Day 2: July 30, 2006

Plan: bust out the last 12 miles of the Grafton Loop Trail and make it back to Dan's car before dinner. Eat a real meal, and find a campground to stay at for the night.

The day's walk: 12.1 miles

We didn't get up as early as we had planned. I think it was about 8:00! We finally hit the trail pretty late, and had a lot of miles to cover.

The trek over Long Mountain wasn't especially difficult compared to Baldpate the day before (though somewhere in there, along a flat section believe it or not, my right knee started to hurt). There weren't really any views from the top either, so I just sorta walked along.

Somewhere in the watershed after Long Mountain the trail wound alongside, and twice cut across, areas of ugly logging. It was about 10°F warmer without the trees, so it made for a hot and depressing couple of hours. We just kept moving.

These flowers seemed to flourish near the logging.

Here's the enormous scar from the logging road.

And then we started up Puzzle Mountain. We all stopped for a long lunch break at Stewart Campsite, and briefly considered staying the night there, even though it was only 3pm (we had gone 7 miles already and still had 5 miles and a pretty serious mountain between us and the road). But in the end it seemed like a much better idea to just push it, because then we could eat a real meal for dinner, and get an early start on the second segment of our trip.

I saw hundreds of these beetles along the trail, doing their part to keep the forest floor free of rot...

And also to propogate thier species.

Just keep going UP.

Dan and Mark got really far ahead once we started to ascend Puzzle Mountain (they'd been landscaping all summer, okay). The left behind a map on a distincive cairn at a scenic spot that appeared to be the summit, so Matt and I caught up to each other there and took a long rest. In the photo below, you can see the thin line of Route 26, and Old Speck (the tallest summit of our trip, which was still two days ahead of us at this point).

Then we hiked on and eventually came to the actual summit, with even more gorgeous views!

Again, Route 26, Old Speck on the left, and now West and East Baldpate (from the first day) on the right.

Baldpate and Long Mountain, looking over what we covered in the last two days!

South of the Grafton Loop Trail lies Sunday River Ski Resort. Or maybe it was aliens.

Normally I lag and feel like I'm going to die going uphill, but then I barrel down with no complaint whatsoever. (Many people feel the opposite: that the downhills are way worse. I guess it depends whether you prefer exhaustion, or wobbly legs and pounding on your body.) On the way down Puzzle, though, my right knee got MUCH worse. By the time I reached the bottom, at about 6:30pm, I couldn't put any weight on it when it was flexed and it hurt badly even to walk on flat ground. I thought I might be done for, and was pretty disappointed. The fear seemed to be cemented into reality when I shut the belt clip for my pack in the car door, and shattered it. Without a belt clip, there was no way I could carry the pack for another two days.

For dinner we went to the Sunday River Brewery and pigged out. We looked pretty pathetic all limping across the parking lot and groaning while getting in and out of the booth. And of course we were really dirty. I wish I'd brought my camera.