Snowman Says: On the AT - Rt. 2, Gorham to Wright Trail

June 8, 2008 | Miles: 11.8
Start: Rt. 2, Gorham
End: Gentian Pond Shelter

Here's an idea: Go on a backpacking trip. Not just any trip, but go on one of the hardest sections of the AT. For your first backpack of the season. Then choose the hottest weekend of the year. Don't forget the 90% humidity. Height of bug season? Yeah, throw that in, too. Sound like the worst idea ever? Well, it is the worst idea ever. And, it's exactly what we did.

Originally, Ghost was going to come with us. Ghost had gone for a hike the day before. He decided that it was going to be too hot for him. He chose wisely. However, he was still nice enough to help us with our car spot. (Thanks, Ghost! We owe you a fine dinner at Monsieur Pizza.) So, at 7:45 we met him in Bethel, and headed up to the Wright Trail to park our car—this would be our end point. Then at about 9:00am he dropped us off at the trailhead on Rt. 2 in Gorham, so we could begin our hike. The first .5 mile was along the road. This was the last easy walking of the whole trip. Within the first 1/2 hour, I was completely saturated with sweat. After about an hour, I thought I was done. I was soaking wet, struggling under the weight of the pack (which I've lightened to under 30 pounds, which makes my laboring that much more pathetic), losing blood rapidly from bug bites, and generally unhappy. We contemplated turning around, but trudged on. We had an out at 3 miles, so I decided to make my decision there. This out was at the top of Mt. Hayes. I didn't feel particularly better, but I didn't feel any worse. We kept going. And going, and going, and going. Drip, drip, drip. Swat, swat, swat. Grumble, grumble, grumble. There was a brief break during this time for lunch: hummus, carrots, cucumber, pita, cheese...we go first class. (Oh and a Reese's Fast Break.)

Eventually, we descended to Trident Col. It was steep. Then a funny moment happened: D said, "Well, they weren't kidding about the col part." That was the last and only funny moment of the day. We stopped at the spring at the campsite, 0.2 off the trail, for water. It was early afternoon, but I'd already emptied my 100 oz. bladder. Drip, drip, drip.

More walking, more sweating, more bugs, more grumbling...then it got worse. A black fly flew in my eye. Really into my eye. It wouldn't come out. It hurt. No seriously, it sucked.

Eventually, we arrived at Gentian Pond Shelter. It took us 8 hours. We got water and made dinner. Pad Thai from Backpackers' Pantry. It sucked. Pretty much the only thing you want after a hard day is a good meal. This was not so good. Grumble.

Since no one else is as dumb as us, we had the shelter all to ourselves. At about 7:30, we sent up the tent in the shelter. Poor shelter etiquette? Yes. There was still enough room for at least 6 people to come in if need be. We could tell it was going to rain, and it was still way too hot to sleep in the tent with the rainfly on. So, into the tent we went. I laid there...sweating, nay dripping. But at least I wasn't getting bit anymore.

June 9, 2008 | Miles: 7.3 (plus 4.4 miles on the Wright Trail)
Start: Gentian Pond Shelter
End: Wright Trail, South Fork

At some point, I stopped sweating and fell asleep. I woke up at one point and realized it was raining. We were still alone and comfortably dry and bug free in the shelter. Then at 11:00, I saw headlamps. Two people had shown up. WTF? Who shows up at 11:00 on a day like this? We asked them if they wanted to come in, but they said they had set up tents. OK, back to sleep.

The day started with a climb...of course. Well, first we had to pass through the tentsites. The two were actually a group of about ten. We exchanged pleasantries, apologized for hogging the shelter (they said they wouldn't have used it anyway) and we headed on our way. This was the only human contact we had on our trip. We didn't see anyone else. Well, because it was so awful out. Today was less sunny, but no less hot or humid. And, don't forget the bugs. At some point, I offered the second and last funny moment of the trip, when I said: "Why don't we have any hobbies that are fun?"

We climbed Mt. Success. It was hard. We were sweating. We stopped and had a snack it was buggy. We kept going. We came to a ridiculous jumble of rocks that was supposed to be the trail. It was basically straight down. The rocks were wet. It was tricky. It sucked. It took us about 20 minutes to go about 100 feet. Soon after this we reached the Maine border to no fanfare at all. We took a photo and moved on. We were too hot, too wet, too tired to really care. We knew we still had a long way to go.

We hit another ridiculous jumble of rocks. This time we had to take of our packs. It was both exhausting and annoying. Don't forget the bugs and the heat. (Or the smell at this point.) Actually, I had stopped worrying about the bugs. I was sweating so much, they were drowning before they could really bite me. After this obstacle, we reached the trail to the Carlo Col shelter. This was good news because we were out of water. This was really bad because the water was 0.3 miles down, down, down. So much suckage.

Climb back up to the AT. Climb Mt. Carlo. Go down the other side. Then it was back up to West Goose Eye. As we started this climb, I said to D, "I really don't think I can keep going." I wasn't kidding. I was toasted. We climbed up West Goose Eye. It was steep and rocky. There was a ladder. It was ridiculous. D yelled, "I don't want to go up anymore." She wasn't kidding. We reached the top. We ate a snack. We moved on.

Soon after, we hit the Wright Trail to begin our miles that "didn't count." I'm sure the Wright Trail is a really nice trail. It sucked on this day. We had 4.4 miles to our car. It felt like 444.4. Down, down, down. Drip, drip, drip. Grumble, grumble, grumble. Somehow, we reached the car. We'd been out for nearly 10 hours. Count 'em. 10.

This was the hardest trip we've ever done. I'm never hiking again.