Date: 2010-09-16
From: Trident Col tent site

To: Gentian Pond Shelter
Miles today: 4.9
Weather: broken clouds

Gentian Pond Shelter, 4.9   I slept like a baby last night. The wind died down and I stayed warm.   This morning it was not to bad getting out of my sleeping bag. The skies were overcast and there was no rain. Hopper made her coffee at 06:00 as usual and climbed back in her sleeping bag and drank it. She has turned into my alarm clock, getting up at around 06:00 every morning. When she gets done with her coffee I am usually getting out of my sleeping bag. It was no different this morning. I did my usual privy call than came back to camp and ate breakfast, packed up everything and made one last privy visit and moved on.   We ran into two older guys on the trail heading south this morning that were brothers and gave us the latest weather report. They also told us about some bear tracks behind then in the mud that looked fresh. We saw those same bear tracks and they were fresh.   The day was chilly and I found myself getting chilled quite often. When I got to Gentian Pond Shelter at noon time I asked Hopper how she felt about calling it a day. To my surprise she said she could live with it. The clincher was when the maintainer for this shelter said that there were 100% chance of rain and thunder showers tonight with only a 20% of rain tomorrow morning the weekend and into the beginning of the week is suppose to clear and be sunny. We ate lunch and went down to the pond and each cleaned off our muddy calf's and got water.   When we returned to the shelter Ice was sitting there making his lunch. He hung out and talked with us until 3 pm and moved on, he was going to the next shelter, which is what we should have done.   Around dinner time Johnny Walker and Wondering Foot showed up and grabbed spots in the shelter. When we got done eating Ripple rolled in. I had not seen Ripple since Pine Grove Furnace. We spent a while catching up on things.   Tonight were are suppose get constant rain all night and 20% in the morning. We are thinking about doing a 5.2 mile day to Carlo Col Shelter to stay dry and get out of the rain. This will set us up for the next three days. We do not want to go through Mahoosic Notch in the rain. Mahoosic Notch is suppose to be the hardest part of the whole AT because you have to crawl under boulders and over them, some of these boulders are the size of a house. I have hiked through the Notch before and I can say it is not hard at all, I think it is fun. The hard part is climbing Mahoosic Arm afterwards. It is one sheet of rock that climbs the side of Mahoosic Arm for a long time and at a steep angle. It is not dangerous but strenuous.   Here is our three day plan.1. We get out of the rain and wet weather as soon a possible Friday.2. We get down to the beginning of the Mahoosic Notch and set up a stealth campsite. Doing this will be Saturday and the sun will be out and should dry everything out and the Notch too.3. Head through the Notch on Sunday and get to the bottom and call The Cabin for a shuttle to Andover.   The only consern I have about this plan is we planned on taking four days to get to Andover and now that we took a nero day at the shelter here and are doing a short day tomorrow it adds one more days onto what we planned to do in four. I only packed four days worth of food. I am starving right now but I need to raction my food.    Here tonight are, Johnny Walker, Wondering Foot, Hopper, and Ripple set her tent up.