Date: 2017-06-28
From: Hall Mountain lean to

To: Bald Pate lean to
Miles today: 14.0
Weather: clear sky

"Good thing I'm here now and not yesterday during that hail storm."And of course barely a few minutes after I said that on top of Bald Pate Mountain, a squall came through that blasted me with hail.There was a mad rush to put on my rain jacket and to check my pack's waterproofness, then I tried to descend the bare granite slabs on the mountain's southwestern aspect before the flow of water made them even more treacherous than they usually are. All this was done while hunched against the hail.Then just as I reached the safety of the tree line once more, the squall blew through and the previous blue skies returned. Only the steam from the rain evaporating from still-sunwarmed slabs of rock showed that there'd been a downpour at all.The suddenness of the change in the weather gave a hint about why Mt Washington, only a few days ahead but several thousand feet higher, had such a reputation for killer storms and other extreme meteorology.Today had already been an education in other ways, with the ascent of the mountain from the north involving clambering up mostly-damp steep slabs of granite where the trail had cut through the thin veneer of vegetation and exposed the bedrock.Previously on similar sections of the trail, there'd be signs that others had clambered up the side using roots and saplings, but here it seemed that most people simply trusted the grippiness of the granite. And it was impressively grippy, even though the consequences of exceeding the exact limits of that grippiness didn't bear thinking about.All of this -- the sudden weather changes, the sketchy rock ascents and the reliance on the granite's grain -- seem to be a hint about what we're likely to experience in the Whites, the high mountain range just across the border in New Hampshire about which nobos have talked about using a mix of fear, veneration, concern and dread.I guess we'll find out in less than a week.One of yesterday's lessons seemed to be that rain tended to be an afternoon phenomenon in this part of Maine. After hiking during a succession of storm fronts, this was enough to have me packed and heading out at the modestly early hour of 7.30am. (Ok, so it's not the crack of dawn, but it's nearly an hour earlier than the day before.)Janine had left before me but with a fast and mostly flat trail, I managed to catch up with and pass her within half an hour or so.After a couple of undulations, the trail became even better and a stark contrast to the mix of rocks, roots and mud to which we've become accustomed after more than 250 miles on the AT.Penguin, a nobo hiker I encountered early on today's hike, said it was the best tread he'd seen in 100 miles. I had to think back to Abol Bridge, or possibly the tote road leading to Crawford Pond in the 100 mile wilderness to think of something equally nice.He also explained the difference between the rest of the AT and its far more brutal version in Maine and New Hampshire: "Up until now, it's been an achievement. In the last hundred miles, it's become an adventure."It was hard to disagree.Janine, Spiffy and Littlefoot all opted to head into Andover, which meant I was I was hiking alone from the road into town, which I reached after three easy hours or so.But if the vortex of Andover was drawing hikers off the trail, it was also releasing them and I ran into Rare, Dirt and Luna, who'd gone to Andover the previous day and missed the thunderstorms that had lashed us.We leapfrogged our way to the next shelter, Frye Notch lean to, and then over Bald Pate Mountain, on which they were in the tree line between the two peaks when the squall hit.When I wasn't being blasted with hail, I'd been thinking about the tactics for the next stretch through the Mahoosucs, famed for having the single most difficult mile on the AT through the tumbled boulders of Mahoosuc Notch.I didn't want to hit this in the afternoon, both because of flagging energy levels after lunch and because that's when the downpours were more common. There was a campsite just before the start of the notch and seven miles into the next section. I'd planned to hike the 2.3 miles from Bald Pate lean to Grafton Notch today but it didn't seem to make much sense to blast out 16 miles today and only seven tomorrow, even if my renewed energy levels showed I'd finally thrown off the lurgy I'd picked up in Rangeley. An early afternoon? That will do nicely!Rare and Dirt opted to continue, aiming to do the notch tomorrow because they didn't have three days of food like me.My indolence was rewarded when two more significant strong squalls lashed the mountain over the next hour.I'm sharing the lean to with a Maine mother and her precocious, unintentionally-comical and entirely self-unaware 10-year-old son.Life is good.AT fact of the day: On my previous thru-hikes, I've generally used ibuprofen -- an anti-inflammatory so commonly used that it's known in the hiking community as "Vitamin I" -- only occasionally and mostly in the final month of each hike. That's not the case out here, where the arduous terrain of the AT has had me using it for my troublesome right knee within the first week. From occasional use, I've now been using it most evenings and last night, I took a second dose around midnight and did so again tonight. It's under control, but I don't like the trajectory this seems to be on.