Date: 2014-07-24
From: Full Goose Shelter

To: Baldpate Lean-to
Miles today: 12.0

Day 134-July 24, Full Goose Shelter to Baldpate Lean-to, 12 miles. After a rainy night, we were headed out on our epic day of hiking shortly after 6 AM. There were three challenges ahead of us in our planned 12 miles-Mahoosic Notch, Mahoosic Arm and the descent to ME 26. Rocks and roots were pretty wet after a night of rain, so we walked with a bit more caution. The Mahoosic Notch is described as the AT's hardest and/or most fun mile. It is a mile-long narrow canyon where appliance-sized and car-sized boulders have fallen off the mountain slopes onto the floor of this canyon creating a huge maze of granite obstacles. Generally it takes hikers 1-3 hours to negotiate this mile, but it is not unusual to hear reports of it taking 4-5 hours! So we headed in along with Sisifus and Ketchup and we 4 climbed over, under and around boulders of all shapes and sizes. It was less about hiking and more about scrambling. We spotted patches of snow and ice in the deepest depths of the boulder mess, but it was like air-conditioning and kept us cool. We all had collapsed our hiking sticks because they would have only been in the way. I used my hands a lot to climb up or let myself down between 2 rocks. My hands are actually a bit sore tonight because the top couple of layers of skin were scrapped off by the rocks! There were a couple of times where we had to take off our packs and push them ahead of us because the space between the rocks was so narrow. It was quite an adventure and even though I had to make some scary moves that were easier for my long-legged husband, I had fun. We emerged from the Notch 90 minutes after starting and did High Fives all around! But we couldn't celebrate too long because we immediately started the climb up Mahoosic Arm. Why they don't call it Mahoosic Mountain is beyond me, because that is what it is! And the rock scrambling continued, only now the rocks were vertical instead of horizontal as they were in the Notch. And frequently there was water running down these rocks from the rain last night. Oh yes, it was exciting. But we made the climb and were rewarded with good views and cell service. Our final challenge was the descent from all this climbing. For those of you who like the numbers we climbed about 4,500 feet today and we had to come down about 4,800. Ask me about my knees!!! Actually the trail down was quite manageable. We suspected that the trail was pretty hiker friendly because we started to see a good number of day hikers coming up. On this stretch we also met a SOBO   from Rochester who goes by the trail name of A-Bomb. He was a nice guy and we enjoyed our on-trail chat with him. At the start of the day I hoped to complete our 12 miles in 12 hours, knowing that the Notch would take awhile and that there have been lots of sections recently where we've only averaged one mile per hour. Imagine how happy I was when we got to this shelter 9.5 hours after leaving! We were thrilled and felt good physically. I am very tired and am writing this while laying in my sleeping bag at 7:30 PM. I am also a bit hungry because are running low on snacks. But tomorrow we have 8 miles to get us into Andover, ME where we have reservations at a hostel. We will eat ice cream and big meals in town and resupply for the next leg of this journey. All is well. 264.9