Date: 2015-08-26
From: Gentian Pond Shelter

To: Full Goose Shelter
Miles today: 9.6
Weather: scattered clouds

Today will without a doubt go into the record books as most underestimated day of the entire hike. We thought in post -Whites terrain we'd have plenty of time to go 9.6 miles, so a late start would be fine. Little did we know that this was some of the most difficult terrain we'd encounter and our pace would fall below 1 mph.I did have my leisurely morning, eating my leftover pancake and drinking tea, after getting up a bit later than usual as well. Yoda even left before me, which I'm not sure has ever happened before when we camped together! It was just before 8 am when I was back on the AT.The first order of business was the climb up Mt. Success. It was less than 3.5 miles and took 3.5 hours. Two bad dogs had taken a break on what they thought was the summit but was just slightly before, so they dubbed that Mt. Failure. . The climb was full of rock scrambles and bouldering and very time consuming, but it was a piece of cake compared to the descent. We frequently had to boot-scoot down for lack of any other non-suicidal way, and even that had its dangers. At one point, when luckily all five of us were together, we had to take off packs and hand them down to the next person, because we couldn't make it down safely with packs on. We repeated the packs off exercise a couple more times later in the day as well.So far the weather had been gloomy but actually very nice to hike in, but now it started raining. By the time we hit the New Hampshire/Maine state line, it was coming down pretty hard and we had trouble getting the phone screens to work with wet hands. That didn't stop us from taking pictures though (though I didn't for fear of getting my phone wet) and we were still in high spirits at getting to our final state!The next shelter was too far off the trail so we ate lunch right on the trail after the rain stopped. I still got lots of dripping from the trees though.The afternoon was more rock faces, hard climbs and even harder descents but we did finally get views and they were impressive. Cruise Control and I both thought it looked like Scotland even though neither of us had ever been there. Art (of two bad dogs) had, and he agreed.We climbed up and down three more summits, sometimes having to use the rebar installed for this purpose, walked through some bogs with very sketchy boards, and finally, after more than ten hours of hiking, reached the shelter. I have no idea how Yoda made it on her bum ankle, as I had a hard enough time with all functioning body parts!Sadly the whole camp site was taken over by three separate college groups and there was pretty much nowhere to camp. Moving on was not an option either as it was late already (courtesy of the leisurely morning!) so we are all in very marginal spots. I also made a mistake and have a giant root ball under part of my tent. I hope it doesn't pierce anything, other than that I should be fine. I'm tired enough that I'll get some sleep even in this less than optimal set up (to put it mildly!). And at least the college kids, who were very loud earlier, are quiet now.Tomorrow we go through the Mahoosuc Notch, which is either the most difficult or most fun mile on the trail, depending on who you ask. It takes anywhere from 1.5 to 4 hours to get through that 1 mile. I'm actually looking forward to it, hopefully it'll be fun. Before I started the hike I had said I didn't want to go through Mahoosuc Notch by myself and I didn't want to do it in the rain. Part one I've got covered, and things are looking better for part two than they have been. We are starting early, hoping to be ahead of the one college group that hasn't done it yet (the others went today) and also so we can just take our time. I can't imagine it being worse than today, but I will report back tomorrow!Open map in new windowWant to add a map to your journal?