Stealth Camp to Bracket Brook Stealth Camp

Day Three
Friday, May 31, 2019
Stealth Camp to Bracket Brook Stealth Camp
11.8 miles

Left camp at 6:20.  We found that it was a hard ascent up Smarts Mountain to the Fire Wardens Cabin.  We were glad that we didn't try this yesterday afternoon.  We found our first rebar ladder going up Smarts Mountain.  Woo hoo!  There were lots of boulders and wet rocks.

Fire Wardens Cabin is 4-sided, of course, and has a nice privy.  We took a short break there.

Going down the north side of Smarts Mountain was a nice trail.  It leveled out some and we made good time.  There were some new boardwalks and lots of moose poop. 

Then we started up our second summit of the day, the south peak of Mt. Cube.  Whew!  We thought Smarts Mountain was bad! Mt. Cube was even more interesting with big boulders requiring you to scale them.  There were lots of day hikers on the top, which was covered with big boulders and had a very nice view. 

Coming down Mt. Cube was more rocks but no more boulder climbing.  Again, we stopped short of our original plan and made camp around Brackett Brook. 

Moose poop on the trail.

Fire Warden's Cabin

Fire Warden's Cabin

Atop Mt. Cube

Moose Mountain Shelter to Stealth Camp

Day Two
Thursday, May 30, 2019
Moose Mountain Shelter to Stealth Camp
9.2 Miles

Started hiking at 7:20.  45 degree weather up to about 65 today.  We got hot and used our cooling headgear dipped into a cool mountain stream.  It was a hard day since we had sore legs from yesterday.  Every excruciating step reminded me I'm from  Florida.  There is no way to prepare for these mountains in Florida. 

There were again lots of mud bogs, reminiscent of Vermont. 

We had planned to make it to Fire Warden's Cabin but when we were almost there and looked over and saw a fire tower on the top of the next mountain, we called it a day.  We made camp at the bottom beside a stream. 

412 Miles to Katahdin!

1730 already done from Georgia!

Only 412 miles to go!

Only 412 miles to go!

Connecticut River to Moose Mountain Shelter

Day One
Wednesday, May 29, 2019
Connecticut River to Moose Mountain Shelter
11.5 Miles

We awoke at 4:30, repacked and organized our backpacks and had a good breakfast courtesy of the Comfort Inn.

Fortunately the Advance Transit bus line had a stop in front of the hotel.  We took the orange line to the Connecticut River bridge and the state line where we will begin our 2019 journey.

The state line is in the middle of the Connecticut River bridge.

After taking the obligatory pictures on the bridge, we went up the hill and into Hanover, NH.  The trail winds through town, past Dartmouth College and the Co-op.  I had to go in.  They have everything a hiker might need to resupply, but we didn't need anything, we had brought our food for the first days from home packed in our backpack.  We kept going and soon entered the woods.

Before long we found mud and black flies galore!  But it was mostly easy trail except for a little 45 degree mountain after the Velvet Rocks Shelter north loop trail and the long ascent to Moose Mountain Shelter.  We found that the water source was not at the shelter but at the north end of the loop trail to the shelter.  The privy had no sides - that's always a delight, ugh!!

We had the company of one fellow named Man Scout, a flip-flopper.

Mud, mud, mud!

Someone decorated the tree.