Date: 2011-08-02
From: (117) Carlo Col Shelter

To: (118) Baldpate Lean-to
Miles today: 16.4

Today Red Moose, Tridub and I (Hazard kept right on sleeping) hiked out around 6am. We spread out almost immediately, and I soon began to run low on water. I passed a shelter, and found that its water source, listed as a stream, was a stagnant puddle. Afraid that I would not find more water down the trail, I filled up. The water was dark yellow in my bottle, and thick like syrup. Nobody in their right mind would have drunk it.Not long after filling my belly with puddle water (It tasted tangy), I hiked into the infamous Mahoosuc Notch, which was described in my guide book as the ¢Most difficult or fun mile of the AT? Make way through jumbled pit of boulders.¢ As I entered the Notch (A deep slice in the mountain) the air temperature dropped until it felt like I was hiking through a freezer. Ahead of me I could see great piles of car sized boulders walled in by tall cliffs on either side, and of course, the trail going through the middle. It was without a doubt the most technical and difficult mile on the AT, and I knew I would love every step of it. I began scaling the boulders as fast as I could, following the white blazes as I hopped over neck breaking heights and swung off of trees. I passed a lady who was struggling with her large pack, and she exclaimed with a grunt that ¢At least it¢s not raining!¢ Shortly after it started to rain, and I was sliding all over the place on the wet rock. I needed both hands to climb down the rock, so I started throwing my poles off of cliffs, watching where they landed, and then climbing down and retrieving them (I usually aimed so that my poles would spear vertically into the ground, so that I could later grasp them as I passed between, as though they had never left my hands). Sometimes the trail went under the boulders into cave like areas, and in the cracks I could see ice! The Notch was so deep and insulated that even in August it was left frozen from the winter! I stayed inside one of these icy boulder caves until the rain slowed, but after I had left the rain picked up and turned into a torrential downpour. Eventually the difficulty of Mahoosuc Notch began to die down. I had completed the most difficult mile of the AT, in the pouring rain, as fast as I could and without injury.Climbing out of the Notch by way of Mahoosuc Arm I slipped on a rock and gashed my knee open. It bled everywhere, but I was already too miserable to care, or acknowledge the sweet, sweet irony. I stopped and drank some of the crystal clear water I had collected from the Notch; it was so cold that I nearly got brain freeze, and the hand I was holding the bottle in went numb. What a unique place on the AT, to leave me so wet, bloody, and cold. At the next shelter I passed I filled up on water. It was yellow, but not nearly as bad as the water I had had that morning. At the very least, it tasted normal. An AMC caretaker was at the shelter, and he told me that the yellow water was actually better than the clear water in the Notch, because all of the animal poop and other dirt gets washed into the Notch when it rains (There are piles of Moose poop everywhere in Maine). I now regretted having drunk my icy liter from the Notch. Figuring I was already screwed, I drank my new liter of yellow water without a second thought. Who cares if I get sick, I¢m almost done! I¢ll just cross my fingers that the potential bugs in my system don¢t incubate until after I summit Katahdin. Besides, I haven¢t gotten sick yet (Despite my best efforts). The sun came out, and stayed out just long enough for me to take off my pack and get out my camera and guidebook from their waterproofing. Then it started to rain again, making me have to repack everything. Down in a valley, the rain stopped and a lady told me that it wouldn¢t rain again until night. Half an hour later it began to pour again. I hiked fast to reach the shelter and get out of the rain. The second I reached the shelter and jumped inside it, the rain stopped, and did not start again. Screw you trail. I spent the night with Redmoose, Tridub, and two section hikers. The water source was clean, much to my disappointment.