Double Bow
New member
- Joined
- Apr 29, 2005
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With Gator being on the DL, I had to scramble to find someone to hike with on Friday. I didn't have any preferance of where to go but, I wanted to be social. Sounds like it would be easy, right? Wrong! After asking a few folks if they could sneak out of work, I remembered that Gator and I had hiked with Kathy and Zak on 7/8. So I emailed them and found that they were starting on a three day backpack but I could join them for all or part of it so I met up with Kathy and Tucker (Kathy's dog) for a late start. We spotted my car and drove to the Rattle River trail head.
I was pretty excited to be doing this hike since when I did Moriah before, I had done it coming over from the Carters and going down Carter-Moriah so, I never had a feeling of climbing Moriah plus, doing Rattle River would complete my redlining of the AT in the Carter Range.
Rattle River was a great trail. It's a little steep after you get in a ways but, the trail is pretty smooth. As we passed the shelter, we saw a guy laying down, just chilling out. As we progressed, we heard the thunder and I thought of Steve's words from that morning, "Keep your eyes on the skies". Soon, it started sprinkling, then raining, then pouring. We stopped for a minute to decide what to do but, we could tell that it was already starting to lighten. This was a fast moving front!
Continuing on, the rain came to a complete stop. This was just a little before the junction with the Kenduskeag trail, which is where we parted ways. I wanted to go over to Shelburne Moriah since it's a NHHH that I hadn't done. Kathy and Tuck continued to Moriah and Imp Shelter where they would meet Zak and spend the night.
The trail over to Shelburne started off muddy but soon had me traversing over rolling ground with smooth fairly flat slabs. The openess made me a little nervous at first as I could still hear some distant rumblings to the east but a fairly strong wind was blowing in that direction so, I felt kind of safe.
As I got closer to the peak, the clouds started to clear though the wind remained strong. This was a really fun traverse and the views were fantastic! In good weather, this would definately rank high among my favorite ridges. I went past the summit to check out the views from the ledges to the east. Back at the summit, I took pictures and wrung out my socks (did I mention it POURED?).
Leaving the summit and heading to Moriah, I had a lot of fun and I made sure that I went over and hit the summit of Middle Moriah (just because it's there). The way back to Rattle River was more enjoyable than the way out had been since the weather had improved. Shortly after that junction, I met the guy who had been laying down at the shelter. He was with a girl and they were SoBo ATers. We talked a little and then I continued the climb up to Moriah which was a little steep but very enjoyable. When I got to the summit, a small group was leaving and I had it all to myself! It was the perfect picture of isolation and tranquility. I took some photos and ate before I reluctantly left. I knew that I had to get down if I wanted to be assured of having a place to stay that night.
Coming over on the ridge was really nice too with more great views and no wind. The weather had gone from nice to crappy to semi-crappy to nice. Eventually, I got to Stony Brook trail which I decended to my car. This trail had a gentler grade than Rattle River but was as rocky as Rattle River was smooth still, I made good time down it and got to Hiker's Paradice in plenty of time.
Deciding that the hike and the hostel wouldn't be adventure enough, I went to Fortune Cookie for Chinese buffet. While most of the food was so-so, I have to say, the hot and sour soup was some of the best I've ever had!
Back at the hostel, contented and full, I curled up under the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle sheet that they gave me and fell asleep thinking about the next day's bushwhack...
I was pretty excited to be doing this hike since when I did Moriah before, I had done it coming over from the Carters and going down Carter-Moriah so, I never had a feeling of climbing Moriah plus, doing Rattle River would complete my redlining of the AT in the Carter Range.
Rattle River was a great trail. It's a little steep after you get in a ways but, the trail is pretty smooth. As we passed the shelter, we saw a guy laying down, just chilling out. As we progressed, we heard the thunder and I thought of Steve's words from that morning, "Keep your eyes on the skies". Soon, it started sprinkling, then raining, then pouring. We stopped for a minute to decide what to do but, we could tell that it was already starting to lighten. This was a fast moving front!
Continuing on, the rain came to a complete stop. This was just a little before the junction with the Kenduskeag trail, which is where we parted ways. I wanted to go over to Shelburne Moriah since it's a NHHH that I hadn't done. Kathy and Tuck continued to Moriah and Imp Shelter where they would meet Zak and spend the night.
The trail over to Shelburne started off muddy but soon had me traversing over rolling ground with smooth fairly flat slabs. The openess made me a little nervous at first as I could still hear some distant rumblings to the east but a fairly strong wind was blowing in that direction so, I felt kind of safe.
As I got closer to the peak, the clouds started to clear though the wind remained strong. This was a really fun traverse and the views were fantastic! In good weather, this would definately rank high among my favorite ridges. I went past the summit to check out the views from the ledges to the east. Back at the summit, I took pictures and wrung out my socks (did I mention it POURED?).
Leaving the summit and heading to Moriah, I had a lot of fun and I made sure that I went over and hit the summit of Middle Moriah (just because it's there). The way back to Rattle River was more enjoyable than the way out had been since the weather had improved. Shortly after that junction, I met the guy who had been laying down at the shelter. He was with a girl and they were SoBo ATers. We talked a little and then I continued the climb up to Moriah which was a little steep but very enjoyable. When I got to the summit, a small group was leaving and I had it all to myself! It was the perfect picture of isolation and tranquility. I took some photos and ate before I reluctantly left. I knew that I had to get down if I wanted to be assured of having a place to stay that night.
Coming over on the ridge was really nice too with more great views and no wind. The weather had gone from nice to crappy to semi-crappy to nice. Eventually, I got to Stony Brook trail which I decended to my car. This trail had a gentler grade than Rattle River but was as rocky as Rattle River was smooth still, I made good time down it and got to Hiker's Paradice in plenty of time.
Deciding that the hike and the hostel wouldn't be adventure enough, I went to Fortune Cookie for Chinese buffet. While most of the food was so-so, I have to say, the hot and sour soup was some of the best I've ever had!
Back at the hostel, contented and full, I curled up under the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle sheet that they gave me and fell asleep thinking about the next day's bushwhack...
