Date: 2003-10-22
From: andover guest house

To: baldpate lean-to
Miles today: 8.0
Weather: overcast clouds

it is pretty simple. if i do 14 mile days today and tomorrow, that will put me twelve miles outside of gorham. that means i can be in gorham, new hampshire, by lunchtime on friday. that means i can be eating the homemade chocolate chip cookies that my mom mailed to me by lunchtime on friday. that is pretty exciting.sandra (the woman that runs the andover guesthouse) dropped me off at the trailhead on east b hill road at 10:00 this morning. she shook my hand and wished me luck. i thanked her for the hospitality and set off down the trail. now, what is it with me and being in town when it is pouring rain and having to cross a swollen body of water as soon as i start hiking? can someone please explain that one to me?i had to cross a pretty good sized, fast moving creek first thing today. i ended up walking upstream a quarter of a mile before i was able to find a good place to cross. hey, i've got a good idea. let's have a place called dunn notch, where the west branch of the ellis river flows through a narrow chute and drops about sixty feet in the process. then, let's make the trail cross this river right at the mouth of the notch. that way, if someone slips and falls they are almost certainly going to be swept down into the notch. i think that is a fabulous idea. once again, i had to go almost a quarter mile upstream before i found a place that was safe enough to cross.after crossing the ellis river i started climbing up and over surplus mountain. i noticed patches of snow start to pop up here and there. it wasn't long before i was walking on a semi-thawed and then refrozen blanket of snow. it made a crunching sound under my feet.i came across two hikers that were hiking from grafton notch to east b hill road. the girl, emily, is from my old stomping grounds -asheville- but now lives in the tourist trap of bar harbor, maine. emily said that she didn't know if she could get used to all of this backpacking stuff. she said that she loves hiking, but she just can't get used to the weight of carrying a backpack. i told her that i don't even notice the weight anymore. emily and her friend told me to be careful going over baldpate mountain because it might be slippery. i thanked them for the advice and told them that maybe i'd run into them in asheville. (knowing my luck, i wouldn't be surprised if i did).after a short break at the frye notch lean-to i began the climb to the east peak of baldpate mountain. it wasn't so bad. it wasnt even very slippery at all. it wasn't until i neared the top that i figured out what emily and her friend had meant. baldpate mountain is a giant slab of granite, covered by trees and plants in most places, until one gets near the summit. the trail started climbing up and over slab ledges, which were all covered with water. it wasn't long before the water turned to ice, the trees gave way to more granite, and i found myself higher on the mountain. i emerged from a last group of trees and was on the open face of baldpate mountain. beneath my feet was a mixture of snow and rhime ice, which covered a sheet of solid ice that was an inch thick, which covered the smooth granite that made up the mountain. the visibility was at about 40 feet. the wind was blowing. everything was covered in white. it was beautiful.my pace slowed considerably. climbing to the summit i was able to dig my toes in at times. in other places i had to walk along the edge of where the alpine vegetation grew so that i could get some traction in the shallow dirt. there was no way that i could have seen any of the white blazes that usually mark the trail, but luckily for me there were also rock cairns showing the way across the open face of the mountain. i passed the sign marking the summit of the east peak of baldpate and dropped down into some trees.i soon emerged once again from the trees and was stopped in my tracks by what i saw. the trail decended about 200 feet across the granite slopes of the mountain, which were completely covered in snow and ice. this was going to be tricky to say the least.i started walking as slow as i could down the incline- trying to dig my heels in wherever i could. it wasn"t long before my feet slipped out from under me, i hit the slab, and started sliding. i tried digging my heels in and digging into the ice with my trekking poles but it was no use. i was sliding down the face of the mountain and there was nothing i could do about it. i slid ten feet and dropped three feet to the next ledge. i slid twelve feet and dropped two more feet to the next ledge- picking up speed as i went. this went on for about forty feet before i slammed into a boulder and came to an abrupt stop. i reached out and grabbed my trekking pole as it came sliding past me. i collected my wits and slowly regained my feet. i was able to move about ten feet before my feet once again slipped out from under me and i went flying. this time i was able to grab onto a rock after only sliding twenty feet and dropping down one ledge. somehow, i was able to decend to the trees without any more big falls. i did have to slide down a couple of ledges that dropped three or four feet, but nothing as bad as the first two falls.i slowly carried my bruised and battered body over the west peak of baldpate mountain and down to the shelter. i had 2 or 3 more good falls along the way. by the time i reached the shelter i knew there was no way i was going to be able to do 14 miles today. i was exhausted. every joint and every bone in my body ached. i all but collapsed when i finally got to the shelter.i bet i am going to be sore tomorrow. i'm not sure where i stand on being able to reach gorham by friday at this point. i am going to have to do some recalculating.it has started snowing and doesn't look like it is going to stop anytime soon.