Day 121 Trapper John Shelter to NH 25A

Today's miles 16.8.  AT miles 1776.6

Another lovely sunny day but much cooler which we like and another enjoyable but quite tough, tiring day.  We left camp at 7:30 and had a short downhill to Grafton Turnpike road where just after we passed the home of Bill Ackerley.  He had a sign saying free water and ice cream and a game of croquet for hikers.  It was 8 o'clock in the morning so not a respectable time to call in so we passed by.  The trail remained pretty level for the next two miles then the hard uphill began.  We had two long up and over's today.  The first, two miles of steep uphill, then it eased a bit for a mile, then another one mile of steep up to Smarts Mountain.  There were lots of rock steps and some man made help in the form of wooden steps and iron rungs in the rock.  At the top was a fire tower which we climbed.  They're always a bit scary these fire towers, there were great views from the top though today.

From Smarts Mountain summit it was a four mile downhill which was a nice gradual down.  We stopped at the bottom and sat by South Jacobs Brook for a break in the sun. Then uphill number two, another steep rocky three mile climb up to Mount Cube followed by three miles down again.  Nigel wanted to continue another two and a half miles, uphill again, to a designated camp spot but I didn't. I was quite tired so as we had originally planned anyway we are stealth camping tonight.  We collected some water from a stream about a mile before we stopped and pitched the tent off the trail out of view just before we reached a road around 4:45pm.  We are in Forest Protected Area so we have to camp 200' away from the trail. Its not the quietist spot, it being a Friday evening we can hear a load of kids playing a sports game, baseball or football not too far away.  After the game they gathered in the woods not too far away from us and were chatting and drinking, we could hear bottles clonking, until just after 10pm, way past our 'hiker' bedtime.

We saw another porcupine on the trail today, it ran into the trees though before I could get a photo.  We also keep passing quite a few mother grouse with their chicks by the side of the trail, they have a mad panic and make loud whining noises every time we pass.