Date: 2012-06-30
From: Beaver Brook Shelter

To: Eliza Brook Shelter
Miles today: 9.0
Weather: broken clouds

I woke up a few minutes before 5AM and fumbled around for my camera to take a shot of the vista before the sun came up. It's true, one of the best shelter sunrise views is here at Beaver Brook. It was way too early to get up, I put the camera away and slept until about 8 when I heard hikers approaching. It was Saturday morning and the day hikers were out in full force, a big difference from just a couple days ago when I'd only see a few people all day. It's a mere 1.5 miles from the shelter to the road at Kinsman Notch, but it took me a full 90 minutes to get there. My pace was slowed by the trail itself, the small mob of dayhikers, and abundant photo ops. Leaving the shelter, the AT is incredibly steep, much of the trail is constructed of wood timbers, held in place by rebar drilled into rock. Even under ideal conditions, this is an extremely slow section of trail. I was fortunate to hike through here on a good weather day, going downhill in the rain would not be fun. On my way down, I'd often yield to hikers headed uphill and converse with them for a few minutes. This slowed me down a little bit, but I really didn't mind as I was in no hurry and it was somewhat novel seeing so many people hiking after the relative solitude from Hanover to here. I stopped for a lot of pictures on the way down too, so many in fact that I needed to go into town to charge my camera battery. As the trail nears Kinsman Notch, it gets much easier and it skirts the edge of Beaver Pond. On my way through here, I'd heard plenty of traffic on the main road and thought it would be a quick hitch. It wasn't. I was strategically stationed on the side of the road, right before then entrance to the trailhead parking lot, a near perfect spot to hitch a ride. I'd been there for about 10-15 minutes when a SOBO thru named Fairchild came by. He was the second southbounder that I'd seen so far. We both tried hitching into North Woodstock without any success. Fairchild decided to start walking towards town, and feeling lazy, I stayed at my post figuring my luck would change. Close to an hour later, I wondered if it was worth bothering to go into town. I wanted to have my camera battery charged up, but I was wasting a lot of time standing around. I decided to go get some water and when that was done I'd try hitching for another 15 minutes. Luckily, I did get a ride before my self-appointed deadline expired and I had a good conversation with a local hiker who dropped me off in North Woodstock. First stop in town was a coffee shop, where I was able to get some caffeine, sweets, and an outlet to charge my battery. I walked up the main drag to a convenience store and did a small resupply while waiting for my battery to finish up. This store had one of the best beer selections I'd ever seen, it was a shame I had an overweight, overfilled backpack with no room for beer. I did buy a few snacks for the trail, and some ice cream to beat the heat. There was something unusual outside of the convenience store, a fully functional payphone. I took advantage of this rare opportunity to make a couple of calls. Back to the coffee shop, my battery was still charging and I didn't want to hang around like a vagrant so I took it with me down the street to Truant's Taverne. When I walked in, the place was nearly empty, there were only two customers and a bartender. While enjoying a Long Trail draft, I started conversing with the other two patrons, a husband and wife from Massachusetts. The wife was very curious about my hike, and she asked a lot of the usual questions like "where do you sleep, what do you eat, and where do you go to the bathroom". She seemed to be genuinely fascinated by it all, and I enjoyed telling some of the stories from my time on the AT. They even picked up my tab which I was extremely grateful for. As I was leaving, the husband confided that they'd seen me hitching earlier, but being from Massachusetts, they're trained to avoid picking up hitchikers in case they're axe murderers. As they drove past me, he remarked to his wife, "Watch, we'll be drinking beer with him later this afternoon!". They were both very apologetic for not giving me a ride, and they more than made up for it by treating me to a couple beers and a plate of steamers! I thanked them again, and headed outside to hitch back to the trail. I had much better luck leaving town, a friendly couple gave me a lift after only five minutes of hitching. It was about 4:30 and I only had 7.5 miles to go before the next shelter, I figured that would put me there at 7:30 or maybe 8 at the latest. Wrong! 2.5mph just doesn't happen in this part of New Hampshire. The trail wasn't bad compared to this morning, but there were lots of little rock scrambles, mud bogs, and steep sections that all conspired to slow me down. As the light began to fade, I still had a ways to go and started looking for a stealth site instead. The steep topography and dense forest took that option off the table so I pressed on. Finally, I came to a power line, which meant the shelter wasn't much further. When I got back into the woods after the power line, it was getting hard to see where the trail went, but I kept a steady pace and avoided tripping on any of the rocks. Just as darkness was completely enveloping the valley, I reached the junction sign for Eliza Brook Shelter. I heard voices as I approached and a couple from Vermont introduced themselves. John and Heidi were doing a section hike over the weekend and had just finished cooking up some chop suey. They had a good bit left over and graciously offered me a plate. It really hit the spot and I couldn't believe my good fortune with food today. I hadn't even hiked 10 miles today, but in New Hampshire almost every mile is a challenge.