I’m kind of in a down mood today. I’ve always felt like an outsider wherever I go and it’s turning out to be the same here on the trail. I had a run in with a “trail legend” yesterday and it’s really got me questioning myself.
I’ve always been working under the assumption that I’m basically a good guy. I know I have flaws: I’m short tempered, I can’t take criticism, I don’t tolerate stupidity well, I don’t have a tremendous amount of patience—I know I’m nowhere near perfect. What if my basic working assumption is wrong? What if I’m really one of the bad guys? One of the things I was hoping to accomplish by all the hiking is to become a better person and correct some of my faults. It’s apparently not working. I’ve had two instances in the last month where I’ve lost my temper in a big way.
Bunny has told me on multiple occasions that the reason people are nice to me here is because they don’t know me. I know me and don’t really like me so she could be right. Most people only have to deal with me for short periods of time. Try living with me 24/7! Not even Bunny does that and people think she should get some kind of award. I think I deserve a large cash prize. That would be in everyone’s best interest so I’d have the money to stay hiking for the rest of my life and not end up on people’s couches.
Bunny and I walked back down the road to the trailhead. Bear and Sassy drove to the other side of Moosilauke and parked their car. They were going to slack pack south while Bunny and I hiked north. We had a key for their car and would bring it back to the hostel when we got done. It’s a fine point here, but we didn’t quite slack pack, we packed lightly for the day. We still carried much more than just the day’s food and water, but not all of our food and stove. I don’t intend to slack pack unless I’m forced to because of an injury.
My first observation about the Whites is that NH doesn’t waste money on white paint for blazes. Bunny and I lost the trail at the first road crossing and ended up in an old cemetery. I had to beg Bunny to let me see the phone so we could use Guthook to get back on trail. Bunny thinks it’s better to spend an hour walking in the wrong direction looking for the trail than it is to take the 10s to pull her phone out of her bag.
We did meet a couple of solo women who were coming down. They both lived nearby and regularly climbed up and down. We talked to one that said this trail was great, but the Beaver Brook Trail was the tough one, especially going down. It just so happens that the AT goes down the Beaver Brook Trail. The DOC maintains the trail going up to the top, so it was nice. I’m wondering where the AMC’s territory begins.
There is a south summit which is a little off the trail, but it’s not above treeline. From the south summit to the main summit, we have a great ridge walk above treeline. We can see lots of people milling around above. We made the summit at 4802’ expecting to run into Bear and Sassy. We waited around for a bit then headed down the north side to get away from the crowd. We met them about 1/4 mile past the summit and decided to eat lunch together there. As we were packing up after lunch, Bear warns me quietly that there are a few scary places waiting for us.
We began our descent down the north side of Moosilauke and had not bad, but great, views. The trail was not bad at all until we made it to Beaver Brook Shelter. Right across from the shelter trail was the 1800 mile mark. We have less than 400 miles to go with only the Whites, Southern Maine, the Bigelows, the Hundred Mile Wilderness, and Katahdin to go—bowl of cobbler.
After Beaver Brook Shelter, the trail was steep and next to a cascades for the next 1.5 miles. There were often huge wet slabs steeply slanted down. In a few places, the trail had steps added to the slabs or steps carved into the slabs, but, more often then not, it was just a wet slide down the mountain. It’s easy to understand why cowardly nobos (no comment on Bear and Sassy, people have been trying to scare us with this mountain for hundreds of miles) choose to switch to sobo and slack pack this mountain. Bunny and I had already gotten a “heads up” from Chad the Dad who told us to just go slow and we’d be fine.
At the bottom of the climb, there was a warning sign which basically told us that only idiots would attempt this climb and turn back before we die a premature, bloody death. We are just the right kind of idiots to tackle such a trail. We laughed off our brush with death and got in Bear and Sassy’s car. It was a Subaru Outback which is the car Bunny wants. We had threatened to disappear with the car. I noticed, Bear had reset the tripometer to make sure we didn’t go for a joyride. In the end, we just drove back to hostel.
We gave Bear back his key (and hoped he couldn’t find the dings). After our showers, the four of us finally made it to Greenhouse Restaurant for pizza like we had been trying for for 3 days. It was crowded and slow. Bear had to go into the kitchen to find our food. The manager intercepted him, but we did get our food right away. We were out a lot later than we wanted to be since we had a shuttle to catch in the morning.
EFG
Hiking may be something you want to do but you’ve been at it a lot of days and it has got to be stressful physically and emotionally. In other words, you are in the same place with Bag of Tricks. Dan says you are over 40 and real change probably won’t happen but I am more optimistic because you are not in denial. Lucy charges 5 cents; this is free and probably even less helpful.
Totally worth the nickel. Thanks for the optimism.