Appalachian Trail Adventure Day 14 (6/30/21)

Carlo Col Shelter to Gorham

16.8 Miles


Today was the day that I finally finished Maine! I have to be honest, even though it’s my home state, I wasn’t sad to leave Maine behind. The southern Maine part of the trail was brutal and draining.


Carlo Col shelter did not have flowing water, just puddles. As a result, getting water from there required using a scoop. I carry a Craisins bag that I cut the top off of, and I use that to scoop water when there isn’t much water available.


Not long into the day, I crossed the Maine/NH State Line. I was excited to finally finish southern Maine. I also had accomplished the original goal of my hike, which was to make it into New Hampshire. This got me thinking about whether I wanted to keep going or stop. A lot would depend on the weather going forward.




The early day featured climbing Mt. Success. The climb was difficult, with a lot of rocks, some of which were smooth slab. I remember looking up at one particular slab and thinking, “They can’t expect me to climb that.” Of course, when you think that the trail can’t go a particular way, you know deep down that’s exactly where the trail is going.




Mt. Success is an interesting mountain. Despite its name, it is linked to a tragic event. A plane crashed on the side of the mountain in the 1950s. Thankfully, most people on board survived the crash. Today, you can still see the wreckage by hiking maybe half a mile off the Appalachian Trail near the summit of Success. I did it a few years ago, and it’s a worthwhile experience.


As I hiked through the morning, I of course kept hiking into spiderwebs. At one point, I did something horribly unforgivable. A spider had caught a mosquito in its web, and when I hiked through the web, I accidentally released the mosquito. I’m sorry, world.


Thankfully, the spiderwebs didn’t last long. I ran into Viking Man and Raincatcher hiking north. Meeting your first northbounder of the day is always nice, because they have knocked out all the spiderwebs coming the other way. I also enjoyed meeting Viking Man, as he was quite friendly, and we had a nice conversation. He was certainly preferable to Tom Selleck guy yesterday.


There were a number of small climbs to do on this day. With the heat and humidity, they became challenging. Then things got more difficult when the rain started. First it was just sprinkling, but as the day went on, the rain became more intense. There was thunder, and sometimes it felt like it was directly overhead. That was accompanied by a deluge that soaked me head to toe.


Being wet did cool me down, which was nice, but having my shoes soaked through was a problem. It exacerbated the blisters that were already starting to develop, obviously making walking painful.


When I summited the last of the four major climbs of the day, I was on top of Mt. Hayes. I liked that area because I had hiked it before, and it felt familiar. That allowed me to speed up a bit, which was good. I needed to complete the hike by early evening to be able to check in at the Rattle River Hostel on time.




Thankfully, the hike after Mt. Hayes was all gradual downhill. This allowed me to get to the hostel by 6 PM. I was surprised when I walked in and immediately ran into Professor. I had last seen him at Shaw’s at the beginning of my hike, and I knew he wasn’t fast enough to pass me, so I wasn’t sure how he had gotten in front of me. It turned out that he yellow blazed in front of me. Yellow blazing is a hiking term that means using a car or other vehicle to skip parts of the trail. I appreciated that Professor didn’t try to hide the yellow blazing.


I also ran into two familiar faces at Rattle River, as I finally caught up to Gazelle and Medicine Man. I learned from them that the rest of the gang was probably two days behind. That justified my decision to not wait for Bear back before Mahoosuc Notch.


Getting food at Rattle River was a complex process. I wanted to simply order delivery pizza from Mr. Pizza in Gorham, but they are apparently closed midweek, so that didn’t work. Instead, I had to order from Gorham House of Pizza, but they don’t deliver. Thus, I had to get a delivery service, Berlin Delivers, to pick up the pizza and deliver it to me at the hostel. As I said, it was a complex (and expensive) process.


That evening, we all sat around watching the movie Accepted while I wrote blog entries. After the movie ended, everyone went to bed except Medicine Man and I. We stayed up for an hour or so just chatting. I enjoyed getting to know him better.


Always remember that you can’t take flight until you spread your wings!

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