Date: 2016-06-11
From: Full Goose shelter 

To: Grafton Notch
Miles today: 10.0
Weather: clear sky

With Will so ill things were pretty well up in the air as to what we would do today. We 'slept in' then ate what was left of our food supply. Which wasn't very much let me tell you, and we were on half rations the night before. We had three options, try and go forward, try and go backward or if we could do neither, then we must call 911. I should say right here that Will is one of those people that instead of making a mountain out of a molehill, makes a molehill out of a mountain. But I am firmly determined to call 911 if I have to, there are no more let's wait and see moments left, either he hikes out on his own two feet this morning or he gets carried out. We decided to have Will put on his pack and walk around camp to see if he could hike. He did and he seemed a bit better. So now, show time. He decided that he would give going forward another try.Mind you, he has been super sick and we are getting ready to go through the Mahoosuc Notch and the Mahoosuc Arm today. This is considered the very toughest day of the AT by many. Certainly by the guidebook we're using, and my illness weakened husband will need to really pull out the stops to get through this.Which is what happened. The Mahoosuc Notch is that huge jumble of car sized boulders. You have a lot of jumping and climbing and squeezing between rocks. But when we finished it, we both thought it was more time consuming than hard. Will did amazingly well on that.   Then it was on to the Mahoosuc Arm climb. This was very steep as promised but again, no more so than other things we've done on this hike. We reached the top and were going over when we bumped into three women and their two dogs out for a hike. They had one car at one end of the trail and another at the trailhead we were coming out at, Grafton Notch. When they learned we were thuhiking they offered us a ride if they were in the parking lot when we came off the trail. While we thought it was super nice of these women to make this offer, we thought the chances that it would work out were pretty slim.We hiked on and came to Speck Pond.   The skies had been looking increasingly threatening and sure enough it started to rain. We stopped to put on our pack covers and rain gear. While we were doing that, who do you think came hiking up the trail towards us? It was Kermit!! Remember I had been his trail name godmother? We hadn't seen him since way back in Vermont. I had just asked Will a couple of days ago how he thought Kermit was doing. And now here he was! Pretty cool. We caught up on a few things and told him about Will being sick. When he found out that we were totally out of food he gave us each a bagel and some granola. How kind! This really helped us crank up our energy level to make it out to Grafton Notch.As we headed toward the Notch I started to notice that i was experiencing some of the symptoms Will had complained about. Sore throat, very hot with chills and a general feeling of weakness. Well, share and share alike I guess. We came out at Grafton Notch and headed to the road to hitch into Bethel.   Bethel is a 17 mile hitch so it can be a bit tough to get a ride. The sky was getting dark and it looked like it might rain,again.   There was very little traffic, but what cars there were just passed us by. I was starting to wonder if we were going to have to pitch our tent with no food to eat, when a young couple pulled up. They were camping for the weekend. They weren't even planning on going into Bethel tonight, but they saw we had a need and decided to help us out. And boy did we really appreciate it! !They dropped us off in the middle of town, near the restaurants, grocery store and motels. We got a room at the Bethel Village Motel. By this time I am dead on my feet. I get cleaned up and get in bed while Will gets us a pizza. I take a couple bites of one piece but that is all I can get down.   So, I might as well call it a night. All is well that ends well as Will says.   Catch you later. Road Runner