Coon Cat vs. Wildcat: The Showdown

Day 111 - 8/9/10
After I posted last night I struggled to find a stealth spot near
Pinkham Notch. I asked a girl working at the visitor center if she
knew of any, but she only knew of some that were South, so I just
tried my luck going North along the AT. I found an okay one near a
brook really close to route 16. Thankfully the brook was loud enough
to drown out some of the traffic sounds. The other thing that helped
that was the rain, although it kept waking me up in the middle of the
night, and also made for an unpleasant morning. I hate packing up a
wet tent.

I woke up around 7 and slowly got my things together. The other reason
I didn't enjoy packing up was because of all the sand covering my
belongings. Being near a brook does have some disadvantages. I finally
got going around 8:30, starting the climb up toward the Wildcat Ridge.
Once I got to a viewspot higher up I could see from looking back that
Washington was shrouded in clouds. Not a good day to be up there I
imagine, it seemed to stay that way all day.

Wildcat was a tough hike and it felt like forever before I made it to
Carter Notch Hut, the last of the Huts through the White Mountains. I
stopped in there to eat my lunch and refill water. Each night a
different crew member cooks dinner at the Huts, and I watched as the
guy doing it today had a giant bread disaster. He took out the loaves
and they were sunken and stuck in the pans. They looked terrible. I
heard him tell another guy he'd be making some cornbread later to
replace the mishap, so I hope that worked out for him.

When I left there I had a steep climb up to Carter Dome. I started
getting really frustrated and feeling like it was a bad day because I
was still carrying a soaked, thus extra heavy, tent. On top of that I
had just resupplied yesterday so my pack felt even heavier. And the
trail wasn't giving me any breaks, I'd go up and down, and each down
part seemed like it was incredibly rocky and hard to navigate, slowing
my pace to 1mph or so. That 7.2 miles from Carter Notch to Imp
Campsite (where I stopped for the day) seemed never-ending and
extremely difficult. By the time I reached the side trail to it my
knees were toast and I wouldn't have been able to go any further.

I went down, time was about 5:30, and set up on the very last platform
available. I hurried to set up my tent so it could start airing out
immediately, and then got to work on chores, water, dinner, etc. After
a few hours my tent had finally aired out and dried enough to set up
my bed inside. When that was all said and done I hopped inside so I
could write this up. It stinks like mildew in here. Wish I had some
Febreeze. I wonder who made up that product name? While I was midway
through writing it started to rain, so my tent didn't stay dry for
very long. Looks like I'll probably be packing up a wet tent again
tomorrow. Darn. I hope today was just one of those days and that
tomorrow I can get back in the swing of things. It's tough when it
feels like nothing's going your way. One thing to look forward to at
least is that I'll be in Maine within 2 days.

One last thing. I forgot to mention this in yesterday's post, but I
just wanted to give a shout out to my sister Mary saying thanks for
the b-day card that was hand delivered by Mom. Sorry I forgot to put
it in last night, but I did appreciate it. Thanks sis!

Total miles: 1873.2