Allen 5/18

[Unregistered]

All water crossings (rivers and brooks) running high, fast and dangerous with the recent rain. Path is free of snow but is in places very wet and muddy and also hard to follow with blowdown and dense leaf cover after this week's snow melt. Allen Brook is a continuous waterfall. The red slime is worse than I have ever experienced. It might as well have been ice. We would have had difficulty making the summit without traction on the slick slime. Microspikes all the way up from the beginning of the brook despite almost complete lack of snow. High up, especially where one reenters the woods, there is a lot of thick unavoidable ice which we had to negotiate with extreme care and in one case bushwhack around. There is no snow on the ridge or summit.
Allen can be a dangerous place right now--be careful. And, bugs are coming