Those hot and muggy mornings feel a little mischievous. When the sun beats down not to dry you out but to raise up moisture high into an anvil cloud, you know something is up. The moisture feels think enough to wear, and you wait until it pours down in a flowing garment of rain.
Shortly after lunch, it appeared the first dark thunderstorm to the west would harmlessly pass. Then, in the firs, it became so dark, it was like walking at night by the light of the full moon. The rainfall rate started like a low-flow showerhead, completely drenching me. I was with an older couple and three young women, who all made the storm feel less scary with their presence. Bolts of lightning streaked through the forest, followed by thunder like a gunshot. The rain intensified to normal showerhead rate. Then it felt like an old nozzle from before water conservation was an issue. I imagined a bucket being dumped over my head.
All this water had to go somewhere. Ground already saturated from weeks of rain, it mostly flowed surfacially into rivulets, which multiplied into gullies, which filled low-lying areas. The trail was a raging creek, alternatively a calf-deep pool, a swamp, or an ankle-deep torrent. Any creeks labelled on a map flowed brown and roared ferociously, looking too dangerous to cross. Fortunately, the trail did not cross any creeks while I stumbled through the storm.
I reached a the shelter, where my friend Globetrotter had managed to stay dry through the first storm. Must have been nice. Obsessed with crossing the border into Maine that day, Globetrotter and I ventured out once the rain rate abated. Just a pause as it happened. Soon, rumbles of thunder surrounded us. We climbed up an interminable peak called Mt Success, exhausted and stubbornly determined. The top was exposed alpine bog, with no trees to protect us from lightning and with bogs so deep that we both fell in past our knees. it took great care keep our shoes and not get completely stuck. It felt like New Hampshire wanted us to ensnare us, serving up an alley oop of doom: getting you stuck in a bog and then zapping you with a bolt of lightning.
A Pyrrhic victory was Mt Success. As we descended, Globetrotter told stories of the scariest and most difficult parts of the trail he had experienced. Mid-sentence, the bolt of lightning flashed, and thunder bellowed before the spotlight faded. We fell silent. Nothing else said, it was clear this was both the most challenging and scary day of the entire trail. You had to earn every inch, climbing over boulder scrambles, through torrential rain and muddy water. Some people take a break from the trail to go rafting or canoeing and call this aqua-blazing. How fun. This was not the sort of aqua-blazing I expected to participate in on the Appalachian Trail.
