Date: 2018-08-04
From: Eliza Brook Shelter

To: Kinsman Pond Shelter
Miles today: 4.0

We woke at 6:30am to rain. It had rained all night, very heavy at times. Based on the weather report we had seen before leaving the hostel yesterday, the rain was supposed to taper off mid to late morning. So we thought we would wait to see if the forecast was right. Hiking in the rain is no fun. Several others in the shelter braved the rain.At about 10am the rain began to subside, but not before several rounds of torrential downpours. We packed up and were ready to go when one of the other hikers from the shelter came from getting water at the nearby "brook" and said it was a raging river. Uh oh. We had to cross the brook to continue on the AT. We went down to look at the brook and there is no way we could safely cross it. We were trapped! The picture of the day is of the brook we needed to cross - thigh deep and running fast with eddies.It turned out 2 other couples were in the same boat. We all evaluated the crossing and determined it would not be safe to do so. Our only option was to wait it out until the level of the brook dropped to a safe crossing level...but how long would that be? Hours or days? The problem was that the other 2 couples had just finished the last if their food! However as luck would have it, there were 2 guys at the shelter that were calling quits. They had hiked the same trail we had the previous day and decided it was just too tough. So since they ha 6 days of food, they gave the needy hikers their food.Sitting around waiting was boring, so Spider hunted for an alternate crossing while ET got to know the other hikers. An hour after the rains stopped we didn't see much change in the river. However 2 hours after, we could see the water level had dropped a little. Spider actually stuck a stick vertically in the sandy bottom of an eddy to measure the drop. Just after 1pm the level had dropped almost a foot and 2 southbound hikers braved the crossing and made it. That was all we needed. We hit the trail at 1:30pm (That is to say we all crossed the brook with Spider leading the way.) We made sure all 6 people were across, plus the dog Nellie.We decided to modify our hiking plan to make it to a shelter 4 miles away instead of a steath camp 5.9 miles away. Unfortunately that made tomorrow's hike a little longer.The trail followed the brook upstream and there were plenty of indications the the trail had been flooded earlier. Then the trail really began to climb. We were back to the vertical granite slabs that required us to grab trees to pull us up or using our hands in the cracks in the granite. The only break in the climb was when we reached Harrington Pond after 1.4 miles. The trail worked its way around the pond, but the plank walkway through the boggy fringe was under 2-3 inches of water. If we thought we were keeping our feet dry on this day, this took care of that!Over 4 hours, 2.5 miles and 1900 ft climb later we reached the top of South Kinsman Mtn., one of the toughest climbs we've done so far. Then down to a saddle and back up to North Kinsman Mtn., with some more tough climbing. Finally we headed down. Unfortunately the down was designed like the up and it was tougher finding our way down vertical slabs then going up. ET made good use of the "augmented " seat of her hiking pants!We finally made it to Kinsman Pond Shelter at 7:30pm. Another late arrival. The Whites have an policy from Kinsman Pond on, of charging for shelters/campsites. So we checked in with the caretaker and found that all the campsites were full. So on to the shelter we went. Turns out we were the only section/thru hikers there. Everyone else was there for the weekend to hike. A late dinner and to bed by 9pm.