Date: 2017-06-27
From: Bemis Mountain lean to

To: Hall Mountain lean to
Miles today: 12.8
Weather: scattered clouds

"I want you to know, Littlefoot," I announced as we trudged through muddy forest as hail rained down on us from the heavens, "that even though this storm was forecast days in advance, I'm holding you personally responsible for it."I wasn't being entirely serious but a little while before, on the summit of Old Blue Mountain, she'd blithely announced that she thought the weather was going to clear up."Don't jinx us!" I immediately responded, knowing of the thru-hiker lore that such statements are inevitably and immediately followed by the exact opposite.For all our reliance on high tech equipment out here, when it comes to weather superstitions, most thru-hikers sound a lot like 17th Century sailors.That morning there had been a brief and light shower around 6am, followed by blue skies. There was even talk about maybe the forecast had changed since the one we'd seen as we left the Farmhouse.It hadn't. Of course.The AT followed the crest of the ridge as we went over the main Bemis Mountain. Ahead I could see the ridge continue to a smaller peak where there had been clear-cutting and knew that couldn't be our route since the entire AT corridor is protected from such things.Sure enough, the trail traversed around to one side then scaled Old Blue Mountain beyond, where we stopped for lunch on the bare rock slabs of the summit and Littlefoot made her prophetic announcement.The rain arrived within half an hour, in the form of a thunderstorm that delivered hail and ominous rumbling as we descended the steepest part of the trail since Rangeley.We knew it wasn't really her fault, but that wasn't about to stop is gently ribbing her about it.At the bottom of the hill was the first of two roads used to hitch into Andover. I'm hiking right through to Gorham -- a dumb idea in general and particularly when I was on the tail end of an illness -- as is Janine, but Spiffy, and Littlefoot aim to hitch into town from the next road, 10 miles further.The trail profile showed the first four miles of this were going to be one of the toughest parts of this section, with a climb up to Mt Moody that was higher than the precipitous slope we'd just descended, the far side down to Sawyer Notch was steeper and longer than the one we'd just done and then there was an even longer steep climb up to the shelter.What could go wrong?The trail conditions advisory, a laminated piece of paper posted at the start of each section by the Maine Appalachian Trail Club, talked of the first climb being "rather gentle", which is not quite the phrase that came to my mind as I puffed and panted my way up. Thanks to having long since gained our hiker legs, the initial climb was fine (even if I was much slower than the others) and then the descent was taxing, involving several sections with rebar ladders dropped into the rock, but nothing extreme.Of rather more concern was it said both sides of Sawyer Notch were "exceptionally strenuous", which wasn't too far off the mark for the way in but the trail back up again proved to be steadily graded and on a par with the "rather gentle" route up Mt Moody.In the midst of this ascent, the rain began to fall once more and then became heavy. I stayed under a tree for a while to see if it would blow through but it showed more persistence than most of the squalls we'd been experiencing.Last night's shelter had been busy, with probably three times as many people present as there had been spaces inside to sleep, so I was a little concerned about this one being similarly oversubscribed. But when I finally arrived at the small six-person shelter at Gunsight Notch, I found it entirely unoccupied other than by Spiffy, Littlefoot and Janine. After a brief lull, any thoughts of camping were drowned out, metaphorically at least, by a downpour that wouldn't have been out of place in Fiordland in New Zealand, as although the intensity of the downpour only lasted 20 minutes here and not for half a day, like back home."Wish I was camping," I quipped as the four of us settled into the lean to for the evening.AT fact of the day: Janine had been aiming to do 10-mile days to Gorham but realised it was longer than she expected and that she isn't caring enough food. She's carrying about 2,500 calories per day, or only a little more than a sedentary office worker requires and a far cry from the 4-6,000 calories we're probably burning through out here.