To reduce pack weight, I left a couple of the paint cans beside the AT as I worked over to The Horn, one of the mountain’s peaks. On the way back, I met two lovely ladies from Canada who were heading north. When I got back to the paint cans, they had been neatly stripped of their paper labels.

A couple of days later, I happened to be hiking on Sugarloaf when I met two familiar-looking women. Their horrified looks when I suggested that they might be carrying a couple of contraband paint can labels were priceless. They ‘fessed up on the spot and said that they just wanted a souvenir of their hike on the AT and thought that the labels would not be missed, and certainly that they would not be confronted for their petty larceny!

Just before Christmas that year, I received in the mail a beautiful pair of hand-knit woolen mittens from Canada with the “AT” symbol artistically worked into the fabric. And if I recall correctly, both hikers later joined the Maine Appalachian Trail Club.