Quote Originally Posted by peakbagger View Post
Well if you are asking about shelters and campsites this late in the game this implies you may be in over your head. One of the 10 essentials that all hikers should carry is a map and now how to use it. Sure AT hikers now claim an ap is good enough and I will let them debate that with NH fish and game. You need a map with enough scale to show the blue blazed side trails in case you need a bail out. My guess is Gorham Hardware (which sells hiking supplies) will have the AMC North Country Mahoosuc map or since you are driving up from the south if you are on RT 16 you drive right by the AMC Pinkham Notch facility that has a store and a couple nice displays of Mt Washington. Its worth a stop and they definitely have maps. If you are coming up I93 then RT3 to RT 115 and then RT 2 to Gorham (past Slo-goem's and my house) its a 20 minute drive south on RT 16 to Pinkham Notch. If you go that way, just after the Wildcat ski area take the curve and look up and to the right up at Mt Washington (there is green historical marker on the other side of the road) and you will be able to the see the still large snowfields in Tuckerman's Ravine. Note my slightly dated AMC map stops right at Baldpate Shelter so it doesn't cover all the way to East B Hill road.
Do you guys know anyone who wants to make a paid run to Grafton and shuttle me back to Gorham? I'll call the hostel tonight or trailangels, but if you're in Gorham (or close), that seems like a better deal all the way round. It looks like coming from Andover to Grafton then to to Gorham is further out of the way than going from East B Hill Road to Gorham.

Officially there is no camping on this section except at designated shelters and tentsites. The official sites are Trident col tentsite, Gentian Pond Shelter and tentsites, Carlo Col Shelter (a short way down Carlo Col trail. Full Goose Shelter, an unnamed tent site encountered just after Mahoosuc Notch which is mentioned as a site in most trail guides, Speck Pond Shelter, and Baldpate Shelter and finally Frye Notch lean to. Note shelters and leantos are interchangeable words for the same thing. There is a water source that needs to be treated and a privy. Once you head up Mt Success past Gentian Pond the odds of finding a good place to camp other than shelters is real tough as you are on on the ridgeline surrounded by dense Spruce fir woods. Some folks camp up on the open rock ledges but if you insist stay on the rock rather than the surrounding alpine vegetation that takes decade to recover form a footprint. You will need to haul water up and if a thunderstorm comes in overnight it (happens frequently in the summer you will wish you hadnt.)
We intend to camp in the shelters for several reasons, and now the most important is the privy! I didn't know they had them. That will be key. I don't personally have any desire to overnight 'in the open'.

Note the Mahoosuc trail that isnt part of the AT is blazed in blue.
Good to know, thanks.