Appalachian Trail Day 167 - East B Hill Road to Random Trailside Campsite (Mile 1,941 to Mile 1,952)

We went to breakfast at the Brickyard Cafe when it opened at 6 AM before heading out of town. It's the only breakfast spot open besides fast food, and now I am full with eggs Benedict with hash browns and a bowl of baked beans. Mainers really like their baked beans apparently, because it's on every menu I've seen so far. 

Dad drives me an hour back to East B Hill Road and I am hiking up the trail at 8 A.M.

The trail starts immediately uphill, but the elevation profile doesn't look too bad for the first part of the hike this morning. I will climb 2,400 feet over the next four miles, so a fairly mellow hike compared to what I've been doing the last couple weeks. I will then do another 1,000 feet over the second half of the hike.

The trail is a dirt path, which makes me giddy with happiness. Of course, there's a lot of roots, but I think this is just going to be par for the course in Maine. I have to watch out for these roots because my toes get stuck and I almost trip in spots. I have to learn to pick my feet up higher for the rest of the state so I don't face plant.

There are lots of piles of moose scat on the trail but most of them are look pretty old and dried  One of these days hopefully I'll see one.  As I'm climbing up the hill  southbounder heads towards me. His name is Jonesy. He thinks he is way behind other Sobos, but I let him know that he's not far behind many of his fellow hikers. This is definitely a late start group who are just now getting through Maine. It's cold getting cold and they will have some winter weather to contend with soon. 

The trail goes up for about 800 feet over the next mile and a half on fairly easy inclines and comes to Surplus Pond. I look for a moose but I don't see any.  I'm really going to have to try to camp next to pond while I am in Maine to try to see one. 

The trail leaves the pond rather abruptly and then crosses Surplus Pond Road before heading uphill once again. The woods change quickly from predominantly hardwoods of beach and birch to spruce, which is so thick that the trees thankfully blocks the wind. Along the way I start seeing pile after pile of moose dung, and some of them look pretty fresh.

Occasionally I can make out a game trail and see more fresh piles.  Unfortunately the only wildlife that I see other than chipmunks and squirrels are grouse, that I disturb as I hike through the woods. I jump when several grouse launch into the air from the thick undergrowth.

After five miles and 1,800 feet of relatively easy climbing, I crest Wyman Mountain.  The summit is wooded, but just a short hike down is a nice view to the east of the Andover Valley to the distant Ellis Pond.

I'm getting hungry but decide to wait until the next shelter.  I hike downhill from Wyman another 1.3 miles to the Hall Mountain Lean-to. While I am hiking I can hear someone hiking behind me,  but they don't catch up until I reach the shelter. 

I drop my pack and get it the ham sandwich and blueberries that Dad packed for me and sit next to the fire pit to eat. A man emerges from the trail and he sits on the shelter platform and we talk while eating. His name is Expendable. He hiked with his son, who needed to finish last week to get home for a new job. His son is much faster than he is and he let the son go ahead and he flipped up to the Hundred Mile Wilderness to summit with his son, then came back to Gorham to finish his hike. 

We finish eating and leave at the same time. He steps aside to let me go first, saying that I was going fast up the hill to the shelter. I tell him to go ahead because I'm going to be a lot slower on the descent. I want to rest my knees and take it easy. I never thought that I would think going downhill was harder than going uphill until now.

I'm glad I let him go ahead because the next mile and a half is pretty steep in spots. The trail descends 1,500 feet, with some rocks but mostly dirt, which is loose and slippery on the steep Traverse.

At the bottom the trail crosses an old forest road and a wide, mostly dry stream bed. The stream is flowing though, and the water is clear and looks beautiful. I should have enough water in my bladder to last me through the rest of the hike, but I can't resist filtering some and drinking a half-liter of the fresh water. It's cold and refreshing. 

From the stream the trail goes straight up a rocky climb where I gain 1,300 feet over a mile to the summit of Moody Mountain. Thankfully there are several rebar ladders attached to the rocks in the really steep sections. 

At the top is a small and limited view of the same valley I saw from Wyman. I don't stop, as I am meeting Dad at the next road crossing, 2 miles and 1,000 feet down Moody Mountain. 

I make good time on the descent and reach the road crossing at 2:30 p.m.  Dad is entertaining two thru hikers, who are sitting in the grass behind his truck. He is given them snacks and sodas from the cooler, and is joking that he's giving them all of my food. 

While I am packing my backpack with everything I will need for a night in the woods,  nine more hikers show up. I am soon going through the truck finding snacks for all the new arrivals. The cold sodas are gone but I have some warm Frescas and the hikers take them gratefully. I also find an unopened box of Nutter Butter packs and pass them out. Dad sees how much everyone enjoys the sodas and snacks and puts them on his shopping list to keep on hand.  I recognize one of the hikers. It's Planet Caravan! We hug in greeting and he says he fell behind due to a leg injury. 

All the other hikers are waiting for shuttles to local hostels, but I plan on going back in the woods and trying to get a little farther up the trail to make tomorrow's hike a little easier. I have exchanged my summer quilt and sleeping pad for my heavier cold weather gear. I also top off my water because I will be dry camping tonight; the next water source is 5 miles away and I am definitely not going to make that until tomorrow morning. 

I give Dad a hug goodbye and he takes off. I say goodbye to the hikers and shoulder my dreadfully heavy pack and head back uphill on the trail. The wind is howling and coming out of the north. I pass a likely campsite near a view, but it is really cold and windy here. The comments say there is another campsite a half mile up so I continue on hoping that it's more protected from the wind.

I hike a mile and gain 1,000 feet since leaving the road when the trail veers to the opposite side of the mountain. I come to a campsite in a mixed woods and I'm delighted to see that the wind is not nearly as bad in this location. 

I drop my pack and set up my camp and eat dinner. It is now 7:15 as I write this and I am about ready for bed. I'm really thankful that I brought my colder weather gear because it is quite chilly with a breeze as the sun is setting behind the mountain. 

Today's Stats: 11.5 miles, 4,416 feet gain

Trail Stats: 1,952 miles, 402K feet gain

Miles to Katahdin: 242

Appalachian Trail Day 166 - Grafton Notch to East B Hill Road (Mile 1,931 to Mile 1,941)

I wake up bright and early at 4:45. I don't want to text Dad in the event that he's still sleeping, so I work on my blog a few minutes and then pack things that I need for the day. I will be slackpacking, so thankfully I don't need much. I hang the "Do Not Disturb" tag on my hotel room door because the contents of my pack are covering every bare space in my hotel room.

We were thinking of going a full service breakfast but we end up making a Dunkin stop for expediency. I don't know how long the hike is going to take today; I don't think it will take much more than six or seven hours but I'd like to get back early enough to have some down time and prepare for my day tomorrow.

Dad drops me off at Grafton Notch and I'm on the trail before 8 A.M.  I'm pretty curious to see what the trail is going to be like since this will be the first full day of hiking where the trail is maintained by the Maine ATC and not the AMC. 

The trail starts out straight uphill from Grafton Notch,  but its easy enough to maintain a steady pace. When I get to the turn off for the Baldpate Lean-to (all Maine shelters are called Lean-tos), I start down this blue-blazed trail because I want to check out the Maine shelters and see how they compare to other states. Additionally, I like stopping by the shelters and reading the logs to see if there's any familiar names in them and I can see how far behind I am from other people I might know. I get halfway down the trail and then decide I'll wait until the next shelter, which is right off the AT.

Once I am back to the split with the Appalachian Trail I see a woman hiking up. She has a small pack and a very long pony tail and the look of the thru hiker. Her name is Rapunzel. She is section hiking and just started from Gorham. She is going to Katahdin for this section,  where she will finish her journey of the Appalachian Trail. We chat for a few minutes and she says I can go ahead since I'm probably faster because I've been hiking longer, but I defer to her and say that I am taking it easy today. I really don't like to break a sweat when it's cold and blustery. 

We chat for a few minutes but the chatter ceases when we encounter hundreds of tall rock steps up to the summit. The trail starts to get very steep and I follow her up. She sets a good pace for the next thousand feet of gain. She says she doesn't like to "stoppy until I get to the tippy toppy," which I think is super cute, but a little masochistic. 

We reach the summit (3,332 feet) at the same time and stop to take in the gorgeous views.  Two men are hiking up in the opposite direction. They are flip-floppers who flipped up to Katahdin from the Vermont/ Massachusetts border and that is where they're going to finish.  One gentleman is named Father Time and he is almost to his home in Massachusetts. The other man hiking with him is from Ireland and named Blue Jeans. He says he is really enjoying his time on the AT.

There are some pretty views on West Baldpate, but the mountain that stands out is East Baldpate. It is a huge rock monolith directly in front of us. Rapunzel and I say "happy trails" to the hikers and we descend from our vantage and then go up Baldpate.

The short hike up Baldpate is a series of rock ledges that are stacked on one another at a canted angle. They are quite easy to climb up and walk across, with no strewn boulders. It's easy to navigate with many cairns to lead the way. At the top of Baldpate Mountain we have the most incredible view - 270 degrees of mountains. I use Peakfinder to identify the mountains around us. I don't recognize most of the names, but I do recognize Mountain Mitchell that's in Northern Vermont. 

To the South, I can see many mountains I've summited for the last 70 miles, from Mount Washington in the background to Goose Eye Peak to Old Speck in the foreground. 

I was going to eat my lunch up here but it's way too cold. I don't stop to put on my down puffy, I want to descend to take me out of the wind. Rapunzel plans on stopping at the next shelter and that sounds like a great idea.

The descent down is rock scrambly but manageable with several well placed ladders. I like the Maine ATC already!

As soon as I descend a short way, I stop to shed layers and tell Rapunzel I will meet her at the shelter. I take it easy on the way down, because my knees are still sore from the Whites.

When I arrive at the shelter It's 12:15 Rapunzel's pack is here,  but she is not. She must be down filtering water. There is an older gentleman sitting in the shelter and I guess from the gear that is laying behind him that he is trail maintainer. We introduce ourselves and he confirms my guess.  

He is out here scoping out trail maintenance projects. Rapunzel returns and he tells us how the Maine ATC is replacing every single privy along the length of the trail. A southbounder arrives and we are all captivated by his description of the process; a helicopter lifts out the old privy, then up to 3,000 pounds of supplies are lifted or carried in, and it takes 20 to 30 people to do all this work. They are also flying in bear boxes when they do the privy replacement. This guy and the other volunteers who do this are amazing!

My stomach is filled to the brim with a ham sandwich and blueberries Dad packed for me. I say goodbye and thank the gentlemen for all of his hard work and effort and how wonderful it is to have people like him taking care of the trail that we love and enjoy. 

From the shelter the trail starts another climb over large rocks for 650 feet of gain. On the other side of the rise is a delightfully level dirt path.  While quite rooty, it's still very nice compared to the constant rocky torture of New Hampshire. 

The vegetation looks like summer is waning and fall is here, even though it's only the middle of August.  Fallen leaves cover the ground in spots, and many of the plants that I've seen green and lush for the last few months are turning yellow and dying.  The witch hazel, Solomons seal, and the toxic red baneberry are yellow and brown. I wonder how much is attributable to normal New England weather or due to the drought.

The next three miles of hiking are absolutely heavenly. If this is what Maine is going to be like I will take all the rocks scrambles just to have these little stretches of nice dirt trails. I am just enjoying the wind blowing through the trees and watching the leaves flutter to the ground, not a care in the world!

I'm almost to the road when I near a stream with a waterfall. The Dunn Cascades are very pretty even with the lower water levels. There's a much larger waterfall on a side trail above the AT but I pass on that one because Dad is going to be waiting for me at the road crossing.

I make it to the trail head on East B Hill Road by 3:00 p.m., which is one of the fastest days since leaving Vermont! 

Today's Stats: 10.5 miles, 3,655 feet gain

Trail Stats: 1,941 miles, 398K feet gain

Appalachian Trail Day 165 - Mahoosuc Notch Campsite to Grafton Notch (Mile 1,924 to Mile 1,931)

Last night was rough but I knew it was going to be that way when I set up the campsite. It was definitely less than ideal.  Although I tried to button down my tarp as tight as possible the wind was so strong that in the middle of the night it pulled up one of the stakes and I was awakened by the flapping. I should have gotten up and tightened everything up, but I was so tired so I drifted back off as best I could.

I got up at dawn and packed up ready for the hike up Mahoosuc Arm. Thankfully it's not raining today, but it's much chillier this morning and the wind is howling. The mountain top, at two thousand feet higher, should be a load of fun. 

While I am packing up, a chipmunk darts out of the underbrush several times to grab any morsels I may have dropped.  The lid is off my bear canister and the critter almost gets inside before I shoo it off. It returns a moment later and tries to nibble on a bag of snacks that I set out for my hike today. I finish packing while watching the little guy zoom back and forth before setting out to tackle the Mahoosuc Arm. 

The hike up in the Mahoosuc Arm is intimidating. The profile says I will gain 1,500 feet over just one mile, making it one of the steeper ascents of the trail. Indeed it's not easy, but I don't think It's harder than any other climb I've done so far; it's just longer. I'm working my arms hard because I use them a lot to pull myself up and over the big rocks. 

I crest the top of Mahoosuc Arm and it is socked in by fog and the wind is whipping. On the summit I put on my rain jacket as a wind layer, careful to hold on to it tightly so it doesn't blow away in the stiff wind.

Clouds are moving across the bare rock of the summit.  I'm sure the view would be gorgeous, but I don't think I will see much today.  I'm very fortunate that I've had a lot of views since starting New England, so I have to take the bad with the good.

As I descend the back side of Mahoosuc Arm the leeward side is much clearer and I have a nice little view of the mountains to the east, although the summits are cloaked in misty clouds.

A short time after leaving Mahoosuc Arm I arrive at Speck Pond.  Although there's nothing short about this hike. The demanding ascent and the rocky descent makes me move at a snail's pace. Most of the comments in the app mention 60 minutes per mile and my pace is right on target.

At Speck Pond I stop to admire the view and collect some water. When I dip my frozen hands into the bog water I find It's surprisingly warm. I have a snack and then head around the pond to start the climb up Old Speck Mountain. I can see the trail up the side from here and It looks terrifying from this vantage; the trail appears to go straight up, almost vertical.

When I start up I realize it's not as bad as it looks. I mean it is as bad as it looks, but the rocks are rather easy to scramble up. I can't imagine a south bounder going down this with a full pack, though.

I summit Old Speck, which doesn't offer any views, but I had plenty of excellent views on the way up.

The trail starts downhill right away. I really hope the descent is nothing like the climb up, or this will take a while. The elevation profile isn't that bad - I will lose 3,300 feet over the next three and a half miles, so one thousand feet per mile is rather steep, but the comments say that it's not too bad.

The descent is quite easy for the first two miles; it's not too steep and much of it is on groomed dirt trail interspersed with rock ledges and some boulders, but nothing crazy. I'm actually enjoying the descent thus far. 

Just as I'm getting complacent, the trail gets much more steep, and takes longer to hike. This continues for about a mile, until I am a mile from Grafton Notch. The trail runs along a beautiful creek. The creek is barely flowing but still pretty, moss covering the bare stream bed. The trail becomes a series stone blocks at awkward angles that require some really big steps down. My poor knees!!

On the way down I meet A southbounder who is hiking up the mountain without his shirt! Oh, if only I could have that metabolism, where I could be warm all the time, even in cold weather. He is really enthusiastic and he is loving his hike. He congratulates me on being so close to the end and tell him I'm having fun but I'm doing much fewer miles as a result of the terrain.

I reach the bottom of Grafton Notch at 3 p.m. to find Dad waiting for me in the parking lot. My knees are really beat up,  even though I have never had problems with them before. I also keep getting a sharp pain in my left Achilles; I will have to baby it in the coming days. I pop 800 MG of ibuprofen and down it with a cold soda from the cooler.

We head to the motel where Dad booked us rooms tonight. It's not fancy but there's not much to choose from around here. As long as it's clean I will be happy.  The rooms are recently updated and we are both happy. 

I shower and we go to dinner at a diner down the street, where we have the most delicious lobster chowder I have ever tasted. 

We will return to the hotel and I am in bed at 8:30.

Today's Stats: 7.1 miles, 2,612 feet gain

Trail Stats:  1,931 miles, 395K feet gain

Appalachian Trail Day 164 - Carlos Col Shelter to Mahoosuc Notch Campsite (Mile 1,916 to Mile 1,924)

I wake up at 5:45. I actually slept in this morning! The shelter is dim, but there's enough ambient light to see without a headlamp. No one came in the middle of the night, so I don't have to worry about waking anyone when packing.  I can hear women's voices from the platforms behind the shelter. 

One nice thing about sleeping in the shelter is that I can pack up pretty quickly.  I'm packed and reading through the shelter journal when a woman my age comes by. She was staying in one of the tents and just wanted to say hello. They are a group of four women doing a section hike of Maine. They're doing five or six miles a day because of the difficulty of the terrain. We talk for a few minutes before she says she needs to finish packing. 

I take my pack to the little creek in front of the shelter to filter water.  The creek is not running but there is a small pool only a few inches deep. It takes me some time to scoop a couple liters of water so I have enough to make it to the next water source five miles away.

We all end up leaving the shelter about the same time. I pull ahead once we start the climb up to Goose Eye Mountain. The open rock ledges along the ridge offer the most gorgeous views. The wind is blowing and it's rather chilly, but I sit here for a while admiring gorgeous scenery and nibble on cranberries and blueberries which are in abundance. The women catch up to me and they start munching on blueberries as well. 

The climb up to the top of Goose Eye is rather fun with ladders made of rebar and an actual ladder made of wood to climb up the steep and high rock face. One of the women climbs ahead of me and I take her picture for her, and she does the same for me as I climb the rebar ladder. 

A short time after, I am on the first of the two Goose Eye peaks, having gained 1,200 feet in the first 2.5 miles of the day.

The trail winds along the ridge to the next Goose Peak and it looks down to the north.  The trail is visible in the open areas on the ridge and lots of bog bridges are visible below. 

The descent down is made much easier with many wooden steps made from logs.  The going is quite slow as I don't have the best balance, but it has certainly improved over the last few months on the trail. 

It's just a beautiful day up here and I stop more often than I should to pick blueberries until the trail leaves the open ridge and descends down toward the next mountain. 

A mile after leaving Goose Eye Peak I reach the Full Goose Shelter.  No one is here, and I drop my pack and sit on the end of the shelter platform. I  have enough water to boil to hydrate my lunch, which is actually my dinner from last night. While it's hydrating I go down the path behind the shelter to the water source to fill up for my next adventure on the trail.

It's too early to stop here for the day so I decided to continue on and tackle the Mahoosuc Notch, which is considered to be the hardest mile of the entire trail. I will certainly need some calories for the endeavor, so I tuck into a delicious white chicken chili and eat a bunch of snacks, and 45 minutes later I am heading to Mahoosic Notch, 1.5 miles away.

The trail up and over the next mountain is a little tricky due to downed trees and erosion where people have gone into the trees to bypass some tough rock scrambles,  but the climb is short. 

After descending from the mountain I enter the notch, considered to be the single hardest mile of the entire trail. I'm excited and nervous because this can take anywhere from two to four hours to complete. I've seen videos of other people's experiences in the Notch, which is basically a rock scramble that is relatively level. 

On entering the Notch I get my first taste of what the next mile will be like. This is not what I was expecting. I imagined some rock scramble where I may have to take off my pack a time or two, but this is rock scrambles the like I have never seen. Huge boulders the size of cars lie helter skelter to one another with deep crevices in between.

Trying to figure out which way to negotiate the rocks is really hard because unlike other sections of the trail, there is no trail. It's just a big jumble of rocks. Occasionally I can make out some very faint white arrows pointing the direction but they are few and far between. Often I don't even see the arrows until I have descended or ascended or gone around some rocks trying to find the right route. My backpack is getting really scuffed up from the tight spots and the backs of my legs are getting abraded from sliding over the rocks.

About an hour into the notch, it starts to rain steadily. I can't afford to get cold while climbing up and down these boulders so as soon as I find a safe spot where I can take off my backpack, I put on my rain coat realize my rain pants which are cheap Frog Toggs will be perfect to protect my legs from the rocks. I will probably tear them to bits, but at this point I don't care.

The rain makes everything slippier so I have to really watch my step. I keep thinking about how a man last month got stuck in here for 5 hours and had to call search and rescue to come help him out. I really don't want to end up on the evening news.

I make it out of the notch at 4:25, which is 1 hour and 55 minutes after I started. I'm a little scraped in spots and my pants are shredded on the seats, but I am elated!

I collect water from the stream at the south end of the notch and set up camp at a tent site just beyond. The wind is howling and there's nowhere protected to set up my camp because I'm on the side of the mountain. The wind is howling through the valley, so I try to tighten down my lines on the tarp as best I can.

By putting up my tarp first I can then set up everything else under the protection the tarp provides me. As soon as I get my hammock hung I strip out off all my wet hiking gear and put on my dry wool sleeping clothes.

I sit on the side of my hammock and heat the water for my dinner. I eat and I am asleep as soon as the sun sets. 

Today's Stats: 7.4 miles, 1,965 feet gain

Trail Stats: 1,924 miles, 392K feet gain

Appalachian Trail Day 163 - Stealth Campsite to Carlos Col Shelter (Mile 1,902 to Mile 1,917)

I wake up at 5:07, with the slight change in light just before dawn, like I have pretty much every other morning when sleeping in the woods. I slept extremely well last night and get up and stretch and water the leaves. I'm in no real hurry so I decide to sit in my hammock and update my blog posts until the sun rises a little higher.

When the daylight is bright enough to pack without a headlamp, I pack while watching the antics of the many squirrels and chipmunks inhabiting the area, and hit the trail at 6:40. 

The day promises to be warm and it's slightly humid so I don't mind putting on my hiking clothes, still damp from yesterday's exertion. 

From the campsite the trail the trail starts straight uphill, and climbs up to Mt. Hayes. The trail crosses several false summits until reaching the peak.  

The climb up is steep in places but gradual for the most part. The trail passes through spruce forest and crosses several large rocky outcrops, worn down by tens of thousands of feet walking across the surfaces.

The Mount Hayes summit is nothing to get excited about. The only way to delineate the peak is a sign marking a cross trail. The trail descends from the mountain for a mile at what is supposed to be a stream crossing but ends up being a couple of muddy puddles. I need water and I'm able to find shallow pool that is fairly free of debris, and filter a couple of liters of water and eat a snack before tackling the next climb.

The trail starts up a rocky face where I have to scramble a couple of times. After 500 feet of climbing I come to a huge rock ledge with beautiful views of the northern Presidentials behind The Carters in the foreground. I can see Gorham In the valley below.  I take advantage of the 5g Network to upload two days of blog posts before continuing another 200 feet up the unnamed peak.

That descent down this unnamed mountain is typical White Mountain hiking. I encounter a few tricky drops where I have to use my hands and boot scoot, but it's not so bad. At the bottom, I come to a stream but the only water is a pool that is covered in spruce needles. I guess I'll have to wait for the next water source a few miles away and be judicious with my water consumption for the next 1,000 foot climb.

My climb up the mountain is pretty in a couple spots, but mostly just more of The Big Green Tunnel - a nickname for the Appalachian Trail. There's some rocky ledges with views to the south and west. The climb is challenging but not the worst I've had in the Whites. At the top, the rock ledges are in the direct sunshine, and without a breeze it's rather hot, but still quite pretty. I have hiked six miles at this point and feeling great. I think I finally have the right timing and amount of electrolytes and carbs and other macros, and my legs are getting the job done without too much work.

The trail goes around the beautiful Page Pond, where there is a resident moose that visits the pond in the evenings. I don't see a moose, but the pond is very big and pretty, with loads of dragonflies zipping about over the water.

The trail leaves the pond and goes up another 800 feet along the tree-covered ridge before starting a mild descent towards another pond. The app shows the trail skirting Dream Lake, but a sign says the AT has been rerouted, avoiding the lake. Apparently maintaining the trail through the bog is a lost cause, so the AMC decided to take the high road and reroute the trail to go up above the pond.

After another mile and a half, through some very frustrating twists and turns on an extremely narrow trail encroached by raspberry canes and witch Hazel I come to Upper Gentian Pond.  Like the other alpine ponds, Upper Gentian is very pretty, albeit small. It looks like this is the water source gor the next few miles, but I decided to hold off on collecting water from the bog directly. I will go downstream and take my chances, hoping for a better source downhill.

So, the stream that I followed downhill is the outflow of the bog and Is not flowing at all. There are pools of stagnant water littered with debris and lots of bugs floating on top. No thank you!

As I'm walking down along the stream that is a bug-infested swamp, a hiker comes towards me. He is the first person that I have seen since yesterday afternoon. I was starting to think that I had been transported to some parallel universe and I was no longer on the Appalachian Trail.

We say hello and I tell him I haven't seen anyone all day. He is with his tramily (trail family) and the rest of them are at the Gentian Pond Shelter just up the trail. He is in search of fresh water and I'm sad to tell him that the last decent water source was two and a half miles ago, and that the only water source uphill is another bog. He wrinkles his nose and says that he is worried about Giardia.  I tell him that he should be fine as long as he filters the water appropriately. 

He turns around and we talk as I follow him up the trail. We cross a stream that looks like a bog outflow, and I tell him that I'm trying to decide what I'm going to do but in the meantime I'm going to stay here and take my chances on the water.

I'm actually pleasantly surprised by the water. What I thought was a blog outflow stream tastes delicious after filtering,  and it's cold too. That means that it's not all bog water but mixed with some fresh water. While I'm filtering my water I'm trying to figure out my next step. 

If I don't stay here at Gentian Pond, the next shelter is 5.2 miles away. Not a problem,  but it's already almost 4 pm and I have about four hours before it gets really dark. I should be able to do that even if Mount Success is as bad as the comments say it is. The only thing is that my legs are getting tired. I've already done 3,000 feet and the haul over Mount Success to the next campsite is an additional 2,300 feet of climbing, which is a lot to do before nightfall. 

Screw it I'm gonna go for it! The worst case scenario is I have to stop along the way and set up my hammock. If I go a couple of miles and think there's no way I'm going to make it up and over before dark I will just stay on this side of the mountain.  In preparation I take some caffeine electrolyte tablets. I'm may pay for it later, but it will give me the extra pep that I will need to hike until dark.

Going up towards Mount success is no joke but similar to the other climbs in New Hampshire. It's my new normal. The hike is steep and slippery with all the dirt and pine needles on the rocks. It's 1,100 feet of gain over 1.5 miles, but most of it is in the first 8/10 of a mile. After that it's a lot of bog bridges and small climbs up to the top.

I get to the summit of Mount Success at 6:00 p.m. and the sun is starting to drop over the mountain ridges south of Washington. It's absolutely breathtaking up here with a wide expanse of rock faces mixed with the low scrub of spruce and blueberries and cranberries. There are several boggy areas with bog bridges connecting the rocks

I can't understand what all the hoopla is about. This hike hasn't been any worse than any other hike so far, and it's actually been a little fun. I grab some cranberries and blueberries and realize that I have to hike 32 minute miles to make it to the shelter by full dark so I pick up my pace as I go down the mountain, praying that I don't have any crazy rock scrambles to impede my process. 

It's easy going for the first half mile or so but then it gets a little crazy. I come to a rock wall and there is a rope hanging down the face. I don't really need to use the rope; I think it's more for the people who are descending southbound and I think that it would have been a great thing to have a few of these ropes when I was descending Carter a couple days ago. 

I'm making decent time but then I get to the most insane jumble of huge boulders. I can't even tell which is the best way to descend. It's such a huge maze of some of the biggest rocks I've scrambled over in my life. This is going to take me a few minutes! In between the rocks are huge gaps. If I fall down in between any of these I have no idea how I could get out. I end up making my way down but I think I've put a couple of scrapes in my backpack in the process.

A quarter mile later I walk along what would normally be a waterfall but it's dry. This region really needs some rain, but I hope it quits until I get a little farther away from these rock scrambles. A new wooden ladder scales a rock wall, and at the top I see a sign.  Wait!! I am in Maine!!! This is so amazing. New Hampshire was gorgeous but boy was it hard. I don't think anything's going to change in Maine. If anything I think it's going to remain difficult for the next 200 miles. 

I take a quick picture and video because I need to get to the shelter. I only have a few minutes before sunset and I still have a half mile to the shelter trail and then an additional hike down the mountain to the shelter. I round the corner and come to the Ledges. These are another big jumble of rocks. Welcome to Maine!

It takes me a few minutes to negotiate The Ledges because I go down one way and then realize that there's no way I can continue on this route so I have to go back up and around and down.

A few minutes later I get to the side trail for the shelter. The sun has already set and the light is very dim under the dark canopy of the spruce trees. I still have just enough ambient light see the rocks so I don't pull out my headlamp.

I arrive at the shelter at 8:15 just as full dark sets. Tents are set up all around the perimeter, and the shelter is empty, so I'm going to be a shelter rat for the night. I have one cup of water left and I'm too tired to eat so I set up my sleeping pad and change into my sleeping clothes and skip dinner, which I will probably pay for tomorrow. 

At nine o'clock I am snuggled in my down top quilt. I am so tired, but finding it hard to unwind. You know when you are exhausted but your brain is still really wired and it's hard to power down? I start doing some deep breathing exercises to calm my body and I start getting cramps in my back. It's no wonder; carrying that backpack up and down all those rock scrambles really stressed my muscles. I sit up and do a couple of stretches and then I am back down and out for the night.

Today's Stats: 15.4 miles, 5,430 feet ascent 

Trail Stats: 1,917 miles,  390K feet gain