Friday, September 11 8:50 pm 9.5 mi Mahoosic Notch
AT 1911.7 Carlo Col Shelter → AT 1921.2 Speck Pond Shelter
Weather: Cold and drizzly overnight, cold to cool to cold and overcast day
Trail Conditions: As rugged as it gets today!
My Condition: Such a fun day today! I had a blast and although sore, I’m feeling great
Hikers Met: The Stone Sisters
Through the Mahoosic Notch today, widely considered the AT’s toughest mile. I believe that to be a mischaracterization. It wasn’t any tougher than anywhere else; rather, progress was incredibly slow. Really it was pretty fun – definitely lots of bouldering, problem solving, body positioning, choose your own adventure kind of fun. The climb up Mahoosic Arm, on the other hand, was steep and unrelenting, but at this point was nothing out of the ordinary. SOBOs love telling us in passing how tough and incredibly difficult the upcoming terrain is – the reality is that the trail has never gotten easy. The trail doesn’t get easier – ever. You just discover that you are quite capable of taking on any challenge that comes your way. Georgia was a butt kicker. Virginia definitely wasn’t flat. New Jersey wasn’t a runway. It’s just challenging in different ways at different points, and that variety is what gives this journey so much flavor.
Post Trail Analysis
A little bit more detail about the Mahoosic Notch – at the bottom of a ravine, the trail meanders over a boulder field of rocky debris that has been deposited over time. These are no small rocks either – I’m talking car and cargo-truck sized slabs of rock. Often, you have multiple options about how to tackle the challenge – would you rather crawl through, and climb up, or go up and over, and climb down or hop across? The route I took never required me to remove my pack. At one point, I had to backtrack and find a safer route, as I wasn’t comfortable making a rather wide boulder hop. It felt like mother nature’s best crack at a natural jungle gym, and I had an absolute blast traversing this section! Tonight’s shelter site was phenomenal, with large wooden tent platforms overlooking a beautiful mountain pond.
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