetzel, Scatters mother and arrange to stay with them tomorrow night at their 'summer camp', which is located relatively close to the trail. We are looking forward to some home cooking. Scatters is ahead of us and pushing fast as she is now on a mission to summit Katahdin on her 30th birthday, so we won't get to see her.