Date: 2008-07-19
From: Gentian Pond shelter

To: Full Goose shelter
Miles today: 10.2
Weather: broken clouds

Today i crossed the border into Maine!yay!! owwwwww.....Holy guacamole, i am tired. We only did 10 miles today, and i am beat. These trails are kicking my butt...."rugged" has been used to describe them, although i would use the word "insane" or perhaps "retarded".Let me describe to you my recollections of the trail today...up bare rock, down bare rock, (these bare rock climbs and descents often include little waterfalls or cascades down them, right where i need to hike)bog bridges (2x6 planks, often wet and slippery), ascents up rock jumbles, and descents through rock jumbles, roots, rocks, puddles, mud, and sometimes, if we are lucky, a stretch of dirt path. And, because of the rain yesterday and this morning, everything is wet and very slippery.remember - wet rocks = ice.It would seem from my perspective, and i am biased on this, that these trails have been made on purpose to be hard and on purpose TO TRY TO KILLME. I especially liked being on a cliff face 6-8 feet off the ground, trying to walk along a little ledge with a giant backpack on. That was swell. I kept thinking to myself, all day long, "if i wanted to be a rock climber, i would have stayed home, and gone to the indoor climbing wall". But alas, i am out here, "hiking".So my "hiking" (actually climbing) has become very technical. Our hiking times have dropped to 1 to 1.5 miles and hour, at best. Mostly due to the fact that we aren't actually walking anymore.We left the shelter at 6 this morning, and got to full goose at 3:30. oiy! We wanted to get going at 5 this morning, but due to thunderstorms at 5 this morning, we got delayed. Last night, gobbles came back to the shelter, but bleach had continued on. We had established that we would come to the shelter that bleach was at and meet up there. So we got to that shelter at 10:30 and got bleach, and continued on. We stopped for a bit at goose eye mtn. because the sun finally came out, and we attempted to dry out our socks and boots. It stayed sunny the rest of the afternoon, but now it is raining again.mahoosic notch is tomorrow, a valley of house sized boulders we have to navigate through, and we were hoping they would be dry. wet rocks = ice.We were also hoping that the bare rock ascents/descents would dry out. Alas, it is not meant to be, since it is raining again. Tomorrow is going to a long, hard day. sigh....We have no idea where snake-eyes, champ, trust me and thud went. We think they are behind us, but have no way to know. I guess they should catch up with us tomorrow or monday.We have been joined by sleepwalker, and he is a good conversationalist.We also ran into a guy named grizzly, who thru hiked back in 2003. He is out doing dayhikes for fun now in the places he liked from hiking the a.t.Not too much else happened today, my ribs still hurt, although i am wondering if maybe its a pulled muscle in my pectoral area, and my feet still hurt because of all the roots, and weird climbing. And my knees are starting to hurt - the muscles just above the knees from mincing my way down the mountains.This trail is painful....I am ready to be done. i've climbed enough mountains, and done enough rock scrambles to last a lifetime. 276.5 miles left to go. (until virginia) I am hoping the trail becomes a little more friendly over the next few weeks. I am tired.Oh yeah, knuckles got texted by her husband that a tropical storm is on its way up here. a tropcial what??!? But i'm in MAINE. So we may boogey on to andover and try to either slackpack or zero while it is tropical storming out here. It sucks bad enough when it's just raining. If i can't do that, i'm going to find a way to add some padding to my butt to make it so i can waterslide down these "trails".Time for sleep.