Date: 2016-06-29
From: Carlo Col Shelter 

To: Baldpate Lean-to
Miles today: 16.4
Weather: few clouds

It absolutely poured late last night. Not sure whether it woke me up, but I was certainly up at a certain point and pulled out my earplugs to hear the crazy rattling on the roof. Boy am I glad to be indoors. I was pretty uncertain about what to do today. I had even inured myself to the idea that I could just sit in the shelter all day and wait out this rain. Because's there's no way I'm attempting the Mahoosuc Notch in a downpour. But when I got up, I saw that it was really no more than a drizzle at the moment, and so I thought I might as well get going and at least make it a few miles. There was a lot of climbing today, but I powered through basically all of it, none of it hugely tiring me out . Objectively today had harder terrain than yesterday and though my pack was a bit lighter, it couldn't make that much of a difference. Hurmm. I dunno.The day started with sharp climbs up Mt. Carlo then Goose Eye and its separate peaks. A lot of the hike across Goose Eye was exposed alpine bog, and it was lovely to watch the mist flowing and rising around me. The weather patterns were intense today, and every time it cleared, I could see rainstorms around me, threatening. Also on top of Goose Eye were a huge pile of planks and logs, ready to be turned into puncheon. I guess they helicopter in supplies to the summit rather than have them get carried up. I made my way down to full goose shelter (named, i realize now, because it's between Goose Eye and Fulling Mill mountains) which is a long low lean to. I could hear a trail maintenance crew at work, and after I snack I continued on. The weather had been holding enough that I felt I could make my attempt at the Mahoosuc Notch. After waiting five minutes to let the trail crew finish up a bog bridge, I made my way up Fulling Mill Mountain then plummeted down to the start of the mahoosuc notch. On this descent, something bad happened: my shorts were basically a kilt already, with a giant hole in the middle but nothing really holding the front to the back. As I slid down a sketchy rock face, I felt them tear out from under me, then as I stood, I felt fabric touching all the way to my ankle. My poor shorts are not long for this world, as I just tore open a huge hole in the left cheek part. sigh.The Mahoosuc Notch! I felt a little scared going in by myself, because I knew how dangerous it could be, but everything worked out fine. It's incredibly cool and I loved it. The trail switches between narrow corridors of dense forest where you're never sure if you're on the trail to big boulder traverses that require quite a bit of coordination, and often risk your falling ten feet onto sharp rocks. I unclipped George about three times to push through little squeezes. I found ice, which was fun to see, and enjoyed hearing the sounds of the underground brook that runs beneath the rock jumbles. I somehow didn't get a single picture.It's surprisingly hard to find your way through the notch, and the blazing is very poor. The rocks were occasionally slick, but I only one time felt unsafe, when I was going too fast across a difficult jump. But after 40 minutes, I emerged out the other side and took a break in a little clearing, and filtered some water. Now, the harder part: making it up the Mahoosuc Arm, one of the most consistently steep ascents on the trail. To make things harder, about a third of the way up, it began to rain. I mean rain rain. The slabs of rock became incredibly treacherous, and the rooty footing became slick and muddy. I passed another hiker in a poncho who looked pretty at a loss. It's funny how trail building works in maine. It's not that there aren't hand and footholds, it's just that the trail is basically cleared of trees and that's it. They leave the res of the route for you to figure out. The trail feels very natural.I reached the top and didn't slow down a bit, wanted to get to the neearby Speck Pond Shelter and out of this crazy rain. I moved quickyl over the half mile down to the shoreline of Speck Pond, but as I got to the edge, lightning flashed and the skies just opened up, and I found myself half running towards the shelter. I continued onto the shelter side trail without hesitation and after some rock jumping found myself under the roof of Speck Pond Shelter. And so I began to wait. Along with me were two sobos whose names I didn't catch. The man in the poncho showed up and soon revealed himself to be kind of a condescending asshole who didn't know when to stop. Soon also arrived a middle-aged couple who were planning to head to Andover on their section but decided they might call it quits at Grafton Notch because they simply weren't enjoying themselves. She looked incredibly cold, but did the right thing and changed immediately into dry clothes. Lightning struck very close to us a couple of times, probably hitting the pond behind the shelter. This is a pretty popular shelter at other times of the year, and had a caretaker, who would charge us 5$ if we intended to stay. Michael came to visit us down in the lean-to. I asked if he had a weather report and he said no. I spent the next little bit in my underwear hile my clothes dripped a little, my phone in hand as I attempted to check the weather. I had cell service but no data, so I called my father to ask if he could look it up for me. After some serious phone troubles, I finally got from him the information that the rain was going to slacken off through the rest of the evening. Basically, it would get no worse.I took heart in that, and though I had considered staying put for the rest of the evening, decided that ten miles just wasn't going to cut it. And so as the rain petered out for a bit, I headed off. The next climb was among my favorites of the whole trip, up an arm of Old Speck Mountain. The trail followed a spine of rock up and down and up again, and it had wonderful 270 degree views the whole time. The fog was lifting around me, and I could see the weather patterns shifting. It was an extremely beautiful moment, and I hiked, determined to take advantage of the break in the weather. I opted not to go the extra side trail to the fire tower, as I wanted to make miles. It is maine's third-highest mountain, which is surprising, actually. The descent down to Grafton Notch passed without incident. There was a very beautiful moment of looking across the notch to the Baldpate range beyond, and seeing the road I was descending towards. But no photos today; too wet. The weather had all but cleared as I came down to Grafton notch, and I was glad; I had been worried it would pour on me again at any moment as I descended Old Speck. God bless quick dry clothing. I crossed my first road in maine, and began my climb up the Baldpates, the next range of mountains I will be passing over. Mountains seem to come much more in ranges up here, and the big peaks can often be separated into chunks. It makes me happy to see that I've only got about 7 more days of peak climbing and then maine begins to flatten out. The trail up the baldpates was well graded and nice, and the sun was out, and I moved pretty happily along the trail towards my shelter for the evening. I was expecting it to be decently empty, but when I arrived, the shelter was completely full with a number of nobos, sobos and sectioners. Among them were Uberscout and Lost Giggles, whose entries I'd been following for a while, as well as Working Class, who is picking up Sobo where he left off last year and likes to build big fires. He reminds me of Skeebo. I'm sure my displeasure at finding a full shelter somewhat showed. Anyway. I went to set up my tent in some nice woods just in front of the shelter. As I was changing inside my tent, it decided to rain heavily for about three minutes. Blarrrrrgh, I wish my tent could've just stayed dry. Whatever. I'm happy that i ended up being able to get 16 miles in today, when I was ready to have taken a zero. I eventually warmed up to the other folks in the shelter and had a decent evening. I just always feel kinda cheated when I've done way more miles than people and they get shelter spots. But that's wrong of me. I asked some of the southbound people If they'd seen Lightning and Seal Tree and Goldie, and they said they had. They apparently put in quite a day into Maine, heading all the way from Gorham to Full Goose shelter, and tonight were probably already in Andover. Tomorrow will be into Andover for me. I'm proud of myself for making it in just three days through this tough section. I'll stay at a hostel there. It's funny thinking theres only three resupplies left, Andover, Stratton, Monson.... WOOWWWWWW