Date: 2008-07-20
From: full goose shelter

To: Speck Pond shelter
Miles today: 5.1
Weather: light rain

It's raining again. A nice steady, light, soaking rain. The kind that drops the temperature, and gives you hyperthermia. The kind that makes you forget how to spell hyperthermia, and most other words, because all you care about is getting out of the rain, and trying to get warm.The day started out dry - we got started at 7, and were down and starting the notch about 8:30. It was a lot of fun - scrambling around in the boulders. It was tiring though. All my upper body muscles have atrophied, so it was a lot of work hoisting myself up all over the place. But very cool. We got through by about 11:30, ate a snack/lunch, then the rain started. So we hauled butt up the mountain, and got here about 1:40, with the last of the group getting here about 2:20 or so. We decided to stay - rather than push on for a couple of reasons...First, we are moving at a mile an hour, so that meant if we pushed on to the next shelter we would be hiking in the rain until 8 tonight..that would suck.Second, we were all tired from the notch, and we still have no energy and are trying to recover from the whites, so hiking for another 7 hours would suck also. Especially if it is in the rain. Third, the trails here are treacherous, as i mentioned in my rant yesterday, and even more dangerous in the rain. Since i like living, and don't really want to break any of my bones, i didn't want to face a 3000 foot descent in the rain when i was already tired, cold and wet.Fourth, this terrain is KILLING my knees. They hurt... a lot. I wanted to rest them.So here we are. Stopping after only 5 miles.When you walk into maine, they have a sign that says "welcome to maine. the way life should be". So life is supposed to be dangerous and extremely difficult??? What is wrong with these people?I was thinking a lot about a good motto for the state's various hiking clubs. This is what i came up with..."Maine - we can hurt you worse than New Hampshire, and we're going to try..."Actually, this thought just occurred to me. It has been the AMC who have been maintaining the trails in tis last section. They apparently maintain the trails up to the next road crossing. According to our sources (sobo hikers), the trail gets moderately less difficult once we cross that road. So perhaps it is the AMC that is trying to kill us. I am hoping these sobo hikers are right.I have spent the afternoon in the shelter, trying to dry out and keep warm. We have been strategerizing about how to get to town to get out of the rain (which should last till thursday), and maybe do some slackpacking, to get through these tough parts without our packs, and to let us hike in the rain with a dry place to come back to at the end of the day.mahoosic notch is fun. so for those of you reading this in preparation for your hike - don't let other people scare you about it. It's fun!...well, it was fun today.Not much else happened today... just hung out in the shelter, and ate snacks, and reduced the weight in my food bags. I tried to work out my knees to stop the pain, which helped, and i massaged my feet. Now i am going to go to sleep. Try to get more rest to recover and try to regain my energy.