Off Trail and Some Wrap Up

On the 9th, we did 6.2 miles and camped at Redington Stream Campsite. On the 10th, we zeroed there. On the 11th, we did 10.4 miles and camped at Spaulding Mountain Lean-to. On the 12th, we did 6.2 miles and camped at the Crocker Cirque Campsite. On the 13th, we did 7.3 miles to Route 27 and got off trail.

This section of trail was nice, it had some amazing scenic views especially over Saddleback. The trail itself was nice as well. The best part of this section was the information packet in the Poplur Ridge Lean-to. The caretaker started trail maintenance in 1956 and build the lean-to in 1961. He has compiled questions left in the trail register at the lean-to and answered them in a laminated booklet.

Apparently this one guy has maintained the lean-to and his section of trail virtually by himself for the last 45 years. It is amazing to think of the amount of time he must have spent on the 5-10 miles that he maintains. It is a bit hard to believe really. What makes it even harder to believe is that one of the questions is if he had ever hiked the trail. He hasn't even hiked all of the Maine section. It is amazing that someone has been so involved with the trail for so long but hasn't hiked most of the trail.

So during this section I made the decision to get off the trail. It just seemed like more time on the trail was no longer enhancing my enjoyment of the trail. I wanted to make sure to stop being on the trail while I still was having a great time but I could sense that that might change soon. If I hadn't had to jump ahead I would have definitely kept on to finish since I was still having fun; but, without that drive, I didn't want the trail to lose its greatness in my mind. I figured much of my sense of the trail would be made by the way I finished and I wanted it to be good.

As it is now, I think this summer has caused me to have a lifelong love of backpacking. After making this decision I have been thinking of what my future on the trail might look like. I was surprised to realize that I think I want to start at Springer Mountain again at some point. It won't be next year but this whole experience has been so good that doing it all again seems like it would be a ton of fun. In the closer future, I think I will just work on doing the sections that I skipped. I look forward to spending more time in the woods.

After getting off trail, UV was convinced by people she talked to that she should go back and do more of the trail. This didn't make sense to me since we weren't finishing everything so what does a few more miles mean. I think after contemplating why I felt this way it is partially due to the fact that I've already hiked Katahdin many times. I have also hiked a lot in Maine so I think it just didn't mean as much to me and didn't offer the sense of closure that doing Katahdin for the first time would. Originally I was going to drop her back off on trail Sunday morning but she kept pushing it back until I dropped her off on trail yesterday (Wednesday). She didn't seem like she was looking forward to it at all but she was convinced it was something she should do. Doesn't make sense to me but hopefully she enjoys herself doing the 100-mile wilderness.

The end of the trail will be me going up to Katahdin and meeting UV when she gets there and doing the mountain with her. It should be a great conclusion of the summer, if the weather is nice. That should happen in roughly a week. I will post something showing that hike and probably do a few entries as I adjust back to normal life. I am terrible at getting posts up in a timely manner, though, so we shall see.

Finally Maine

On the 2nd, we did 6 miles and camped at Dream Lake. On the 3rd, we zeroed there due to the beauty. On the 4th, we did 7.4 miles to Carlo Col Shelter. On the 5th, we zeroed there since it never stopped raining that day. On the 6th, we did 7.2 miles and camped at Bull Branch at the north end of Mahoosuc Notch. On the 7th, we did 5.7 miles and camped roughly halfway down Old Speck Mountain. On the 8th, we did 3.8 miles and jumped to Rangeley and camped at Piazza Rock Lean-to.

So we haven't picked up our pace. It is just how things are working out. Besides, we keep hitting beautiful campsites that seem like they just have to be camped in by us. It doesn't seem right to not do what these locations clearly want. Otherwise, it has been another nice section of the trail. The trail just keeps going straight up and down, which is tough but enjoyable. There are also great views everywhere.

Two major events stand out since the last blog entry. They came on the same day but both stand out quite nicely in my mind. The first one came while hiking down Goose Eye Mountain. I guess the first thing to do with this story is to explain a bit about high elevation hiking in New England. If there are things that resemble flat areas they are probably very marshy. These areas are usually traversed with the help of rustic bridges that are just two boards between two logs. These work quite well but are almost always slightly run down. There are so many of these bridges, trail maintenance clubs can't keep up. When run down, the muddy ground has usually partially engulfed the bridge.

So Goose Eye Mountain has a ton of these bridges as you move between the east and north peak. Usually when I get to a run-down bridge I use my trekking pole to see if the bridge is just below the mud and stable. If it is just barely below the surface and stable, I use the bridge; if my pole sinks a few inches or more, I work my way around the edge of the muddy area. This usually works; sometimes working your way around the edge is a bit difficult but otherwise everything goes fine. Except this once.

I checked the submerged bridge, solid and just below the surface. In my head I was thinking that I was getting sick of trying to work around edges so the solid bridge was a relief. I hopped to the bridge. Suddenly things went wrong. Before I knew what happened I was thigh deep in mud. As I assessed my situation I quickly figured out what had happened. My hop had been accurate, sort of. I had hit where the bridge was but the two boards that made the bridge were farther apart than most of the bridges. I had gone right through the crack.

UV quickly made her way past me, dropped her pack on dry ground and returned to help. She got my pack off of me and took it to dry ground. Once she got there, I told her to get out my phone and document this with pictures. She had gotten a photo of it all with my pack on but photos on my phone could be put on my blog and I figured it would be appreciated. As I tried to get out, I realized that my right knee was just a bit wider then the crack in the bridge. With the force of my hop and the added weight of my pack that hadn't stopped me going thigh deep. Now I was trying to pull my entire leg out of the suction of mud. Not nearly as quick and easy. As I was struggling, all I could think was: I wish I hadn't decided to put on never-before-worn socks this morning. After a bit, I finally extricated myself from the bog and stood on dry land once again. My leg was completely covered in mud and if I looked close a bit of blood mixed in around my knee. Luckily, mud is good for cuts, right? We hit a stream in about a mile and I washed off, and you couldn't even tell what had happened but I doubt I will ever forget.

The other stand-out event was a bit less spectacular but was quite impressive in a different way. Later on the day of the mud pit of doom we hit Mahoosuc Notch. This is described in the guidebook as the most difficult mile on the AT. It is a narrow notch between Fulling Mill Mountain and Mahoosuc Arm. This section of trail basically makes me think that giants were up on the cliffs to either side cleaning. This crack in the earth probably seemed like a convenient place to sweep all the rocks that were messing up the cliff tops. The AT makes its way through this. It is roughly a mile long intense boulder climb.

I personally didn't find it extremely difficult, like the book said, but I did find it fun. Hiking is much more entertaining for me when it involves some amount of thinking. The journey through the notch took us about two hours. This seems like it is probably about average. We met people going south that said it took three and a half hours and someone who said they did it in one and a half. Everyone said it was fun, though. Our two-hour trip ended just in time since we got out of the notch and to the campsite right on the other side as it was starting to get dark enough to have to use headlamps. It was a great end to an interesting day.

So, based on our outrageously slow pace and lack of dedication to miles, we decided it made the most sense if our next resupply was at Grafton Notch and involved jumping ahead to Rangeley. There wasn't any section of the trail between that I really wanted to see and this puts us at least in shooting range of doing the hundred mile wilderness before I want to start readjusting to real life before work starts. My dad picked us up and drove us to Rangeley. Resupplying went smoothly, except the Leki dealer couldn't fix my poles and said I had to call them, and I was able to get a good charge of my phone at the IGA.

Mid afternoon, we got back on trail and headed off into the woods for what is hopefully a beautiful section. Saddleback then Spaulding mountain with the Crockers after that and then the lovely Bigelows. It is clearly a good section because the shelter two miles from the road has a two-person privy with a cribbage board! I've been looking forward to this for a while. UV even humored me and played a full game with me. :)

White Mountains

On the 25th, we did 6.4 miles and camped at the Nauman Campsite. On the 26th, we did 7.9 miles and camped at the Tuckerman's Ravine Shelter. On the 27th, we did 5.4 miles and camped on top of Wildcat Mountain peak D. On the 28th, we did 4.1 miles and camped on top of Carter Dome. On the 29th, we zeroed on Carter Dome. On the 30th, we did 6 miles and camped at the Imp Campsite. On the 31st, we did 6.1 miles and camped at Rattle River Shelter. On the 1st, we did 5.5 miles and camped on top of Mt Hayes.

So we got back on trail and started hiking in the rain, straight up. While it was actually kind of nice to be back in terrain that I consider mountains, it was not easy. The fact that I had just taken a week off and UV had taken a little over two probably didn't help either. Despite that, up we climbed. We went quite slowly and it was a lot of work but I found the trail much more enjoyable then the relatively flat and easy trail I had left. The downside of this was we had to do some night hiking to get to the campsite. There we had to pay to camp... not an outrageous concept to most people but after five months of free lodging it was surprisingly galling.

The next day we hiked up Mt Washington. The hike was nice and the weather was great. It was a little overcast but warm enough to sit on the peak of Washington in short sleeved shirts without any concern about temperature. On the way to the top, we cleaned the fridges at Lake of the Clouds hut for a great free lunch and six pieces of chocolate cake. Our speed of hiking, slow, combined with the long break for lunch and then the long break on the top to soak in the view (and eat more food) meant we weren't going to hit our target. The other option was a hut that would cost a ton and we wouldn't get there in time to get work for stay. To solve this problem we decided to take a bit of a shortcut.

On the AT, Pinkham Notch is 14 miles from the peak of Washington. I knew that, via Tuckermans Ravine, the notch was only about 4 miles from the peak and there is camping halfway down. This worked out perfectly. The caretaker even offered us work for stay if we went around and picked up trash.

During this day of hiking I came to the realization that the one aspect of hiking that doesn't directly increase my enjoyment is miles. Everything else about being out here is just great... miles not so much. The following days I embraced this ideology and didn't even care about hitting specific campsites. We just walk until we are tired or find a great place to pitch a tent. This is technically against the rules of the White Mountains but we do it in a way that is low impact and environmentally friendly.

The day after Washington had us climbing Wildcat. This is the hardest climb I've done so far on the trail. It was incredibly steep and just kept going. As a result we got to the second peak of Wildcat and found a great little sheltered campsite about .1 miles from the top of the gondola. It was a great day. Some amazing views, hard climbing and a decent lunch at the Pinkham Notch Lodge. The next day was a very short day to the top of Carter Dome. There we found the best campsite we had in a long time. It was right next to the trail but behind a thick screen of evergreens so no one even noticed us and we were at 4800 feet with an amazing view. It was so nice we just stayed there all next day. From there, we just did some short days and got down to Route 2 where we met Cassie with our food drops.

Originally we had planned to meet Cassie at Grafton Notch, but it was early in the week when we realized that we were going to be a few days short of getting there. We could have made it past Route 2 easily considering we took a zero and did a few easy days at the end. The trouble was there are no roads between Rt 2 and Grafton Notch. While normally this is actually a nice thing about a section of trail, it made meeting Cassie a bit tough. I guess when the consequence of something being "tough" is taking some really enjoyable easy days in the White Mountains, things are going pretty well. The actual act of resupplying was the best yet on trail. It was great to have a ride all lined up and someone that was just willing to make a stop at a store without question. It was also quite nice just to eat lunch and chat with Cassie.

After everything was taken care of, we got back on trail. We climbed to the first peak and found a great view and a flat rock... good spot for a tent. We should hit Maine tomorrow and maybe we will pick up the miles a bit but, then again, maybe we won't. I am not really concerned with anything except having a great time in the woods with UV. Maybe we will do all the miles in Maine and maybe not. I don't think I overly care. We will keep moving; one of the things I enjoy is camping in different new places and exploring, but I do so without concern or great ambitions. Just to spend time in the woods.