Washburn (white) to Notch (blue) to Breakneck (white) to Casino (red). They've cleaned up most of the fallen trees on the Notch trail, leaving just one with moderately splayed branches to climb over and through.
The walk was a bit more grueling than I'd anticipated, since I haven't done much hiking recently. There were two points on Notch where I had to face my intense reluctance to go on. Both points came after the turn-off for Brook, once Notch takes a sharp left turn and begins a steep-ish ascent. I stopped at a rock early in the ascent and ate my sandwich while reconsidering my life choices -- as I did once before when I ultimately renounced the endeavor. I saw a group I'd passed earlier on Washburn, who were cheerful enough. But I had enough water, and I need to train, so finally I pushed on regardless. The second point was just before a sharp right turn and "final" ascent to join Breakneck. Here, I decided on a bathroom break and made probably the worst possible decision about the location -- I picked out a particularly steep slope to descend and spent an inordinately long time climbing down there and back up again. During most of this process, there were no other hikers in the vicinity. But just as I was within sight of the trail and was noticing how slipppery the dirt was, a large group (maybe 12-20) of twenty-somethings started negotiating the curve I was nearing. None of them spoke to me, which is fine - I didn't feel particularly sociable at that moment.
Once I was on the Breakneck trail, however, it was basically fine. I'd forgotten how nice it was -- and how satisfyingly steep some of the scrambles are. Bits are familiar to me (some are even associated with an audiobook I was listening to the the first time I did this).
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