Date: 2017-08-01
From: Gretian Pond Shelter

To: Speck Pond Campsite
Miles today: 14.7

Well, I woke up no better than I went to bed. Now I had a fully sore throat as well as not being able to use my nose for breathing. I had a couple of apple turnovers for breakfast, trying to eat my heaviest food first, as well as some hot coco mix (which has powdered milk in it) combined with a chocolate breakfast drink (which you were normally supposed to mix with milk), trying to stay hydrated while sick.Of course, as soon as we left camp the trail took a turn upwards, which quickly had me breathing heavily due to my reduced lung capacity. On the uphill I had to keep taking little sips of water to wet my throat, which because severely irritated if I let it dry out from my heavy breathing. The trail dipped briefly and then started climbing Mt Success, capped in fog, which I headed up into.Though I normally prefer to just enjoy the peace and quiet of mornings, today I popped on a podcast and listened as I climbed, a welcome distraction to the additional discomfort of being ill on top of the normal discomfort of hiking. Soon enough the trail emerged from the trees and started winding its way across rocky islands which poked up out of the seas of small, wind-swept tress and shrubs which filled the gaps of the alpine terrain. Every time I emerged onto a new island I looked around to figure out if I had finally reached the summit and every time a slightly taller group of trees and rock waited just beyond. At first, all that I could see was fog but as I continued to climb bits of the landscape below began to peak out in between the disbursing clouds.Sidenote: Both Lost and I are pretty much masters of snot rockets at this point. Hey, what else are you going to do when the nearest tissue is miles away and even if you had them there'd be no place to throw them away?By the time I reached the summit (or what I assume to be the summit, due to the lack of further uphill, but not obvious due of the lack of signage) the fog had mostly broke and individual clouds could be seen flowing from New Hampshire into Maine where they'd rapidly disintegrate as more and more of the landscape became visible. I took a VR panorama (a panorama that should be viewable with a VR headset, which I've never used but think could be a cool way to experience/share this view) and a couple of normal pictures and a soon Lost hiked up.I really was disappointed by the lack of a sign indicating the top of Mt Success (which would be a perfect photo op), but we moved on and started heading down. The way down had more than a few rock scrambles down long and steeply sloping slabs of granite which made progress slow. These scrambles did their best, but eventually we came to our next milestone, the NH-ME border! Mt Success was a fitting last NH peak to climb... 13 states down, 1 to go. And this maniac is home!As if to acknowledge this achievement the next bit of trail had a number of pretty good rock scrambles which involved tossing/javelin-ing our hiking pole to the bottom and then rock climbing down to them, packs and all. We once again popped up and began flirting with tree line again as I pulled ahead of Lost and crossed Goose Eye. Several sets of rebar stairs pounded into rock faces later, I had a great view from the top, the Presidentals looming to the southwest, Sunday River Ski area to the southeast, Gorham to the west, and countless mountains and lakes spread out before me in every direction. I took a break up here to admire the view but the sun soon drove me from the peak due to the lack of shade. By this point I was pretty much out of water... on a normal day the liter of water I had started the morning with would've lasted me this long with no problem, but I had been drinking more today to keep my throat lubricated and so was running very low. I rationed the last of my water as best I could but as I descended onto a rocky alpine plateau I ran out, still a mile or two away from the next shelter and its water supply. As I hiked I switched to breathing exclusively through my nose, which the decongestants had cleared out for me. Though not very comfortable, I found breathing through my nose helped preserve the last bits of moisture in my throat and reduced the severity of the soreness, though it was uncomfortable nonetheless. I hiked over countless mud puddles and I headed for the shelter, but nothing even close to a stream that I could filter for water.Though I passed a number of blueberry bushes which had just began to bear fruit I didn't partake as I found that the small, tart berries didn't agree with my throat. After another steep downhill I finally came to the shelter, dropped my pack, and immediately headed to the spring where I quickly filtered some water to ease my throat.Once again comfortable, I headed back up to the shelter, had lunch, and was joined by MuscleBear and a couple of other SOBOs. We chatted while I rested and waited for Lost, who rolled in in much the same situation that I had, out of water. We hung out until 3pm at which point we started heading for our next obstacle.... Mahoosuc Notch.Listed in AWOL as the "toughest" mile on the AT, the notch is a literal boulderfield with car sized boulders stacked on top of eachother, requiring extensive scrambling, some climbing, and some splelunking to navigate. It had taken two of the hikers we had met at the last shelter 2 hours to navigate this one mile of trail. As we descended down into the notch the temperature dropped considerably... someone had turned on the AC and a light fog hung in the air in the lowest parts of the gorge, especially in the dark spaces which sank down between some of the boulders. We passed a hiker who had taken a full three hours to navigate the obstacle course, and we headed in. Though there are some blazes in the notch, they're more of a guideline than an actual rule, and there are usually multiple ways around an obstacle, usually a low route which weaves in between the boulders and a high route that hops along the tops of them.Being pretty comfortable with rock climbing and rock hopping, I tended to prefer the high routes whereas Lost, who isn't terribly friendly with heights, tended to prefer the low route. Sometimes though, a well worn trail would climb up over, or around, or under a boulder and then dead-end in a cliff, wall, or space too small to squeeze through, so some care had to be taken to plan a route. The path that most hikers take, presumably the path of least resistance, was pretty obvious in most places and so we tried to stick with it as best we could. Partway through the gorge a river joined from the western wall and started flowing along the bottom, far our of our reach under the giant rock pile but audible at certain times along the way. This river allowed me to refill my water halfway through so that I could stay plenty hydrated as we worked our way through, alieveiating the concerns of this morning. All and all, I had a great time. I wouldn't call this the "toughest" mile of the AT... definitely the slowest mile, probably the most interesting mile, but not the hardest.Lost, being 5ft tall, had a lot more trouble with many parts of this mile than I did... some obstacles that I could stride over she couldn't quite jump, some handholds I used were out of her reach, some footholds and rock faces that would hold my weight she couldn't generate the friction to stick to, so it was much more difficult for her than for I. A couple times, for the sake of expediency, I had to give Lost a boost or take her pack over an obstacle due to her small stature, but we made it through the labyrinth in a total of 2hr and 45min. I think coming back and doing the notch again, on my own, perhaps without a pack would be a lot of fun some day... definitely an interesting section of trail.Back on (relatively) flat ground, despite the late hour (~7pm), we decided to keep to the plan and push on for the firetower at the top of Old Speck, which we were hoping would be pretty spectacular on a high as clear as this one. We started heading up Mahoosuc arm and ran into extremely steep scrambling up sheer rock faces, sometimes with only a couple of roots at the side for assistance. Though pretty fatigued from today's hiking, we managed to get up to the top just as the light failed us and we broke out our headlamps. Well, broke out my headlamp anyways, since apparently Lost's broke or has dead batteries. Lost, who was leading the way, got my headlamp while I followed behind, content to hike the light of the moon anyways.By the time we reached Speck Pond campsite the only light coming from the sky was that of the moon. Lost had decided that the last 1.1mi up to the firetower wasn't happening for her tonight, and was planning on stopping at the campsite. I was planning on pushing on to the tower, eager for the chance to cowboy camp atop it. Having nearly circumnavigated the pond we stopped and took a rest on a rock, looking over the still pond, dotted with lillypads, and the sky, speckled with an ever increasing number of stars. We hung out there for a while and chatted, listening to the occasional croaks of the bullfrogs-bears which, along with our quiet conversation, broke the otherwise complete silence. While sitting and enjoying the celestial show we saw a plane or two, a few satellites, and a shooting star, but at last, with our lack of movement, we grew cold in the night air and decided to move on. By this point (10pm) my will to hike had faded, and so I decided to just stay at the campsite as well. As soon as we stood up and turned the headlamp back on, it illuminated the sign for the campsite, which we had unknowingly stopped just 20ft short of.We headed into the campsite, designated ourselves a large group, and claimed one of the large group tent pads so as not to disturb the hikers sleeping in the shelter while we made dinner. Soon after we setup out sleeping pads and bags directly on the tent pad and drifted off to sleep under the blanket of stars above.