Granite Mon 2010

:: granitemon

By: John Clements

As I write this, the 2010 Granite Mon is still in progress. This morning at 6:00 AM, a hardy crew of four swimmers and a nearly-as-hardy crew of chase-boaters gathered at the KYC dock, and on a spectacularly sunny and smooth day set out on one of the warmest swims on record. Andy—the only one without a wet suit—exited the water when he got too cold, but Charlotte, Justin, and John stuck really close together for a near-simultaneous arrival at the Becton’s dock.

Andy has a bunch of pictures in his flickr set of the swim. This is one of the whole crew, before the swim:

Pre-swim 2010

Pre-swim 2010

Participants:

  • John Clements
  • Charlotte Clews
  • Justin Pollard
  • Andy Wanning

Later, Andy wrote:

As for this year - successful! JP, Charlotte and I completed the 108.7 mile trek to Medway, Maine, arriving at 11:15pm. In a slight twist, we elected to do the last part along the route where Ben got lost all those years ago - a little longer, but flatter. Unfortunately, pretty bumpy, which was a quite literal pain in the ass in the dark, but still not bad. A big shout out to Charlotte’s mom Retta, who met us twice for food drop offs etc. during the ride, and Charlotte’s husband Jerome, who met us at the hotel with all our gear and supplied transportation from then on.

So this year was nigh-luxurious (though mitigated by the late bike arrival) in that one can now register online for a parking permit - so we just had to arrive in the parking lot by 7:30am to claim our space. So we got up at 5:30 rather than 3:45 or 4:00, and made our way to the Roaring Brook parking lot. Then we made a rather quick ascent & descent, since we had started later (8:00) and had to return by 5:00 so that Charlotte & Jerome could get back to their kids. We were definitely feeling the ol’ legs and knees (hell, I’m still feeling my thighs) after that bike ride, but all in all it wasn’t so bad and we conquered that darn mountain.

So…huge congrats to Charlotte for being the first Granite Maiden/Lady/Beef (Jamaican term) to do the whole thing. I almost did it too, but as you pointed out I had to bail halfway through the swim for cold / lack of a wetsuit. Oh well. And JP did the whole thing for the 3rd or 4th time (?)

Here’s a picture from his flickr set of the climb:

Climbers at top of Katahdin

Climbers at top of Katahdin