Date: 2015-07-17
From: Full Goose Shelter

To: Speck Pond Shelter
Miles today: 5.1
Weather: overcast clouds

Start 8:24End 5:10Best part - Sideshow saved the dayBiggest complaint - IPhone cable not working   The rocks on the notch are huge; the size of cars and trucks. One time when I heard someone describe Mahoosuc Notch it reminded me of the song 'Over Under Sideways Down'. With many of the huge rock structures in the notch that's the question you're asking yourself. Over or under or left or right? Sometimes there are arrows telling you the best way to go. At one spot there was an opening down low but I didn't see any arrows. I was leaning toward trying to go to the right side when Sideshow caught up with me at that spot. He pointed out there was an arrow down low in the shade so we went that way. At the other end of that rock obstacle you had to climb out the top and there is very little room so most people take their pack off and either push or pull their pack through the hole. Sideshow volunteered to pull my pack up. That was nice of him. This was a different hiker than the 'Sideshow' I hiked with last year. Different year, different Sideshow.   I heard several people say it took them 2 hours to do the notch. I heard one girl said it took her 3 hours. It took me 3 1/4 hours. It was hard and took a long time but it was fun.   When I tried to recharge my phone that evening with the kind of recharger that requires an iPhone cable I found my cable wasn't working so I switched to the recharger that doesn't require a cable and I was able to get back to 100%. The next day the cable started working again.   At this shelter I met two guys that were both 65. Young guys compared to me. One, trail name Happy, was a thru hiker. These were the first older guys I had met. The other hiker's name was Grinder and he was dong a 700 mile section to complete his third time section hiking the whole trail. We were both planning on going to Pine Ellis lodging on Sunday evening. The next day when our paths crossed on the A.T. we agreed we might share a semiprivate room if it was about the same cost as the bunk room.   I was thinking I might have a potential hiking buddy but they were both hiking more miles a day than me. I'll probably be hiking as fast as them but not yet.   As to hiking left handed, when I hiked in the spring I would get tingling in the hand I was using to hold my hiking stick. During my annual physical I asked my doctor about it and he said it was corporal temporal syndrome. When you hold your hiking stick the fact that you are bending your fingers into a fist like position causes the syndrome and thus the tingling. The stick I used last year may have exacerbated the problem because that Mother Nature supplied hiking stick had a 4 inch section at the top bent at a 60 degree angle forming a sort of handle. This year when I'm hiking since it's worse in my right hand I intentionally try to hold my hiking stick in my left hand. My natural tendency to use my right hand splits it up about 75% left handed and 25% right handed and so far the problem has been virtually nonexistent. If anyone were to compliment me on this solution would that be a left handed compliment?