Date: 2022-08-05
From: Full Goose Shelter Mile 1917.4

To: Baldpate Lean-to Mile 1929.4
Miles today: 12.0
Weather: clear sky

We shared the shelter with a group of four that woke up at 5 AM and started making a lot of noise and talking. So as a result we ended up getting up relatively early compared to what we usually do, and making it out of camp by 6:30 AM. We all left camp together and started the descent into the Mahoosuc Notch. Orchid and I slowly pulled ahead of Pilgrim on the way down. This is billed as the hardest most fun mile on the AT. It¢s basically a boulder Jenga puzzle where you figure out how to go over or under the various boulders.It turns out to be a lot of fun and I thoroughly enjoyed picking my way through The Notch. One plus of The Notch is the temperature was a good 10° colder down in The Notch than just 20 feet above it. We even spotted ice in several of the deep crevices at the beginning of August! It probably took Orchid and I about 1 to 1 1/2 hours to make our way through, although some of that was deciding which way the trail actually went, as sometimes it was not clear.For the most part, Orchid and I did just fine in the Notch, but she did fall once leaving behind some skin. We also definitely got the occasional scrape crawling underneath boulders through tight crevices. There were only two spots were we had to take off our packs and pull them through behind us as we crawled through a tight opening. After the fun of The Notch, we had the agony of climbing Mahoosuc Arm which was a steep long uphill that reminded me of the Wildcats although with more steep ledge climbing involved. Although it was challenging, I was at least able to maintain just over a 1 mph pace. At the point we got to the top of the arm, based on our current overall pace it was looking like it was going to be more than a 12 hour day. We still had a bunch of climbing and descending left over almost half the mileage left.As we continued on we walked around Spec Pond  and went to the shelter there to get water for climbing over Old Spec Mountain. There we saw Just Tom who we last saw at Joe Dodge Lodge the day we left. As we started the climb up Old Spec Mountain we started hearing thunder. At that point we were just coming out of the trees looking at at least a quarter-mile of exposed ridge climbing with only the short alpine trees around us with the storm bearing down on us. Looking at the radar it looked like we could not outrun the storm and that the storm would pass after a short time so we backtracked about 100m into the deeper woods to wait out the storm. Fortunately for us the thunderstorm seemed to fizzle and we really didn¢t get much lightning and only a small amount of rain. However this was just enough to make all the rocks slippery.We finished the climb but decided to skip the fire tower as we were hearing thunder again. The descent down to Rt 26 was tricky with the wet rocks. We made good time although not as fast as we could have. There was one last big climb to get up to the shelter. This climb tasked me, coming at the end of the day. I had to dig deep to keep pushing up to the shelter. Was definitely a hard day with the humidity today. Basically we spent the entire day sweating from the moment we started climbing the Mahoosuc Arm. It took us almost 10.5 hours to cover the 12 miles. Based on the time we got to camp we knew nothing was going to dry again. Pilgrim came into camp about 7:45 totally spent. It looks like the cumulative miles and difficulty of the Whites and Maine is catching up with him. We¢ve got a nero coming up so we¢ll see what happens after that. Orchid and I are definitely tired at the end of the day but we¢re bouncing back better overnight.  Steps 21900Weather Forecast: 77/54 chance of Tstorms