START LOCATION: Carlo Col Shelter
FINISH LOCATION: Speck Pond Shelter
TODAY'S MILEAGE: 9.5
TRIP MILEAGE: 1,907.7
MILES TO GO: 271.4
Gorgeous stars at Carlo Col last night. I came out of the shelter and there were thousands of stars, a few shooting stars and lots of satellites visible. Not to mention a full moon rose and shone in the shelter around 2 AM, when two people came rolling in. Unbelievable. I think they were part of the Outward Bound group that was tenting there and must have got fed up with their tents. Anyway, they made a ruckus but I quickly fell back asleep afterwards.
I was up by 6AM and around 7:30 Able, Marty McFly, myself, Casper and NLC hit the trail in that order. It was a big day. We were facing Mahoosuc Notch, another debatably toughest stretch of hiking on the entire AT. Actually, I agree with this. And I was so ready for it that I planned on these 9 1/2 miles we did with little aspiration of pushing further. These were something not to be rushed.
We had about 6 miles to get to Mahoosuc Notch. In that span we summitted Mt. Carlo and all three peaks of Goose Eye Mountain. These were all beautiful alpine areas that reminded me of Big Bald down in NC/TN and of the table lands of Katahdin. I hiked with Casper and NLC for most of this stretch and got to know them as we hiked. Both are biologists from Vermont and a really cool couple to talk and hike with.
At Full Goose Shelter we all caught up with Able and McFly at 11AM. The morning had been a tough push and all of us got on the same page... Do to the 9.5 to Speck and call it a day. I knew they would. This agreement led to us having a nice long enjoyable lunch at the Goose. We reminisced about all the fun and weird places we'd stayed along the trail and swapped stories. Having met all these new people on the trail, I'm hearing about all kinds of hilarious stuff that the people I was with before the break knew nothing about. That's been the cool part of taking a 3 week hiatus... Lots of new peeps and stories.
We left the Goose and had about 1.5 miles to the start of Mahoosuc Notch. We knew we'd arrived from a sign that marked it. The Notch is a 1.1 mile long ravine between two steep mountain cliffs that has enormous boulders lining the bottom. The boulders are so large and jagged that they form narrow squeezes, deep tunnels and awkward scrambles. Every step taken in this boulder field is a result of careful, calculated decision making. Much of these require agility and hiking athleticism. I consider myself on the lower end of the thru-hiker agility scale. I do ok over rocks, but I'm rather slow and clumsy compared to my colleagues. So, I had been not looking forward to Mahoosuc. But going through with these four peeps... I had a blast. One hiker would pick a route over a boulder and another would find one better and we just leapfrogged our way through the whole thing. There was lots of laughs and joking around as we went through there. But, with the height and size of some of these boulders, it could have turned disastrous in a second. But, with the nice weather we all did well and were really able to enjoy it. We did the whole 1.1 miles in 1 hour 20 mins. That shows how slow and technical it was. In flat and straight Shenandoah, we were cranking out 3.8 miles per hour consistently.
We took a short break and ascended the Mahoosuc Arm. It's a steep 1,700' ascent that really taxed us after grinding out the notch. But, we powered through it and all pulled into Speck Pond Shelter simultaneously around 4:45PM. This was an early finish, but it was all good. We enjoyed some downtime here and chatted it up with the AMC caretaker. We are excited that this is the last fee campsite and last of the AMC managed section of trail... Back into the wilderness again.
Hoping to make a stop in Andover, ME tomorrow to get a light resupply, a good meal and a cheap place to stay. It's a tough push over Baldpate Mtn, but it should be an attainable goal to get to town.
-natedog
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