Date: 2011-08-10
From: White Mountains Hostel

To: Carlo Col Campsite
Miles today: 17.0
Weather: overcast clouds

(In which I slip on a wet rock and enter Maine)I lay in bed to sounds of cars swishing by and it takes me a while to figure out what the sound means. The road is wet, and it's raining. I eat a breakfast of leftover cheesy bread and then head out to the garage to try to figure out how to pack my bag with all of my food. I have too much food to roll my pack's rolltop and it is raining, so I scavenge in the hiker box for plastic bags and wrap most of my possessions in an extra layer of protection.Doc Boom, Trashcan and Marathon are still eating breakfast, so I head out alone for the first time in a few days. After spending a few hours appreciating the silence I put my iPod in and catch up on podcasts.The terrain starts relatively easy, but then gets gradually tougher, requiring me to use my hands periodically to pull myself up and lower myself down steep sections. The rain lets up, but the rocks are still wet and treacherously slippery. Parts of the trail involve traversing smooth and steep dome-like rock faces for twenty or thirty feet uphill, and I try to follow the narrow finger-sized cracks that often run up the rocks.I'm near the top of one particularly difficult rock face with my pole tips and toes of my shoes carefully wedged in a crack when I shift my weight and slip. The initial fall is jarring, and then I realize that I'm still sliding down the wet face of the rock and gaining speed with no way to stop myself. I careen to the bottom, ten or so feet down, and pick myself up to examine the damage. I'm shaking with adrenalin and my arm and palms are tingling numb and covered with dirt and rocks, so it takes me several seconds to realize that I was lucky and am hardly bleeding at all. My pack was lucky too, the brunt of the fall being taken by a Gatorade bottle, and only suffered a small rip in a side pocket.I take the rocks extra slow after the fall, and carefully pick my way up and down the steep, wet rock scrambles. It begins to rain again, which doesn't help matters, and when I get to the top of Mt. Success, the last mountain in New Hampshire, all I can see is mist. Coming down the mountain takes me to a sign informing me that I have just reached the New Hampshire - Maine state line, and I stop to rest my head against the sign and try to comprehend the fact that I have just walked from Georgia to Maine. I think about how I describe the journey to locals unfamiliar with the AT -- "I'm walking from Georgia to Maine", and now I've done it and all that's left is to walk to a slightly different part of Maine.The shelter is only half a mile into Maine but the half a mile makes the rest of the day seem easy, and several times I stop at the top of a sheer, wet rock face wondering how on earth I am expected to get to the bottom without dying. I manage it by luck as much as anything else, and reach the shelter with thoughts of the upcoming Mahoosuc Notch heavy on my mind. The long, steep boulder scramble down and up Mahoosuc Notch is supposed to be either the toughest or most fun mile on the trail, but if it is wet and anything like the previous half mile, I have a hard time imagining it as my most fun. I enjoy the challenge of the occasional rock scramble, but traveling on steep, wet rocks where serious injury is always a misstep away is not the type of adventure I enjoy, though I understand the adrenalin high of those who enjoy skirting danger.I hear approaching thunder as I reach the shelter, so I claim a spot inside the shelter for one of my first times since Pennsylvania. Doc Boom and Trashcan show up shortly before the rain starts and we are all glad to be dry in the shelter for the night. Marathon was last seen talking on his phone outside the hostel, and when he doesn't show up before dark we hope that he had the sense to set up his tent at a stealth spot before the rain started.Cheese and Cheshire show up also, and I have to readjust to the close shelter quarters after so many months of the privacy of my tent. I end up resorting to putting my headphones in to block the loud chewing noises, and try to write in my journal as quietly as possible after everyone else goes to bed.