The first mountain of the day was a lovely little climb, lovely because it’s the first mountain in several days that could be ascended on mostly dirt trail instead of rock steps. It felt good to walk on a nice switchbacked trail again. There was still plenty of mud and more than enough roots, but surely a huge improvement over recent terrain. It was cold and windy though, especially on the summit.
We were hoping to make it to the shelter just past the NH / Maine border today but the trail returned quickly to it’s normal New England treachery after we were up the first climb. The other side of the mountain was rocky and steep and slippery and slow. Much of the rest of the day included copious amounts of mud, slippery bog boards, and generally slow terrain. We made it to Gentian Pond and had to call it there, pushing on would have meant another night hike, this time in extremely cold weather. The wind was picking up too, and after going outside the shelter here and feeling the wind chill I’m glad we didn’t keep hiking in it. Feels good just to have a bit of time around the shelter with nothing to do. Sleeping stuff was out early, dinner was made, and I could just relax. Actually, I relaxed by playing a few games of Magic: The Gathering with Landon. We had talked about how we both had played previously and so for my birthday he had gotten each of us a preconstructed deck and a few extra packs so that we could play on the trail. I think it’s been a few years since I’d played and it was good to be back.