Day 3: July 16, 2009
The day's walk: 5.1 very rugged miles
After going to bed at sunset and getting a full night's sleep, I woke up before 6am feeling very refreshed. I got up, grabbed my camera, and headed down to the pond to take some photos, then get some water from the spring and our food from the bear box along the way.
On the way to get water, I spent a while chatting with an older, white-haired AT section hiker named Padre, who had come through Mahoosuc Notch a couple days before. He had a rough time coming through—evidenced by the numerous scrapes, cuts, and bandages on his legs—and ended up sleeping under some boulders in the notch. He said it took all the next day took make it up Old Speck, since it's very steep coming up that way, so he warned me that it would be tough going down.
While we were chatting, a pair of gray jays was hopping around the lean-to searching for scraps.
Some views of the trails around the Speck Pond site. On the left, the drinking/washing water source. On the right, some rocks along one of the trails.
We packed up and got on our way by 9am. After climbing a little ways up from the pond to Mahoosuc Arm, we had a good view of where we had come and where we were going.
Looking back up to Old Speck. In the full-sized version, you can just make out the tower on the top.
The ridge of Old Speck on the left, and then Slide Mtn. and Sunday River Whitecap on the right.
Looking down into Mahoosuc Notch, which we then descended very steeply toward.
At one point, Tom was standing at the bottom of a large rock that Jon and I were sliding down, and suddenly a dog appeared next to him! The owner and a friend soon caught up, and explained that they and the dog had been hiking all the way since Pennsylvania!
Here are some more level views of the cliffs, as we got closer to the bottom.
We stopped at this brook to rest up and get some food right before entering the notch. Most people come through the other direction, from the south, and this seems to be where they stop to celebrate finishing.
Here's Tom scrambling over some "baby" boulders—sort of a warm-up for what we were about to encounter.
Tom peering into the first of many deep overhangs or caves, which the trail probably passed through—it passed through a lot of spots like this!
This mushroom and moss photo is probably one of my favorites of the trip, aesthetically.
Tom cheerfully peering out of one of the overhangs that the trail went straight through. At least this one was big enough that we could leave our packs on our backs...
Some cool roots growing over a cave.
Jon stopping to get a snack or drink, or adjust something. This is typical of what most of the terrain looked like.
Jon squeezing through a very narrow crack, and dragging his pack through behind him.
Some of the less tread-upon boulders (the trail went around these).
Jon passing through another one of the mini-caves.
After getting all the way up these rocks, Tom and Jon realized that the trail didn't actually go that way. But going part way up did turn out to be the easiest way I could find to get around a very difficult spot. A lot of the time in the notch is spent trying to figure out how to move along without falling and dying. The day before, actually, a hiker had fallen and hit his head, and paramedics had to trek in three miles from the nearest dirt road to carry him out.
Around the half-way point, it began to rain, so we put the rain covers on our packs and I took fewer photos.
I did get the camera out for this view of the cliff on Mahoosuc Mountain, though.
I also thought it was worth capturing evidence of the third (and final) carcass sighting of the trip—which is a confirmed moose. Due to the popularity of this section of trail, we had heard about these moose bones back at the Speck Pond shelter. The caretaker told us that the animal had fallen in the notch and broken its legs two years ago, and the official decision was to let nature take its course. But he said he heard a story that someone slit its throat with a hunting knife to help it along. Regardless, all that is left now is this pile of bones, and some peoples' attempts to cover it up a little.
Another of my favorite nature still-life photos of the trip, as we neared the southern end of the notch.
After that, we still had 1.5 miles up and over Fulling Mill Mountain to get to the Full Goose Shelter. It wasn't even 3pm, but we were tired enough that walking out 2.2 miles to the car sounded slightly tempting. Still, we all wanted to be out in the woods another day, so after a long break, we continued. At the South Peak of Fulling Mill, we saw more great mountaintop landscape.
As we were standing at the top of the mountain, suddenly a cloud actually rolled in over us, which was very cool to watch.
We made it to the lean-to at Full Goose around 4:30, and the only other guest was an older gentleman who was quiet and meditative. He had a thick but ambiguous accent (I thought it was southern Appalachian, but Jon and Tom switched to Mainer after initially thinking southern as well, which is funny because normally the two sound nothing alike). He said that he was hiking slowly south, on his way to the Carolinas where he would spend the winter, then he would head back up here next summer—a quirky old drifter, but not at all a bad person to share a lean-to with. Without much else to do, we ate an early dinner, and then lay down in our sleeping bags. We were all asleep before it even got dark, which actually was perfect, because the plan was to get up at 5am and hike out to the car so Jon could catch a bus at 2pm in Portland.