Summary
Aug 11th
NH RT 25 to NH RT 112
NOBO mile# 1800.4
Daily mileage 9.3
Total mileage 776.7
Woke up to the full eggs, pancakes, and bacon breakfast. As the caretaker, Legion, humbly attested, it is the best $5 breakfast on the trail. Tomorrow is French Toast casserole. And bacon.
After breakfast, Legion drove a few of us over to Kinsman Notch (RT 112), so we could begin to slack pack. As I got out of the car, I saw Tarzan and Fuego in time to wave, as they disappeared northbound. Then two folks went north, and two of us (Greybeard was going south, as was I) began our climb of Moosilauke.
The Beaver Brook trail on the north side of Moosilauke gains 2163 feet of elevation over 2 miles. If I found the right gradient converter on google, this translates to a 22% grade. Some is up slabs of wet granite, sometimes with 4x4s cut and attached as steps, since there is no other way to get traction on them. To call it precarious is an understatement. Treacherous might be a better term. I probably wasn’t averaging better than 1 mile an hour, and this was without a full pack. So the climb seemed endless; step after step, for nearly two hours straight.
Of course, the mitigating factor was the incredible sight of the Beaver Brook Cascades, that accompany the trail for what seems like the entire way up to the shelter, but is something less than that. I kept wanting to take photos, but knew my phone would start to complain about not having enough memory.
Part of the way up I met Irish, a guy working on completing climbing all 48 peaks over 4K feet in NH. I passed him as he was resting, then he followed me up. The conversation was a great way to take our minds off the sometimes frightening, always tiring, climb. At one point Irish slipped and fell, but he got up saying he was fine.
When I reached the side trail to the Beaver Brook Shelter, we had gone 1.5 miles, and I thought the hard part was over. I called back to Irish, who had fallen somewhat behind, to let him know he was close. We went over to the shelter, and Irish asked me to take a picture of him. Then we got back to the climb, which still seemed to be pretty steep.
When I climbed Moosilauke last time, I went up the Asquam Ridge trail, which intersects with Beaver Brook above the shelter trail. I was under the impression that it was just after the shelter, but it was another .5 miles on, so the interminable climb continued.
Even after the trails converged, there was still significant climbing ahead, but it was much more varied terrain. About this point Irish dropped behind again, and I was climbing alone the rest of the way to the summit.
The weather was not the best for views today; the wind seemed to be coming from the southeast, and clouds dominated the eastern view, obscuring Franconia Ridge and the mountains beyond and to the south. I could look at the Kinsmans, the next section I have to hike, to the north, and there was limited visibility to the west.
The last time I was up there, it was late in the season, and there was rime ice on the cairns and krumholtz, and I had to add layers to stay warm. Today, it was cool but not cold, so I didn’t need to layer up. I sat on a stone pile to drink and eat some snacks.
I sat next to an Alpine Warden: a young girl hired to educate hikers on the rare and endangered plant life, and to try to keep folks from walking off trail and damaging them. We chatted while I snacked. I asked a few questions about how one gets such a position, but today was her first day, so she couldn’t answer too in-depth, referring to her cheat sheets. She seemed to have a good background on the plants, though!
I eventually started to get chilled, so gathered myself for the walk down the southern side. As I stood, though, I saw Irish coming up to the summit. So we met up, and he asked another hiker to take our picture together. He said he thought of me as a mentor, and credited me with helping him complete his climb today. That was flattering, though perhaps a bit of hyperbole.
The folks who are working on their 48 4K footers are climbing these serious, often very difficult, trails without the benefit of having trail legs; that’s a pretty monumental feat! I have a lot of respect for them, and for Irish!
During the hike, I passed a number of folks I had met at the hostel the day before, as I moved south and they continued there northward journey. It is kind of cool to see a goodly number of familiar faces out on the trail
Because folks have talked a lot about the difficulty of ascending/descending Beaver Brook trail, I kind of developed a (mistaken) impression that the Glencliff trail, which ascends/descends the southern side of Moosilauke, would be easy. But the Glencliff trail is fairly steep as well, with rocks and roots to spare. So the descent from the south peak was slow, with me needing to carefully place my feet to avoid slipping or tripping. There was easily a couple of miles of that terrain before it started to level out, and the path became smoother and less treacherous.
At this point I felt strong enough to half run down the trail, and caught up to a SOBOer who had stayed ahead of me, just within or out of my sight, since the summit.
Then I was in some fields, the trail nearly level at this point, crossing and then following a road for a little bit, before coming to Jeffers Brook Shelter, just about a mile from RT 25. Then I had to ford/cross a river with no stones to rock hop and no bridge; there was a thin tree trunk or branch I could kind of use, though my feet got a little wet), before reaching 25, and walking back to the hostel.
This place is amazing. It attracts Trail Angels in a way I’ve not seen before. Yesterday there were sodas, KitKat bars, chips, etc. when I arrived, and today a camp that was closing for the season left bread, bagels, meat and cheese, bags and bags of Chex mix, condiments and a gallon tub of vanilla creme. I made a salami and cheese sandwich on a bagel.
Then an hour later, another trail angel dropped BBQ ribs, hillbilly potatoes, and strawberries, and later chicken, along with beer. So lunch and dinner were provided for us.
As it got dark, someone got a fire started in the fire pit, and someone else pulled out a banjo, and another person had his backpacker guitar, and I grabbed the hostel’s guitar, and we began a song swap.
If I were to rate the past couple of days, they’d be right up there with some of favorite moments.
Tom Maynard 
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