Grafton Notch to East B Hill Road

Monday, 9/7 Labor Day

AT Miles = 10.3 / 1921.8
Other Miles = 0.1 / 60.0
Total Miles = 10.4 / 1981.8

I haven't slackpacked since those two days back in Massachusetts when Jodi came out and slackpacked me. Boy, is it nice!

I had arranged for a 7:00AM shuttle from the hostel back to Grafton Notch, so I set the alarm on my cell phoneto go off at 5:15. By 5:30 I was seated at the counter of the local breakfast place ordering up a hot, cooked breakfast. So much better than the cold cereal or instant oatmeal I eat when I am camping.

By 7:45 I was starting my hike up the south side of Baldpate Mtn. With only a light day pack on even climbing a mountain was almost a joy. I stopped at Baldpate Shelter to look through the shelter register and see when some of the people I know came through here, and to refill my water bottle. Pushing on, I got to the summit of Baldpate around 10:00. The mountain is aptly named as the top is mostly a dome of naked rock. It was fun walking up it on this nice dry day, but it surely would be a different story in wet weather, or something like a freezing fog! That would make it suicidal.

Somehow I ended up being the only person at the summit and I stayed there for about an hour. It was wonderfully quiet. All I could hear was the wind blowing, and the occasional fly buzzing around. I could hear no cars, no trucks, no lawnmowers, chainsaws, or airplanes. How wonderful!

I took advantage of the cell phone reception up there and spent some time talking to Jodi back home while lazing in the sunshine, then I called the hostel and told them I estimated I would finish the hike by 3:00PM and arranged for them to pick me up at that time.

Leaving the summit of Baldpate I had to negotiate a few tricky sections going down the north side, but mostly I was actually hiking on a normnal hiking trail. How refreshing!

I soon reached Frye Notch Leanto and stopped there for lunch. Lunch was a ham & cheese grinder I had ordered while I was earting breakfast this morning. Yum! It was now 12:30 and I had 4.6 miles left to hike. Based on my experience over the last few days, there was no way I was going to make it in time. But those standards didn't apply here. I made great time on the relatively easytrail, and by 2:00PM I had reached the stream crossing in Dunn Notch. At the same time, I caught up with another hiker staying at the hostel, and since he had a car parked at the road I called the hostel and canceled the scheduled shuttle. Half an hour latedr we were at the road, and another half hour after that we were back at the hostel, I was showered and changed into (relatively) clean clothes, and I had walked to the general store to buy beer and Ben & Jerrys ince cream.

I spent the rest of the afternoon sitting on the front porch chatting with some of the other hikers, and with David, one of the proprietors.

As a sideline, David makes jewelry out of moose droppings. Anybody out there want a nice pair of moose pellet earrings? David tried to convince me to buy a pair for my wife, but I am quite sure Jodi would not appreciate them.

Maine is really beautiful, especially with the ideal weather we have enjoyed lately. I am afraid my fixation on my physical difficulties is overshadowing that and I am not giving youy a fair picture. In spite of all the difficulties, I do appreciate the beauty all around me. I guess I just wish it didn't hurt so much to get out there sometimes. Slackpacking takes a good deal of the physical difficulty away, and let's me appreciate it all the more. I expect to stay here at least another two days and get about 24 miles of trail done by slackpacking. I could keep slackpacking from here beyond that, but the shuttles get more and more expensive as I get farther away. I'll figure that out when the time comes.

--
"Home is where I hang my food bag"

Monkeywrench
Allen Freeman
allen@allenf.com
www.allenf.com
allenf.blogspot.com