Date: 2014-09-01
From: Gorham US HWY 2 

To: Grafton Notch
Miles today: 0.0

Got up at 6 AM, down for coffee at the Hostel, great breakfast served by Marnie, on the trail with Why Wait by 8:30. I met her yesterday at Imp Campsite and she wanted some to hike through the Mahoosucs with... My goal was Gentian Pond Shelter, 12 miles away. It was tempting to take a zero day as today was the start of college football with some great matchups including Wisconsin/LSU. But I gotta get done with this. We summited Mount Hayes in just under 2 hours, much faster than anticipated! After more downs and ups we got to Gentian Pond Shelter by 3 PM! The next shelter was 5 miles off with a climb up Mt. Success and then 2 plus miles to Maine! We decided to go for it.. Very tough for me as I lose steam in the late afternoon.. It took 3 hours to cover the 3 miles to mt. Success. I can't describe the difficulty of negotiating the climbs and descents here! Very slow going! With 2 1/2 miles to go we felt there was plenty of time to reach Maine and Carlo Col Shelter. It turned out to be a 2 1/2 hour hike! We reached the Maine/NH border at 7:45 and our shelter at 8:15! The shelter was .3 miles off the trail all rocks! I hate it when that happens! Pitch dark when we arrived. A 17 mile - 12 hour day! Not good for me! I had all I could do to put up my tent, eat a bagel and cheese, drink the rest of my water and jump in my tent! Sunday August 31Woke up to cloudy/foggy conditions. Not in the best of moods.. My right ankle has been super sore when I get up in the mornings but gets better when I start to hike... Not a problem. We were on the trail by 8. My thought was to maybe make the Full Goose Shelter 4 miles away and make a decision from there. Why Wait wanted to make it through the Mahoosuc Notch (7miles). We made the 4 miles to the next shelter by noon. Rain was in the forecast but since it was early we thought we'd hike the mile and a half to the beginning of the notch and make a decision there. We could stealth camp if it started raining as we didn't want to do the notch on wet rocks. The Mahoossuc Notch is 1 mile long, flat, boulder field in a tight, steep canyon. It's supposedly is the toughest mile on the AT... We arrived there at 2:30. It wasn't raining yet so we decided to get it done. The notch was challenging, interesting, a little scary and different from anything I've encountered on the AT. It started raining shortly after we entered... Wet rocks! The notch turned out to be like a huge playground jungle gym/ rock climbing traverse. A good change up from want I've done. It was good to have another person go through it with because there were spots where we had to remove our packs and hand them to each other to get through. We did the mile in a little over 2 hours which was great! I was surprised! There is a really nice steath campsite at the finish with a great water source. I set up my tent in the rain, filtered water, made some beef stew, hot chocolate and ate a snickers bar for desert. I was horizontal at 6 PM and listened to music for an hour. As I Kay there I could hear other hikers hoot and holler as they made it through the notch and came in to set up their tents. By 8:30 I said good night to the world and fell of to sleep, raining on my tent! Nice! Pretty good first day in Maine!7 tough Maine miles today.Monday September 1Got up at 6:30.. Several more tents were there including Irish Mist who I hiked with in NH. Great guy! I said goodbye to Why Wait as she was doing more miles than I. She was actually good to hike with as she pushed me a little further than I would have and made the last two days and today a little easier... My goal was 7 miles to Grafton Notch. Irish Mist and I hiked together up the Mahoosuc arm, a 1500 FT. steep rocky climb in 1 1/2 miles. We talked a lot about coaching and we took our time so it made the climb seem so much easier. We put our hiking poles in our packs as it was a hand over hand rock climb. We descended to Speck Pond Shelter and had lunch there at 11:30. The day was sunny, warm and humid. I filtered water and downed a liter and filled it again. Next was the climb up Speck mountain which was quite steep with rock climbing involved. At the top I called the Pine Ellis Hostel for a shuttle at Grafton Notch. The 3 1/2 mile hike down to the notch was really a relief considering all the tough downs preceding it! Pretty smooth trail! With about 200 yards to go, in flat, easy trail, I turned my right ankle and went down hard!!! It was bad ! I managed to walk out but my ankle was really hurting! Damn! I tightened my boot and sat down to wait for my shuttle. I said goodbye to Irish Mist when my shuttle arrived. Hate to see him go. I really enjoyed his company. He's from Maine and he'll actually get of the trail to officiate a football game and get right back in that same night. Wish I could do that with him! On arrival at the hostel I got ice for my ankle and they also had a wrap that I used. I did some laundry, took a shower I and hobbled to dinner, then back to the hostel for bed. I'll probably zero tomorrow and possibly the next day. I'm very disappointed. But it ain't over yet!!