Day 24 - Wednesday, July 6

Linda

This morning found us up and hiking by 7:30, a rather a late start for us. We started down toward Mahoosuc Notch over some pretty rugged terrain. Stopped for a break at some rock ledges by a stream, just short of Little Mahoosuc Notch. Ray's packbelt broke, so some quick repairs were made before going on. Mahoosuc Notch had reached legendary proportions as being one of the most difficult miles of the entire Appalachian Trail. We had read accounts from other hikers of taking four or five hours to laboriously wind their way through the boulders and caverns in the notch. We were braced for an ordeal that never materialized. When it was all over, we were amazed at the ease of maneuvering through the maze of rocks and boulders. It wasn't nearly the killer it's cracked up to be. It probably would live up to its reputation later in the fall, or in bad weather, but we had a great time, and were pretty darn proud of ourselves when we were done.

We made it through the notch in an hour and 45 minutes, and that even included time to go down into one of the caves and get snow for snow cones made with Tang. In retrospect, that probably wasn't a very good idea, since the snow wasn't exactly fresh, but we weren't thinking about it at the time, and so far no one is suffering any ill effects. There were many huge boulders and places to climb over, or under or squeeze through, but we managed to get through without even having to take our packs off at all.

After the notch, the terrain continued to be tough- a lot of ups and downs. We passed by Carlo Col Shelter to push on to Success Mountain for the night. By late afternoon we were beginning to think we'd never get there. There were several box canyons with boulders worse than the ones we had encountered in Mahoosuc Notch. You climb down one side, then turn around and climb back up the other side. We were exhausted, but gratified when we finally reached Success Mountain, and agreed it was very aptly named.

The evening was turning cold, but the sky beautiful and clear, so we decided to put down groundcloths in front of a rock face for a windscreen and sleep out under the stars. We all crawled into our sleeping bags and got out all the food and proceeded to eat up almost everything we had left. We knew we were going into Gorham, New Hampshire the next morning and would be resupplying, so it didn't matter. Mike had a whole sausage, he'd been dragging around, and we certainly made short work of that. Ray was still behind us, but he came in and joined the line of sleeping bags around 8:30. We saw our first mountain sunset which was breathtaking, especially from our unobstructed vantage point. It was so windy and cold that we just jumped our of our bags, looked, took pictures, then jumped back into the bags. It was a great ending to a long hard day. We completed 11.6 miles over some very tough trail.

Ron

An interesting trip throughout Mahoosuc Notch started out our day. While considered by many to be the most difficult mile on the AT, we found it fun. We traversed the length of the notch without removing our packs. At one point we stopped to explore a snow cave. I climbed in to get some snow. We made snow cones with Tang.

The climb out of the notch was steep and rough, but we made it to Full Goose Lean-to for lunch. We decided to save some money and not stay at Carol Col Shelter. It's the only shelter we've seen so far that charges. Instead we decided to push on to camp across New Hampshire state line.

On leaving Carol Col shelter, we made the half mile hike from to the New Hampshire boarder in short order. We felt Mount Success would and appropriate place to spend the night. So that became our destination. The hike along the ridge went through numerous box canyons and false peaks. Each time we reached what we thought would be the top we would see another one further away.

Once we reached the top of Success we decided to sleep on the bald knob under the stars. The clear skies made a beautiful sunset. This is a great reward for the rough day. Lately we've begun to notice that our appetites become ravenous. The seven days worth of breakfast's and lunches we bought in Rangeley only lasted us five. Boy can we eat.

(11.6 Miles - 279.8 Total)