Mahoosuc Trip - Day 3

During the night, I woke up a few times and was stunned by how quiet it was.  I could also see thousands of stars when I looked outside my tent - the pitch darkness, with zero light pollution, was awesome.  I was up by 0430 again and started packing.  Jon was ready at about the same time as I was and we ate breakfast, got more water and prepared for our climb but the North Peak of Goose Eye Mountain.  We were on the trail (the other hikers were just waking up) by 0550 and were able to make good time to the top of another "nearly-4000-footer".  Again, we had amazing views to the north.  This time, though, we also could see a lot more terrain to the south.  The East and West Peaks of Goose Eye, along with Carlo Col (to the west) looked quite imposing on the horizon.  Perhaps I should have already said this in the last two blogs but I had been telling Jon for almost the whole trip that I wasn't having fun and wanted to bail out.  However, each time, I talked myself out of this drastic plan because of logistics and/or feeling a bit better after rest and food.  But, as we walked across a flat area on the Goose Eye, I started to really look for a way out of having to do more climbing.  We had to scramble through several deep "alpine bogs", full of dark mud.  At around this time, we passed a NOBO Thru hiker who reported that the conditions on the higher ridges were tough, with missing blazes and steep spots throughout.  A bit later, we came to an extremely steep beginning to the next climb and I'd had enough.  We'd only walked for 1.9 miles but my body was protesting every step I took.  I'd previously noticed a trail on the map (North Wright Trail) and in my "Far Out" app ("Abandoned Trail") that descended off the ridge to the east and had told Jon I was interested in using it.  However, there was a warning that it was "not recommended."  To me, though, it was still a trail and seemed like a sort of salvation from more miles of rock climbing.  Somehow, I was able to convince Jon to take it with me.  For the first few hundred yards, everything looked OK.  But then we started to encounter huge trees across the trail - I suppose it looked like the AT would if no one ever did trail maintenance.  We soldiered stubbornly on and, with a LOT of bushwhacking, somehow kept finding the trail again.  There were, in places, some good views of the slopes of Sunday River Ski Resort and Jon knew that area well - this gave us some hope.  Another encouragement: someone had thoughtfully tied bright pink ribbons on trees from time to time and this kept us going.  Eventually, we noticed that the trail began crisscrossing a stream (later, we learned it was called the Goose Eye Brook) and decided to keep it on our radar until the bottom.  This was easier said than done because of the number of downed trees.  Eventually, it just seemed easier to walk in the stream itself...  This was OK for a while but we eventually found the trail again.  This time, though, we almost made a mistake by deciding to follow it - after just a few hundred yards, we realized it was taking us back up the mountain!  So we backtracked and continued down the stream.  Just a bit later, I was faced with a large climb up an embankment or jumping into waist-deep water to get through.  I chose the latter and, despite being drenched, found that my body temperature had dropped significantly - and that was a GOOD thing with the steadily increasing temps (up towards 90 F).  It did make walking hard, though, because my boots no longer had much traction.  As a result, I took a couple of big spills.  Meanwhile, unbeknownst to me, Jon was getting increasingly frustrated by all the bushwhacking.  To his credit, he didn't let on in real time.  Later, however, he told me how many times he'd "sworn at the trees" or "whacked the brush with my poles".  By that point, though, I was just running on fumes and trying to get downhill.  Suddenly, Jon started talking - I thought it was to me until I realized that we'd encountered a person and their dog!  Somehow, we'd located where the South Wright Trail merged with the (abandoned) North Wright Trail and were "saved by civilization".  We asked the man (Neal) if he might be willing to drive us into Bethel and he said that he would.  Wow - talk about Trail Magic!  After that, though, he told us we still had three miles to walk to the car (!!!).  Later, I figured out we'd only been bushwhacking for about two miles (it felt like much more) so the prospect of walking farther was another deflator.  But we had to do it...  Jon walked much farther ahead (to make sure we didn't hold up Neal) and I just kept walking.  Fortunately, the path was well marked (blue blazes) and mostly flat.  There were pretty swimming holes all along the way, too.  At one point, we passed a man who told us that he had been the person who placed the pink ribbons on the tree (Jon told him we wanted to give him a hug).  Just before we reached the parking area on Bull Branch Road (1100), Jon encountered a moose on the trail (I missed it).  A bit after that, we came across Neal, who was patiently waiting for us (more wow!) and soon had us on the road for town.  Along the way, he told us more about the area where we'd been and how he tries to trail-run up to the Goose Eye every week with his border collie, Bex.  As we drove through Bethel, Neal told us he wanted to take us all the way back to Rattle River ("because I've been in your shoes, hoping for a ride").  We arrived there by 1145 and we almost had to force him to take money for being such an amazing Trail Angel.  After getting cleaned up, we got on the road.  Jon suggested a detour (for lunch) and I was happy with the idea.  We drove south via US-2, NH-115, US-3, I-93 and NH-25 and I got to see the town of Plymouth (where he went to college) after bypassing it many times before.  We stopped to eat at the Last Chair Restaurant and had a great talk about our adventure (we were done at 1430).  Our meal was good but the amazingly large quantity of water I drank was even more refreshing!  On the way home, we used several back roads (NH-25A, Orfordville Road and Baker Hill Road) to reach Etna.  Jon pointed out many great trails in the area that I hadn't yet discovered.  By the time we arrived at my condo, I felt almost like my normal self.  This was an extremely tough hike and, once again, I am happy to say that I didn't try it alone.  Jon was a great hiking buddy and, despite how the hike ended, it does feel great that we were able to log ~12 miles of the trail.  I'm over 90% done now and just have to keep plodding along to the end!  AT Today = 1.9 miles / Grand Total AT = 1967.2 miles / AT Left = 218.1 miles