Date: 2017-06-11
From: Carl Newhall lean to

To: Fourth Mountain
Miles today: 14.4

"I see the hand of Gollum at work here!"I'd been slogging up Chairback Mountain on a baking hot day and was literally dripping with sweat from every piece of clothing I wore when I saw what seemed to be the obvious steep but feasible ridge leading up to the summit.Just to the left was a series of cliffs that are presumably the source of the peak's name. Then with a sinking feeling that any AT hiker will recognise, I realised the truth: the trail went up the cliff.Spiffy and Lindsay were already working their way up through boulders that were as big as washing machines. Shortly before, I'd expounded to them my theory of the Smeagol-Gollum Index, in which the trail designers vacillated between the personalities of Smeagol, who "likes hikerses", and Gollum, who wanted to "punish nasty hikerses".The true irony was that maybe half an hour before, we'd meet Ole Sloggy, the MATC volunteer who looked after this short section of trail, as he walked down from his third maintenance visit this year. He was with two women who seemed to be his wife and child. More importantly, he pulled out three crisp juicy apples and offered them to me. Thanks!And with that they disappeared down the trail, not even hinting at what lay ahead.In truth this short section of trail was not all that bad but came after a gruelling climb in what was a rare early June heat wave. Given the high probability of endless rain, it seemed churlish to complain about a sunny blue-sky day but this kicked my ass.I'd stopped at the turnoff to East Chairback Pond for 45 minutes to recover from the heat, which is where Spiffy and Lindsay caught up and were introduced to the concept of the Smeagol-Gollum Index, then 20 minutes later I'd run into Ole Sloggy. Just as I was about to carry the apples to surprise Spiffy and Lindsay at the lean to just past the summit, they arrived and I was able to get all the credit for sharing trail magic without having to carry any extra weight. Win!All this explained why I arrived at the lean to an hour after Scout, who had also been given three apples from Ole Sloggy. Sheriff arrived soon after and happily received an apple from Scout's stash, grateful but wondering why Ole Sloggy had left her appleless as they passed.My right knee -- injured in a football match between Old Bailey and Daily Mirror journalists in London 27 years earlier, then mercilessly abused in mountaineering and ski touring expeditions in the decades since -- had swollen a little from the exertion of the past couple of days so I advised Scout that his goal of covering 36 miles over two days to get into Monson was looking overly ambitious.Rule #1 of thru hiking is to listen to your body, and both my body and the rational side of my brain were saying that we should wait for a month or so before even thinking about pushing miles, especially since we were in the longest section of the most arduous state on the entire trail.But I also know that Scout was feeling the need for speed, despite having already done two thru hikes and knowing of the rookie error of going out too hard and too fast in the early stages of a five month trail. I suggested he head along without me and he agreed. Sheriff made it clear she was going no further that day, but then she was also carrying 10 days of food because she was aiming to go to Rangely -- about 140 tough trail miles away -- before resupplying or having a zero day.Once the heat of the day had moderated a little, Spiffy, Lindsay and I headed on, aiming to clock a few miles before finding a camping site. My usual style when I don't know if there'll be camping is to hike until an hour before dark -- about 7.30pm or so, this far north and close to the solstice -- then take the first good site I encountered after that. It took until just before 8pm before I found an adequate place just on the western edge of the imaginatively-named Fourth Mountain, after having just crossed Third Mountain.AT fact of the day: So far the black flies have been merely annoying rather than infuriating but they were at their worst at dusk, to the point where they were bouncing off the inside of my tent fly so friendly that I initially thought it was starting to drizzle outside. Bring on the end of bug season... in about three months.