Date: 2005-09-08
From: Full Goose Shelter Site

To: Speck Pond Campsite
Miles today: 5.1
Weather: clear sky

"The Mahoosuc Notch" I have read about it,heard about it envisioned it,dreaded it and anticipated it. Nothing could have prepared me for it though. In fact I am hard pressed to find adequate words to describe it. The boulders are house sized ,perched at precarious angles and covered with green mossy patches. Back at Welcome Hikers Hostel someone had told Papermaker of a woman hiker being found hung upside down in a crevice with a broken leg. Alive,no less! Imagine this: tie your knees to your chest,handcuff your hands behind your back,and try to climb a ladder up and down and repeat the process. Oh yes,grease the ladder well with oil or butter. And be sure to put a 30 pound back on your back! This is an idea of what hiking the Mahoosuc Notch is like!This went on for a mile and a half. The temperature was cold enough that you could see your breath. At one point Papermaker saw what he thought was a mushroom growing underneath a rock. It turned out to be a large spot of ice. Glacier Ice..in September! Wow!! There were places where you could feel a cold icy wind whipping up through the crevices. In other words,it was some sort of cool!! I have always thought that thru hikers carried Vaseline in their packs to help prevent blisters but as I watched Papermaker lay spraddled across a small boulder,stuck halfway between two other boulders,I realized that it was precisely for moments such as these that Vaseline was carried! He could not moved forward and he was wedged too far in to move backward. I decided to be as helpful as I could. I sat down on a boulder and took a series of pictures,laughing hysterically all the while. For some reason,he was not amused. Add claustraphobia to his list of fears,or so at least he thought. As he lay there contemplating his next move,I calmly hoped upon the boulder and went over it instead of under it. He had some choice words for the trailblazers as he inched his way free. He was ,after all following the arrows,where as I did what I do best out here,look for a blue blaze!! Some of the rock hops were however much too long for these short legs of mine,and I found myself inching down the rock faces on my backside,trying to make my 28 inch legs reach across a 38 inch span. He repaid my kindness shortly when I slid down a rock face and my pack straps got hung on a tree limb. I was literally suspended in mid air! He was gracious enough to free me from my noose after snapping some candid shots! Just before the end of the 1.5 mile obstacle course,he slid over and through another crevice. He turned to me and reached for my hiking sticks,and tripped on a slick root.He almost made a enuch of himself,and as he limbed about from one leg to another holding himself,I lay completely prone across the boulder laughing until I had tears falling down my cheeks. He was in a dour mood the rest of the afternoon. I thought we had whipped this part of the trail and I did the dance of the real woman while he glared at me from the sieline. To our dismay however,we had conquered the notch,but it had the last laugh on us. The Mahoosuc Arm proved to be as difficult,if not more strenuous than the notch itself. Earlier in the day Papermaker had brought up the notion that we could hike another seven miles to the next shelter,but now he was happy that we dragged our tired whipped selves a mere 5.6 miles,and was calling it a day. We set up our tent on a platform,and ate supper. I went down to the shelter to chat with Zip and to check the trail register. Papermaker said he would lay out the sleeping pads and our bags. When I came back,he was laying prone in the tent ,across both of our bags,sound asleep. I shoved him aside and crawled in beside him. The trail had given both of us a full body workout. It was just past 7:00 and within minutes we were sound asleep. Sometime during the night we had a rainstorm,and the temperature turned cooler. Our sleeping bags and silk liners kept us warm though and we rested well. Bumpkin                           5 Million Steps for Polio Appalachian Trail GA-MA Bumpkin More in 2004