We wanted to get up at 6:30 so we could go to the roadside restaurant and grab some breakfast before catching the 8:30 shuttle. Some nice person downstairs set their alarm for 6 and made sure to turn it loud enough to wake the whole building up. Since they had done the service of waking everyone up, they felt no need to talk or pack up quietly. They left the building at 6:29 and Bunny promptly got me up at 6:30.
Bear and Sassy had a lot to pack up since they had their car here. Over the course of the last few days, a lot of things had migrated inside from the back of the car. Bunny and I didn’t feel rushed getting ready. We packed, paid the bill, and performed porcelain duties still having a little time before Bear and Sassy were ready to go get breakfast. We got our food to go because we were sharing the shuttle with one other hiker—Slippy.
At 8:30, we realized we had forgotten to get any tortillas. On a whim, Bunny decided to check the hiker box, “just in case.” Slippy had his stuff strewn all over the tables. When he heard that Bunny needed tortillas, he gave her a an extra bag he had. He said he didn’t want any money, but he would like an extra 10 minutes of time to get ready. Fine by us. October 15 is still 52 days away and were thinking we’ll be done in 35-42 days from now.
Pulling into the parking lot, we ran into more magic. Hollow Leg had started hiking the AT this year and made it to Harpers Ferry before he ran out of money. He decided to come up to New Hampshire to find work. He got a job right away painting houses. Today, he’d brought hot dogs, snacks, and sodas to give to hikers. As soon as he runs out of food, he plans to get in a day hike.
My stomach was not feeling well at all. It’s a combination of eating too much and stress. I feel bad because I feel responsible for Bag of Tricks and Uncle Walt leaving the hostel early. Bag of Tricks and I made up but he said he felt a need to go home. The confrontation and overeating of the last few days caused me to have diarrhea. In reality, I should probably blame my parents since everyone is well aware that diarrhea is hereditary—it runs in your jeans.
My intestinal problems delayed us from starting to hike until after 10 when we had originally hoped to start by 8. Cinching the waist belt across my stomach felt really comforting to me. I think two days without hiking was too many. I needed to get active and sweat. As always, the trail provides. We started with a nice steep 1000’ climb. After the initial climb, we fell into a series of short climbs and dips with a little bit of mud.
We met two sobo section hikers who were complaining a bit about the mud. We found it a little entertaining because we felt the little bit of mud we were coming across to be insignificant. I thought they were going to love Vermont. We climbed of Wolf Mountain which was another 1000’ climb. Several people had told us Wolf Mountain was difficult. We didn’t have any problems or encounter much mud on the way up.
It turns out that we climbed Wolf Mountain and descended Wolf Shit Mountain. It wasn’t so much of a trail that we were on, but more of a slightly wide animal tract. We did encounter several piles of moose poop and saw lots of moose tracks (not the good ice cream kind), but other than that, it was a miserable, slow slog down the mountain. Tedious, monotonous, pain in the ass, slow as hell, and whore’s shit were all used to describe the trail (in hind sight, it might have been horse shit; I sometimes have trouble hearing).
We got a good view of Franconia Ridge and I started feeling a bit intimidated. It looks like a giant wall in front of us that we have to climb over to get to Mount Washington (which we could see the weather station on). After seeing this and checking the weather report, we decided to stay at Eliza Doolittle tonight, have lunch at Lost Pond Hut tomorrow, and get into Lincoln, NH tomorrow night to get out of the rain.
Our original goal of making it to Kinsman Pond Shelter had been forgotten the minute we started descending. With our late start and this crappy trail, an 11+ mile day was just not possible. Along the way, we found a croc (which Bear picked up and carried) and a hiking pole which I carried. When we got to the shelter, we asked around to see if anyone had dropped either. It turns out that Tiger was having a very bad day—they were both his.
There must have been 20+ people at the shelter and camping area. I wanted to stay in the shelter with Tiger but Sassy and Bunny were having none of that. We set up tents like the women wanted (Bunny claims I always get my way, yet here I am lying on the ground typing away). It’s always nice to be in a camp with a bear box and a privy. I usually put stuff in both.
We set up camp, filtered water (which Bunny got and filtered), made dinner, and cleaned up all before 7. The days are already getting noticeably shorter since it was completely dark before 8:30. When we started hiking in February, dark was before 5:30. We need to get hiking before the days get that short again. I’m already having trouble getting everything done before hiker midnight.
EFG