Date: 2009-08-02
From: Moosilauke

To: Eliza Brook Shelter
Miles today: 10.3
Weather: overcast clouds

Tmax here... A very early wake up call after a very windy night made for a tough start to the day. The morning began cold, windy an overcast. The decent off of Moosilauke is steep and rocky and the rocks were slick with the rain from the night before so movement down was fairly slow-going. We stopped at the Beaver Brook Shelter for a hot breakfast before making the rest of the climb down. The lower half of the mountain is incredibly steep with makeshift "stairs" (created by planting rebar into the rock slabs and attaching triangle shaped pieces of wood). But the trail follows a stream which made for some amazing views of waterfalls all along the way. Towards the bottom we ran into a family who were headed up. The youngest of the children (aged around 3 and up) were wearing crocs and their plan was to go to the summit. I attempted to discourage them by telling them how challenging the trail was and the fact that it would be even more difficult for those with short legs but they were not dissuaded! We got down to where the trail drops into Kinsman Notch and crosses route 112. There we stopped for another bite to eat and spread out the tent to dry it a little. The climb back up out of the notch wasn't too bad and then we got to Wolf Mountain. What a long and tedious journey that was! It started to rain (pretty seriously!) and the mud was deep and the rocks were ill-placed, slanted and slippery. The terrain kept going up and down, up and down... in what seemed like a never-ending course designed for masochists! Topofgothics was a trooper listening to me whine but holding in his own frustration until I was more centered. (We tend to only have one of us lose it at a time which works out well!) We finally made it to the Eliza Brook Shelter in the pouring rain just as darkness was settling in. There were only two others in the shelter and we attempted to get out of wet things into dry ones and to make a warm dinner without disturbing them too much.   ****Three thousand feet? Is that all? Are you freaking kidding me? Thankfully as days went by and I questioned others, this may well have been by consensus the lousiest hike of the whole trip. The hike to the shelter for breakfast was fine. Although STEEP, the drop off the north side of this hill along a perfect waterfall/creek was fun. The family attempting to climb, some in water moccasins, was bewildering. The final six hours of the day sucked. Wolf Mountain is the nadir of this trip, at least in terms of terrain. It felt like there was nothing but ups and down that may not have been significant on there own, but strewn together as such were demoralizing. All we did was avoid mud, side-climb rocks and other terrain, curse at Mother Nature and wonder why the damn map profile did not look anything like what we felt we were climbing. Seven and a half miles have never felt so long. Hopes of finding the Eliza Brook shelter before dark were dim. At the very end of our wits the side trail appeared. We were soaked and as miserable that any trail has ever made us. All decorum (as evident by the girl who took up half the shelter with her hung hammock) was gone and sleep could not come too soon.