8/24/00
Day 154
Sabbath Day Pond lean-to
1937.7 miles
Once again, it's been awhile since I set pen to paper. I think the last letter I sent you was from atop Mt. Washington. Big changes since then.
It was only 7 miles from Lake of the Clouds to Madison Spring Hut, but all of it stepping from rock to rock, and the mist changing to a light rain. I did work-for-stay there at Madison as well, and in addition to washing dishes I was part of the evening's entertainment. Another Northbounder who showed up, named "Grits" (from South Georgia - could you tell?), and I, with additional help from "Rabbit" and "Cicely B." (who were both staying at the hut as paying guests) did a Q & A session with the crowd of people staying at the hut. It lasted 50 minutes, and was made more interesting, I think, by having the four of us to give varying answers to the questions. The hut crew said they had never seen the audience so riveted to the evening presentation before. I actually enjoyed it, and it made me verbalize some thoughts about thru-hiking that I'd been having.
The next day was a hellish descent down to Pinkham Notch, then an
exhausting climb up Wildcat and over to Carter Notch. After a couple days
in Gorham, I pulled a long day to get to Carlo Col shelter just before dark, and
just over the Maine/New Hampshire state border. It felt great to finally have
reached my home State. The next day, however, the weather was pretty
lousy and I had some hard work ahead of me. I crossed the bare summit
of Goose Eye Mountain in driving wind and rain. Then a steep descent down to
begin "the toughest mile on the AT", Mahoosuc Notch. The Notch is a narrow
gorge between 2 steep peaks that is filled with large boulders. You have to
jump from rock to rock, and even crawl between or under some of the
larger ones! It's nerve-racking and tiring, and at the same time sort of fun.
Then we still had the long, hard climb up Mahoosuc Arm to the Speck Pond
shelter. Surprisingly, Grits and I were the only ones there (probably on account
of the weather). I ate dinner by the light of my headlamp and I was so cold
I was wearing my sleeping bag like a coat. I saw some nice views from
Baldpate the following day after the skies cleared. After a town day in
Andover, I did another long, rainy day to get to the Beamis Mountain lean-to.
Today I took it easy and did a short day here to Sabbath Day Pond. I've had
a longing to hear the sound of loons calling and Southbounders have
mentioned this as a likely place. I heard them a few times this afternoon and
it's still as haunting a sound as I remembered it.