Date: 2004-08-29
From: Gentian Pond Shelter

To: Carlo Col Shelter
Miles today: 5.2
Weather: broken clouds

There was a little sprinkle around 4am but the predicted thunderstorms did not materialize. It was just colder, foggy and gusty wind. I lay in bed trying to decide what the weather would do. I finally decided to at least try to make it to Carlo Col before the real rain arrived. Of course I had just stepped out of the shelter at 7am when it started pouring!So I went back in the shelter, got unpacked for a zero day and got into my sleeping bag. Naturally, then it stopped raining. I could hear the sky laughing at its little joke.I restlessly decided to go on regardless of the weather and by 815 was packed up again. I had a raspberry and a couple blackberries for luck, then hit the trail. Other than being steep and a fair number of boulder scrambles the trail was not too bad climbing the interestingly named Mount Success. Near the top, ABOVE tree line, were long stretches of bog bridges made of boards or well-decomposed logs. It got even more windy and the fog was so thick it was hard to make out the cairns marking the trail. I would take a guess and if I got to another bog bridge I knew I was still on the Trail. At last I reached a signpost saying 2.2 miles to Carlo Col and knew I was on the summit.That 2.2 miles took forever. First I started running into sloped rock slabs and moderate rock scrambles. Not TOO hard but enough to eventually try my patience despite lots of blueberries. I ran into a couple who were doing trail maintenance, clipping back the vegetation with pruning shears. Trying to decide whether to try for 9 miles, I asked them if there were many rock scrambles between Carlo Col and Full Goose Shelters. The man got an odd look on his face and replied no, that section was all right but there WERE some scrambles before Carlo Col.I was a bit puzzled by his expression but thought it could not be much since I was nearly to the shelter. Was I ever wrong! I came around a corner and found myself confronted with a lulu! Descending in front of me was a near vertical cascade of gigantic blocks piled willy-nilly. It was like the top of the ridge at Lehigh Gap only instead of two or three feet high each, the blocks were more like ten feet! Now I understood why the man had a strange expression when he said there was some rock-climbing.I got down one block then went back and forth on the top of the next, gazing and gazing for a way down. I was stymied and had some choice words for the maniac who had routed the trail through this mess. Finally I took my pack off, lowered it as far as I could, and let it drop. Then I went back up to the first block and found a route I could just manage without the encumberance of the pack. Then I had to slide the pack down another block and then slide after it before I could manage the rest with my pack on. Yikes! I think whoever it was who decided that the Appalachian Trail needed some nearly impassable spots to feel like true wilderness has rocks for brains! Had anyone offered me a magic way home just then, I would have accepted it in a heartbeat.Eventually I reached the saddle at the bottom of the hill. The sun shined dramatically through a hole in the clouds (honest!) and there before me was a sign that declared "Maine: the way life should be"! I had finally reached the 14th and last State of the Appalachian Trail. In the half mile to the sidetrail to Carlo Col Shelter I found two more blueberries, extending my berry streak to yet another state. When I found that patch of berries at the Mason-Dixon Line I had no idea it would last so long!It was only 1pm and I considered my options. It was tempting to try to make the 4.4 miles to Full Goose Shelter. Then if the weather was good I could tackle Mahoosuc Notch the next day. But I was worn out by the rock climbs and was not sure if my water would last or if the rain would hold off that long. So a bit reluctantly I took the .3 mile sidetrail down to Carlo Col Shelter. I figured by the time I got to the shelter and purified water it would be too late to climb back to the AT and on to Full Goose. Despite ominously gusting winds and thickening fog it still had not rained by 6pm when a NOBO thruhiking couple from Austin TX named Up and Down arrived. They had come from Trident Col Tentsite a few miles south of Gentian Pond.