Date: 2004-07-31
From: Jeffers Brook Shelter

To: Eliza Brook Shelter
Miles today: 15.9
Weather: light rain

The morning was full of breakfast, leftovers and more talk. Three or four 20ish thru-hikers showed up. June offered them leftovers. Needless to say, they obliged. They ate their fill and there was still food left. We all had a good chuckle about that. It was good no one made a run last night to get more food.Call The Doctor:Scott T had a cell phone and offered it to call my doctor. He had been an EMT and had now surpassed that. He definitely agreed that getting hold of my doctor was a good idea. Unfortunately, he was having trouble getting signal. "Can you hear me now?" We hiked out to the road and their car. We walked up the road looking for signal or a phone. It was frustrating because the signal would come and go. After a mile or so we came to the old folks home at the end of the road. The folks inside showed me to a pay phone in a back room or on the back porch. I called the clinic and used the extension given but just got voice mail. After playing with the automated attendant for a bit I got to the live receptionist who quickly told me that my doctor was not in. I insisted they were and she insisted they were not and that they had misread the schedule. The extent of my disappointment is beyond description. Not only would there be no answers to my questions but even worse, an hour had slipped by with no trail miles under my boots. Waaaa.June and John had gone back for the car. They picked me, Keith and Scott T up as we walked back down the road. Keith and I said farewell to June, John & Scott and set out up the trail. Keith had brought the news that we were due to meet more friends on the summit of Mount Moosilauke, so we were in a bit of a hurry with a late start. Now this was home. It was maybe 20 years ago but this was not my first time on this trail.Within the first quarter mile we lost the trail. Amazing. The trail came onto a farm road on the edge of a field. It passed some trees to another field or did it. There were no more blazes. We back tracked to the last blaze and tried again. Still the trail eluded us. We tried going across the bottom of the field, then we tried going up the edge of the field. At the upper left corner of the field there was an old logging road or trail that headed into the forest. It was still a while before we found a left fork and a while blaze but finally there it was. Unbelievable. That needs to be fixed. Granted, the field had been recently cut. Perhaps the trail was more obvious before the mowing.We climbed at a good pace. The weather was gray and getting damp. By the time we reached the ridge near the south peak of Moosilauke, we were in the clouds and it was cool. The plan was to meet friends on the summit at noon. They were climbing the other side on the Beaver Brook Trail. It was now half past noon and we still had a mile to go and most of that would be exposed above tree line. Being a bit late wouldn't have been a problem except that our friends would not be happy or safe hanging out for very long in these conditions. Fortunately they didn't wait around too long. They just kept coming toward us and pretty soon we met up and there was much rejoicing. They turned around and we all climbed the summit together.This was quite a gang. Keith had told me of their plan to meet me. The gang consisted of Chris G and his girlfriend from Netherlands Jaco. Then there was Jaco's younger sister, Bregje and even younger brother, Floris. Jamie Braman was there too with his girlfriend Merrill. That made for an incredible 7 friends visiting me in this miserable weather here on the 4,802' summit of Mt Moosilauke. We stayed long enough to take some pictures and headed across the long exposed ridge to the shelter of the trees. It was a fight against the wind, at times walking on the sides of the rocks and trying not to fall into the cairns as we passed in their lee.Another Opinion:At the junction of the Benton and Beaver Brook trails we sat down in a small clearing to eat. Jaco and Chris had brought a pan of brownies. Chris went about cutting it. It was a bit tough and in a ceramic pan which made it heavy. By now they had all heard something of my misadventures with illness and the hospital. Jamie had said maybe I should explain it all to Merrill. I didn't get it. Why should I tell her specifically. Jamie explained that she was just completing her internship at Mass General in Boston and she was Chief Intern. OK, now I get it but it still doesn't seem right. She just came for a hike with her boy friend. Am I taking advantage. She of course down played her position and qualifications but there was no question of them in my mind. So I told her the whole story while the others listened and ate. She said it sounded like Lyme disease to her and offered to check with the Center for Disease Control guy at Mass General. That seemed like too much. I didn't even know her. How could I ask her to do that.We all packed up and headed on down the AT, this section of which is also locally known as the Beaver Brook Trail. This is a trail and a mountain that Chris, Keith, Jamie and I have climbed many times and often together. We've been here in all seasons and all kinds of weather including the dead of winter. There have been lots of wonderful and frightful memories on this mountain but they were all good times. Consequently we got quite lost in conversation on the way down.We were a fair ways down the steep lower section of the trail when I noticed someone was missing. It was Merrill. Oh no. It was steep, rocky and wet. This was her first big hike and the 4 of us veterans knew better. Never let a novice fall behind. Sure there are safety issues but the biggest issues are psychological. When my question of ¢any one seen Merrill lately?¢ was answered with silence, Jamie took off back up the trail. The rest of us waited. We apologized profusely when they caught back up. The thought came to mind that none of his girl friends had survived meeting us by more than a few weeks. Maybe this explained it. She seemed to be OK upon their return and they stayed together for quite some time.It was about 5:30pm when we got to the parking lot in Kinsman Notch. The plan had been for us all to go out for pizza. Then they would return me to the trail. The late start and all the fine time spent hanging out with friends coupled with the fact the next shelter was a rugged 8 miles ahead made me bow out on the pizza. After a bit more hangout time and some farewell hugs it was time once again to move on up the trail. After all, I had yet another appointment to keep tomorrow on the summit of North Kinsman.The section of trail from Kinsman Notch to Elisa Brook Shelter is the section Pat S and I hiked the weekend before I started this grand adventure. It was my warm up hike. Of course, on that late April day the trail was still under several feet of snow. We were both amazed at how long it had taken us to reach the shelter. Of course we were carrying winter sleeping bags, snowshoes, crampons, ice axes and wearing plastic mountaineering boots. The fact that the last 3 miles of the trail hadn't been broken out and was a bit hard to find was an added challenge. Today the load was a lot lighter and the tread way should be much easier to follow. Still the memory of that hike, a mere 3 months ago, haunted me.Disaster Looms:Things were going well. My pace was good. The trail miles seemed to be flying beneath my feet. The trail was looking familiar. There was the place we stopped for a snack. Here's where we put our snowshoes on. All was fine until it started to rain. It was one of those that started light but soon thunder was approaching. Now the sky prematurely got very dark just as the trail gained a ridge. The rain starts to come down in a torrent. The thunder and lightning are all around me. This is scary. The temperature is dropping. Thinking this would just be a passing summer shower, my rain gear was still in my pack.I don't want to stop because I'll get cold but the fact is I'm getting cold anyway, even moving at full speed. It's dinnertime too, and that's not good either. There had been one very brief stop to get the headlamp. This body never had much in the way of fat reserves but by this point on the trail it had none at all. The threat of hypothermia was real. The trail had become a series of dark pools of water hiding submerged roots and rocks. These pools were separated only by large boulders to be scrambled over or sections of steep cascading water falls, some to climb and some to descend. From a trail adopter's perspective, the trail didn't drain well.My thoughts raced back and forth on the pros and cons of stopping to don rain gear. My clothes were already soaked. The rain gear would trap heat and slow heat loss. I would get colder while stopped. The stuff in my pack would get wet as the rain gear was unearthed. I could put on dry clothes but they would only get soaked in the act and then there would be no dry clothes for camp or later after the rain stopped. That was a bad idea. All this thought crunching went on in my head while never missing a beat on the haul through this seemingly endless down pour.Life Philosophy:Bits of my life philosophy or superstition if you prefer entered into the equation too. It's sort of, if I don't try to help myself, things will just get worse. The rain won't stop unless I put on the rain jacket. In fact, wearing the rain jacket from the start might have stopped it from raining at all. After all why should it bother if it can't get me wet. Granted, this sounds like a bunch of nonsense, but it has proved to be true more than once, even on this crazy hike.Recovery:The verdict was in. The rain jacket had to go on. Not the rain pants though. That would take too long and slow the hiking with leg drag. The time stopped had to be kept to a minimum to keep the fires burning and avoid too much heat loss while the pack was off. The pack can really keep the back warm. Think it through. Find a big high boulder. Take the pack off. Take the shirt off. Ring it out. Put it back on fast. Pull the pack cover off just enough to get into the pack. Un clip the lid from the shoulder strap side. Dig out the rain jacket. Cover the pack. Put the jacket on or should the jacket go on before covering the pack. Hmmm. Figure that out later. Throw the pack back on my back. Start moving fast. Zip the jacket while hiking. Clip the hip belt while hiking. Clip the sternum strap while hiking. It all had to happen fast. There's a big boulder ahead. Do it there. Now.It did all happen fast. It worked too. The warmth started to build right away. What an amazing machine is the human body. All that thought process that went into getting ready may have been slowed by the cold. It felt fast but I'll never know. The only thing that is clear is that it worked and I made it to the shelter. Oh yeah, and the rain stopped shortly after putting the jacket on and before reaching the shelter. Was it the rain jacket that made the rain stop? Good question, huh.The shelter came into sight at about 10:15pm. That was a long 8 miles. The poor and unseen footing in the rain and giant puddles definitely slowed my progress. My stealth mode was fully engaged on the approach to the shelter. This included keeping my head and thus headlamp tipped down to the ground. It's not nice to wake sleeping hikers. Standing squarely in from of the shelter I slowly lifted my head to light the interior of the shelter. It was packed. Sleeping bags lined the floor like so many sardines. People were even sleeping head to toe along the edge of the floor at the feet of the others. There was no bare floor to be had. This was depressing but depression doesn't help.A small trail led to the left of the shelter to tent sites. Everything was wet. Puddles and mud were everywhere. The air was damp with mist. The sky was clouds. It was very dark. Even so, the many large tents were hard to miss. Flat ground not under water was equally hard to spot. More tents led to more depression but no. Just keep looking. Finally a small plot revealed itself.It's never fun setting your pack down in the mud but there was no real choice. This is why a giant trash compactor bag lines the inside of my pack. The tent was pitched with the hope that this little patch of land would drain well if the torrents returned. It's on nights like this that the temptation to skip dinner and just creep into the bag and sleep is strongest. Better judgment reigned, however, in the form of a hearty hot meal with lots of cheese and hot chocolate of course. By now something miraculous had happened. The stars had come out in a crystal clear sky. Oh, yeah. This is what it's all about, the silver lining. After 15.9 rugged miles and lots of good friends and talk it's time to sleep happy. See, take care of yourself, be proactive and things will get better.