We had a long day planned of nearly 19 miles, up over the Bigelow mountains and down to the West Carry Pond leanto.

My knee felt ok, until we hit the first climb.  I wasn’t able to push off on it to get up over the steep rocky sections.  I had to step up with my right knee and rely heavily on the trekking poles to drag myself up each step.

It made progress very slow as we climbed up and over the North and South Horns, we may have topped out at 1mph.

There were nice views from the top though,  you could see down to the pond near the leantos and if you zoom in to the left, you can see the leantos themselves.

Spice helped me fix my second knee brace to provide some support to my now overworked right knee. It was getting sore making up for the lack of strength in the injured left knee.  It wasn’t pretty, but it worked!

We pushed across the ridgeline and climbed up Bigelow and Avery Mountains,  the last peaks over 4k ft until Katahdin.

After working our way down,  the trail got a little easier and I was able to pick up some speed. There were less steep sections as the trail wound around boulders instead of over them. It may have been the easier terrain, but my knee seemed to loosen up and felt better.

After a while the trail really flattened out and I was able to keep a normal pace. We made it to West Carry Pond shelter an hour before nightfall.

It took a lot of effort as well as some help and encouragement from Spice, but it felt good to push through one of the last difficult sections of the trip.

No pain, no Maine!