Mountains Under Foot

From Hazard’s notes:
Day 106: August 23, 2009
Travel:
From: US 2; Gorham, NH
To: Carlo Col Shelter, ME
Beginning: 7:30am
Ending: 4:30pm
Number of miles hiked:
a) Trail – 16.9
b) other – .3 to shelter
c) AT Mile Marker – 1897.3 cumulative.
Weather:
AM: Overcast with bursts of sunlight periodically.
PM: Drizzle starting just before we entered Maine. Tapered off by the time we got to the shelter.
People: Hitch to trail (owner), trio of French Canadians, Old guys, large crew of newbies.
Animals: I think they were hiding from the rain.
Money: $0, $1909 cumulative.
Notes of the day:
AM: The owner of the hostel told us last night that if we wanted a ride back to the trail we needed to be ready to go at 7:00 am. By 7:30 am, we were setting out from Hogan Rd to finish what was left of New Hampshire and enter our final state of Maine. Sadly, for the third day in a row, the weather had no sympathy for our milestones and we expected rain to fall at any time. It was really just a race in the morning to see how many miles we could do at a reasonable level of dryness before we got soaked and miserable again. It seemed to take forever to get to the top of Mt. Hayes and the start of the Mahoosuc Trail. The rest of the morning we snaked our way over Cascade Mtn. and around Dream Lake and past Moss Pond until all four of us ended up at the sign for the side trail to Gentian Pond Shelter. Crocstar was waiting there eating one of his hourly snacks with Nick when Spoon and I arrived. Just as we broke out the peanut butter and crackers it started to drizzle. Frustrated with the timing of the whole thing, I stuffed some crackers in my pocket and a spoon full of peanut butter in my mouth and got my pack cover on to continue hiking. The only thing worse than hiking in the rain is sitting in the rain.

PM: From there it was a long three miles to the exposed summit of Mt. Success. On a day like this, it was hard to feel successful while the cold rain fell. On the way down Mt. Success we passed a huge group of hikers that were lead by a guy that seemed to know very little about backpacking and the area around him. It was a classic case of the blind leading the blind. After we passed them, there were a few sections coming down that we had to just throw our poles over the edge of the rocky cliff and lower ourselves down with our arms. There just wasn’t a super safe way to negotiate the trail when it’s wet and slick. At the base was a small sign that marked our arrival to our last leg of the trail. It stated, “Maine – The way life should be”, which seemed like a big joke given the current conditions. Crocstar took a few blind pictures since the LCD on his camera was broken for the second time on the trip and my camera was still out of commission from the storm off of Mt. Madison a few days back. While we had intended to go another five miles to Full Goose Shelter, we all were just done with the day and decided to cut it short and stay at Carlo Col Shelter instead. When we arrived, the rain took a break because it knew we had shelter and there was no reason to keep raining when there are no hikers to get soaked. The shelter already had a trio of French Canadians cooking dinner and conversing in French. It became apparent that we were really close to the Canadian border at that point and that Canadians actually like to travel to the US for a week long vacation in the woods. A couple of old guys were also staying at the shelter tonight but were out on a trip that was a lot longer and more open ended. They were very vague about where they started and where they were headed. We peeled off our wet stuff and hung everything up the best we could inside the shelter. Spoon and I made about 6 people’s worth of food, completely filling our 1.5 liter pot with pasta left over from our resupply in Lincoln. Since we stayed in the huts two nights and made it through the Whites really fast and were set to resupply tomorrow night, we didn’t want to carry more food than we had to through Mahoosuc Notch and Arm. After about two hours the large group that we passed maybe two miles from the shelter finally came into camp looking really burnt out. Thankfully they chose to set up their tents on the tent pads behind the shelter rather than disturb the people in the shelter. That night I played around with my camera because I felt like I had nothing to lose since it wouldn’t turn on in the first place and monkeyed around with the lens cover such that the lens actually extended when I pressed the On/Off button. I guess the moisture created a seal such that there was enough resistance for the lens to not extend on its own. Once I pried it open, it operated normally. One small victory in an uneventful day. Crocstar and I checked out his pictures by putting his memory card in my camera (since his LCD was broken) and then I made a call to my Mom and Catherine before calling it a day.