After yesterday’s relatively easy day of hiking along actual trails, we were lulled into a trap. Bear did wake up before 6 and woke Sassy up at 6:10. She was having none of that (you go girl). We all got moving around 6:30 with eventual departure at 8:30 making us the last ones to leave. Even Chip, who is a slow mover and late starter beat us out of camp. Why were we so slow? The easy answer is Bear is a Southern Boy and doesn’t like cold. It would be easy to blame our slow start on Bear, so I will.
Truth of the matter is we were all sluggish and tired of the trail (or lack there of). One of the things we like to do while hiking is look around, but it’s not safe to do so when climbing up and down waterfalls which are the trail. Or during an 800’ climb in less than 1/2 mile. We have to concentrate on each and every step. Sassy proved that by falling hard yesterday (which Bunny fessed up to distracting her in conversation). If we can’t even walk and talk, quite a bit of the fun is gone.
The first couple of miles of trail today were fantastic. We couldn’t believe we were actually in NH. We were treated to a new section of trail with easy grades, dirt track, and occasional steps which were uniform in size. The NH trail crew and AMC were tricking us into thinking they were going to be nice on this, our last day, in New Hampshire. We only had one significant climb left in the state—Mount Success.
Rain has been predicted for tomorrow and Wednesday which is a big concern to us since we will be traversing the undisputed hardest mile of the AT—Mahoosic Notch. Even the 20 year old fast brats will take an hour and a half for this single mile. When Patches came through last fall, she only did 2.5 miles for the entire day. The fastest time we’ve heard recently is an hour and 45 minutes. In dry weather, we’d expect to do it in 3 hours, but with rain, we might take all day.
So why am I talking about rain tomorrow when I was talking about Mount Success? As I made the climb above treeline, I was hit with cold, gale force wind. Ok, maybe only 25 mph, but in shorts and a T-shirt, it was quite brisk. Bear and Chip were able to get weather reports that said the rain has moved forward to today and tomorrow. We might get lucky and make it to camp before the rain starts if we book it. The increased winds were bringing in dark clouds. Somehow with our easy morning, we had only managed to hike 3.4 miles by 1p meaning we probably won’t make it to camp until after 6, again.
A trend has formed that we can’t break. No matter what time we get up, we can’t hit the trail before 8:30. No matter how far we plan to walk, we can’t make camp before 6:30. The days are getting shorter and it’s getting closer to Baxter’s closing date of October 15. Knowing the trends that we are in, we should just plan to do 50 mile days for the next week so we can finish.
Mount Success was supposedly named in honor of successfully avoiding paying the British some form of tea tax. Boston is not that far away from here. I thought it should be named for nobos successfully leaving NH in one piece (not necessarily one whole functioning piece—Bear’s ankle and knee are hurting; Sassy’s knees and ass are hurting; Bunny’s hips and knees are hurting; and my left leg is barely functioning going downhill but it does keep my focus off of my plantar fasciitis in my right heel). I am having nearly continuous flashbacks to grade school playground time, I’m the youngest and weakest and always come in last.
As a reward for surviving the cold, open summit of Success, NH gave us one last FU section of trail to let us know that they could have made the trail worse and to prepare us for what we will encounter in Maine. It was a short section of trail that required us to climb, not walk, down a boulder field. We all threw our poles ahead to free up our hands. Only Sassy threw hers down a deep hole between boulders which was not so deep that we couldn’t retrieve them. Following the field was our reward…the NH/ME border. Free at last!
Everyone rejoiced at having left NH. The views were nice, but I seriously question whether they were worth the effort it took to get them on the AT especially when there are better, shorter, and easier trails that will get the same resultant views. The AMC, for whatever reason, does not do improvements on the AT where their money gods do not normally roam. As with the Camino de Santiago and GR10, I’m sure my feelings of hatred toward the AMC will lessen with time and I will only recall the good times I encountered with them like: free food at the huts, highly discounted rooms at the outdoor center, and carrying our packs for days at a time.
Maine immediately told us that NH is for wimps. That little boulder field that NH said goodbye with—not a thing. We’ll show you what a boulder scramble is. We got our scariest section of trail so far. There was about a 50’ climb down that would not be bad if you weren’t wearing a pack but we are. I got stuck and was literally hanging from my pack with my feet and arms dangling. I managed to wiggle free and recover. Chip came by after us and got stuck in the same position. He had to take his pack off to free himself. If you do successfully navigate that trap, the rocks are sticking out in such a fashion that they push your pack and try to throw you down the trail which almost happened to Sassy. This put a lot of stress on her knee/back/butt to recover.
After Success, we got the geese mountains—Goose Eye West, Goose Eye East, and Goose Eye North. How hard can it be to mount a goose? As it turns out, geese don’t like to be mounted by humans, that’s why we let Bear go first. The winds stayed high all day and the ridge line between East and North was an exposed bog. Bunny and I were falling behind because my ace wrap on my knee kept sliding down. I tried to let it go, but ended up inflaming my leg again so the final descent was painful for me.
The rain wanted to start but the clouds watched us floundering around on top of the mountain and took pity on us. We managed to make it to the shelter to see that it was full and everyone in it was unwilling to move to let us in. Bear and Sassy had gotten there about 15 minutes before us and had gone to claim a tent platform for us. Their tent was up and it was starting to drizzle. I set my pack down only to discover that my pack cover had gotten ripped off on the descent. I could only hope that Chip found it and picked it up. He had found my bandanna that I lost earlier, but he left it.
We set up the tent and got inside just as the drizzle increased to a light rain. I went and got more water for breakfast (Bear had grabbed us a few liters to help us out). Just as I got back, the rain really started. We cooked in our vestibule and only left for the occasional bladder emergency.
EFG