Date: 2014-07-08
From: Moose Mountain Shelter

To: Hexacuba Shelter
Miles today: 17.7
Weather: light rain

Not a bad place to wake up. Nice and quiet isolated tent site but can you believe the sun comes up at 5am this far north?! Woke up at 5:04 and decided to set my alarm for six but when you're up you're up. Even though the blog says the shelter each night, it's only the location. I've found the tent is much easier to sleep soundly in. Except for the horsefly that is currently caught between rainfly and tent and doing that frantic fly thing bouncing all around. Rained off and on last night so everything is dewy or drippy. It's also a little foggy. Typical after a night of rain but this time it's very thin and I don't expect it to stick around. While getting decamped Inflammable calls out. I guess he ended up here too. Typical hike this morning. Lots of muck and mud and tree roots. And it's heating up very fast which means one thing - bugs. They seem to have this thing about already sticky situations getting ickier. There are so many gnats I must have had three in my eyeballs already by eight! I've been considering taking all of the ones I pull out of my eyes or nose or even ears and sticking them to my face as a warning to the others. Like Vlad the Impaler but something tells me there really is no deterrent that works. Today there's one big solitary up and right back down with a small break then a two tiered climb of about two thousand feet. In the small break is the home of Bill Ackerley. He's even listed in the book. Says to drop on in for water, a chat, or even a game of croquet. I'm in! He's got a cute little sign with a short path over to his house. They were gone when I was there but there was a note to sign in, grab a soda, and there is free ice cream in a freezer out back. So awesome! He's got a nice little porch with several chairs and a sunny lawn. I laid my tent out to dry which it did in about ten minutes. He's carved a nice croquet lawn out of a field and I heard he's kind of a badass at it. I've only played a few times but could have been fun! Mission and later Inflammable were also there and a southbounder named Sandals also stopped in. Pretty cool that all of a sudden the southbounders are showing up. They started their hike around June 1st so have seen a good handful now. They all seemed to think the Whites were tough but no big deal and that says a lot for hikers who haven't even hiked 400 miles yet. Well the fun must end at Bills and start the long afternoon climb. I climbed and climbed and climbed until I finally reached these rock ledges that seemed like the summit to me until I looked off in the distance and way up high on a nearby mountain is a fire tower. Which I knew was where I was going. Dang! Okay part two. Climb climb climb. This got really steep and they actually put rungs in the rock face to keep you from sliding. Up top finally was a rumble of thunder and a little cabin. One I wouldn't want to spend more than ten minutes in but one I would if it rained. Hiked up the tower and nothing looked bad so I figured we'd be fine. Had a bite to eat then back down down down the other side. Four miles of downhill so almost two hours. And once you get down guess what you do? Yep... Climb again. But this time it was only a mile and a half then a further .3 off a side trail to the Hexacuba Shelter. Wondered where it got it's name and found out it was built and is maintained by Dartmouth. And assuming engineering students as the shelter is a big hexagon. And the privy is a pentagon. Nerd alert! But I loved it. Except for the climb and almost total lack of tent spaces. Inflammable found one but gave it to me. Then of course I checked the weather and thunderstorms tonite so I guess that is bittersweet. Still prefer a tent but not packing up a wet one.