As a foreword, I wrote all of these journal entries at the time they took place on trail, but I fell behind on keeping up with the blog. The date listed at the top of this page is the publishing date and does not correspond to my current location on trail. I’ll be upping the number of days listed as well to better catch up.
Day 120
Due to the campsite’s requirement to sleep on established tent pads (and the only remaining tent pad being lackluster), our slightly sloped pitch conspired with the hot, humid weather to give us both a lousy night of sleep. No worries though, because with the upcoming weather and Mt. Moosilauke impending up ahead, we had planned on today being easy. We started off immediately heading down the ridge line that Trapper John Shelter had been on. We then had a fairly short, flat, buggy, overgrown hike before the climb up to Smarts Mountain. Immediately on the climb, we saw a younger-looking bear on the trail. It froze for a second before scampering off into the woods, afraid of us. Two bears in two days! The climb itself ended up being steep, and a ton of fun. Notably, we saw some snake sheds, quartzite, various fungi, and some fun rebar steps hammered into the granite. The heat and humidity made it incredibly sweaty and the smoke made it a bit of a challenge to breathe, but it was still an enjoyable section! At the top, the tower had an incredible view with a wonderful breeze, so we stopped and had lunch. Afterward, we cruised down the side of Smart Mountain and then up to Hexacuba shelter. We considered going further, but as we climbed, a thunderstorm rolled in, so we called it early. We are expecting a similar weather pattern tomorrow, so it should be pretty easy to arrive at Jeffers Brook Shelter before the next storms roll in.
Day 121
Most of the shelter, (Tortoise, Instigator, Cruise Control, Hi-Fi, and myself) awoke fairly early due to the early night from the thunderstorm combined with the bright sunrise shining right into the shelter. Eager to knock out morning miles and beat the weather again, Instigator and I hit the trail quite without delay, and we were rewarded with incredible views off of the top of Mt. Cube! After we soaked it in for a bit, we sped down the well-maintained downhill and were again attacked by mosquitoes. Once we hit the road, we came upon Popeye and Ally doing trail magic! They provided us with Baja Blast, Vermont Long Trail IPA, fresh fruit, berries, burgers, hot dogs, and chips! As we were wrapping it up, Cruise Control and Hi-Fi showed up and joined in the fun. Wanting to keep moving, we departed and headed up the hill that led to Mt. Mist. From all of our junk food, I had to stop to inspect the Ore Hill campsite privy, which was equally as weird and unique as every other Dartmouth Outings Club privy we had encountered so far… From there, we easily flew up the last bit of Mt. Mist and nearly missed the peak sign because it was not much of a mountain! All that was left was a pretty smooth downhill, which unfortunately was muddy and quite buggy. At our last road crossing, we encountered more trail magic from a wonderful couple! We again loaded up on snacks and cheese, and then headed on, eager to reach camp early. Immediately, we hit the swollen Oliverian Brook and decided to take our shoes off to wade across since the water was moving slowly. The brook was nice and cold, so we took it as an opportunity to soak our feet and clean the dried mud off our legs. After that, it was an easy mile to the Jeffers Brook Shelter, where we set up for the night and watched the sunset. As predicted, as soon as we finished our dinner the heavens opened up with a deafening rumble, easily overpowering the constant sound of carpenter bees. Despite expecting the rain, we were alarmed to discover that the roof leaked! We were able to arrange our things in such a way to largely avoid the drips, but it would not have been possible if we hadn’t had the place to ourselves. We’re calling it an early night tonight to get up and over Mt. Moosilauke before the weather hits tomorrow!
Day 122
We started the day “bright” and early at 4am so that we could take advantage of the cool early morning temperatures to get up Mt. Moosilauke, and so that we could beat the afternoon thunderstorms. It had finally stopped raining not long before we started our hike, so everything was damp and humid. The few miles between our shelter and the climb were pretty cruisy and the climb itself ended up being fairly easy. I was a bit sleep-deprived from the weather and noisy carpenter bees during the night, so I rocked out to some ZZ Top on my way up. Since we had made good time, we summited just before sunrise, ahead of schedule. We took advantage of our spare time and checked out the south peak area before parking it at the summit for breakfast. Due to the early morning moisture and inversion layer, the view around us had the wonderful effect of being on an island in a sea of clouds, with the other “islands” of the White Mountains off in the distance. After we finished breakfast and the clouds began to melt off, we headed down the north side, excited to have an unexpectedly short day into a nero. The climb down was a bit more tricky than the climb up because it was incredibly slippery, but it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as people made it out to be. Part of the way down, we encountered some SOBOs, one of whom, named “Shoes”, was walking the trail barefoot. These SOBOs are wild! We passed a number of gorgeous waterfalls and then made it to the Kinsman Notch parking lot a bit after 10am. Right as we were about to call for a ride, the shuttle from the Notch Hostel showed up to drop someone off before we had even had a chance to call them! Perfect timing.
Once in our room, we cleaned up and then borrowed some of their bikes to have lunch and see the town of North Woodstock. Our lunch ended up getting extended due to heavy thunderstorms, but eventually, we found a break in the weather and rode back to the hostel. Around 5ish, we took another shuttle into town for our resupply and picked up a frozen pizza for dinner. After the pizza and repacking of our food, we went to our room around 7am for an early night, happy that we had had such a wonderful day.
Day 123
Refreshed, we awoke early to start packing when we heard the news that the weather was terrible. It had started raining already, and severe thunderstorms with heavy rainfall were predicted throughout the day, with flood warnings already in effect. We waited as long as we could, but frustratingly, we had to play it safe and stay put for another day (along with practically every other guest at the Notch). Since our private room was booked for that night, we moved into bunks and then sat around all day reading and chatting with other people. Each time the van went out, it brought more and more soaked and muddy hikers in who talked about how much the trail was flooding north and south of us, and how frightening the lightning was up high. Since our next section of trail was the Kinsman Peaks, we were happy that we had chosen to not be out on an exposed ridgeline in the weather. Still, we were frustrated by the continually bad weather. To break up the monotony and boredom, we took one of the shuttles into town again and picked up some groceries to make dinner and save a few bucks. I made Hamburger Helper for Instigator and I (it was her first time having it), and we enjoyed some delicious Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. Instigator was dead, so she crashed fairly early. I ended up hanging out with Mountain Goat who was wrapping up his triple crown by doing the AT in sub 100 days. Since my eyes were larger than my stomach, I gave him the rest of my ice cream before also crashing for the night.
Day 124
We packed up early, leaving our comfortable bunks at The Notch, but excited to be back on the trail to bag some peaks! Immediately, we encountered flood waters on the trail which went on all the way up to Mt. Wolf. There was no way to keep our feet dry as the trail was flooded to about mid-calf at its deepest. The going was agonizingly slow over slick rocks, roots, and deep mud. Eventually, we got out of the mud and water but immediately started the climb up to South Kinsman, and it was a doozy. This section of trail is more of a scramble, and with the record rainfall, the nearby waterfall had essentially merged with the trail. I ended up strapping my poles to my pack and went into bouldering mode as there was little to no trail infrastructure. Post scramble, we walked a little way and then abruptly arrived at the wooded peak of South Kinsman. Disappointingly, there wasn’t much of a view, nor was there anything signifying the peak. From there we did the quick and easy hike over to North Kinsman, which also did not have a summit sign or a view due to the trees. Not far from the summit, Instigator spotted a little side trail that had spectacular views of Franconia Ridge, which we are hiking tomorrow. Having burned so much time on the washed-out trail, we scrapped our plan to go out and bag Cannon Mountain, and instead pushed on to the Lonesome Lake Hut where we scored our first work for stay! The CROO fed us dinner, dessert, and more, and then chatted with us for a while about how the huts work and how our hike was going. Afterward, we knocked out some easy chores (I swept the outside deck and Instigator cleaned the stove’s grease trap) before we crashed for the night. Unfortunately, our sodden shoes seem to have taken a beating, so we’re hopeful that we can find some drier trail tomorrow. Likewise, if the weather holds, we are aiming to knock out a few additional peaks!
Day 125
After having the most comfortable night of sleeping I’ve had on trail in ages (mostly due to the cooler temps), I had a tough time getting moving. We packed up and rolled out around 6:30am with our sad wet shoes and socks on. Originally, we had wanted to dry them out, but after our first, very sketchy stream crossing of the day, it was evident that they would not be staying dry until we got higher up. Numerous stream crossings later, we made it to Franconia Notch, and then up onto Franconia Ridge. Not wanting to pass up a challenge, we sidetracked over and bagged Mt. Liberty and Flume Mountain. This required us to do a tough, out and back, but it was well worth it. From there, we headed in the other direction and completed the famous Franconia Ridge hike, collecting Little Haystack Mountain, Mount Lincoln, and Mt. Lafayette along the way. By this point, we were feeling pretty beat up, and to make matters worse, we were hit by an unplanned thunderstorm while completely exposed on the ridgeline. Thankfully, it blew over fairly quickly so we continued on instead of having to hunker down below treeline all day. The downhill after Lafayette was brutal on our sore knees and took hours to complete. Because of this, we decided to stop at Garfield Pond to tent instead of pressing on to Garfield Shelter. I believe today was our biggest day of elevation so far on the trail. The weather tomorrow does not look promising, so we’ll get up early and hope for the best.
Day 126
Once again we woke up early to beat the weather, so we hit the trail around 5:30am. We went over Mt. Garfield and descended the waterfall that is the trail on the other side. Since the downhill had turned out to be easier than planned and it was still early, we dropped our packs at the Galehead Hut, ran out, and bagged Galehead Mountain. It always amazes me how fast I feel without my pack on! After Galehead, we knocked out South Twin but decided not to do North Twin due to the weather. From South Twin, we hit Mt. Guyot, and Mt. Zealand before starting our big descent for the day. Thankfully the weather had cleared out, but we were concerned about finding a tent spot in mountainous AMC territory since it seemed like stealth spots were non-existent. We stopped briefly in the Zealand Falls Hut to check it out, and CROO gave us some leftovers to enjoy and showed us a nearby snake nest! We had been struggling with pace for most of the day, so we were delighted by how nice the trail was after the hut. As we continued on, we still could not find anywhere to set up our tent due to it being boggy, and to compound matters, it was getting late. Eventually, we gave up and decided to just pay the fee to tent at the Ethan Pond campsite. The bog boards on the way were practically all submerged, and the trail had turned into a river so we completely soaked our shoes and socks. Once we rolled up to the campsite, we were surprised to see that the caretaker was a woman named Solitaire whom we had met back in Virginia! As we were chatting, we heard the telltale boom of thunder roll through the mountains, so we cut things short and quickly set up the tent on the elevated platform we had picked. Right as I was finishing my ramen, it started to pour, so we hunkered down for the night. Because of the nature of the tent and the platform, it had been hard to get a good low pitch on it. As a result, we had quite a bit of splashback along one of the sides. It feels nice to have knocked out so many peaks today, but at the same time, it still feels like we are struggling with pace. I guess that’s just how the Whites work.
Day 127
Because of the weather and our less-than-stellar tent site, we woke up wet and tired. We took our time packing up to keep the wet things away from the dry things, and promptly hit the road so that we could resupply quickly and take advantage of what was forecasted to be a clear day. We made good time getting down to Crawford Notch Road but then got stuck walking a good chunk of it until we could get a hitch. I’m guessing it was just too early for there to be much traffic. A kind man returning from a fishing trip gave us a ride up the road to the gas station and outfitter. Once there, we grabbed some breakfast and laid our soaked tent and sleeping gear out in the sun to dry while we enjoyed multiple freshly made breakfast sandwiches. We then resupplied before heading across the street to check out the ski and mountain bike outfitter just to see what they had. I was surprised to find that not only did they have Hoka Speedgoats, but they had them in my size and on sale to boot! I had wanted to swap to my last pair after the Presidential Range, but I’m not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. Resupplied and happily tucked into my new shoes, we walked maybe 20ft before 2 separate cars pulled over to offer us a ride back to trail! We hopped in the first car and quickly learned that it was a mother and daughter and that the daughter was learning to drive! What a cool Mom teaching her kid to pick up dirty hiker hitchhikers!
By the time we made it back to the trailhead, it had warmed up considerably and thunderstorms were now forecasted for the afternoon. So we loaded up on water, and hit the climb up to Mt. Webster followed by the smaller climb up to Mt. Jackson, where we stopped for a quick lunch as a reward for finishing our climbs for the day. We had an excellent view of the valley and meadows below, including the iconic AMC Highland Center off in the distance. At this point, it was getting well into the afternoon, and the sky was starting to cloud up. So instead of shooting for Lakes of the Clouds and potentially not getting somewhere to sleep, we decided to stop at Mizpah Spring Hut to see if they had work for stay available, and if not we would begrudgingly pony up the cash for a campsite. With this decided, we mosied on to the ridgeline that was the start of the Presidential Range. Surprisingly, it was quite boggy, and the puncheons were mostly rotted through. I found out just how rotted they were when, in my brand-new shoes, I stepped on one and fell knee-deep into the muck… We trudged along a bit further before arriving at Mizpah. They did end up offering work for stay, so we were able to save our money. They were busy at the moment, so we took the chance to rinse the mud off, relax, and read for a bit. Eventually, they did remember us though and promptly put us to work. Instigator spent hours scrubbing their window screens, while I cleaned their storage room, and completely reorganized their pantry and freezer with little guidance. After that, we were seated at a table far away from everyone else and told that we couldn’t eat until everyone else had. We did not end up eating until well past 8:30pm, like outcasts fed scraps and shoved into the corner. Between that and the scale of our tasks, this work for stay sucked and couldn’t have been more different from our first experience. While we were waiting on dinner, a large storm did roll through and cool things off a bit. After dinner, we were told we could sleep in the library room, but to not set up until all of the guests had left and the lights downstairs had been dimmed. This meant that we did not make our beds until quite late in the night. While we were thankful for all the time to read and a place to sleep for the night, at this point we felt like it hadn’t been worth it. You live and you learn I guess.
Day 128
Not wanting to wait until all of the guests had had breakfast for us to have breakfast scraps and more work, we hit the trail very early, around 5am. Due to our elevation, the sky already had a gorgeous glow to it as we summited first Mt. Pierce followed by Mt. Eisenhower. It was around Mt. Eisenhower that the sun started to fully rise, and we were greeted with an incredible view, again in an endless sea of clouds. The trail was very friendly, and we had it all to ourselves until Mt. Monroe where we started to run into hikers who were staying at Lakes of the Clouds Hut. True to the stories, the hut was gorgeous, but on inspection of “The Dungeon” we were glad that we had not stayed there. From there we could start to see the various buildings and antennae start to poke out of the clouds from the top of Mount Washington. Due to the friendly trail, we made it up there in no time, and immediately felt like we had magically teleported to Disney World. The place was crawling with people! We took advantage of the bathrooms and running water before getting our picture at the sign and exploring the place a bit. The cafeteria was opening in 15mins, so I convinced Instigator to stay so that I could get a couple of hot dogs. While waiting in line for said dogs, I learned that the people in front of me were former hikers and they kindly paid for our food without saying a word to me about it! The generosity of the trail continues to amaze me. After our quick lunch, we filled up on water and hit the trail again, worried that the usual afternoon thunderstorms might soon catch up to us.
The northern half of the Presidential range turned out to be considerably more rough than the southern half. The trail changed from crushed gravel to large slick jagged rocks, made even more slippery by the light rain that had started. Not deterred, we slowly made our way over Mt. Clay and Mt. Jefferson. Just over Jefferson, I heard my name being called and turned around to see Catch, of all people! We caught up briefly, and I learned that he had already finished Katahdin, but that he had come back to hike the parts of the Whites that he had skipped due to weather and that this was his last section. He really hustled! Since him and his friend Shorts were not peak bagging, we split with them before heading up to Mt. Adams. By this point, the trail had become more loose jagged boulders, and we were completely socked in between the clouds and mist. At the top of Mt. Adams we encountered some people from the Mt. Madison Hut who were completely lost, soaked, and freezing in their cotton clothing. We helped guide them back down to the main trail which returned to the hut, and once they knew where they were going, we went on ahead. I’m starting to understand why the death toll for the Presidential Range is so high. They make it incredibly easy to get up to the huts, and then just sort of release people with little guidance into the dangerous alpine environment. I’m by no means gatekeeping, but I feel that AMC could do more to make sure that their guests are prepared, or at the very least, know the risks they face.
Eventually, we reached the Mt. Madison Hut where we learned that there were absolutely no tent sites and no opportunities for work for stay. Armed with that info and a report of heavy rain in the next couple of hours, we slammed our dinner and went up and over Mt. Madison. Bambi, a friend of ours who is about a week ahead of us, had told us of a stealth site just out of the alpine zone on the front downhill side of Mt. Madison, so we aimed for there. Near the top of Mt. Madison, the visibility dropped to maybe 20ft, which was worsened by the dying light of the day. We had to keep going back and forth to find the rock cairns, but eventually, we made it to the treeline and the much more defined trail. The downhill was incredibly steep, but we found the stealth site without much effort. As we were selecting the perfect area to pitch the tent, we heard the crack of lightning not too far away. So we threw the tent up as quickly as possible, and while Instigator set up our bedding inside, I attempted to use nearby pine boughs as added protection around the tent to avoid a repeat of 2 nights ago. It then started to pour right as I was brushing my teeth, so I jumped inside and we hunkered down for another soggy night. I’m happy that we tackled the Presidential Range in a day, and that the weather did not catch us until we were set up. Still, the weather seems especially bad tonight.
Day 129
Eventually, the storms broke, but it still seemed exceptionally dark when we departed around 7am. The tent was hilariously covered in slugs, but other than that, no other issues breaking down camp. The downhill was still quite steep, which was made all the worse by how slick the trail was. Thankfully though, the steep slope kept the water from pooling too much. We had made it maybe 2 miles when the sky opened up and the heaviest rain I’ve encountered since Hurricane Harvey began pouring down on us. We quickly threw on our rain gear, but in all honesty, it felt worthless. When we reached the Osgood Tentsite, it was completely abandoned, which was a problem because the trail forked and there were zero white blazes. We chose what we thought was the correct trail, and after a mile or so, we noticed blue blazes and had to turn back. Back on what we now knew was the correct trail, we very quickly came up to the Parapet Brook which had swollen into what appeared to be class 3 rapids. We could see that the West Branch of the Peabody River behind it had a suspension bridge with the water incredibly high as well, but there was nothing to cross the Parapet. With no information for high water crossing areas (and practically no white blazes), I carefully turned my phone on in the downpour to check CalTopo. From a few minutes on there, I found that the Great Gulf Trail, which branched off of our current trail, did not cross either river for several miles, but when it did, it had a suspension bridge marked on the map. We then put our faith in the accuracy of that map and headed in that direction. Most of the trail was completely flooded by this point, and the river had engulfed the trail in several areas, forcing us to bushwhack. After an hour or so of quiet trudging, we finally reached the beautiful suspension bridge and set out to try to get a hitch into town, away from the flash flooding. We were soaked through, shivering, and coated in mud, yet a kind woman from Massachusetts still stopped and let us into her car. She told us that the nearest town was Gorham, which was our next resupply point in several days, but we said screw it, just take us there so we can warm up. Once there, we found that most of the lodging was booked out, but thankfully we found a room at a motel that was a bit of a walk away. Both rivers in town had overrun their banks and flooded some streets, so we just hunkered down in our room and dried out.
Once we were clean and warm, we resupplied early and hit up a local restaurant. While there, we learned that the area had received record-breaking rainfall, with some areas seeing 3 to 4 inches in an hour! We also learned that the rivers we had encountered were prone to flooding even under normal conditions, so we were even more appalled over the lack of trail markings and signage for the high water route we had found. After dinner, completely exhausted, we tucked in for the night. Once again battered and beat by the weather.
