8/6-8/18: Pinkham Notch -> Rangeley, ME

MAINE!!! The final state of this amazing journey, the long-coveted destination for us NOBOs, the culmination of all the hundreds and hundreds miles we’ve come so far. Yes, there are many more miles to go in Maine – it’s the second longest state on the AT, after Virginia! – but I was so thrilled to cross into this last state and reach this huge milestone. I was so excited for everything Maine had to offer and to explore all new areas of one of my favorite states!

A common trap for NOBOs is, when you make it through the Whites and into Maine, to take a big sigh of relief because the hard part is over. Nothing could be further from the truth. Southern ME is every bit as tough as NH! I was prepared for this, but the nature of its difficulty was a surprise. It felt very distinct to me, and hard in different ways from NH.

When I finished the Presi and got to Pinkham Notch, I still had plenty of those difficult NH miles left. I wasn’t even out of the Whites yet! I had one significant section remaining, and an entirely new one to me, in the Wildcat-Carter-Moriah range. I was excited to hike this section with my friend Jenn, who was driving up from Boston to join me. Jenn is my “og hiking partner;” we’ve hiked a ton in the Whites together, and I was really looking forward to hike some more with her as part of my thru-hike!

Unfortunately, when I arrived in Pinkham Notch on Sunday, I learned that Jenn’s car had broken down and she wasn’t going to be able to come hike until Thursday and Friday 😦 I quickly made the decision to postpone the Carters until then, and jump ahead to do the Mahoosuc range, the next section to the north. It was an easy call, both in terms of how the logistics would work out with Jenn, and because I would be in Gorham, NH that day anyway. Gorham was the perfect place to do such a leap, since there are two major roads into the town, one on either side of the Carters. All it would take was taking the other road to the other trailhead the next day, and off I’d go, out of the Whites and soon into Maine, with ~21 miles missing of my thru-hike for the time being.

It may have been an easy call, but it still felt weird to be doing it out of order. I was also loathe to leave behind my new trail friends. I was really bummed that I wouldn’t be continuing to hike with them, and that Jenn wouldn’t meet them and vice versa. On the flip side, I was a little excited at the possibility of reuniting with folks that had been slightly ahead of me in the Mahoosucs.

I often feel a sense of tension on town days. It’s a pull between being present where I am, spending time with whatever trail friends are around and/or exploring a cool trail town, and doing my own thing and talking with folks back home (or writing this blog). I never felt this tension more than that day in Gorham. It was a bit stressful working out the logistics of my changing plans in addition to doing all my normal chores, and I wanted to make the most of what was potentially the last day I’d have to spend with Smokey, Nom Nom, Stealth, and Pigeon. Although it was certainly different than I initially expected, it turned into a good day with them. We hung out at a local brewery and the rustic Barn Hostel where several of us were staying. There was a brand-spanking-new Chinese buffet in town, so we went there for dinner to try to put them out of business, I mean, support an up-and-coming establishment with our patronage! The food was good, on par with Ming’s back in Waynesboro, VA. I contented myself with only 4 plates this time.

The next morning, I said goodbye to my friends, rejoined the trail at Rte 2, and began the last section of New Hampshire. It was a weird day. It felt very strange to be skipping a section, and I also felt a heightened awareness of the imminent end of the trail. Now that the Whites were behind me (literally, if not technically in the new plan for my journey), I was focusing more on the Maine to come, and holy cow, that was IT, that was the last state and then I’d be DONE. Eek.

I did have several nice viewpoints of the Carters and the northern Presidentials throughout the day. I got over my brief disappointment to be out of the Whites when I reached the summit of Mt. Hayes. It was a sheer rock summit, but rather than being bald, there was plenty of alpine vegetation and pine trees interspersed throughout the summit. It was a magical setting! While I was still in NH at the time, I would come to strongly associate this environment with Maine.

I did not end up running into any old friends that day, or, in fact, over my whole three days through the Mahoosucs, to my surprise. Instead, I spent much of the day with a new friend, Papaw. We juust beat a big rainstorm to a large shelter, where I stopped for the night to stay inside, even though it was early. Papaw and I had a nice, rejuvenating evening in the shelter, talking about baseball and linguistics, and bracing ourselves for worse weather and harder sections in the next couple days.

An additional 7 people showed up in the shelter that evening at about 7:30, just as we were settling down to sleep. It included another new tramily. They were smaller and I didn’t have any particular issue with them, but they didn’t seem to want to interact with others beyond making sure they had a spot in the shelter. Oh well. Between all of us in the shelter and a small trail maintenance crew as well as a church group camping at the site, it was frankly a mess getting out of there in the morning. I couldn’t find my food for a while in the absolutely stuffed bear box, which made me grumpy. It also didn’t help that it was raining.

A medium rain persisted all day. There were plenty of trail streams that got worse as the day wore on. It was another watery day, but nothing compared to the insanity of that day in Massachusetts. I had a tough, steep climb of Mt. Success, the last peak in NH. It was a cool alpine summit, but the bogs up there were awful. The AMC gets a ton of hate on the AT, and much of that I think is undeserved. I did agree that this section felt very poorly maintained, though. It felt as though the AMC focused all their attention on the much more popular, well-traveled sections of the trail in the Whites, and left the Mahoosuc section by the wayside. It all made for a pretty miserable morning.

Then, I turned a corner and saw the New Hampshire-Maine border. Seeing that sign literally stopped me in my tracks. All the emotions of reaching the final state hit me in that moment, and I sat and reflected before actually crossing the border. (Easier said than done, because it was in quite a swampy area!) It felt really surreal to have finally made it to Maine after thinking and talking about it for so long. But as it started to sink in, I got excited to be there and for everything Maine had to offer.

My day really turned around from there. For one thing, the trail was noticeably better maintained as soon as I crossed the border into ME. I’m not really sure why…at first I thought it was because I was in MATC territory, but actually the AMC maintains the rest of the Mahoosucs until Grafton Notch. My new theory is it’s because the AMC contracts out the maintenance of the NH portion of the Mahoosucs to Americorps (which I know for sure), but not the ME portion (unsure)? But I digress. End tangent. There were lots of rebar ladders, wooden ladders and helpful plank walks for the rest of the day as I went over the cool alpine summits of Goose Eye Mountain. I went over many sheer rock faces, up and down some tricky scrambles, and used roots and tree trunks to “Tarzan” myself on some sections. They make helpful grips and footholds. “Roots are friends, not foes,” I told myself, and wondered how long it would take for Maine to make me reconsider. It was a confidence boost to handle all sorts of rocky sections in wet conditions. While the rain continued, it felt a lot easier to embrace the suck in the afternoon. I had a lot of fun!

I spent the night at Full Goose Shelter with a buncha old guys. To my disappointment, I didn’t run into anyone I knew in this section as I had hoped, and it seemed that it was only old men around. This happens sometimes; you get around pockets of different people, and they always come and they go. I found that I get along with this demographic better than most people my age, but I definitely still prefer to have other young folks around. This particular group in the shelter had its own…unique vibe. Frankly, it was the strangest shelter vibes I had ever experienced.

I’m honestly not sure how much detail I should go into about it. There were 5 of us in the shelter, and I soon tried to keep to myself as much as possible. The other guys were making crass jokes, as well as some misogynistic and, in at least one case, racially insensitive comments, which was very uncomfortable. There was also a lot of weird passive-aggressive conflict. One SOBO in particular had a pretty grating personality. He argued about gear with another hiker and sort of came after me for my stuff getting his stuff wet (a ridiculous claim, as the other NOBOs confirmed…naturally all of our gear was already wet).

There was another SOBO there who had gotten soaked through and seemed close to dangerously cold. It was clear that he did not have the proper equipment for the conditions, and certainly not for the extreme weather of the Whites that he was approaching. The first thing I heard him say was, “I learned out here that some people prepare for the trail,” which already raised some red flags for me. The rest of us did all we could to gently but firmly communicate what he’d need and the danger of proceeding as is, but he mildly refused our advice. Later, he sort of preached at us as we were all trying to go to sleep. It was all very strange and worrisome. I was seriously concerned for his safety. Another hiker later put it more bluntly: he was “a fatality waiting to happen.” I wondered then, and I’m still unsure, if there was more we could have done or if I handled the situation the best. I only hope he’s okay.

In all, that was probably my worst evening on the whole trail. I got up and out as quickly as I could in the morning, both to get away from it all, and because I was excited for what lay in store that morning: Mahoosuc Notch!

Mahoosuc Notch goes by many names on the AT. The “hardest mile.” The “slowest mile.” A “hiker playground.” The “most fun mile?” I had been hearing about this infamous section – only 0.8 miles long, for all its reputation! – for my entire hike, and even before. But for all of that, I didn’t really know what to expect, except a “choose your own adventure” route over, under, and around “boulders the size of houses” through a valley. I had also heard conflicting things, such as both “it’s not really physically demanding, just mentally in focusing on where you step next” and “it’s the physically toughest section on the whole trail.” Now it was time for me to see for myself!

The Notch was different than I had pictured in some ways. I had been envisioning a much wider boulder field, but it was pretty narrow between steep mountainsides. It didn’t feel like there were really thaat many ways to go in any given spot. It was also greener than I expected. Many of the boulders were covered in moss, and there was lush vegetation around and inside the valley. This all made sense, of course, and I shoulda known better.

I quickly stowed my poles to scramble over huge boulders and use my entire body for perhaps the first time on trail. I was glad that it (mostly) wasn’t raining anymore, but the rocks were still wet and somewhat slick. There were several spots where I squeezed through tight crevices and crawled through caves. I had to take my pack off three times and push it through first to get through tight spots. I found the blazes more helpful than I expected in picking out the best route through the jumble. It felt like Purgatory Chasm, where I had loved scrambling over rocks as a kid, on steroids.

I had a ton of fun going through Mahoosuc Notch. I was struck by how different it felt from the rest of the trail: it truly didn’t feel like hiking at all, but more like rock climbing. It was a great change of pace, both figuratively and literally! It took me 98 minutes to get through the Notch – just slower than eating a half gallon of ice cream. Go figure. I was very satisfied with that pace; I had said beforehand if I made it through in under 2 hours, it’d be a win! My review: hardest mile? Definitely not. Slowest mile? Absolutely! Hiker playground? Sure. Most fun mile? Mm, probably not, but it was up there for sure!

And then there I was, on the other side of Mahoosuc Notch. I was exhilarated to have made it through and had such a good time with it. At the same time, though, I was a bit sad to be beyond such an iconic point on the trail. It felt surreal, once again. That was a very common feeling as I reached milestone after milestone as I neared the end of the AT.

The challenge wasn’t over once I got through the Notch, not by a long shot. Immediately after Mahoosuc Notch comes the climb of Mahoosuc Arm, which is probably one of the hardest climbs on the whole trail. No rest for the weary… Luckily, I had heard plenty about the Arm too, so it didn’t catch me unawares. That alone made it feel easier. It was still a tough and steep climb; we basically went straight up a sheer rock face. There was plenty of Tarzaning around trees to hoist myself up.

As I took a break atop Mahoosuc Arm, it finally began to clear up and I got my first Maine views! The weather only improved as I climbed Old Speck with Papaw and Hutch. It was a cool, exposed, and tough climb. I took the side trail to the summit and bagged my first ME 4,000 footer! The views from the firetower were spectacular. I was thrilled to take in the greens and blues of the Maine beauty all around me for the first time, with mountains and, more than ever, lakes stretching in all directions.

The descent to Grafton Notch was pretty nice, down pretty rock faces past several waterfalls. At the trailhead, I met up with Jenn! I was so glad to see her and so excited to hike with her. We drove back to Pinkham Notch and set up my tent in the dark near the visitor center. It felt a little strange to be back there after a few days. In the morning, we awoke to discover we were right underneath a “no camping here” sign xD I figured that we probably weren’t supposed to be there, but in my defense, we truly could not see the sign the night before!

We hiked the Wildcat-Carter-Moriah Range together over the next two days, starting with the tough, steep climb up the Wildcat Ridge Trail. That climb is supposedly the steepest part of the AT, although this may or may not be true based on the metrics used. It was certainly a tough one, but for experienced Whites hikers like Jenn and me, it was nothing we couldn’t handle. It felt long, but scrambly and fun!

It was so good to hike with Jenn again. We have the best conversations and I love joking around as we hike. We enjoyed seeing great views of the Presidentials from the EAST, a new vantage point for both of us. It made us excited to hike more around there, especially various trails on Mt. Washington, once I finished the trail and we both finished the NH 48.

We reached the top of the big climb and began traversing Wildcat Ridge with our first summit of the day, Wildcat D peak, which is also the top of the Wildcat Mountain ski resort. I was disappointed that none of the signage said Wildcat D; it doesn’t matter why.

The rest of the ridge, and indeed most of the day, was wooded, but there were numerous nice viewpoints at the various summits, including at Wildcat Mountain (its A peak) right before jaw-dropping Carter Notch. Once again, I loved exploring this totally new area of the Whites. It was beautiful, both the mountains we were on themselves, as well as the smaller surrounding peaks to the south, including our old friend the Baldfaces. While we were there, we ran into another old friend of mine, the caretaker Bean! It was serendipitous to see her again.

Other than that, we did not see very many people I knew, or even very many people in general. The trail was strangely empty. At the shelter that night, we ran into 8 Lives, but that was it in terms of other thru-hikers. It was odd to go 5 days straight without seeing many other people I already knew.

Jenn and I stopped by Carter Notch hut, among some pretty ponds, before climbing back out of the notch to tackle the Carters. That was the last AMC hut that I hadn’t visited! It was cool to complete that side quest along the way.

We bagged 5 new 4,000 footers that day, but the highlight of the day wasn’t any of them. That honor belonged to Mount Hight, a subpeak of Carter Dome. It had an open, rocky summit with the awesome, 360 degree views we had been hoping for!

That night, we stayed in Imp Shelter after another big day in the Whites. I was glad to be inside once it rained hard overnight. We mostly lucked out with the weather while we were hiking. In the morning, we summitted the final peak of the range, Mt. Moriah. The summit was socked in, but I think it would have been a cool exposed peak in better weather.

The trail for the rest of the day was relatively chill as we descended to Rte. 2, although it was pretty wet and muddy. Jenn got to experience a ford, and learned never to trust a bog log, or a bog rock for that matter! I reached the 1900 mile mark right at the road, though my actual mileage was more than that counting the Mahoosucs. And just like that, I was through the Whites, and finished with the New Hampshire section! It was by far my favorite state yet.

Those two days felt strangely separate from the rest of my hike; it was hard to imagine them as part of my thru-hike for several reasons. First, the discontinuity of it: it felt weird to have done this section out of order. Hiking with Jenn again made it seem like it could have been any weekend trip to the Whites. The lack of other thru-hikers on the trail also contributed to this feeling.

Now it was time for a whole different adventure as I headed back to Boston with Jenn for the weekend. Part of the reason the logistics had worked out the way they had was so that I could go home for a very special occasion. We hitched back to Pinkham Notch with a very nice woman who drove us the whole way even though it was out of her way. Then it was back to Massachusetts for a whirlwind weekend. Jenn and I joked that we were doing a “100% speedrun day.” I’ll try to speedrun through most everything that happened that weekend:

1. Stopped for a very efficient and yummy lunch at Casamigos Concord, the site of the og enchiladas story. IYKYK
2. Ate ramen for dinner at Santouka, one of my favorite restaurants in Boston
3. Saw Barbie! I loved it, what a fun film
4. My friends’ engagement!! The main event and the reason I came back to Boston for a couple days. I participated in an elaborate, romantic scavenger hunt as part of the proposal, then had a great time at the engagement party. Congratulations Varun and Neha!!
5. Saw Pippin; what a strange show. Aunt Kathryn, as the music director, and my cousin Amanda, on stage, did an excellent job
6. Hung out with the Denneys and my brother Nicholas, who was traveling up to Maine anyway so drove me back to the trail

Whew! What a wild couple of days. It was a bit overwhelming at times to be back in the city, but I love it there in Boston and it was fun to be there too. I think it was good that I could be there for a bit close to the end of the trail; it felt like a nice “soft re-entry” that might prepare me better for reintegration after the trail. I was so, so thankful I could be there to celebrate Varun and Neha. I never would have done that without Jenn’s insistence and help, so thanks for that again, Jenn.

Nick and I drove back up to Grafton Notch, and were excited to find trail magic at the trailhead courtesy of Pineapple! We had a delicious cake with fresh ME blueberries for dessert. Nick retroactively earned his first trail magic by hiking with me for a mile! He was really excited about it all, and it reignited my excitement and appreciation for the trail too. I was glad to have some quality time with him on the trail!

We said goodbye and I continued up to spectacular Baldpate Mountain. I especially loved the open East Peak. It felt so great to be back on the AT, and in Maine, after a few days away.

Southern ME awed me with its beauty, but it was also sloow going with all its treacherous rock faces. Throughout the state, lots of elevation change, tough terrain, and plenty of fords to boot also slowed me down.

At the shelter that night, I was thrilled to reunite with Meadow and Victory! We had a nice evening together catching up. We also discussed our trail bucket lists. Now that we were in our last state, it was time to think more about completing them. I still had plenty of items to do, and some that I wasn’t sure about doing anymore.

One of those items was cowboy camping. I had sort of talked myself out of it, in fact, because people had talked about how bad the condensation was on the East coast. After a long day with some nice waterfalls and a few more steep climbs, I found myself atop Old Blue Mt., with nice views and clear skies all around. It was fresh in my mind after talking about it with Victory and Meadow the night before…was I really going to miss out on trying a special experience, and committing to something I had once been excited for, just because I was afraid of a little condensation? No I wasn’t. With the weather looking good, I said YOLO and set up my sleep system right under the sky at a summit stealth site. It felt exhilarating; I think I needed a little spark of novelty more than I realized at that point in the trail. I was glad to seize the opportunity for a bucket list item, despite my misgivings.

Cowboy camping went just about as well as you’d expect. There was soo much condensation, even before I was asleep. I did not sleep well at ALL. At one point, I woke up with incredible stars right overhead, though! That was the highlight of the experience. The next time I woke up in the middle of the night was much less happy. It was lightly raining on me. I hurried to set up my tent poles and rain fly around me; it wasn’t perfect, but it limited the damage for the rest of the night.

One of my favorite parts of the trail was seeing what wildlife different states or sections had. Unfortunately, one of Maine’s specialties seemed to be slugs. I pulled no fewer than eleven off my gear in the morning. On the whole, cowboy camping certainly wasn’t an ideal time. Oh well. It was worth it for the experience!

It rained on and off all day the next day. It was a tougher day than I expected; I took it very slow. For a long time, I had been dealing with some pain in the top of my right foot. It mostly affected me when I wore my Crocs (as it turns out, those Crocs are definitely a bit small for me), and it would sometimes briefly flare up in my hiking shoes too, but for the most part it hadn’t been a serious issue. That day, it hurt more than ever. It was more of a constant, dull pain throughout the day. I hoped it wouldn’t get worse. I thought of Smokey’s amusing observation that “we’re probably more injured than we think we are.”

The brutal descent from Bemis Mt. didn’t help matters. It felt very dangerous with all the slick rocks. I slipped and almost fell three times, yanking my shoulder on one occasion. (The shoulder was ok, as far as I know.)

It wasn’t all bad, though. Commiserating with Meadow and Victory and hiking most of the afternoon with them helped a lot. They remarked that at this point, I was the person they had hiked with the most! With the obvious exception of Sophie, I think the reverse is true for me, too. It was a heartwarming realization. It was such an honor and good time to share so much of the trail with such kind, funny, awesome folks. Ok enough gushing about my trail friends for now (I hope they’re reading this, hehe).

The next day was another weird, mixed bag of a day as we hiked into Rangeley, ME. It was another rainy day. The trail itself was pretty chill, which was a relief after the challenge of the previous day. However, even though we didn’t have too many miles to go to get into town, it felt long. It’s particularly annoying when you encounter big mud pits with only sketchy, treacherous logs to assist your crossing, if you’re lucky. Maine was full of these; it felt like ever since Vermont, the trail had just gotten muddier and muddier. Usually, you could get through the ones up here unscathed, but it required careful thinking and careful stepping. It’s annoying to have to stop every few minutes to take 5 minutes to go another 500 feet. I wanted to be in town earlier than I eventually got there.

I hitched a ride into Rangeley with a past hiker, Clover, who I recognized from some Farout comments. He also gave me a beer! That was a good start to the afternoon after a less-than-perfect morning. Rangeley was a nice town. I took advantage of the free Darn Tough exchange at the local outfitter to swap a pair of my hiking socks that had developed a hole. I ran into several familiar faces in town: Grizz, Smokey’s friend Goldi who I had briefly met back in Lincoln, NH, and, to my great surprise, Neville from Woods Hole Hostel! It was a delight to see her again.

That night, I split a motel room with Meadow and Victory. It was really nice to have a truly relaxing afternoon with them. Another one of my remaining bucket list items was packing out s’mores supplies. Victory & Meadow encouraged me to go for it, and even provided the supplies; I insisted upon carrying them, though. After going out to a BBQ dinner, the three of us had a delightful, goofy time making s’mores on my camp stove outside our motel room. It was great to feel like I was still making fun new trail memories. It was another spark of life for my thru-hike that I hadn’t realized how much I needed.

Speaking of things I didn’t realize how much I needed, we decided to take a zero day in Rangeley the next day. It was sort of unexpected, but with another exposed ridgeline coming up and thunderstorms in the forecast, it seemed better to be safe than sorry (and we crossed our fingers for better views for the day after). The weather was pretty bad for a while that day, so I was happy to be zeroing. It was also good to relax and rest; I had felt like I was going slow, but southern ME was still really hard! I needed it.

A happy consequence of the somewhat unexpected day off was that I was able to meet up with Jo, a friend and colleague of Macy’s from her camp in Maine. Jo and her husband Colin were absolutely wonderful trail angels. I was delighted to hear that Jo has long been a trail angel for other hikers in Rangeley, too, not just people she had a connection to, like me. I enjoyed getting to know Jo over lunch, and spent the rest of the day at their beautiful house on Rangeley Lake. They spoiled me with tons of delicious food, including a salmon dinner and pie and ice cream for dessert. It was almost too much! I was so grateful for their hospitality and to have such a relaxing zero day to prepare me for Maine’s High Peaks region.

This section had its ups and downs, both literally and figuratively. On a physical level, it never let up, and the cumulative impact of the difficult terrain was taking its toll. Mentally, I started to feel stagnant in my hike at times, but seizing several new experiences started to spice it up again, especially as I got further into Maine. Hiking with Jenn and then Meadow and Victory were definite highlights. Despite the mixed bag in terms of weather, Maine was absolutely beautiful so far. I loved the Maine woods, whether the forest floor was covered in little pine trees, moss, or alpine vegetation. Even when the trail wasn’t above treeline or there weren’t “views” to be had per se, I was passing through gorgeous environments day in and day out.

I love Maine. When I got to Rangeley, it felt like I was so close to the end of the trail, but I was only(?) exactly 90% of the way through. I felt ready to make the most of the last tenth and enjoy the rest of this amazing state, amazing trail, and amazing adventure.