Date: 2007-08-24
From: Andover, ME

To: Grafton Notch
Miles today: 10.3
Weather: scattered clouds

David, from Pine Ellis in Andover, dropped us off at the trailhead on East B road at 6.50 a.m. It was an easy climb up to Frye Notch lean-to, passing thru hikers all the way. This must be the main rush of NOBOs coming through now. We lost count but one passing hiker said there were at least 20 at the last lean-to overnight. East Peak and West Peak of Baldpate Mountain were easy, except for slippery wet rock. We are finding this rock quite tricky as it looks fine in the wet, but in fact is deceptively slippery! It must be because the trail is so well used, that the rock has been smoothed off - something like the traditional walking trails in Papua New Guinea which are as smooth as glass. A lot of the climbs have expanses of this rock and you have to find a way around it. Unfortunately, all the traffic trying to find a safe way around the rock means that the trail keeps expanding out to the side and some areas have quite a bit of environmental damage. I expect as time goes on more rungs will be put in on the rock to stop this trail widening process. Once out of the bushline on Baldpate some of the rock appeared to have dried off but this was deceptive and I had to slip over a couple of times before realizing just how tricky this rock can be. There was no damage luckily, only to my pride. One of the hikers we met at Bob's at Gull Pond in Rangeley had told us about the smooth rock on Baldpate, well it was a bit damp due to the mist and was, as he had said, very slippery. You can't avoid it either as the expanses of it are too great. We were reminded of the granite domes in Australia on the Bibbulmun track, and maybe it is geologically similar, both areas being very ancient. We have seen a few nasty scrapes other people have got. One man told us he fell 10 feet in Mahoosuc Notch and said he felt he was very lucky not to have broken his leg. I wonder how many people get injured and have to be rescued off the trail.Baldpate was cloudy, so there was not much in the way of views. We met Buttercup who was staying at Pine Ellis. It seems a lot of people get themselves shuttled about from Andover. At this point we can see the advantages of that, from Andover in particular, but I don't know what I'd leave behind at the hostel apart from my sleeping bag. I seem to want most of what is in my pack and would feel funny without it. What if something happened and you did not have your pack with all the survival gear in it?We arrived at Baldpate lean-to in time for lunch, then took the risk of going down to Grafton Notch to look for a campsite - a risk because no-one could tell us if we could camp there and we did not want to climb up to Speck Pond lean-to that afternoon - too much for these old bones. We wanted to get into a good position for tackling the hardest day of the trip - Old Speck Mountain and Mahoosuc Notch. They say this is the most challenging part of the whole trail. It rained a bit during the night so there will be wet rocks again tomorrow.We climbed 1256m and descended 1212m in temps of 12-31C - pretty hot most of the time but the mist tempered the heat luckily so it was not radiating off the rock. Looking towards East PeakOn East PeakDescending from Baldpate