I woke up for a while in the night because it was so warm, even though a mist was coming in and soaking the half of my sleeping bag facing towards the outside of the porch.  I caught a few good glimpses of stars despite the mist.

When it was morning, we packed up to go, but everyone else went looking for the water source that was described as being a bushwhacking route you go onto between the cabin and the summit.  We thought the summit was just above the cabin but it turns out that it was still a five to ten minute walk away.  Everyone went bushwhacking way too close to the cabin, couldn’t find it, and gave up.  When we actually started hiking, we realized the open rocky area above the cabin was not the summit.  Just before the actual summit, we did see sort of a trail going off to the right and that was where the water really was.  There’s all kinds of confusion around this water source and I think it’s due to confusion of where the summit is when you’re hiking north.

I had enough water to get me to the next source so I hung out at the summit of Mount Cabot at 4170′ while I waited for everyone else.

We continued on from there down the ridge, over the Bulge at 3950′ and then up a spur trail to the Horn at 3905′.  The Horn has a great huge rock to sit on and view all around at the summit so we snacked and lazed up there for a while.

Jon took off from there and we wouldn’t see him for the rest of the day’s hike.  I took off not too long after, stopping to fill up on water at Unknown Pond then continuing down the Kilkenny Ridge Trail, getting more water at Mill Brook before starting the short climb to Roger’s Ledge.  It didn’t look like too much elevation gain on the map but it was pretty steep at the end and took me longer than I liked to get up.  I made it up to the ledge and tried to dry out there in the very slight breeze.

The breeze didn’t last long on the ledge and the sun was way too hot so I retreated into the shade of the woods to wait for everyone.  After half an hour, they came up and went onto the ledge to hang out.  I tried to go back but it was just too hot for me.  I love the shade.

We left after I’d been there over an hour.  It was all downhill from the ledge to the road to Stark so we made decent time on the way, eventually coming out to the South Pond Recreation Area.  We road walked from there to Route 110.  The databook calls for turning onto a skimobile trail called the South Pond Link but the map highlights the road so we ended up just walking that (although the map doesn’t show all the intersecting roads and turns correctly, Google Maps helped me out).

We walked up 110 to Bell Hill Road to find Jon waiting in Spoon’s car.  He’d gotten there over an hour before us, hitched to the Stark Inn, and brought the car back to pick us up.  Excellent service!  13.4 miles for the day.

We got to the inn to find the owner splitting wood, but she’d already shown Jon where all our rooms are so he got us set up.  I got my sleeping bag out to dry on the porch railing then hopped in the shower.  Once we were all clean, we put some laundry in to start and took the car to Groveton to grab a few resupply items and get pizza for dinner.  I had left a resupply in Spoon’s car so I really only needed some cheese to add to it.

We took the pizza back to Nancy’s and enjoyed it on the back porch overlooking the Upper Ammonoosuc River.  My stomach was not feeling great so I didn’t eat too much.  It wasn’t helped by the Grape-a-Rita that I had bought to drink.  I didn’t want a whole bottle of wine for myself so that was one of the only other options besides beer at the grocery store.  I swear Stretch and I enjoyed it one time but this time it was horrendous.  I couldn’t take a sip without grimacing.  We passed it around a few times to try to get everyone to help me but I ended up dumping half of it out.  Terrible decision.

A few of us went to bed and a few of us moved to the front porch where I got to test out the porch swing before bed.