Sept 11

Ma-hoo-suck

It's 34 degrees this morning, according to BooBoo's backpacking thermometer.  I didn't need that thing to confirm how cold it was.  I think I woke up sometime around 7, but I just stayed there in my sleeping bag for about an hour and a half.  I cooked up some hot coffee to have with my breakfast.  Slims was out of camp first.  He was starting to feel something coming on now too, and couldn't stand sitting still in the cold air.  Got to hike.  Apache and I headed out about the same time, a late 10:30am start.  Rainbow Eyes had barely started moving yet.  He's talking about staying put, and not in a good mood.  First up for the day was a short climb up to the top of Mt. Carlo, then down the other side.  The next climb sent us up to the top of Goose Eye Mountain.  Along the way however, we hit our first real challenge in Maine.  Near the top of the climb, the trail ended at a rock wall.  Steel rungs hammered into the rock made a ladder up to another ledge.  Another small bit of climbing more metal rungs followed.  Then a wooden ladder made of some nicely cut logs.  Welcome to Maine.  Well at least we had the ladders.  We took a short side trail to the actual summit of Goose Eye.  Cold, crisp air.  We sat for a few minutes on top of a rock, up above the short, stunted evergreen trees, taking in the views all around us in every direction.  This perspective also gave us a look at what was ahead.  A thin ribbon of trail over more rugged mountains.  On the mountain slopes, the dark greens of the foliage were dense and thick, but thinned out as they neared each summit, giving way to greyish-white, exposed rock.  This is going to be tough, but it looks like a lot of fun.  Well, parts of it were fun.  Namely, the summits.  In the saddles in between these rolling peaks was nothing but muddy trail.  Bog bridges were placed in some particularly bad areas, but they were often rotten, or sinking in the water and mud.  I tested the depth of one of the mud holes, and my trekking pole sank two-thirds of the way in.  Great.  One misstep, and I'd be in almost up to my waist in dense, sticky, cold mud.  I wonder if anyone's shoe is down in one of those things.  We stopped at Full Goose shelter for lunch.  My tent fly was damp from the moisture in the air yesterday, so I took this time to dry it out in the sun.  Now I'm starting to come down with some sort of head and chest cold too.  It felt good to get hydrated, and have a bite to eat.  Rainbow Eyes caught up to us.  Apparently he had packed up and got moving after a weird guy in the shelter kind of creeped him out this morning.  We had a small climb after lunch, and then came down into the south end of Mahoosuc Notch.  The next mile, through the notch, is often called the hardest, or most fun, mile of the AT.  There are plenty of blazes painted on the rocks along the way, but it's more like a 'choose your own adventure', as you scramble down this section of trail.  Over car, and even house-sized, boulders.  In some places, the route went into small caves, created by the jumble of massive rocks, and we had to climb up and out the other side.  It was a blast.  About half way through the maze, I started hearing water beneath my feet.  I couldn't see it yet, but it was exciting to hear it, rushing down in the dark cracks and crevasses of my rocky path.  We were all enjoying this "hike" through the notch.  I know I'd think differently if it would have been raining though.  We had averaged only about 1 mile per hour so far today, but our pace through the notch slowed down even more.  We traversed that mile in about an hour and a half.  Yikes.  I'd totally like to go back and do that section without a full pack.  So much fun.  When we came to the end of the boulder field at the north end of the notch, it was already 6:30pm.  7.2 miles in 8 hours.  It was starting to get dark, and we didn't have enough daylight to make it to the next shelter over 2 miles away.  There's also no telling how bad the terrain ahead would be, climbing up Mahoosuc Arm.  There was a backcountry campsite listed in the guidebook, which we found quickly, so we set up there for the night.  Yogi and BooBoo pulled in just after us.  It wasn't the best campsite, but there was water just down the hill, and a few good flat spots.  We ate dinner in the dark again, around the campfire, ending an awesome, and challenging day.

Rainbow Eyes enjoying a few small pebbles on the trail through Mahoosuc Notch.