8/03/06 Thursday: Cooper Brook Falls Lean-to to White House Landing, Maher Tote road (13.8mi)

PICTURES:
1. Cooper Brook Fall just 50' in front of the Lean-to I stayed in last night...
2. A look again at the pool below Cooper Brook Falls from the shelter...
3. The trail was pretty nice for the most part wide and dry...
4. Another beach this time on Lower Jo-Mary Lake...
5. Thats me sitting on the dock waiting for the boat from Whitehall Landing to come pick me up... Only took 10 min from the time I sounded the air horn...
6. Cute outhouse at the hostel at Whilehall Landing.. No electricity out here, everything runs on propane including the icebox and lamps...
7. View from the porch of Whitehall Landing of Pemadumcook Lake
8. From the front of the Office/dininghall looking at a small rental cabin and the shower facility which is also hiding the bunkhouse where I stayed...
9. Pic of Whitehouse Landing office/store/dining hall from the docks
10. Picture of Mt. Katahdin taken from the other side of the Lake. I paddled over with a boyscout to get another look at the big Mtn...
11. While paddling back to shore after taking the Mt. Katahdin pic, I stopped to get this sunset pic.

Well the race was on to arrive at the White House Landing no later than 1300 for lunch to sample their 1lb burger...:)... I was on the trail by 0630 and with rather level terrain and the hopes of a dry trail I was off... The morning was overcast and the trail quite muddy leading to a lot of rock hopping to avoid the ankle deep mud and waters of the trail... The mosquitoes were quite ravenous as they had been for days and I thank God again for having purchased the 30% Deet repellant in New Hampshire... The bottle was nearly empty now and I only hoped that I had enough of the stuff to finish the trip... I arrived at the tote road leading to White House Landing around 1145 and saw in was under 1 to 2 feet of water... There was no way to pass through it without getting your boots wet... And I had spent the morning rock hopping successfully and had arrived here with relatively dry boots...:(... Well I still had about a mile to go and wasnt about to mis out on my burger...:/... So in I plunged with a few steps leading to water entering through the tops of my boots, I was soon through the worst of it and the trail dried up considerably... I continued on down to the dock and sounded the air horn one short blast as directed by the message there... Soon a boat was headed in my direction and I was wisked away to a more comfortable resort type environment... I went straight for the restaurant and placed my order at 1245, plenty of time to spare...;)... I decided to spend the night there leaving me with 2 twenty mile days to the base camp of Katahdin... The owners showed me around the place and I set myself up in the bunkhouse with another through hiker-Brian... Brian was a 19y/o young man from the Allentown, PA area... We hit it off pretty well at dinner that night and by breakfast we had made plans to ascend Katahdyn together on Sunday... Later that evening a group of boyscouts joined us in the bunkhouse and after dinner I went for a canoe ride with one of them to get a picture of Katahdin from the other side of the lake... I slept well that night and was packed and ready to go for an early morning departure after breakfast which was to be server at 0800 sharp...