Date: 2004-08-30
From: Carlo Col Shelter

To: East End Mahoosuc Notch Stealth Camp
Miles today: 7.0

Whoohoo, I am through the Notch!Last night thunder started rumbling in the distance at 8pm and about 10 the storm reached the shelter with lots of lightning and a heavy downpour. At 4am the rain had stopped and the full moon glowed brightly through a hole in the clouds into the open front of the shelter.By the time I got on the Trail at 630 it had clouded up again. Up on Carlo and Goose Eye Mountains it was damp, foggy and chill with a brisk wind. There were long stretches above treeline, much of it on bog bridges. There were also lots of dwarfed-down alpine blueberries. Some were packed with extra big berries and all were sweeter and tastier than normal blueberries. They were my reward for all the rock climbing. Despite what the maintainer had said, there were several pretty challenging sections. I know the AT is supposed to be a wilderness trail but there seems too much emphasis here on the word "wilderness" and not enough on the word "trail"!Not for the first time I found myself wondering if the risk was really worth it. It is a good thing those tough spots are far from a road or the temptation to give up would be hard to resist. As it is, by the time I get to a road I will have some of the hardest going on the trail behind me so it will make less sense to give up. That and the reassurance of seeing all those bright-eyed smiling southbounders who obviously got through here and lived to tell about it.Up and Down caught up with me on the middle peak of Goose Eye and we kept pace the rest of the way to Full Goose Shelter. Down was faster than me going up but she was slower going down. Descending the middle peak of Goose eye we found something new. There was a long string of inclined bog bridges with cleats nailed across the planks (or sometimes across a single plank) to provide footing so you don't slide down the incline and fall. Intermingled with the bridges were flights of log steps so that much of the descent was on wood. Too bad the rock-climbs have not gotten that kind of tender loving care. Oh, well.About 11am we heard voices and at the top of a ladder we found ourselves at Full Goose Shelter. In it were the ten or so students from Tufts University I had seen at Gentian Pond. They had spent the night here and were thinking about taking the day off. They were on a freshmen orientation trip, one of about 24 groups from Tufts scattered along the Trail. Most were backpacking for the first time. Watching them struggle to prepare freeze-dried hashbrowns in a wok and pancakes in a skillet was the best entertainment we had had in weeks!We were torn between staying as I had planned or pushing on through Mahoosuc Notch while the weather was still good. Up and Down decided to go on but I still was not sure. The sky seemed to be darkening and while the extra day would stretch my food thin, staying with the Tufts students promised lots of leftovers. I nibbled gorp and drank hot chocolate mix in cold water while deliberating.Finally I tore myself away from the prospect of rest, company, fun and extra food. I purified a liter of water, put on my pack and started off just after noon. I had just started up the next peak when I realized I had forgotten my hat. I dumped my pack and poles and went back to recover it. The sky darkened even more and just one drop of rain would have made me change my mind, but no such luck. Finally I made my way over the top of Fulling Mill Mountain. The fog had begun to thin when I had been back on Goose Eye but now it was thick and damp as ever. Going down toward the Notch, far too late to turn back, the rain came. Fortunately it lasted only a few minutes, just long enough to make me stop and put the rain cover onto my pack.I reached the Notch at 145. Here I again had the choice of stopping but decided to press ahead. Now I was committed to finishing the Notch no matter how long it took! Mahoosuc Notch is a mile-long ravine between two high steep cliffs. What makes it famous as the hardest mile of the AT is that the bottom is filled with boulders ranging up to the size of a house! The trail wanders over around and even under them in a sort of boulder funhouse or crazy maze.The first thing I noticed was a blast of cold air. Ice from the winter accumulates deep in the crevices and lasts far into the summer, cooling the air near the exits. I went over some boulders then the trail went over normal ground for a short distance. Here the cold air was replaced by what in comparison felt like sweltering hot humid air. Talk about microclimates! The air temperature switched back and forth between hot and cold for the rest of the Notch.Now the climbing got more and more challenging. Here and there it plunged deep through a crevice or under a giant boulder. Sometimes I had to squeeze through the passages flat on my belly, barely getting through with my pack on. Two men thruhiking north caught up with me, one by the name of Hawk. He took a couple picture for me of me emerging from a passageway, then they pulled ahead of me.Above ground it was not easy either. Once the only way to get up a rock was to place my recently scraped shin onto it, gringing the wound into the rock. Ouch! I found myself using all the rock-climbing techniques I could remember and some I thought up on the spot, even chimneying down a crevice once. It really was kind of fun, but it seemed to last forever. I was tiring and with all the scrambling around the waistbelt of my pack was rubbing me raw. Finally the Trail got to flat normal streambank and I thought I was done. Nope, false alarm, more rocks. A long stretch of normal sized rocks raised my hopes again only to have the Trail plunge beneath another gigantic boulder the size of an aparment building.At last the rocks dwindled away and the Trail started climbing the left bank. I came to a turnoff that led to a cozy secluded campsite, complete with a path down to the stream running out of the Notch for water and a perfect bearbag hanging tree. Here I made camp for the night. The mile of the Notch had taken me two and a half hours!