Pinkham Notch to Grafton Notch

The steepest mile on the AT. The most difficult mile on the AT. The boggiest bogs on the AT (I hope!) Our last four day section going through the Wildcat and Mahoosuc Mountains has included the most gruelling and most entertaining hiking conditions of the trail so far – in fact, quite possibly the most gruelling hiking we’ve ever done! We loved it, but once again we’re taking a day off in town to rest and recover. We both have aches, pains, bruising and chafing, and although we only have 265 miles to go, we want to enjoy those miles, not hike ourselves into the ground!

Getting back on trail after our last day off in North Conway, we had a short warm-up alongside the Ellis River before the trail turned sharply uphill for what is apparently the steepest mile on the AT. It levels off a bit at the top, but on the steepest section, we climbed 1000 feet in half a mile, scrambling up steeply piled boulders and pulling up on tree roots, pouring sweat in the humid air.

We cooled down a little as we hiked along the Wildcat Ridge, and stopped for a rest with some other hikers at the cable car station. While we were there, Dingo arrived by cable car, having decided to bypass the steep climb! We greeted her with ever-so-slightly sarcastic applause.

We hiked on together to the top of Wildcat Mountain. Pausing at a viewpoint, we got a good view of our upcoming route – an 1100 foot drop to Carter Notch Hut, then a 1500 foot ascent to Carter Dome. Dingo’s reaction was unprintable but priceless – she’s in the Australian Army and her swearing is second to none!

The descent actually wasn’t too bad. We had some soup at the hut (a small but lovely mountain lodge, very much like an English youth hostel), then started the long hot slog up the other side. Carter Dome, South Carter, Middle Carter, North Carter – steep ups and downs for each one, with the now familiar steep granite slabs that look incredibly precarious to climb, but somehow your feet stick to them, so up you go. Each top took us above treeline, so there were great views back over the mountains we had climbed, and forwards to the ones still to come.

By the time we got to the Imp tentsite, it was nearly 8pm and we were shattered. There was a beautiful sunset, which we briefly admired, but our main priorities were pitching our tent, cooking and eating dinner, stashing our food in the bear proof locker and getting to bed.

We slept soundly and were back on trail before 7 the next morning. It was a relatively easy day, almost 15 miles but only about 4000 feet of ascent. We went over Mount Moriah, then enjoyed a long easyish section along the Rattle River. A short road hike across the Androscoggin River was followed by another brutal ascent into the Mahoosuc Range. By this point we felt like the people we’d been hiking with were all dropping off by the wayside – Dingo had hitched a lift into Gorham from the road to resupply, Rolodex (who had also taken the cable car the previous day) had hitched a lift to Gorham because he’d heard there was a good Chinese restaurant there, Happy Hour and Grasshopper hadn’t made it as far as the Imp tentsite the previous day. Then we spotted Nope setting up his tent part way up the ascent to the Mahoosucs in the middle of the afternoon. He said he was tired, so had decided to stop for the day. There are advantages and disadvantages to hiking as a couple – the chances of us stopping early because one of us was tired are about zero!

We plodded on up through the hot afternoon and arrived at the Trident Col tentsite about 5pm. It was good to have a bit more relaxation time, and were looking forward to an early night when someone called out “Could you guys come over here please?” It was Longlegs, a lone female hiker who had strung up her hammock not far away from our tent. She’d taken a nasty fall earlier in the day, twisting her foot as she fell forwards with the full weight of her pack behind the fall. She’d hiked on, but now her foot was hurting and she was in a bit of a panic. We did what we could to reassure her, and helped her arrange her campsite so things were in reach. Neil fetched some cold water from the stream in his drybag, so she could bathe her foot, and took her food to the bear proof locker. Luckily her foot was OK to hike on the next day, but it was yet another reminder of how easy it is to injure yourself on this rough trail – and made me even more grateful for Neil’s company on the numerous occasions that I’ve taken a fall.

And it’s not like the next day was easy hiking either. The trail took us up Mount Success via the usual succession of steep granite slabs. Up on top was an “alpine bog” – stunted shrubs on small hillocks, rounded humps of granite, and deep peaty bogs. We absolutely cursed the wooden duckboards which had been installed in some places – some were good, others were broken, or half submerged in water, or totally submerged in mud. Neil went first, carefully prodding the bog in front to find where there was a board under the mud to stop his feet sinking in too far; but he still got caught out when his foot hit the gap between some planks, and he fell into the bog up to his thigh, bruising his shins on the submerged boards and caking his entire leg in thick mud.

It was also really annoying that we were in a beautiful but delicate alpine environment, where presumably the duckboards were installed to protect the vegetation from erosion, but because the duckboards were in such a bad state (or absent) there were well worn paths skirting round some of the boggiest sections. Elsewhere there are signs asking hikers to stay on trail to avoid damaging the vegetation; here it was impossible to comply.

After Mount Success we had one more mountain to climb, Goose Eye Mountain, across the state border into our 14th and final state, Maine.

We haven’t gone out of our way to bag extra peaks that aren’t in the trail, but we made an exception for Goose Eye Mountain. It was late on a sunny afternoon, we were tired, and it wasn’t far off trail. We enjoyed long hazy views of the Appalachians, and it was hard to get motivated to get up again, shoulder our packs and hike the final few miles to Full Goose Shelter.

With our tent pitched and water on the boil for our noodles, it was great to meet up with both Dingo and Rolodex. Dingo had had an awful time in the bogs on Mount Success – I wish I’d been there to hear the swearing! – and Rolodex had been unable to get a lift back to the trail after his Chinese meal, so had ended up walking 5 miles along the road to get back to trail. We were all pretty tired, but looking forward to the next day’s challenge …

Mahoosuc Notch is frequently described as the most challenging mile on the AT. It is a boulder-filled notch between Mahoosuc Mountain and Fulling Mill Mountain, and hikers have to scramble and crawl over and under large boulders for about a mile.

We left Full Goose Shelter with Dingo about 7am, and after going up and over a small hill arrived at the notch. The first thing we noticed was the temperature. From warm, muggy air, in the space of a couple of yards we dropped into noticeably cold air. Patches of snow lie under some of the boulders throughout the year, giving the notch some very welcome air-conditioning! The cold damp conditions make for very lush green vegetation, including dwarf dogwood plants which we’d only seen on higher mountaintops before. It had a real “lost world” feel to it. The scrambling was good fun, and we even found some holes to crawl through. It was really enjoyable, even if it wasn’t what you would normally define as hiking!

After Mahoosuc Notch I was ready to be done for the day, but we still had seven miles and about 3000 feet of ascent to do, and over 4000 feet of descent. The ascent of Mahoosuc Arm has a reputation nearly as fierce as the ascent from the Ellis River, but we were getting used to it by now. A lunch break at Speck Pond Shelter, a steep ascent of Old Speck, then a long long downhill with aching knees to Grafton Notch, where we reached the car park just in time for our arranged lift to Bethel. Tetchy, tired and a bit sunburnt, it was a massive relief to book into our motel and get cleaned up. A day off was definitely required!

We haven’t finished with the difficulties yet – we are meeting a lot of southbound AT hikers on trail now, heading down towards Georgia, and everyone says Maine is tough. But hopefully there will be nothing harder than what we’ve done, so we just need to keep on keeping on, do our best to avoid injuries, and hopefully we’ll be finishing at Mount Katahdin early August.