With all the people camping here last night, the longest part of the morning was waiting in line for the privy. There comes a point where you give up waiting for the line to go away and just give in to joining the shit queue. It’s an odd occurrence standing around talking to young college students all waiting to drop a load. When it’s finally your turn, the pressure to perform fast is on. I try to be conscientious ever since Stickers told me 7 minutes was the acceptable limit. I’m a 30 minute man, myself, but I’m not carrying a novel to save weight.
Bunny and I were packed and ready to go. Bear and Sassy needed to filter water, but they were ready before the college students were packed up. We started off across the river where Pika lost her phone when she got thrown across the river in flood stage. As we were crossing, Mule appeared and started yelling to us across the stream. The college students came out of camp and started crossing with us. We were pretty sure they were going the wrong direction and said so. After about half of them were across, they had a conference and decided we were right. We were obviously dealing with directionally challenged ivy leaguers…hopefully they can tell left from right when the time matters.
We are in the long anticipated Whites. Today is the first test we have had since Moosilauke. We have a 2000’ climb that doesn’t look bad on Guthook. It started out pleasant enough with a climb next to a mountain brook. After the first 1000’, we came to a mountain bog and pond—Harrington Pond. This would be an ideal place for a moose sighting, but, I’m afraid we aren’t going to see a moose in NH. We’ve been told that mild winters in the northeast have lead to an overwhelming number of ticks that have discovered moose as an ideal host. Their population has been decimated by ticks. Last winter was pretty tough which killed the ticks for us this year, but the moose population will take years to recover.
The second half of the climb to the top of Kinsman was (cover the eyes of any young ones or anyone of prudish nature—yes, Bunny, I mean you when I say prudish—reading along) a real bitch. This was a hand over hand climb which we had been told was tough, but were still unprepared for. It is well over 21% grade. What surprised me most was that there weren’t any “run-away-hiker ramps.” This was the toughest mile we have had to date. It was challenging but doable. We have a hut on the other side as a reward for succeeding.
From the top of Kinsman, we think we can see Mount Washington more clearly today. Upon closer inspection, we realize it’s on the wrong side of Franconia Ridge and is really just Canon Mountain. Canon Mountain has a small weather observatory and a ski lift on it. Franconia Ridge is a wall directly in front of us that looks very intimidating. It reminds me of the Smokies when we looked back on them. This is clearly a weather changer for the area. Low storm systems coming in this direction will be held up by this wall of 4000’ peaks.
I’ve been on the trail long enough that I am starting to develop some animalistic abilities. For example, I am developing a rudimentary sonar system similar to bats. It is amazingly effective. If I want to know where Bunny is, but I don’t want to spend the effort to turn around and look, I just fart loudly. Bunny will immediately respond “I’m right behind you.” It may not be as sophisticated as bats. There might be some room for improvement, but it works.
Now that the climbing up was done, we just had to get down the other side. It was steep going down, but nothing like going up. In some places, steps had been attached to steep sections, just not enough to actually be helpful. There always seemed to be a step or two missing. Often, we could look to the side of the trail and see what used to be a step lying in the thickets. Maintenance was lacking on this section. We decided it was most prudent to but slide down some of the worse sections. I tried to race Sassy down in one such section, but she decided to cheat and run instead.
A couple of female day hikers heard a party ahead of them. They decided to catch up with the group singing and having a good time. It was no group having a good time, it was just us trying to sing. Bear, Sassy, and Bunny all have less than angelic singing voices so I intentionally sing loud and off-key so they don’t feel self conscious. The resulting cacophony might be off putting to other hikers and wildlife which could explain our lack of nature sightings.
The first AMC Hut was a total disappointment. I ordered four bowls of soup. The snotty little kid running the kitchen said he only had enough lentil soup for one and the rest would have to be potato. He then gave us two bowls of lentil soup (he had added enough hot water to make the single bowl stretch to two) and two bowls of white colored water he said was potato. There was also burnt bread for sale for $1/slice (seriously burnt—black crust) and colored water which had a hint of cranberry for $1/glass. Bunny and I had been to this hut 3 years ago with Peter and Marcia and had been talking it up to Bear and Sassy. We tried making apologies for the rudeness of the staff and the crappy food. Things only got worse when some “civilians” walked in and the snotty kid became friendly.
Mule caught up with us as we were leaving. We talked to him a bit about his experience with the Twelve Tribes. We had heard he was out at the farm digging potatoes for a couple of days. He didn’t seem like Twelve Tribes material to us, but lone hikers willing to work are their target recruits. They did try to get him to join, but he wasn’t willing to go before a committee to ask for new shoes if he needed a pair.
When we came to Lonesome Lake Hut with Peter and Marcia, I remember walking down an easy trail from hut to the parking lot that was smooth and had switchbacks. The AT was not that trail. I had also talked up that trail to keep us going up and over Kinsman Mountain. We were now walking down a boulder field with a stream in it. It was slick and terrible walking—not at all as I remembered. I know nice trails exist in NH but the AT IS NOT one of them so far. There was about 100 yards of nice AT track right next to the hut, but as soon as we left the hut, it turned back to crap. It’s obvious that maintenance is not a priority to the AMC if their targeted customers don’t use it.
We took a side trail to the Liberty Springs parking lot where Mike “Not Yet” picked us up. Mike and his wife, “Better Half,” just bought the Mount Liberty Motel this year. They thru-hiked a couple of years ago and have been looking for a location to open a hotel/hostel along the trail. Mike says this is the best thing they have done. We forewent showers and Mike took us to the Common Man Restaurant for supper with the intention that we would walk to the grocery store afterwards. The restaurant was great, but slow. We ended up taking much longer than anticipated so Mike picked us up at the restaurant then took shopping.
When we got back, one of us needed to take our dirty clothes up to the office so they could get washed. Everything Bunny and I had was dirty. I wrapped a towel around my naked body, but Bear was too afraid I might scare other guests if I walked to the office. Once again, Bear “did” the laundry for us.
EFG