and answering trail condition questions. Shortly after we started toward Moose Pond we passed two guys who looked to be in their late 50s or early 60s. They seemed too fresh, dry, and clean to have hiked in from Lake Placid so again we speculated on the trail - maybe Scotty beamed them down from the Enterprise. At Moose Pond lean-to we found a solo hiker with way too much stuff. He'd hiked into Wanika Falls from Lake Placid and spent 6 days there before moving on to Moose Pond lean-to. He talked about being set for three weeks in the woods. He said he'd started with a 60-pound pack but was down to 40 pounds. It looked like he had more than 60 pounds of non-food equipment. His tent must have been 11 or 12 pounds; he had a heavy rope hammock, heavy pans, a hatchet, and a Sweet Water filter that had stopped working that day.  Jerry showed him how to clean the ceramic element. He was the last person we saw on the trail. I don't have an accurate count but it's safe to say we saw fewer people along 133 miles and 11 days than we encountered on top of one summit. On four days we saw nobody. Sure it would have been interesting to have walked the entire length without encountering anybody, to have had the luxury of stopping at any lean-to and know that we had it to ourselves - unrealistic but interesting. I did not feel the trail was crowded except when we came to a lean-to hoping to get out of the rain for the night only to find it occupied. I have no knowledge of the average traffic on this trail but would be interested in knowing if the recent Times Union feature article had increased it in any way.