Day 144 - Full Goose Shelter to Grafton Notch

It’s getting dark early now. Everyone went to bed soon after nightfall. I think I held out til 9.

Slept very well for being in a shelter. Those two Benadryl tablets didn’t hurt, either. Woke up to a rainless sky. I guess we would have to tackle Mahoosuc Notch after all. Everything was still wet, though.

Took a long time just to get to the notch. It ended up being the jumble of rocks I expected it to be -- and what I thought Dante’s Inferno would have been like. Took us over 2 ½ hours to do this one mile. But I made it through, with Dave’s help.


 

Oh, the notch ate my watch! I feel lost without it. But will I bother/be able to buy another one? I don’t know. It would be nice to just get up in the morning and go to bed at night when the mood strikes. But it could also be dangerous -- especially in the a.m.

Had a steep climb up Mahoosuc Arm, followed by Speck Pond. At 3:15, we had only done five miles (after seven hours). I was using muscles in my hands, arms, feet, and legs that don’t normally get used in hiking. But this isn’t your average hiking.

Why didn’t I appreciate Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, etc. when we walked through them? Hopefully the southbounders will take advantage of the easier terrain. Decided to push on five more miles to Grafton Notch. It was a bit of a risk to get there before dark if the trail was similar to earlier in the day. But we took our chances, and I’m glad we did.

More climbing to the top of Old Speck (no view), then a 3 ½ mile descent which could have been traumatic but was actually the nicest stretch of trail we’d seen all day. Got to the parking lot at 6:15. There’s a small picnic area where we, along with Swag and Bad Moon, cooked and set up our tents. Not much traffic on the road nearby. It was raining earlier but is just drizzling now.

Oh, we crossed the 1900-mile mark about a mile back. Yippee! And we’re going into a town tomorrow to resupply and maybe stay at a hostel. These little things help keep me going. Eighty more “tough” miles to go.

P.S. -- Fall is in the air. Lots of semi-colored (brown, yellow, and green) leaves on the ground and the smell of rotting apples (I guess it’s leaves).