Folks,
I’m a section hiker, and have been working on hiking the trail for 12-13 years. NHL killed me and now I’m getting ready to go back out. Looked out the profiles as to what’s ahead. Are there ways to slack some of this? I’m starting in Gorham. Any tips? Ho boy, I want to finish but this looks Very tough…
_MOONMAN_ Maine is tough but not as bad as NH. The first part out of Gorham is a bear and no way to slack it. After that you have several slack options.
_Big B_ My husband and I are in a similar situation except we started hiking the AT in 1975! We have walked past every white blaze from Springer Mountain to Grafton Notch, but mostly in short pieces. We hiked New Hampshire to Grafton Notch in 2009. (took 5 hours to do Mahoosic Notch!) Since we live in Utah now, arrangements are tricky. Since we are both 62 years old, the trail in Maine will be tough. We have a plan to finish in two trips. Here is our plan for completing Grafton Notch to Monson. In less than two weeks we will begin hiking in Monson and head south. The section from Monson to Caratunk is easier than the sections out of Grafton so we've will start there. We are planning 4 days for that section. After a stay at Sterling Inn in Caratunk, we will take 4 days to hike to Stratton Brook Pond Road. After a stay in Stratton, we hope to do the next 4 pieces to Grafton Notch as day hikes. There are shuttles possible for those sections or we could end up renting 2 cars. (Enterprise in Farmingham or Skowhegan) Then the plan is to finish Monson to Katadin in 2014. Hope it helps to know that someone else is also having anxiety about The AT in Maine. Best wishes.
_Turtle Walking_ Sorry. I made an omission in the above post. I forgot a 3 day backpack out of Stratton south to ME Rt. 4 before the 4 day hikes.
_Turtle Walking_