Date: 2018-08-11
From: Franconia Notch

To: Garfield Ridge Shelter / Campsite 
Miles today: 10.3

As much as I wanted to get a bit more sleep, I still couldn¢t get my internal alarm shut off and was up early. I started sorting through my things and packing my bag. Then I packed Cole¢s bag. I was excited and ready to get back out on the trail on our own, but also sad to be leaving. We have truly been spoiled for the past few days and it has been very nice to sleep in a bed, eat good food and have friends to talk to.After breakfast, showers, a bit of a drive and some goodbyes, we were off.My backpack felt very heavy at first, but my body soon remembered how to carry it and the pack began to feel lighter. It was another steep rocky treacherous climb. As we climbed we felt like we had covered a good distance, but a mileage check on Guthooks told us differently. We were going so slowly.We passed a campsite and shortly afterwards Cole decided that he wanted to backtrack to it in order to use the privy. I found a good sitting rock and waited. When he returned, a strong odour filled my nostrils.¢Um, Cole. I smelled poo when you walked by me just now.¢¢Well, I smelled it when I walked by you.¢¢You are the one who just came from the privy.¢¢Well I don¢t have any poo on me.¢I sniffed closer to him. He sniffed closer to me. I checked where I had been sitting and where I had put my bag down. We checked the bottoms of our boots. We looked around in the bushes near us. We smelled each other¢s bags. We smelled each other¢s hands. Hikers have a strong pungent aroma, but it doesn¢t smell like poo.....and we didn¢t. By the time we were done smelling each other we were almost rolling on the rocks with laughter. We never did find the source of the mysterious poo smell, but I did discover that it is incredibly difficult to laugh and climb rocks at the same time.When we reached the top of Little Haystack we were above the tree line and the view was a great reward for our efforts. After that we walked along Franconia ridge climbing one mountain after another. The views were absolutely stunning. I took photos and videos knowing that nothing I captured would ever come close to the real thing.The ridge was very crowded with day hikers. A few of them recognized us as thru hikers and congratulated us. A group of three sobos cheered and greeted us with ¢hey nobos!¢ They asked Cole his age (he gets asked that almost daily) and gave him props and lots of positive words of support and congratulations. It all seems a bit premature. Every day feels like a struggle when my foot starts to hurt and sometimes Katahdin seems like it is moving further and further away.We were up on the ridge for a long time. Long enough that both of us needed to pee. Everything was exposed and you could see a long way in any direction you turned. As we continued along the ridge, the crowd of hikers thinned considerably. Most would turn around and go back to their vehicles in the direction they had come, while we continued to press on northward. Eventually we were alone. Cole easily found a rock to hide behind to take care of business. Guys only have one side they need to shelter from sight.Whenever you enter the alpine zone above tree line , there are signs asking you to stay on the trail to protect the sensitive alpine vegetation. That meant I would have to do my business on the trail. There were rocks to hide behind, but that would just hide me from view on one side. Where do you pee up on the ridge? Where? Surely I was not the first person to be caught in this predicament. When I was young we used to say that our eyes were turning yellow when we had to pee badly. My eyes must have been swimming in it. I remembered a thru hiker at a hostel bragging that three times he had walked up on women peeing on the trail. I didn¢t want to be the one someone told stories about. I¢ll tell my own stories, thank you very much.We came to a steep descending section of trail. There was a large boulder just at the pinnacle . If Cole stood in just the right spot he could be a lookout and block the view of anyone coming up, while the boulder would block the view of anyone coming down. This wasn¢t a job that he was thrilled about, but he graciously complied.Ah....relief! I was ready to be done for the day. It had been a long long day. Stealth camping was out of the question though so we had to get to Garfield Ridge Campsite/Shelter. There was a caretaker there and they charged a $10 fee per person. The campsite was packed, but there were very few thru hikers. We set up our tent on a wooden platform then cooked dinner at the cooking area and headed to bed.