Day 136 Speck Pond Campsite to Frye Notch Lean-to

Today's miles 10.4.  AT miles 1923.9

It rained all night last night, not heavy rain  like the night before, we had no leaky drips in the tent thankfully.  The tent floor had some wet patches though by the morning due to hydrostatic pressure as we'd set up on a wet platform initially. The rain had stopped by the morning.  It's always hard to tell when it actually stops raining as the trees continue to drip water for a long while afterwards so it still sounds like rain on the tent.  It was a very cold damp cloudy start, we had our waterproof coat and trousers, hat and gloves on to keep warm first off.  Eventually we had sunny spells and it warmed up, it was very windy today though, a side effect of hurricane Arthur maybe.

We left camp at 9am, continuing uphill towards Old Speck summit, the trail didn't actually go to the summit though we bypassed that.  It was then a three and a half mile downhill to Grafton Notch.  We were expecting lots of big rock climbs down but the trail wasn't too bad. Grafton Notch marks the end of the AMC White Mountains maintenance area.  We stopped at the Notch car park for a short break.  Next it was uphill again to Baldpate West and East Peak.  The first part of the uphill to Baldpate Lean-to wasn't too bad. (Shelters are now called Lean-to's in Maine).  The next section uphill to Baldpate West peak was quite steep and rocky but some sections the trail maintenance teams had put in very good stone steps.  It was very windy at the top.  We had great views over to Baldpate East peak where we were heading next.  It was extremely windy getting over East peak, it was far more open (bald) and exposed with rocky slabs out of the trees. We were holding on to the rock slab sides going up so not to get blown away.  The wind was also helping blow us up the mountain.  It was beautiful at the top, there were fantastic views of Maine ahead of us.  It was far too windy though unfortunately to stop and have a break at the summit.

Descending down from Baldpate was quite steep, definitely not as nice as the ascent.  The whole trail was very wet underfoot today after all the rain and there were lots of rocks and especially tree roots which are always slippy when wet.  We reached Frye Notch Lean-to at 4pm where we decided to stop for the night.  We had intended on continuing a further six miles or so and stealth camping but it had taken us longer than expected today to reach Frye Notch, a latish 9am start didn't help, we wouldn't have got there until quite late.  We had lots of wet gear and tent to dry out so decided we'd call it a day.  We'd get an earlier start tomorrow when it's forecast for nice weather again.  We set up a washing line and got the tent and other wet items drying in the wind. They'd dried really quickly which was great.

Breeze came past about an hour later and stopped for a cup of tea break.  He put us to shame though and carried on to stealth camp down the trail.  He would have had a late finish though.  Just after 8pm, luckily after I'd brought the last of our drying items into the tent, the heavens opened again and we had another heavy rain shower.  So much for a dry tent!  We weren't expecting it, the forecast was for a clear night.  It was just a quick one off shower thankfully.