Appalachian Trail SOBO Day 32 – Everyone loves a fire tower

27th August 2023
NH Route 25c (404) - Lambert Ridge (422.1)
Daily miles: 18.1
Total miles: 429

I woke at 03:30 needing to pee. It was too long to wait until morning so I had to get out and go. I have learnt from many times in the past that trying to hold out will only result in bad sleep.

I packed up and was out of camp by 06:40 and straight into mosquito hell once more. There are large patches of mud on the trail and lots of stagnant water so it’s the perfect breeding ground.

a selfie of a hiker in the morning — 6:45am selfie

a muddy trail through the forest — Mosquito hell

The first part of the day was a fairly gentle cruise across lots of bog boards and the urgent need to poo came at a very inappropriate time - in the middle of a bog board. It was an “it’s coming now I can see the head” type of moments. So I had to run into the forest and hope I wasn’t running into a bog to drop the kids off.

Lots of road crossings today, and then after a morning of trying to out move the mosquitoes - if you stood still for half a second they were all on you - I began the first climb up to Mt Cube. I still felt like I was moving slow but this time I was going 2mph instead of 1mph. That was acceptable.

Today I saw the most NOBOs I’ve seen in a day I think. There was a continuous and steady stream of them.

Mt Cube was actually a fairly tough climb, but the trail was mostly well maintained with lots of rock staircases and some wooden steps, as well as the big mud patches of course. At the top a couple of lady day hikers were there and I spoke to them for a while and actually used the break to eat some of my food.

a staircase made of wooden logs — Log stairs

the view of mostly clouds from the top of a mountain — The top of Smarts Mountain

It was nice up there. No bugs. I didn’t want to descend again into bug hell. But I had to move on and the descent wasn’t that bad but tricky in some places because of the slippy rocks. My new shoes aren’t good on wet rocks!

Once I was down at the bottom I crossed a dirt road, filled up with water, stuffed in a Milky Way (Mars Bar) and started climbing again up to Smarts Mountain. A 4 mile climb which means it’s not as steep as some climbs but it just seemed to go on forever. Mosquitoes and a steady stream of NOBOs. It’s rare I stop and speak to anyone anymore - Hello, how are you? Yeah I’m fine how are you? Fine. Great. Happy trails! - that’s how most of the interactions go. Some of them are longer, some of them aren’t even that much.

clouds dark grey and full of rain — Here comes the rain

It rained. Enough to get the umbrella out but not enough to be significant rain.. it didn’t make my shoes wet. I was actually doing pretty well with my shoes. They are so high because of the chunky sole they mostly keep me out of the mud even when I step in it. It’s like having platform shoes. My feet are a bit damp at most. The left shoe is fine, not causing me any problems, other than some bruising on the back of the heels, but that’s been there a while. The right foot isn’t fairing so well and I have a bit of pain around the balls of my foot where the shoe is just too narrow. Sometimes it’s ok. Sometimes it hurts a lot.

I made it to the top of Smarts Mountain and it had stopped raining about an hour before so when I climbed the fire tower I got some great views. The sun was out and it was warm up there. I was enjoying being up there and I was joined by a NOBO for a few minutes then I heard someone shout “Puff Puff!” It was Cal, he had finally caught up to me. He recognised my pack which I had left at the bottom and he came up to the tower and we caught up. He only camped 2 miles away from me last night.

looking up at a fire tower from below — Fire tower

a view over the trees with a couple of lakes — Views from the fire tower

a view over the trees with fluffy white clouds — Views from the fore tower

a hiker jumping inside a fire tower — Inside the fire tower

a hiker stood on a fire tower — Cal climbing up the fire tower

I had considered staying at the shelter at the top of this mountain but it was only 16:45 and the shelter was probably full of NOBOs who we could be bothered to interact with! So we carried on to one of the view points which suggested there is a small camp space there, or we would carry on a short distance to the next road crossing. It depended on us finding water between the top of the mountain and the view point.

We did find water so filled up and carried on the descent, slipping a few times on wet slab rocks, but we got to the lookout point and chatted the whole way so the time went quicker. We found the camp spot – not the greatest, not the worst – and I wasn’t camping alone tonight which was nice.

We sat on the ledges to watch the sun set. We were on the wrong side of the mountain really and the sunset wasn’t that spectacular but it was really nice to be out in the open for it. I’m aware that as we head into the trees the views and chances like this are going to be fewer and farther between.