Speck Pond Shelter 1922.5 to East B Hill Road 1937.4 (14.9 miles, 912 total miles)
It had been a cold night, but sleeping with the rain fly on my tent had definitely helped keep in the warmth. It was also a cold morning, though, and my hiking shirt had stayed wet all night.
Catchup and I left at 8:30AM, a couple hours after Sunshine did. The day was starting to warm up and the sun was beginning to burn away some of the fog and clouds that had surrounded the campsite since the evening before.
We started the day by climbing Old Speck mountain, which I felt like we powered up quite well. There was a .3 blue blaze to the fire tower located on the summit, but there was still too much fog high up for us to feel as if we’d get a good view from the extra half mile.
Catchup and I had 3 miles downhill to Grafton Notch from there, which went pretty quick. The day had turned into full sun and quite warm. Coming off Old Speck I noted my 900 mile marker and I had a moment of happiness for that.
I was dismayed later on to find I was out of Propel packets. Catchup was nice enough to give me a couple electrolyte pills, but he has to get them in the mail so I didn’t want to take too many from him.
We had an 1,100 foot climb over 1.3 miles out of Grafton Notch, and for some reason I found it extremely difficult. It seemed that the past few days of hiking over the Wildcats, the Carter-Moriah range, and the Mahoosucs had finally caught up with me.
We had a mile of almost flat hiking after the incline, but I was noticing even the tiny bumps of elevation on the guide in southern Maine seemed very steep.
We got to Baldpate Lean-to, 80 yards off trail, to make a water and privy stop around 11:30AM. Gumby and Halfway arrived after a bit as well, and we noticed Gumby had forgotten his water bladder after he left, so Catchup put it in his pack to bring to him.
We had the rest of the climb up to Baldpate West Peak, another 1,000 feet over a mile, which went slightly easier than the beginning of the climb after having had lunch.
Another mile descent and ascent brought us to the East Peak, which involved a very steep climb up vertical rock for a third of a mile.
I did some mental gymnastics to get myself up the rock face, convincing myself I was the strongest hiker around and the mountain was giving me the energy to power my way up the climb.
It seemed to work, and halfway up the mountain I was charging up and over to the summit, where Catchup arrived a moment after me. We enjoyed a gorgeous 360 degree view around us before continuing on.
We hiked a steep and rocky downhill to Frye Notch Lean-to, where we caught up with Gumby and Halfway again. We returned the water bag to Gumby, and had a snack to gear up for the last climb of the day.
I was tired out, and the climb definitely felt bigger than it looked on the guide, we both agreed. We trail ran downhill for half a mile, before we found out Sunshine and Beast Mode had found another shuttle and didn’t have to wait on us.
After that, we slowed down for the last couple miles, because I was really feeling wiped and depleted. I was happy to run into Legz, Rude, and Daddy Long Legs near the road, who I hadn’t seen since Hikers Welcome.
We caught our shuttle around 4:45, and Don drove us to the store in town to resupply. The hostel we were staying at belonged to Don’s mother, a sweet older woman named Honey.
Catchup and I met Sunshine at the hostel, and we had an amazing homemade spaghetti dinner with several other hikers, and learned about Honey’s experience with the AT over decades and running the hostel she calls The Cabin.
It was a truly charming place, and Catchup and I shared a really nice private room with its own bathroom and laundry machines. It felt really good and necessary to get clean and decompress from all the hard miles we’d done.
We planned a few shorter days to get to Rangeley, where we’d be taking a couple days off with one of my very best friends, Ashley. I’d been looking forward to getting there my whole hike so far, and was very excited it was almost here.