Date: 2008-09-08
From: Full Goose Lean To 

To: Grafton Notch
Miles today: 9.7
Weather: broken clouds

Awake to an overcast but dry morning. Eagerly hit the trail, looking forward to the legendary Mahoosuc Notch, arguably the most time-consuming mile of the whole AT. Some would say the most difficult, but climbing into the wildcats and battling the winds on Goose Eye were much harder for me. I reached the notch first, greeted by colourful prayer flags strung up around the skeleton of a moose that had fallen into the notch and died a year ago. Appearantly, the hikers just climbed over the carcass, as it fell in the one gap between boulders where it is at all possible to pass. We had been hearing about this moose from SOBO¢s, and had long since decided to recover the skull¢¦Ularu was meeting us at Grafton Notch, nine miles away, to pick up the bones. Slayer, Hare and Oats arrived, and Oats strapped the skull (it was a young bull, so it only had the stubs of antlers¢¦otherwise, carrying it would have been impossible) to her pack, Slayer getting the pelvis, myself bits of the spine and knucklebones. We headed into the notch together, a great boulderfield in a sheer-walled notch between two mountains. Rockslides over the years had filled the notch with boulders the size of mini-vans, and the trail went through the middle of it all, arrows directing us to clamber over great slabs of stone, slide down rockfaces, crawl through tiny crevices in the rock. In a few places, it was too narrow for us to pass with our packs on, so we took them off and formed a chain, one person crawling through, the person behind passing their packs through the hole before crawling through themselves. It was a like a great jungle gym in some sort of lost world, moss covering everything thickly, only a few slender birch and pine trees growing amongst the stony masses. No one got hurt or fell badly, although Slayer did cut open her knee a bit. We made it through after well over an hour of scrambling and crawling, only to encounter the slopes of Mahoosuc Arm, which many SOBO¢s had assured us was a horrible climb. Took a brief break for food and water, filling up at a little creek, before beginning the climb. It truly wasn¢t that difficult, although long and draining. The worst part of it was that there were many places where the trail climbed up slanted rockfaces. The rock was rough pink granite, and it wouldn¢t have been too hard to get traction, aside from the fact that it had been raining the day before, and there were therefore small streams of water cascading down over everything, making the rocks quite slippery. A lot of the climb was spent hanging on to small trees growing next to the rocks I was climbing, hoping I didn¢t fall. The summit had a beautiful view, the sun had come out and was shining off the lakes in the distance, Goose Eye Mountain behind us, and New Hampshire¢s mountains in the distance beyond. It was truly satisfying to stand atop the mountain and know that the most difficult part of the day was behind. Slayer and I hiked over the mountain top together, sickly green bog plants, russet coloured dead grasses, cranberry bushes, bog bridges here and there, easing our way. Down below us, on the north side of the mountain, lay Speck Pond, glimmering blue in the sun, and the pointed peak of Speck Mtn. beyond that. We reached the banks of the pond, clambering down some tricky bits through the high pine forest, running along the water¢s edge over broken rocks, and, reaching the shelter, we stopped for a lunch of herring and oatmeal. The climb up Speck was not too difficult, although steep In places. The sun had grown hot, and the wind was blowing, although not at all as hard as the previous day. There were breaks in the trees every so often, and on one exposed outcropping of rock, I stopped and stoop, alone on the lofty height, to look out across the beauty lying behind me, everywhere I¢d been, so many miles behind me that it was not possible even to see very far into the last state I¢d been in. To be in such a place, with such majesty surrounding me, such sights as I¢ve seen, and to have walked there from so far away, filled my heart with a great swelling of joy. I climbed onwards, finally cresting the mountain, going downwards with a light heart, looking forward to seeing Ularu. White rock, sunbaked, moss and gnarled pines. It seemed like forever before we finally reached the notch, just as Ularu pulled in to the parking lot. We sat around for awhile, eating the snacks he¢d brought for us, talking with other hikers before setting off into Bethel. Oats decided to stay the night in the woods. We checked in to a little B&B downtown, then went to dinner at Suds, the same place we¢d eaten when we stayed with Susan. After dinner, we heated up the sauna and baked ourselves for awhile. Then, bed, late.