Date: 2003-08-26
From: Grafton Notch

To: East B Hill Rd, ME
Miles today: 10.3

While Honey cooked us our supper feasts, Bear gets up at 4:30 am to start breakfast. A huge one, with blueberry pancakes, bacon, coffee and juice, biscuits, melon and, if desired, self-made omelets. I may gain weight here.After breakfast, the shuttles go out. Thumbkin and us go to the same place, to walk in different directions; her to The Notch, us to the Baldpates.As we are adjusting our sticks, in pulls Judy - Ma Finch! We hug, happy to reconnect. She's walking in to meet Finch from the other side, as he does the Notch today.Chief and I start our long, uphill slog. The air is cool but very humid. We sweat freely then chill on rest stops. Where has our dry Canadian cold front gone?We top the first Baldpate summit in two hours. Chief is great about breaks, we usually celebrate a summit with a pack-off stop. I ate an incredible raspberry muffin purchased from the Andover General store.Next, we dropped down to a little bog in the saddle between the peaks. We look up at a rocky mountain. We begin to climb up a massive rock face with sparse vegetation. Like being above treeline, except you're not. The side of the east peak of Baldpate reminded me of Stone Mountain back in North Carolina -it's a granite exfoliation dome, also bald.Tough little balsams had wedged themselves into the odd cracks, but most were little higher than my shoulder. The lichens speckled the rock with lime green and black splotches. Sometimes the slabs formed long, wide steps; other times we were walking up an open smooth face - sort of what I expected the Mahoosuc Arm to be. The views were fantastic. The pitch, at times, seemed on the edge of traction.On top, cairns guided us through the spotty vegetation. It was like walking on the moon. Windswept. Open. Bare rock underfoot. Bright. Very lunar. I was wishing for sunglasses. Someday, when I come back to "skim the cream," the East Peak of Baldpate has my vote as "cream." It would be an easy overnight hike out of Andover. What a incredible place to spend a dry, star-lit night!We lunched on top of Baldpate with two older gentleman who were concluding their years-long section hike of the AT. We congratulated them. One was picking the sour mountain cranberries I had been nibbling on. He was going to get his wife to make him one celebratory mountain cranberry muffin.We checked our time - yikes, only three hours until our shuttle arrived, and 6.5 miles yet to go. That would be easy enough in, say, Maryland, but here in southern Maine it could well take another six hours. There was no way to know.We kicked it in, and the day grew hot. I was finding it frustrating to push against a time deadline, and tired myself out to the point where the climbs became tiresome, wearying and infuriating."Crap!" I shouted before one unexpected hill for which I lacked the energy and hurry."Just another half mile," Chief coached gently. It was just the encouragement I needed.The hike from Baldpate was unremarkable except for two spots. One was the spectacular, rocky chasm of Dunn Notch and the waterfalls that had carved it. The other was a crystalline stream, with deep pools so clear you could see the stones at the bottom. Some were even deep enough for some shallow diving. In these glades, if a person squinted just right, one could almost see a wood nymph bathing or a unicorn dipping a muzzle for a drink.At the road, there was Gutsy in the red truck. She is helping out at The Cabin while her knees are healing. We got about halfway home, when I spied Ostrich sitting on his pack in the middle of nowhere. Gutsy, bless her heart, slammed on brakes, backed up and gave him a ride back to the Trailhead. Seems his hitch had just been going halfway, into a driveway, and let him out on this lightly used road. He'd been sitting a while.Another fantastic dinner at The Cabin - barbecued chicken, sweet corn, potato salad, green vegetables. Chief and I cooked up a mess of Southern-fried squash and onions, although, he noted in his Southern drawl, "it warn't like Mama used to make."I got on the Internet and collected news.Notes, it seems, had gotten himself charged by a moose on Saddleback! He wrote: "I saw a baby running to my left, heard a crash to my right and there was mama, charging me, as big as a tank. "Jesus H. Christ!" I wailed and ran willy-nilly back the way I'd come. She and her calf moved off through the brush."Some people just lead exciting lives.Notes had also run into Itchy between Stratton and Monson. Itchy ought to be in Monson today, gearing up for the final trek through the 100-mile Wilderness. Commander-in-Chief is headed for Crawford Notch and might catch us in a week. Hope so!