Magic in the Mountains

August 14, 2021 (21 miles)

The Barn Hotel, Gorham, NH

The Wildcats! Today felt like a HUGE day because we set out to conquer the Wildcats… I had never heard of the Wildcats until ALDHA trail magic back in VT; we were told that the most injuries on trail happen in this section and since then I have dreaded this stretch. Originally we were going to break it up into two days, but the hostel offered a free slack-at and we decided to see if we could do it.

Our whole crew was on trail by 7am with nothing in our packs other than water and food for the day. Even Sticks and Slobber decided to try for the ambitious mileage (spoiler alert: they bailed out after the first 7 miles…) On our way to the trailhead we saw a rainbow, I took that as a sign that today would be a good day.

We started from Pinkham Notch in the rain and the trail quickly began to climb. It got so steep I had to put my poles away and climb using my hands. I quickly got behind Hangman and Truffles and decided to take my time up the climbs. As rough as the climbs were, the descents were equally bad or worse.

I caught up with the boys at a hut before climbing the last big hill of the day. Just lots of ups and downs in cool, misty/rainy weather. It was not a fun day. Truffles, Hangman, and I stopped for lunch after 13 miles and decided to take a blue blaze the rest of the way to cut off 4 miles. The blue blaze was lovely and made me question why the AT is always the hardest route.

We got a hitch to the hostel, got drinks for the evening, and vegged out on the couch to watch the Don Wall. Excited for a much-needed 0 tomorrow!