What a difference a day makes! After yesterdays downpour, this morning I woke up to birds singing and blue skies above. Oh how lovely a day it will be. Dowd’s Country Inn makes a full made to order breakfast for hungry hikers. I had a mushroom omelette with bacon, potatoes and toast with grapefruit juice please. It was exactly what I needed. Mary Poppins had the same and Blue had her Sunny-side up eggs with all the fixings. We were fueled for the outrageous climbing the AT had planned for today.

Darrell gave us a ride back to the trail and we were in formation by 8:45am. A bit late for us but nevertheless, we were ready. The trail was, let’s say wet. With the constant rain from the past days, there is nothing dry underfoot. From our first step on the trail, we were submerged in mud and muck. The positive thing was within a hundred yards or so, we had a river crossing. At this point, I’m convinced that this is only the first of many river crossings so I’m going in. No trying to skip across rocks, or going up and down stream trying to find a log crossing, I just walked across. Blue and Mary Poppins did the same.

We had flowing water on the trail for most of the morning. There was just too much water and the ground can’t absorb it anymore. The trail is the path of least resistance so that’s where the water drains. It makes perfect sense. The morning was gorgeous. The temperature couldn’t had been better, not too hot and not too cold. It wasn’t even humid which I thought it would be.

After climbing for a bit, we made it to Lamberts Ledge. It was reached by walking atop of series of granite rocks that were polished and smooth. After hiking for more than an hour or so, we made it to a great vista and with the clear skies, we could see Dartmouth Ski Hill and the Town of Lyme. We sat and had some snacks. Yes, that is pretty much what we do all day. Hike and eat!

After our break, the next big climb was reaching the summit of Smarts Mountain, the highest peak in the region and site of a fire lookout tower. Views from the Smarts Mountain Tower are some of the most outstanding on this section of the AT. The taller peaks of the White Mountains were clearly visible to the northeast, while other central New Hampshire peaks like Cardigan and Kearsarge are seen to the southeast. Plus the high peaks of Vermont were clear, and I could see the Connecticut River to the west, that I crossed three days ago. It was outstanding.

An old fire warden’s cabin is located at the base of the fire tower, and is maintained as an Appalachian Trail shelter. The cabin has space for about 8 people. It’s a bit rundown but I’m sure there were many hikers holding up in it yesterday with all the rain.

After checking out the sights, we moved along and headed down the mountain and went back to the wet and muddy trail. We had several River or Brook crossings today and all but one, we submerged our feet directly into the water. There was no denying the amount of water that has accumulated from our storms. There has been talk on the trail that one of the upcoming rivers was impassable yesterday with hikers having to turn around. Originally we had planned to attempt crossing it today but we changed our plans.

So today we saw a lot more hikers out and about. There was a huge group that were at the Fire Tower, close to a dozen. There was a dog named Summit that hiked with us for awhile before Summit’s owner caught up with him. Then there were a couple of guys who were backpacking barefoot. That was the first time I’ve seen that! And on our way to Mount Cube, I ran into Unhurrey B, aka Moses. Moses stopped and we talked for a bit and then he asked me, are you Kelly? Yes, I am. How do I know you? He’s been following my blog and Facebook posts for the past two years. He’s hiking the AT Southbound this year so our paths just happened to cross. Such a small and wonderful world!

After climbing close to 4300’ today, I made the command decision to camp atop Cube Mountain. We had plenty of water, imagine that and the weather was perfect. Not a cloud in the sky and the forecast is for no rain till tomorrow afternoon. We have a perfect window of weather and this may be our one and only chance to cowboy camp. Blue and Mary Poppins were thrilled to stop but chose the confines of their tents. Norman and I are sleeping outside, under the stars and loving our little paradise on the rock. Honestly, this is the best campsite I’ve had in quite sometime. What an ending to the most perfect day! Norman agrees. His animal tendencies are being magnified while he is sleeping outside. He is one happy camper!