Date: 2005-08-13
From: Grafton Notch, Maine 26

To: East B Hill Road
Miles today: 10.1

Another stunning day in southern Maine. It rained last night while I was in bed. Even though it stopped and isn¢t raining today, everything is really, really wet and slippery.Breakfast was at 6:00. Apparently, Earl had gotten up at 3:30. This is his normal routine. He started fixing all kinds of stuff including stacks and stacks of blueberry pancakes, and then laid out a whole smorgasbord of stuff for us. Omelets, bacon, all kinds of good stuff. We all got around and started eating at our own pace.Gravity and DangerPee are here at the Cabin. A section hiker, whose name I cannot remember now, and some gal who is helping out Wandering Bull.I got dropped off at quarter to eight at Grafton Notch and I¢m hiking north out of here. Even though it is a long hill of a couple thousand feet to get up to Baldpate, I fairly flew up here. I was on the east peak of Baldpate by 9:30. At the speed I was going, I was seriously considering calling them while I had cell phone reception, back at The Cabin, that instead of doing ten miles, I would be doing twenty miles today, and to pick me up at South Arm Road instead. Then, after an argument with myself, I said, ¢what the hell am I hurrying for?¢ I sat down, pulled my sandwich out, ate half of it and made a bunch of phone calls. I sat up there for about an hour.The east peak of Baldpate is particularly amazing. Just this huge expanse of bald plates, the name fits. It¢s like plates stacked on top of each other. Just a huge long walk across there and it's fairly steep. There¢s puddles of water on top in places from the rain last night.I¢m going down the north side of Baldpate right now, and it is quite a dangerous, wicked little place. It¢s a lot of these flat plates that are down, some at a 45 degree angle, going downhill, very steep. I finally just gave up on my Lekis and put them away. I have been grabbing branches and roots and rocks and looking for every little crevice that I could put my feet on. When all else gives, I just sit on my butt and slide down the hill; slide down the rock.What an amazing place this is to be in. I feel as if I am in a National Geographic Magazine at this point.I¢ve got to be down there by one o¢clock. So I¢ve got some time to play with but not a lot of time. I still have to average a little better than two miles an hour from here to make it down in time after wasting so much time up there.The weather is still trying to clear out up here, so as I was going across both the east and west peaks of Baldpate the wind was ferocious. Blowing fog, intermittantly getting covered in fog. At times, the sun was blasting out completely clear. Throughout all that the wind was horrendous with 45/50 mile an hour gusts. Some of it pushing me up the hill. Sometimes pushing me sideways, trying to rip the pack off my back. Just another little thing to throw in the mix to make it a little more adventurous.It turned out to be a beautiful day. The sun came out once I got down to the lower elevations. Rough downhill off of the East Peak of Baldpate, all the way down. Got down to Frye Notch. Pulled out my sandwich, sat there and ate it. From there it was a little bit of uphill. Actually a good steep uphill, but a short one, and then long flat all the way to Dunn Notch where the sun is very misleading. I ended up walking half way down the Blue Blaze Trail, before I had to walk back uphill to it across the cascade. A beautiful cascade there that goes quite a ways down the mountain and then goes through this little canyon. Very picturesque.I almost bowled over about a dozen weekend hikers, young kids that were walking downhill and I was running downhill around a corner and I came up to them. They mostly, quickly moved out of the way.Good time today. Got out about 12:30 despite the detour. A little under four hours walking time to do ten miles.Bull came and picked me up right about quarter to one. What he said was, ¢Congratulations, you just finished the most difficult part of Maine.¢ I found it hard to believe because it¢s been very, very difficult, but I¢ve been waiting for it to get harder. Apparently, it just gets easier from here. So, I¢m very glad of that.I got back to the Cabin, and I was the first one by several hours back from the little adventures there today. I went in and took a shower. Used the computer to back up some cds for myself, Estee and Jan. Just generally hung around and had a good day. Sat around and talked with Earl quite a bit today. Quite a fascinating man. I really enjoyed talking to him. I really enjoyed staying here. It¢s a really special place that they run here. He is apparently very selective about who he takes in and I¢m very grateful that I am one of them. He and Marge are both wonderful people to be around. Honey and Bear.That¢s it for today.