08-04-13 Somewhere in the Kinsmans

I'll start by saying today was a very low day for me. The Whites are breaking me down, but I'll try to put a positive spin on things.

We slept in an hour then proceeded down the trail to see that we hadn't reached Gordon Pond the evening before. Further north we hiked up Mount Mist to see a panoramic view of fog--no surprise.

For those who complain about the mud in "Vermud," they have obviously never been to New Hampshire. We came to one of many pools of mud and I leapt for a bog bridge half submerged in the mud only to land on my rear end, the left leg engulfed in mud up to my knee. Pulling my leg out was the easy part. Pulling my leg out, but keeping the shoe on was tricky. I struggled and twisted, ranted and raved, but finally pulled out a muddy leg and a muddy shoe.

Next up was Kinsman Mountain. I have nothing remotely positive to say about this. Hard technical climbs. Hard technical descents. Cold. Windy. Rainy. Chuppacabra caught up to us and brightened the mood, but it was short-lived. Hours and hours of bouldering and slick sheets of rock broke me down mentally.

We made it to Lonesome Lake around four, but decided to push into Lincoln, New Hampshire for the night.

OB and Danno ascertained a vehicle and drove back to the trailhead to pick us up. We ended the night at Chet's Place, a former thru-hiker who opened up his garage to other thru-hikers.

A neighbor was hosting a garden party to benefit the local theatre and invited all the thru-hikers. The party was amazing; open bar, buffet, homemade ice cream, local entertainment, all provided to us for free. At $75 a head, we were extremely grateful for the generosity--well most of us.

We had already returned to Chet's Place when a SOBO hiker punched and knocked out a yellow-blazer at the party. The police showed up at 11:00 p.m. to Chet's Place looking for them and searched the garage and the backyard. A policeman shined his flashlight into our tent, which we then opened to show we weren't harboring anyone.

That finally died down. Long story short, the SOBO jumped the fence and ran off.

Then at midnight a hiker started screaming outside at the top of his lungs. Chet never could locate him, but the next morning we could tell that several tents were gone and a lot of the SOBOs had gotten kicked out.

Never a dull day on the Appalachian Trail.