We have never done this section before. The terrain is quite difficult but added to the difficulty was quite a lot of snow!! As I became quite "fond" of saying on the trail this weekend... "only in Maine can you "enjoy 75 degrees, swarms of black flies and three feet of snow all at the same time!!" From about 1/2 way up Old Blue until the Bemis Mtn. lean-to there are only short sections of trail WITHOUT 1-3 ft of snow. We normally make pretty good time, about 2mi /hr. On most of this section we did well to make 1 mi/hr. Just FYI. Happy trails Jen W