Date: 2021-07-09
From: Full Goose Shelter (mile 276.9)

To: Gentian Pond Shelter (mile 286.5)
Miles today: 10.3
Weather: scattered clouds

The several older northbounders were packing and out of the shelter by 5:30. Everything looked thoroughly soaked, and rain came and went. Less rain was forecast than the last time we checked but it would still be a very wet day thanks to the tropical depression off the coast. We hung around waiting for the rain to subside. It would be another short mile day.Alias made breakfast burritos for everyone from a dehydrated meal bag. Considering I'd planned on only two days to Gorham and hadn't resupplied well this was much appreciated. I've been scavenging a lot of food this trip. Pappy gave me a pasta dinner, Bait brought in hot dogs twice, and now breakfast burritos! I'll have to pack out a treat for everyone. I'm usually pretty generous with whatever I have - Fritos, chips, M&Ms. Pay it forward.The day started by climbing down a soaked wooden ladder from the ledge on which the shelter stood. It didn't improve. I believe this ten miles to Gentian Pond is not as difficult as the last ten miles, all else being equal. But all is not equal. Today featured thoroughly wet roots, boulders, and ledges, constant mud puddles, slick bog bridges, steady rain and, perhaps worst of all, long car washes from water-logged fir boughs pushing in and down on the trail. Staying anything close to dry was never an option. Throw in deteriorating tread on my shoes and the downhills in particular became treacherous. Inching down, planning each step, contorting to keep my center of gravity over my planted foot, avoiding any angled surface. On some level it was an adventure, even a little fun, trying not to bite it on some insanely steep slopes. But mostly it was miserable and stressful. Some days are like that.I took the side trail to Carlo Col shelter to see if anyone had stopped there. It was over half a mile roundtrip over the same kind of terrain, including a slide of loose round boulders, and no one was there. Oh well, bonus miles. I had to put the phone away, and with it the audiobook that had distracted me enough to keep me calm, due to the increasing rain. So the last four miles over Mt. Success and its aftershocks felt a little longer than usual. Here the car wash was much more active, leaving my clothes completely soaked. The temperature was around 60 but I felt chilled even while hiking. Met a number of northbounders but only a couple exchanged words. One actually welcomed me to New Hampshire after I'd crossed the border. But generally they looked pretty unhappy and paused just long enough for one of us to squeeze by. At the south end of the Mahoosuc Notch there is a sign for the Mahoosuc Trail, which the AT follows. Some wag appended "ks" to the name. By the early afternoon that pretty well encapsulated my feelings about the weather and terrain. Mahoosucks.Gentian Pond Shelter sits on a small knob above a pond with a view of the Moriah-Carter range. When I arrived at 2:30 the clouds were circling the mountains. Over the afternoon they would completely obscure them and reveal them numerous times. Beach Day and Prepack were already here. We were all wiped out after just ten miles. So I jumped in the pond - muddy, rocky, shallow and populated with a beaver house - and then began the drying out process. I ate almost all my food, played checkers on the shelter floor, and napped while the mountains disappeared and reappeared. Alias arrived later and shared his home-dried meal of pesto gnocchi with me which I loved but he was disappointed in. No one else showed up, so we spread out on the lower level of the capacious, mostly-enclosed shelter and Alias hung his hammock above. On to Gorham tomorrow!