Date: 2007-08-18
From: Full Goose Shelter

To: Grafton Notch
Miles today: 9.7
Weather: light rain

(Willie)Hmm, ok maybe I¢m starting to rethink our decision not to bring back our winter gear like a lot of other people did back in Hanover because it sure was cold last night. How cold was it? Well, I¢m not really sure because we don¢t carry a thermometer, but it was cold enough to break my watch. When the alarm went off at 5:03, the watch must have been a little on the cold side because it just made a loud beeping sound and then went blank, completely blank. A few seconds later it came back on but everything had been cleared and the time went back to midnight. At first I thought, ¢great, now we have five hours and three minutes left to sleep.¢ Nah, that was too good to be true. Luckily I was awake enough to realize that I knew what time it was (since the alarm just went off) so I reset the clock before I had to learn how to make and read a sun dial. So yeah it was cold, and windy, and then to make things even better it started to rain just as we were about to leave for what would prove to be one of the hardest days of the trail.Things were a little on the slick side as we went over Fulling Mtn but we were still moving at a reasonable pace, which I hoped would give us a good amount of time to get through the Mahoosuc Notch. The Mahoosuc Notch has been dubbed the hardest mile on the trail, and for good reason. There might be miles that are more physically demanding, but there aren¢t any that are more time consuming then the notch. Why is it so time consuming? Because it¢s basically just a mile long rock field with a few white blazes to help you get over, around, through, or even under the house sized boulders that all decided to make this lovely stretch of trail home. We decided that the rocks weren¢t bad enough so to make it even more challenging we went through the mile on a cold and rainy day, which made things down right torturous. At the beginning it was kind of amusing and challenging, but after about 2 hours we had both had enough and were more then ready to be done with it. Unfortunately, we still had about an hour to go and when we were finally at the other end of the mile we stopped the clock at 2 hours and 58 minutes. But hey, we did get to see our first moose. Too bad it was dead, decaying, and very smelly so I¢m not really sure it counts. Yeah the notch is that though, that not even a moose could get more then 10 minutes into before he fell and broke his leg.But hey, we were done with the ¢hardest mile¢ on the trail so we were going to be able to breeze through the rest of the day right? Not exactly because up next was the Mahoosuc Arm. The 1600¢ climb consisted of lots of rocks and roots at the bottom followed by one long, wet, and slippery slab walk to get us to the summit. By the time we got to Spec Pond Campsite we were tired, hungry, and more then ready to be done for the day. It had taken us over 7 hours to go 5 sloppy miles staying there was looking might nice. That is of course until the caretaker advised us that it was suppose to get down to 30 in the valleys tonight and that it would probably be about 20 degrees at the shelter. That was not the first thing we wanted to hear so we made the decision to try to go a little further to get down to Grafton Notch.The butt kicking day continued with the climb up and over Old Spec Mtn. The steep climb was barely enough to keep us warm going up exposed rocky ridge to the top. The wind was blowing so hard that the brims of our hats were getting folded down in front of our eyes and each step landed a foot or two over from there we were trying to place them. But we made it down to Grafton Notch and set up our tent next to the parking lot in the hopes that it would be a little warmer now that we were 2000¢ lower then the shelter. Thankfully our new tent site included a deluxe handicapped privy which made a great pace for the two of us to cook, stretch, and eat in. Good thing it was also one of the nicest smelling privies we¢ve been. Let¢s see just how cold it gets tonight.