Date: 2008-07-17
From: Jeffers Brook Shelter NH 

To: Eliza Brook Shelter NH
Miles today: 15.9
Weather: overcast clouds

Day 151 Thursday July 17 ¢ Eliza Brook Shelter NH - Miles Today: 15.9 Total Miles: 1794.7Today was a big day for us - 15.9 miles, first time above tree line, with a 3400' ascent and a descent of 3000¢ that is known to be ¢steep and slick¢. We knew we had our work cut out for us and at nearly 16-miles, it would be pushing our limit. Some journals we had read said to count on 11-12 hours of hiking, so we had set the alarm for 5:00. However Grasshopper¢s bladder had a different agenda. As a result of her nature call at 4:08 a.m., we never got back to sleep, so at 4:45, we started to break camp. We had the whole place to ourselves last night so there wasn't any concern about waking anybody. We hit the trail about 5:15. Just after hitting the trail, we noticed 2 hikers had stealth camped down by the creek, right off the AT. They were in the process of breaking camp. They are also thru-hikers, and are in their 50s. Rethinker is from Johnson City, Tennessee. Home Town is from Franklin, North Carolina. Pretty wild that we are all from the same general area. And to make it even more wild, there was a gentleman with them last evening trout fishing, who was from Charlotte!We leap-frogged the 2 guys up the mountain. They started about 15 minutes after us and unfortunately for us, they got to see a bear cub on the road on the way to the big ascent. Bummer, we missed that. It was a 5-mile 3400¢ ascent to the summit of Mt. Moosilauke, but only about 3 miles were a true climb as the approach trail in the beginning and the end were pretty gentle. The ascent went pretty quickly. The terrain wasn't too bad, although it was about 1,000' per mile for 3 miles. We were at the top above tree line at 8:00 a.m. enjoying the panoramic views. The fog was lifting out of the valleys clearing the mountains, so our views were partly obscured. But it was still pretty neat to be above tree line. We took about a 20-30 minute break at the top before starting the steep and slick descent. Every southbound hiker in past few days has told us that our descent would be slippery, wet, slow and dangerous. You name it - we heard it. We started down the mountain and waited and waited and waited for the steep, wet, slow, dangerous part. It finally arrived in the last mile and a half. The worst part was from Beaver Brook Shelter to NH Rte 112, a distance of about 1.6 miles. That 1.6 miles took us 75 minutes to hike! The trail crews did a pretty good job, though. Where most of the states would have had us walk over slippery sheer rock, they had blocks of wood nailed into the rock for stairs and a few rebar handholds. All in all, it wasn't too bad. The rock was not anywhere near as slippery or dangerous or as tricky as what we've already hiked. However, despite that, Brakeman did manage to fall once. We think that puts his fall tally to 6, but we are not quite sure.On our way down the huge descent, we found Rethinker¢s swimming trunks alongside the trail. He had them on the back of his pack drying and they obviously caught a branch as he was hiking and fell off. We picked them up and put them at the trail junction so hopefully he'll find them tomorrow when he comes out of North Woodstock from his rest day. We took a break at the road (NH Rte 112) and then continued on. We had about 6.7 miles to go and we figured it shouldn¢t be too bad ¢ just one more mountain to climb. Easy, right? Mmmm, let me think - WRONG. The afternoon just stretched on and on. It had a lot of little ups and downs and a lot of boulders that were about 3.5 - 4' tall that we literally had to walk up the face of - pretty much straight up - without any handholds or footholds. Some we nearly took a running start to leap half way up with our feet in order to get over them. When possible, we used trees or tree roots along the way to either lower ourselves down rocks or to pull ourselves up. The trail was not user friendly. The other problem this afternoon was that the trail conditions were atrocious - probably the worst we have seen. Mud bogs all over the place. The trail maintenance crew¢s solution to a mud bog was to cut off a pine tree branch and throw it in the bog. Not very effective. It would take a lot of pine tree branches to solve these mud bogs. Another solution is needed. When we weren¢t fighting mud bogs, we were fighting extremely overgrown trails, whose foliage was mainly pine trees. We were thankful that we were wearing glasses as I think we would have been poked right in the eye many times with pine needles had we not been wearing the protection. A lot of maintenance needs to be done in this area. Water bars need to be added in many places.   So it was not a fun afternoon from many standpoints. Enough of that.After 11 hours of hiking, we arrived to camp at 4:15 to nab the last official tent spot. We hiked the last hour pretty fast as a young section-hiking couple was hiking near us and we figured they were tent dwellers and we were afraid that the campsites at this shelter might be limited. Sure enough, we beat them to camp and secured the last official tent spot. They had to make their own campsite. There are an awful lot of hikers out right now, as well as trail crews. Hopefully we¢ll lose the section-hikers soon, as we don't want to have to race to the shelter each day. We felt strong throughout the day even though it was 16 miles and 11 hours. We even felt strong at the end. However, we can feel that our knees have taken a beating and we're sure that after a week in the Whites, a zero day will be in order. Brakeman's left knee acted up a few times today. He had to stop and massage it so we'll have to keep an eye on it. We have a 9-mile hike tomorrow into North Woodstock, where we¢ll take a nero ¢ hiking just 2.8 miles on Saturday. We've already looked at the terrain and we're not expecting anything easy or speedy into town. I think for the next 2-3 weeks nothing is going to be easy or speedy. We'll just pace ourselves and hope that we get through the Whites with our knees still intact.The weather was nice today, though hot, reaching a little above 80. Our morning was a nice cool 64.   It¢s 6:30 and 72 degrees with coolness in the air. It¢ll probably be a cooler night tonight. We can hear Eliza Brook running behind us, which will make for great sleeping. Goodnight from officially in the Whites! Tomorrow we pass our first hut! Ah, more milestones going down.