Date: 2017-06-29
From: Bald Pate lean to

To: Mahoosuc Notch
Miles today: 9.4
Weather: scattered clouds

The consistent message from the nobos we'd been meeting was that the next part of the trail into New Hampshire was really tough and slow. Given that their benchmark for this was having just done the Whites, this is a warning I've been tanking seriously.After an easy 2.3 miles down to Grafton Notch from the lean to, we then only had to do about seven more miles, starting with a 2,500ft climb up to Old Speck Mountain.I wasn't too worried about this because we'd cruised up the 3,000ft climb from Stratton to Mt Crocker only a week or two before, as part of a day with 6,000ft of cumulative ascent.The main difference was that Grafton Notch marked the point where trail responsibility had shifted from the Maine Appalachian Trail Club, which oversaw everything since Katahdin, to the Appalachian Mountain Club, which also ran the upscale lodges found throughout the Whites.The log book in the Bald Pate lean to was full of nobos expressing their disdain for the AMC and its mercantile philosophies, variously repurposing the acronym to be Appalachian Millionaires' Club and the @sshole Money Collectors.While there wasn't a toll on the trail (although there was a voluntary user-fee point at the trailhead, which I think is the first for this trip), we wondered whether to expect a different approach to trail making. I suspected, however, the hitherto rejection of the concept of switchbacks was unlikely to change.The trail was indeed steep but not stupidly so, and it worked its way up using the topography to make things easier rather than more difficult. Still, it took until 1pm -- far longer than on Mt Crocker, leaving me more knackered and wondering if the previous week had depleted my energy reserves rather than making me more fit.On the final part of the ascent, I was passed by a trail runner leaping along at a pace that put my own to shame. I then encountered a large school group coming down from the summit, to whom the trip leaders accompanying the participants explained what thru hiking entailed. The kids responded with a mix of shock and incomprehension.Despite the exertion of the ascent, I opted to make the 0.3 mile side trip to the summit of Old Speck Mountain, the third highest in Maine. After all, this was a short day, right?Boss and Sweets had been leapfrogging me on the ascent and bypassed me while I was doing the side trail. Once on the summit ridge, progress slowed in inverse proportion to the difficulty level, with frequent descents of steep granite ribs that made me grateful once again to be doing this in dry conditions.The weather seemed to be similar to the last few days with mostly sunny mornings and clouds building towards a shower in the afternoon, so I boogied on ahead -- if a pace of barely 1.5mph can be described in such terms -- to the Speck Pond shelter.This was the clearest example yet of the AMC difference. The lean to was in the process of construction but was twice the size of the others before it and built with a far higher design standard, so it looked more like an upmarket Colorado ski chalet than an AT shelter.It was also the first shelter we'd encountered that charged money: $10, which supposedly paid for a caretaker to "advise on leave no trace principles" and for trail maintenance.There were a couple of beat-down nobos present, which was not surprising given that they'd just done Mahoosuc Arm -- reputedly the third-steepest mile on the AT -- and Mahoosuc Notch, the undisputed toughest single mile on the trail.They provided some beta about the arm and particularly the steep granite slabs that needed to be descended, which I was keen to do before the afternoon rain arrived.All this kept me moving as swiftly as the terrain would allow until I reached to top of the arm and the beginning of the granite slabs.After my experience on Bald Pate, where my perception of the slip/grip factor of the wet granite had seemed to be a little conservative, I was hoping for the chance to test the limits if I could find somewhere safe to do so. This conservatism wasn't a bad thing, since being too bold had the potential to end very badly in most places.But at the top of one such slope which ended safely in some bushes if things went wrong, I tried descending using tiny shuffled steps.I was thinking "This isn't so diffi..." when my feet slid from under me with a rapidness that shocked me both with its speed and the force when I landed on my backside, grateful that my pack took the brunt of the impact."OK, so maybe conservatism isn't so bad after all," I thought to myself as I then adopted a far less risky approach to the real slabs, with very real consequences, that followed. (Note: this is the only context in which the phrase, "maybe conservatism isn't so bad", is ever likely to be said by me.)This was just the second time I'd slipped on the AT, after going for a slide on a sloping bog bridge left treacherously slick by the storm on Moxie Bald. Given the daily potential for hiking-ending slips on this trail, I was happy not to add to this tally.A series of section hikers came up the trail and announced that the going lower down was easier, which was a good thing. Even the worst parts of the descent had involved the ability to use roots and trees as a Plan B in case I slipped for a third time.Soon I was on "normal" AT tread -- mud, roots and rocks -- and was able to canter along to a surprising capacious campsite just before the start of Mahoosuc Notch.It was 4pm by then and I felt a dangerous sense of pleasure in having beaten the rain. Boss and Sweets arrived about 45 minutes later, followed by a couple of nobos who's just come through the notch.I thought briefly about heading through the notch to get it out of the way but the advice of all the nobos had been that while the notch was a mix of strenuousness and fun, it was not a place to be in the rain so I dismissed that thought and settled in to my tent, confident in our plan to tackle the notch in the dry of the morning. I mean, what could go wrong?Life is good.AT fact of the day: The getthereitis of nearly all nobo hikers had dissipated a little recently, although it was still a tiny minority who were opting to take their time and enjoy their final weeks of an epic journey. One of them explained how he could always differentiate between nobos and sobos: "The sobos still have hope in their eyes!"