Appalachian Trail Adventure Day 12 (6/28/21)

East B Road to Grafton Notch

10.3 Miles

Today was the day for all of us to leave The Cabin and hike on. Gazelle, Medicine Man, Ali, and I were going back to East B Road, while the others were going to South Arm Road. That meant that the four of us who hiked together yesterday were in front by about nine miles.

However, before we could leave The Cabin, there was a problem. We had to pay. The Cabin apparently doesn’t take credit cards, so we had to pay cash, and very few of us had enough cash on hand. This meant that Swan had to drive us to the ATM at The Store first. As expected, we ran the ATM out of cash. Thankfully, all of us going to East B were able to get cash, so we were on our way. 

Once we got hiking, we immediately split up into two groups. Gazelle and Medicine Man ran out front, while Ali and I lingered behind. However, Ali wanted to hike alone, so I put on my headphones and pushed up East Baldpate Mountain by myself.

About halfway up the mountain, there was a shelter called Frye Notch Lean To. When I arrived, I saw Gazelle and Medicine Man just leaving. Ali arrived probably two minutes after me. There was also a group of section hikers there going northbound, two adults and two teens. We chatted with them for a bit, and learned that they are doing almost the reverse of what I am doing, as they started at Glencliff and are pushing north through Maine. They were fascinated with my gravity based water setup, and insisted on taking a picture of it. I didn’t mind. It wasn’t even originally my idea. It was RTK’s idea.

As an aside, in one of his books, Malcolm Gladwell talks about being a big fish in a little pond versus a little fish in a big pond. For a lot of my hiking career, I have been a big fish in a little pond. I have consistently been one of the strongest hikers I know, and I am used to being able to keep up with almost anyone. However, out here I am learning that I am a little fish in a big pond. There are simply some hikers, like Gazelle and Medicine Man, that are stronger hikers than me. It’s been a sobering lesson, but probably an important one to learn.

Ali gave me a couple minutes to leave before her so that we could hike separately, and I told her that I would meet her at the summit to coordinate rides into West Bethel. The terrain was hard, with steep climbing again, but for some reason the hiking was easier for me today. I think part of that is not trying to pace Gazelle. Part of it might just be being in a better mental place.

It certainly didn’t hurt that once I broke tree line, Baldpate was beautiful. It was just an open, rocky summit with a stiff breeze. It was a tremendous relief from the 80 degree temperatures. I summited and waited around for about 15 minutes, just enjoying the views, before Ali joined me. We made our call into West Bethel, and the clock was set. Now we were on a timer to descend the mountain.

Ali led for the first part of the hike down, but somewhere around West Baldpate she asked me to take over, and I led the rest of the way down. We had a robust conversation going, and if I am being honest, it was the best conversation that I have had on trail so far. We talked about hiking, but we also talked about disaster movies, what a post-COVID world will look like, and a variety of other topics. As we hiked, I joked that Gazelle and Medicine Man were probably in New Hampshire by now.

We made it to Grafton Notch in good time. We sat down at the parking lot in a nice shady spot to wait for the West Bethel Motel to pick us up. There was a bird making a lot of noise. We were debating whether the Motel had gotten my message when suddenly Ali began frantically pointing at something. I went over to look, and we were both shocked to see Gazelle and Medicine Man coming out of the woods.

How had we beaten them? We definitely weren’t going as fast as them. Gazelle explained that they had stopped for lunch at a shelter, and we must have passed them during that time. We all visited for a bit, but then Gazelle and Medicine Man hiked on, and a few minutes later the West Bethel Motel owner, Mark, showed up to shuttle us into town.

I felt a little bad for Ali on the way into town, as she had to listen to Mark and I discuss the intricacies of the Maine real estate market. I don’t think she minded, though, as she was grateful for the ride into town.

By the way, if you’re interested in following her adventures, they can be found on her YouTube channel here:

https://youtube.com/c/AliSylvester

Once at the motel, I showered, did laundry, and then joined Julie, one of the owners, on a run into town for food. Also coming along was Bionic Man. He is a northbounder who had to get off trail. I am not entirely clear on what happened, but apparently he had to hit the Emergency button on his satellite device and get rescued by the game wardens.

On the drive in, I noticed that my new method of rolling up the sleeves on my sun shirt to deal with the heat has a downside, as I have a nasty sunburn on both my arms.

The run into town for food did not go well. The restaurant screwed up my order and gave me a chicken burrito, which I didn’t discover until I bit into it. That meant that poor Julie had to run me back into town to get a replacement burrito.

At the end of the night, I decided to attempt to assuage some of my wounds by taking a bath, something I haven’t done in ages (and yes, I do take showers). I don’t know if the bath helped with the wounds, but it was relaxing, and that was nice.

Thanks JT for the recent comments, and there definitely is no answer key for the flowers. I will let you know if I figure any of them out, though.

Tomorrow the plan is to meet up with Bear to tackle Mahoosuc Notch, the most difficult mile of the entire Appalachian Trail, in 90 degree heat. Let’s hope it goes well.

Until then, always remember that you can’t take flight until you spread your wings.

One flower today.