| September 23, 2005 |
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It's 7:30am and I'm getting ready to leave
the Mahoosuc Notch Shelter. I'm going to go to Full Goose Shelter
which is 5.1 miles. This doesn't seem like very far in
distance, but I'm going over the Mahoosuc Arm. The guys that
cr4ossed it yesterday told me it took them a little over 2 1/2
hours. It's very rocky a lot of hand over hand. I hope
this rain that's going to be coming through waits until I get
through all the notches. |
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I may not have much of a chance to record
any information today because of the rocks. I'm just a little
on the anxious about them. Especially hiking by myself through
there. The guys told me that there are some people coming
behind them. At least 3 today. That was good news! |
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NOTE:
Mahoosuc Notch is famous for ice found in deep crevices though out
the year. Many call this scramble under, around, over, and
through the boulders the most difficult mile on the trail. |
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This air is very cold today. The wind
has picked up a good bit. This worries me about being up on
top of the ridge lines. Speck Pond is just beautiful. A
lot of lily pads on it. This is the highest pond
altitude wise in Maine. I have a little bit of a sore ankle
this morning, I turned it last night just before I got to the
shelter. |
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It's really cloudy, that's not good.
I can feel the moisture in those clouds as they whip by. I
stayed with Packas, Atrain and Farmer last night at the shelter.
I'm getting up higher on the mountain and it looks like I'm going to
be socked in, nothing but clouds. |
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It's interesting that all the board walks
I'm hiking, you wouldn't think that there would be hardly any water
up here. |
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The trail has been rocky and rooty; some
hand over hand boulders just getting up to here. A lot of pine
trees and shrubs, kind of the normal Maine trail. A big old
hen turkey was sitting in the lane. Took off just I came up to
it and scared the bee gee's out of me. She was a big thing.
To this point I've had minimal hand over hand rock climbing.
I've had quite a bit of rounded rock hiking. Thos are kind of
fun. |
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I think I got to the stream in the notch.
There's nothing telling me that. I got off the mountain OK.
I scooted down a lot of the rocks, twisted and turned around a lot
of them. Hiked through some of them. I was able to
manage them OK. I got her at 9:35am. Had a little snack
and getting ready to start up the hill again. |
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That section was a rock scrambling
section. Just hiking on top one boulder then another.
This looks like another big section of rock scrambling also.
It does go right beside of a stream. Over the period of years
it probably has switched places. I weaving in and out of some
large boulders. This is rough! Big stuff! Some big
drop off and caves all cover with moss and stuff that if you're not
careful you wouldn't see them. |
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This is pretty rough going up. I can
imagine what it's going to be like going down. I going down
into one of these big cave holes that your supposed to crawl
through. I don't know if I'll have to take my pack off or not.
I'll try a couple of these, then I'll try a way to get around them
if I can. I standing underneath and I still have my pack on.
The air is very cold underneath these rocks.
Sandy's
voice is echoing. Kathy I just crawled through
another cave area, and I didn't have to take off my pack again.
I had to walk like a duck underneath there for a while. Then
put my feet ahead of me and kind slide out. There was barely
enough room for me and my pack to get through. Rough! |
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I've been able to hear the water underneath
me as I'm going over the top of the rocks and quite a few times it's
cropped out where you can actually see it. I'm standing over a
water falls right now, I believe. The wind is really picking
up too. |
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This is the third time I've bee down under
these blooming rocks. This on I can stand up the biggest part
of the way. Certainly hasn't been an easy trek today. |
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I did it! I just got through falling
up one of these solid rocks, slid off it onto some other rocks,
knocked the wind out of me, luckily I didn't get hurt. I don't
know how I'm going to get up over this one. I finally got up
OK. I slipped from the moisture and stuff, but I finally got
up it ok. I'm going to have on sore hip, I know that. I
landed on 2 big rocks and there was a big crevice close to me,
I'm lucky that I didn't break an arm or something. |
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I just passed two ladies that were slack
packing, one was from Maine and the other one was from NH.
Luckily they didn't see that fall. |
 You should see the walls on either side of
this notch. It's probably 150 feet high on both sides. I
got through the notch ok and heading up Filling Mountain trail to
the Full Goose Shelter for the night. Have to straight up the
hill with large boulder climbing, big rock steps, big ladders steps
and not an easy climb. I think what it is, is coming up out of
the gorge with big mountain walls. Anyway when I got to the
top it was just beautiful, a lot boardwalk hiking through a sledge
like area, kind of a swampy moss stuff, low shrubs up to my knees.
When I go on the solid rock, I had a beautiful view of the valley
below. I can where I had been yesterday. Coming down off
of here I've got some big boulders that I'm having to work my way
down. Very slippery, and I scooted down some of them, still in
the pines, still in the rocks, still in the water, but the top of
the mountain was absolutely gorgeous. |
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Devin's birthday was the 21st. Happy Birthday
Devin! Be sure to save grandma a piece of cake. She's
thirteen! |
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Full Goose Shelter is a really nice shelter. This
is one of the AMC shelter that you are supposed to pay to use.
Everybody is gone now, so it's free. It's been a rough day.
It is 3:30pm when I got into here and I'm going to call it quits.
Tomorrow I'll head toward Gorham NH. I'll talk to you
tomorrow. |
|
Swing'n Jane |
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