Date: 2015-08-03
From: Baldpate Mtn Shelter

To: Full Goose Shelter
Miles today: 12.0
Weather: scattered clouds

8/3/2015Treadway: 10/10Weather: Sunny and perfect in the morning, hot and muggy in the afternoon except for going through the Notch, heavy thunderstorm in the evening 6/10Stats:14.48 miles 9:37:361.5 mph2088 cAverage heart rate 77 beats per minute 5091 feet up 4783 feet down 22431 stepsThe Appalachian Trail in Maine has three unofficial classifications of difficulty. There's hard, $&@#ing hard, and $&@#ing hard plus. There is no easy. Plenty of $&@#ing hard plus today. Woke up at 4:30 am, and wouldn't you know it but Little Spoon, Georgia and Swamp Turtle were up then too. The fact that we all wanted to get through the Notch this day and that the forecast called for afternoon thunderstorms motivated all of us to get an early start. I was on the trail by 5:30 am. At 6:15 am I was at the cutoff to the Table Rock Trail. By 6:30 am, I was at Grafton Notch. After that, I began the long steady ascent up Old Speck Mtn. At 8:37 am, I reached the cutoff to the observation tower, left my pack at the trail junction and headed up there. At 8:48 am I was on top of the tower with magnificent views in all directions. A young woman followed me up and we took photos of each other on top. Back at the junction, I ran into Georgia and started the steep, rocky descent to Speck Pond, reaching the shelter at 9:58 am. Georgia and I treated our water and had lunch there. Just before getting there, I ran into the caretaker, a young kid who was hauling two plastic containers of human waste to be dumped far away after some bushwacking. I told him to have a great rest of the day after finishing that unpleasant task, and that made him smile. After lunch, Georgia went ahead of me and I did not see him again until after reaching the shelter. The way up to the high point of Mahoosuc Arm was uneventful until my left foot slipped between the boards of the bog bridge just before the high point and my leg sank into the bog up to mid-thigh. When I tried to extricate myself from this highly unpleasant situation, I learned to my dismay that my knee was stuck under and between the boards and I had to wrench it free, resulting in significant but thankfully short-term pain. Needless to say, this was an inauspicious way to start the steep and treacherous descent of the Mahoosuc Arm. Near the top of the Arm, I ran into a NoBo who looked very unhappy as he grumbled about the solid half mile of nonstop, super steep rock slide that still awaited me. Boy, that was a tough downhill, but to my credit I did not fall once. At the bottom of the Arm I drank 1 L then traveled about .3 more miles to the north end of the infamous Mahoosuc Notch, the hardest mile on the AT. The people who say the Notch is ¢fun¢ are lying or nuts or both. It is a jumble of big, slick boulders which seems to go on forever. Convection from the bottom of the Notch kept the boulder hopping cool, but that was the only nice thing about the experience. After scrambling over the first 3 or so boulders, it started getting old. I began to look at my GPS watch obsessively, cheering myself on with every .01 of a mile because I so much wanted to be done with the Notch. When I started, I was at 10.3 miles for the day. The Notch is supposed to be 1.1 miles long. When my watch read 11.5 miles, I was thrilled, thinking I was almost done. Then I ran into a NoBo couple and asked them how long they had been at it. ¢About an hour¢ they replied, ¢we think we¢re at the halfway point.¢ I was crushed. I did not want to spend another hour hopping, leaping and heaving myself through this miserable crap. But, there was nothing for it. Twice I had to take off my pack to get through the narrow micro-passages between the boulders. Finally, I made it to the south end and met two day hikers from Pennsylvania who were about to start a yo-yo of the Notch. I told them with the firmest conviction that I wished never to go through there ever again. Then I started the steep climb up South Mtn. On the way up I ran into a NoBo couple. I must have looked terrible, because the woman asked me, ¢does it suck¢ in anticipation of the Notch. I deadpanned ¢totally¢ and we all laughed. After what seemed an eternity I finally reached Full Goose Shelter, aptly named because to get there you have to get the Full Goose and then some from the trail. Water was a nice long walk downhill, wouldn't you know. I met Mountaineer, a very fit 30-year-old from Germany, and Day Hiker, from Georgia. When I announced my plan to carry as little food as possible in the Whites and get by on brownies, soup bowls, soup bowl refills and leftovers at the huts, Day Hiker said he could not do that because that would mean giving money to the AMC, which he despises because based on his experience, it treats thru-hikers like second-class citizens. A storm started to brew and then around 6:30 pm all hell broke loose with thunder, lightning and a very heavy downpour. I later learned that in the nearby town of Berlin a circus tent collapsed from the heavy rain, resulting in two deaths and 21 persons badly injured. Around 8:00 pm a soaked and demoralized NoBo named Gangrene from Philadelphia limped in, asking me to make space for him next to me, which of course I did. I gave Gangrene a pep talk and urged him to take it easy and be kind and generous to himself in Maine.