Up at 4am as usual. As soon as that first hermit thrush starts warbling, I’m up thinking about the day ahead. It was foggy and still drizzling. I took my time packing up and making breakfast. On the trail by 5am. My goal for the day was to get to Percy Camp 17mi away.
Down into Gadwah Notch I went. I had no cell service and the fog gave it an ethereal feeling. While it had stopped raining, the rain on all the shoulder high ferns soaked me from head to toe in no time. It was fine, I was used to it. I had been wet every day on trail so far. As long as I could get to where I needed to go, I had a set of comfy, dry, camp clothes waiting for me.
Once I had climbed out of the notch, I came out onto Bulldozer Flat. It supposedly had really nice views to the west, but the fog socked me in. It was still beautiful in it’s own way. It was full of neon green grass, and bright pink sheep laurels. The balsam fir trees were faded into the mist and it just seemed so magical.
By the time I had made my way across the flat, the rain started picking up again. Luckily, it didn’t last. I made my way down to Nash Stream rd where I would see the largest coyote I had ever seen drinking from a culvert. He looked up and back at me, then took off running down the corridor.
I finally made my way to the end of the road and turned onto Pike Brook Trail. I was so happy to be on actual forest trails. I made my way to the Sugarloaf Arm Trail where I lost my gps signal for the first time since I had started the Cohos. It came back after about a mile of hiking up the arm. I crossed Nash Stream for the second time that day, then headed up to Pond Brook Falls. I then crossed the Nash Stream for a third time before heading back into the forest on the Trio Trail.
It was around 4pm when I made it into Percy Loop Camp. I set up my tent, made dinner and pondered whether or not I wanted to head up North Percy for sunrise the next day. Spoiler alert: it ended up being overcast.
