Maine in September 2015, Grafton Notch northward

[Rain Man]

I plan to do a section hike from Grafton Notch, Maine, hiking north for about 10 days, staying on the trail and in towns along the way, possibly with a zero day somewhere. One or two hikers signed up to accompany me from Tennessee and Ohio. Anyone else interested in joining me/us for the hike or any portion of it, or meeting in town for dinner somewhere, or other?

My plan is to fly to Boston on Tuesday, September 1st, stay over-night with my daughter "Grass" in Boston, take the bus to Gorham, NH on the 2nd, stay at the White Mountains Lodge & Hostel that night, and get shuttled to Grafton Notch on Wednesday the 3rd after breakfast.

Based on my last two section hikes up there, I expect to hike about 6 miles a day. Not interested in a death march, and that portion of the AT can be a death march if you're not careful. I'll finish hiking about the 13th in order to return to Boston and fly home on the 15th.

Also, any advice, recommendations, or concerns to share about the trail, shelters, water, weather, pests, detours, hostels, towns, etc? I always appreciate local advice, even after researching online and in the guides. I wasn't able to hike up there last year, but the prior two Augusts, I hiked from Hanover to Grafton Notch on a similar schedule.

Thanks in advance!

Rain Man

[peakbagger]

There is a former camp on Surplus Pond that may or may not have been taken down by the NPS. When the lease was up the owner stripped it of stuff of value and abandoned it including leaving a hole in the roof. MATC did some clean up a few years back but the structure remained. If it was removed it would make a nice spot for a campsite right on the shore of the pond otherwise the front deck might be an interesting place to camp. Its just a short walk left on the dirt road just after the outlet brook of the pond. Could be a nice spot for lunch.

Make sure you check out the Gun-site near the Hall Mountain shelter.

Unfortunately you will miss the walk along the Cataracts (on Frye Brook), unless your shuttle driver lets you stop on East B Hill road when heading into Andover. Its a prior route of the AT and is series of waterfalls and rock flumes and gorges. A definite loss to the AT. Its near the road and would take no more than an hour to visit.

A general note is that there is no viable access to civilization from Sawyer Notch between Hall and Moody Mountain. The landowner to the south had it posted the last few years and the landowners along the road south of that lot are hostile to anyone using their private road, this info is from two years ago. I used to use this road to access my AT boundary section. Sawyer Notch is the only spot in Maine I have run into stinging nettles along the west bank of the stream.

As the guides and profile describe, the ups and downs out of the valleys are mostly via the fall line. Not a lot of switchbacks and a few irons rungs to add some interest. The climb up Moody is steep but a relocation after a major slide a few years back really improved the route.

That last climb up to Height of Land from the Bemis Valley was laid out by someone who really wanted to go straight up the slope, one last reminder that western maine doesn't believe in switchbacks

General trivia is that Andover Maine was the home of the Telstar satellite antenna. There are still a few dishes but the site was mostly torn down. The early AT skipped Bemis, Hall, Moody and Old Blue. It stuck to a series of logging roads, much of this section was moved to the ridgeline in the eighties.

[Rain Man]

Thank you, Peakbagger! Helpful and interesting info.

There are six of us going on this hike. Tennessee. Florida. Maryland. And ... Holland.

I head to the airport in the morning.

:)

[SouthMark]

Have a good hike Rain Man. I need that section from Grafton East B Hill road and wish that I could join you but will have to do it another time.

[egilbe]

Stopped at the BaldPate shelter and saw that Rainman signed the log book. I guess he's hiking away in the middle of the hiker bubble. My GF and I saw about 25 nobo hikers and 6 or 7 Sobo. Interesting group of people. They looked like ants crawling of the face of East Bald Pate from West Bald Pate. :)

[rafe]

This is peak hiking season, Labor Day weekend, and the weather in New England has been awesome (a bit hot) for the last week or so. Today must have been an beautiful day to hike anywhere in NH or ME.

[hikeandbike5]

You should do the grafton loop trail, highly recomenned.

[egilbe]

My GF and I spent memorial weekend clearing blowdowns on the west side of the Grafton Notch Loop trail. Still trying to make time to run through there again before snow falls. I heard that the blowdowns were all cleared on the East side now. Not a bad trail, at all.

[Rain Man]

Thanks to all for their comments. I am back in Nashville. Will be posting a photo album in next couple of days I hope. I expected to be in the thru-hiker bubble, but did not experience that. We did see thru-hikers, but no crowd. One night we were the only folks at Frye Notch Lean-to, for instance. The weather was fantastic in that it was mostly sunny blue skies. However, it was over 90 two days in a row and 80s every other day but one. My daughter Grass said it was 97 in Boston.

I won't say the trail is easy, but I definitely thought it was easier than the Whites up to Grafton Notch. Or maybe we just took it easier on our bodies. We hiked from road crossing to road crossing, taking two days each time. Some days we hiked farther than expected the first day, which meant the second day was shorter than expected. We had three neros, finishing once at 10:30, once at 12:30, and the last day at 10:15. That leaves a lot of time for knees, etc., to recover. I had a zero day built into the schedule, but we did so well, we skipped it, and got to Rangeley a day early. Stayed at The Farmhouse Inn there. Also a great hostel.

We stayed three nights at The Cabin in East Andover. What a fantastic hiker hostel. Bear and Honey and Hopper are fantastic folks.

Did I mention we had three cars with us?! Thus, we had a lot of freedom to do our own shuttles, drive into towns, and what-not.

We got to swim in one pond and I paddled a canoe around another.

Can't wait till next year to head back to Rangeley and tackle those bigger mountains just past it.

Rain Man

[Rain Man]

Here's the link to the photo album of the trip. I may be posting a few more photos another hiker gave me. Others may post their own too. I'm still in the process of taking time to caption each photo. The captions are my trip report.

Enjoy! I surely did!

Link to photo album of the hike. (http://www.meetup.com/NashvilleBackpacker/photos/all_photos/?photoAlbumId=26412704)

Rain Man

[paule]

Great pictures,Thank you.

[illabelle]

Great pictures,Thank you.

Agreed! We were a few days ahead of Rainman, hiking in an area a little to the north, but it looks like we overlapped from EB Hill to ME 17. Saw some photos that look very similar to a few of mine. Can't wait to go back for the next section. :)

[peakbagger]

I see that you stopped by the abandoned cabin #107 , looks like the deck is pretty far gone. That was on leased land from the Mead pulp mill in Rumford. It was pretty spot when it was still occupied. The NPS got it and was supposed to tear it down years ago. Unfortunately its too close to the road to be good place of a legit camping spot.

I see you stopped by in Sawyer notch #88 to catch your breath between Hall and Moody. How did you like the ladders on Moody? I need go visit that spot one of these weekends and trace out the southerly boundary line up Moody. The next stretch from 17 to RT 4 is nice walk that many forget about, lots of nice ponds (but real popular with college groups).

[Kerosene]

Congrats on finishing the first good chunk of Maine. I agree that the AT from Grafton Notch to Rangeley was a lot easier than the 100 miles south of there. I covered Rangeley to Katahdin last September and can assure you that a lot of that difficulty returns for a while from Saddleback to Little Bigelow.

[Rain Man]

Finally got captions on all the pics (though have not "proofed" them yet). Enjoy!

Grafton Notch to Rangeley, Maine photo album. (http://www.meetup.com/NashvilleBackpacker/photos/all_photos/?photoAlbumId=26412704)

Rain Man

[egilbe]

Nice pics. The kid in the long sleeve shirt at Baldpate shelter was still there when my gf and I stopped there a day or two later, after you left. He got sick, or something, and didn't feel like going any further. The trail maintainer for that section emptied out the trail registers and restocked them that day. He said it was stuffed pretty full :D