Well it's been an adventure the last few days. Like I mentioned, I made it into Gorham, N.H. on Friday and did some shopping at Walmart and recuperated. I bought a new pair of shoes, since my first pair are toast and purchased my food for the next week or so. I divided my food up and drop shipped it in front of me at the next few towns so I don't have to carry it all. I basically took a zero day on Saturday to do this and then hiked up the trail about 2 miles to Rattle River shelter and slept there on Saturday night. Oh yea, funny story, on Saturday morning around 2:30 AM, I had to introduce myself to the local police department as I did a little stealth camping behind the local elementary school. They informed my that I'm not allowed to do this, and they better not catch me doing it again, but they let me stay until morning. The sleep sucked as I was interrupted by the train whistles all night long anyway.
I split up with my friends as we hike over the mountains so we don't create a log jam of hikers at the hostiles in the mountains.
On Sunday I did about 13 miles and stayed at the Carter Notch shelter where I was able to sleep on the floor of the dining room. In the White Mountains these shelters/hostles are larger but they cater to the tourists who ride a train to the top of Mt Washington and then hike down and we're second class citizens who can either pay $90 a night to stay there or do work for the hostile to offset the costs. I washed dishes for a couple hours.
On Monday I did about 11 miles and stayed at Madison Spring shelter on Mt Madison where I slept under a tent platform as it rained. Most of the hiking on Sunday and Monday over Mt Madison was above the tree line with about a 3,000 foot ascent over a 3 mile stretch. It took me about 3.5 hours to cover this stretch. It's been in the 50s during the day.
On Tuesday I covered about 10 miles and it rained in the afternoon. I made it up to the Lake of the Clouds Hut on Mt Washington. This hostle holds 90, but they overbooked it by 25 people. So basically I couldn't slept on the floor because the overbooked guests got that area, so I got to sleep in the "Dungeon". This was basically under the building in a 10 X 10 area that reminded me of a bomb shelter. It had 6 wooden bunks, but the bottom 2 were rotted out so only 4 of us slept there. It smelled like mildew and I could hear the mice running around during the night......nice ! This was my reward for cleaning up after the guests and doing the dishes. I got to eat the cold leftovers after the guests were done eating. We basically sat on the floor as the guests ate. It was like we didn't exist, (except for our punjit aroma I'm sure !) There was about 5 thru-hikers there with me.
On Wednesday I'm hoping to cover about 11 miles to Ethan Pond Hut, but I'm about 3 miles away because I'm caught in a downpour. I'm in a general store waiting out the storm in Bartlett eating a pizza and drinking a liter of Mt Dew. There's terrible lightning, so I hitched a ride off the trail to Bartlett. I could see the storm coming from the top of Mt Washington and basically sprinted the last mile or so down to get off the mountain before the storm hit. You don't want to be above the treeline when there's a storm coming.
I found out that on Monday a 24 year old hiker fell to his death off Mt. Washington when he slipped on some rocks near a waterfall and was carried over the falls and fell about 200 feet.
Hi Ryan,
ReplyDeleteSounds like you are making good progress. Eating on the floor of hostels, thinking your invisable, people ignoring you, you smell....sounds like you're a thru-hiker now! Keep up the good work!
Ya, the police can be soooo rude somethings. I was awaken by the sound of gunfire and helicopters one morning while sleeping under and behind the bushes surrounding a public restroom in a city park. Turned out to be the sprinkler system.....
Hike on,
Roger