9/3/12 – 1910 miles
We set out real early today, Mahoosuc Notch, the most difficult and fun mile on the AT lay a short 6 miles away. The trail was not kind to us on the way to the notch. There were two steep mountains in the way and it seemed like the AT went straight up and down both sides. Southern Maine is very rugged. A lot of thruhikers say that Maine is harder than New Hampshire until we get past the Bigalow Mountains.
We entered Mahoosuc Notch about 2 pm and began our scramble through the playground of jumbled boulders. There were many places where we had to slide down rocks on our buts and a few where we had to take off our packs and hand them through tunnels under huge boulders. Many times the path would lead to chasms or cliffs where we needed all our upper-body strength to pull ourselves through.
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It took us about three hours to complete the mile through the notch. We will probably all be sore in the morning. Tonight we are at a campsite just past the notch and will climb Mahoosuc Arm in the morning. The Arm is said to be almost technical in difficulty – straight up exposed for 1500 feet – and the weather is calling for rain.