Date: 2017-07-11
From: Carlo Col Shelter and Campsite, ME

To: Baldpate Lean-to, ME
Miles today: 16.4
Weather: light rain

I started the day early and was hiking by 7:26. The weather was glorious. I think Maine and New Hampshire have tried to make up for all the lousy weather in their sister states down south. But it was also a tough day. I climbed 5,600 feet. Since shelters are almost always built down in the gaps between mountains, I faced the climb out of Carlo Col to the top of Mt Carlo straight away. That was easy enough. Then there were the various peaks of Goose Eye Mountain to conquer. The views were [awesome; gorgeous; stunning; incredible; or, God help us, 'nice'*]. As I was negotiating my way through yet another swampy peat big on top of one of the Gooses, I chose to play it the AT way and rely on the semi-submerged plank in the middle of the morass rather than hug the edges and widen the trail, like everybody else. Well, everybody else didn't end up discovering that the plank was basically floating on the mud, and sliding off into four feet of turf soup. I did. [Minor digression here: these Maine mountains often smell like the turf bogs of Ireland. My mother says her happiest days were spent on the bog saving turf for the fireplace. My brothers and I would strongly disagree. We hated the bog and particularly the midges, a smaller but more vicious version of the black flies here in Maine. Our happiest memories of the bog were when our dad would say "Okay, that's enough for today."]I overtook the famous Highlander from Dundee (who hikes in a kilt) and his lady partner. At Speck Pond Shelter, I washed off my pants leg. Then a little ways further, and here it was at last, the most-discussed part of the trail, Mahoosuc Notch. In the guidebook it is described as "the most difficult or fun mile of the AT. Make way through jumbled pit of boulders." Imagine a very narrow valley with cliffs on both sides. Boulders have fallen in over the millennia. You have to find a way through. There is no 'path'. You stow your poles. You pull yourself up one boulder only to find that to move on you have to jump to another, and it is sloping towards you, or away. Two minutes into the Notch and the air is 20 degrees cooler. Extraordinary. At least you are no longer sweating. Then you see the snow and ice piled up under rocks and in little caves. Where a breeze occurs, you can see a dragon's breath of fog curling out of crevices. A meltwater stream gurgles and you can fill your bottle with the coldest, clearest water you've seen in months. Three times you have to finesse your way through tunnels under the rocks, and for two of them you have to drag your backpack behind you. Once, you grab a moss-covered root for support, only to have it give way and leave you lying on your back wedged between two rocks; you have to unbuckle your backpack to return to an upright position. You're glad nobody is on hand with a camera. And eventually, one hour and fifty-seven minutes later, you emerge from the Notch. You've read in the registers that others did it in 36 or 45 minutes but you've hiked your own hike and are unscathed. You actually had fun.From the Notch I climbed the long relentless 1,600 feet to the top of Mahoosuc Arm, past Speck Pond Shelter which was crowded with youth groups, and up to the highest point the AT goes on Old Speck mountain (4023). I met Will, a youth group leader with about ten kids, one of whom was suffering from breathing difficulties but had no inhaler. We chatted for a while in low voices about his options. I left feeling I should be staying with them to offer whatever assistance I could but it wasn't clear what use I could be. I hope they made it to the shelter they were aiming for.The 3.5-mile plunge back down to Grafton Notch (1495) was a blur of rock and mud in fading light. Near the Notch I met Downward Cow, who had passed me earlier in the day. He has a deadline to finish on Katahdin by the 23rd so that he can join his fianc©e in Washington DC for apartment-hunting. That's aggressive. He had intended to get to the Baldpate Lean-to but got tired and was camping just before Grafton Notch. I continued on and eventually had to resort to my headlamp to light my way up to Baldpate. I reached it at 10:09, which I think is my latest arrival since I started the AT. I set up tent, got water (had to use Guthook to find my way back to the shelter from the stream), cooked two batches of food, took a shower and crawled into bed around 1.It's the end of another week on the trail. Milestones: Passed the 1,900-mile mark (and, for our Europeans, I'd like to note that I passed the 3,000-km mark); dipped below the 300-miles-to-go mark; completed my 14th Everest; crossed from New Hampshire into Maine; moved into albums beginning with 'D' on my iPod; did the most difficult mile of the AT; climbed for the last time above 6,000 feet and over 5,000 for the last time until Katahdin; and loaded the final map of the AT on Guthook. * I have started a one-man campaign to encourage Americans to try to diversify their response to any enquiry they make. "You're from Ireland? Oh, nice". "You speak Swahili? Oh, nice."Tipperary